Kalalani village, a mineral rich area in Korogwe district, Tanga region once bustling with life, has now turned into a ghost village after the collapse of small-scale mining activities.
Several grass thatched houses in the village look deserted, near collapse as long grass and bushes take toll.
To define the loneliness of the village, there is only one vehicle that plies the route from Kigwasi Juu, the mining epicenter to the main road to Korogwe town. Locals say that a fault of missing it means postponing a journey or hiring a motorcycle.
The bus lives Kigwasi Juu in the dark of the night at 2 a.m to take on the half an hour journey that costs 3,000 Tanzanian shillings in transport fee.
One villager on board the vehicle confides to me as soon as we alight that the driver is forced to take its journey in the wee hours of the night because the vehicle does not have a single certification paper from the authority.
Besides the unworthy road vehicle, there is the luxury of motor circles whose riders will celebrate your impatience of the omnibus that lives at 5 p.m. in the evening and returns at 2:30 a.m from Kigwasi Juu on the following day. The motorcyclists charge Tshs. 10,000 for the same journey.
Sun is setting when we reach Kalalani village and I am told by a local who helped me get the sole guest house that I would have to take a motor cycle the following day to Kigwasi Juu where mining activity is being carried out.
A ride on a motorbike from Kalalani village to Kigwasi Juu costs Tshs. 15,000 on hire for a full day, I am told.
Finding a room at the guest house is not a problem according to the guest house attendant who says that it is years since she witnessed the guest house fully booked.
To quench thirst at Kalalani after bumpy dusty drive, there is warm water because Kilalani village is not lucky enough to have the luxury of electricity.
As soon as the sun sets, Kalalani busts into clueless darkness sending waves of fear of any ambush by either dark spirits or bad men however a barmaid at the bar beside the guest house says there has been no incidence of crime at Kalalani village in the recent days despite the misery of its people.
Finding food is an issue and that explains how the village has lost its glory.
The bar has a small kitchen that only serves plain chips and worse off, it is strictly at night because of what the attendants blame on luck of customers.
No any other food is served maybe on a special order and that is when you could be lucky enough to have your chips served with eggs.
The guest house is no better. The rooms are so squeezed and the most revered of the rooms is a self-contained one that goes for Tshs. 5,000.
The taps are dry and having a running stomach in the night would set hell breaking loose on your face. Bathing water is a luxury as a twenty litre Jerrican is perceived enough for the night by the management.
Villagers and village leaders say the government has not stood to its word and set aside special areas for small-scale miners as stated in the Mining Law and that is why the village is dying.
They say, a few years ago, when the gemstones were discovered at Kalalani in the Umba valley, the village started to gain popularity. It was full of brokers, artisanal miners and a host of other middlemen and women who rushed there to take advantage of the booming gemstone trade.
However, as of now, a visit to the village surprisingly reveals that promises and hopes have faded. The place now looks desolate, with some of the village's mud houses deserted and falling apart.
A Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) secretary at Kigwasi sub-village, David Swai, recounted how people were very happy during the times of the AAPS, company which was under the ownership of a Thailand national, Dr Watana.
“Besides cooperating with the local community, to the extent that the company allowed artisanal miners to look for precious stones at its licensed area and sell them back to the company, AAPS offered employment to women as sorters of the gemstones,” said Swai.
The situation has changed now and according to Amanth; if one can survive at Kalalani whose conditions are very tough, then they can live anywhere in Tanzania, under any conditions. “Here you buy everything from drinking water, which is fetched from Daluni that is 18 kilometres from Kalalani or Mashewa some 40 kilometres away,” Amanth says.
Not surprisingly, women are the hardest hit in the current situation. “Life here is so hard that if I did not have a child I would simply quit,” says Joyce Kimweri, whose husband is an artisanal miner.
For her part, Martina Kapinga, 54, says though she managed to get some money to build a house, women were generally living under very deplorable conditions.
Two Maasai women who share a husband, Mariana and Jamila Kileo, claimed that their husband has abandoned them because he is not ready to see their 13 children die of hunger. “We came here with a herd of 20 cows which have since died, leaving only one. The milk we get from this cow is sold and the little money that we get is used in buying food,” says Mariana.
However, the survival of the lone cow is now in jeopardy as Kalalani is one of the areas hardest hit by the recent drought.
As the government continues to offer deaf ears to the people of Kalalani village, more cries is yet to be heard.
Kaka picha jamani.