I arrived in Tanzania for the first time in 1996 and immediately met this charismatic figure who was the village chief. I soon realized that he was not only the village chief, but also the charismatic leader of an entire community.
Not only young people had a reverential respect for him. I was taken under his wing, and sometimes I wonder if Silvia Romano (the volunteer who was kidnapped a few years ago in Kenya), had met a person like him, she probably would not have experienced the nightmare she had to face instead.
At that age, we are carefree and unaware. Some of us are impulsive, and above all, when we come to Africa for the first time, we have so many stereotypes in mind, but thanks to people like Mzee Nkopano, I learned many things.
Thanks to him, KISEDET exists. He has always encouraged me to continue, telling me not to pay attention to those who only see our outer appearances; a young white girl, alone in a village in central Tanzania. When I left the parish, he put a roof over my head; when the bishop, arrogant and corrupt like a few others, denied me his assistance in getting a new visa because I did not agree to give him the money that was collected in Italy through Gruppo Tanzania (at the beginning it was a very small income but it was thanks to the sale of homemade cakes and handicraft), intended for the small projects that we were carrying out at the time in KIgwe; he told me not to worry, that he would find a way to make me stay in Tanzania; and so together with him, John (deceased in 2009), Mzee Marimbocho, Paolina, Mzee Lungwa, Mzee Galehanga and Chidumizi (also deceased), Mzee Kusila (then Minister of Agriculture), and others, we founded KISEDET. In a ceremony that I will never forget, they gave me the name Mbeleje (name given to girls who are born during the period in which the fields are prepared for sowing), while some women wrapped me in vitenge (coloured fabrics used as clothes, and/or making clothes), and I fell immediately in love with that name; even today there are very few people who know that my name is Giovanna, many call me Mama Alice, some Mama Vale, but most Mbeleje.
Mzee (elder) is used before the names of men who must be respected for who they are and for who they were. The favored party of CCM, in the office since 1961, the year of independence. Before CCM there was the TANU, the African National Union of Tanganyika (today Tanzania). The party was founded by Julius Nyerere in July 1954.
I keep a photo in my office, hanging behind my desk, of Nyerere and Mzee Nkopano talking to each other, during the Presidents’s visit to KIgwe (we don’t know the year, but I think it was taken in the 70s). Men like Mzee Nkopano are gradually disappearing; people that for them politics was not an opportunity to make money, but an ideal to believe in. He died poor, but full of ideals, and above all with a pure heart, free from corruption. Sometimes I felt compassion for him especially when he was campaigning for the parliamentarian on duty, who appeared to be a good man but, who then, once he got the position, forgot people like Mzee Nkopano who had brought him that far. In any case, he paid no attention to that, for him there was only the Party, and he was faithful to that, despite everything and everyone.
The rains of a few years ago had caused a part of his house to collapse, and KISEDET built him a small but dignified brick house, and, according to him, it was as if we had built him a palace!
A member of parliament, elected thanks to him, providing electricity to his house, then, once the illness began, he was left alone, except KISEDET who assisted him until the end, when he finally stopped suffering.
About a week ago, I visited him for the last time; his children said that he had mixed moments of lucidity and confusion, but, during my visit, he was always lucid. He was lying on the ground, swollen, his belly was huge (maybe he had a tumor, who knows…), but he was smiling that beautiful smile of his, which I see before my eyes as I write. He called me, “Mbeleje njoo” (Mbeleje come), I bent down, he took me by the arm and said; “I want to be buried where my mom is; I have already told my children, and I say it to you too, because I consider you a daughter”; then, turning to his eldest son: “Nkopano, you must join KISEDET, because it is an NGO that really helps people”, and finally, always addressing the son, pointing to the house: “Nkopano, this is Mbeleje’s work”; and I couldn’t take it anymore. I went out to get some air so as not to show that I was crying; I understood that he was saying goodbye to me and that I would never see him again, even if he will always live in my heart.