Healing Powers and Natural Theraphy

Tanzania is a beautiful country. It's green, green, green, everywhere you turn. Green hills, green grass, green trees, green insects. Dark green, light green, brownish green. I never knew there were so many shades of greens.

Uluguru Mountains

Green Carpet

At the Temeke market (one of the three markets in this city), one stall usually sold only one item. Some might sell potatoes, another might sell tomatoes. Unlike markets at home, where a vegetable stall would sell all kinds of vegetables, not just one type. Butcheries were usually housed in white tiled buildings, with big chunks of red, bloody meat hanging on hooks and in buckets. Flies hovered almost everywhere, even on dried up rice grains in gunny sacks! Needless to say, I lost my appetite for the next four days. Turning into an overnight vegetarian and fruit lover.

One of the most prominent sight in Tanzania was seeing women and children alike, carrying goods on their heads, stable and balanced. Unlike Asians who typically love light, pastel coloured shirts (in general, not all), most Tanzanians loved donning bright shirts and dresses. Visiting the market was the most bizarre experience indeed.

Yet, it reminds us of poverty at the same time too. That just two continents, separated by one ocean, can be worlds apart, is a phenomena that I still can't quite figure out. At first sight, it reminded me of Jakarta. People walked on streets selling tissue packets, towels, scarves and fruits. In places were transportation was scarce, most people walked for several kilometres a day, from one village to another. Some hitched rides on trucks, but sat on top of it, instead of in it.

In the outskirts, frames of mud huts were made from fragile sticks and branches. Its walls made from balls of dried, rolled up mud from the grounds that they were built on. Pasted like chocolate chips on a cake. With time, some houses became dilapidated and dipped at an angle.

On every house, numbers were painted in faded red paint, large font on the left side of the main door. On the right side, a large, red cross marks its walls. Outside, wells were dug for water source.  Elsewhere, water trucks visited villages to provide clean water. Clothe lines consist of a nylon rope, hung from tree to tree, or tree to roof. Termites and their mountains were as tall as the trees beside them. Firewood - used as fuel for cooking. Whenever it was burning, smoke billowed through windows, doors and walls. Windows were just holes in a wall, covered up by clothes, mosquito nets or bricks.

It was nerve wrecking. There's a constant tugging in my heart, "Look. There must be something you can do." 

Yet, I'm rendered powerless. Instantly, I came to realize the gravity of the phrase ' a drop in the middle of the ocean'. For, what, can we do to eradicate poverty? With that thought, it made me even more resolute to give the very best at my present job. An individual can sprinkle a little help, here and there. But a corporate organization, can contribute much more.