Drinking was a major social activity in the villages on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was an integral component of village social life before it became a problem. Actually the problem was not drinking but not being part of the drinking community.
I started hearing of drinking as a problem in the pastor's sermons. They are the best sermons I still remember, more than fifty years later. I don't recall him preaching about anything else: "There is no house", I can almost hear his voice rising, "with skinny cows, a skinny dog, a skinny cat, and skinny children, like a house ruled by alcohol".
A few years later, I would hear the same condemnation in most speeches made by the then President of Tanzania:"Walevi na wazururaji" - drunks and loiterers - were targeted in most of his speeches.
We made the drinks at home, from bananas and millet. Some people had a "good hand" and their brew was always popular. Indeed, popularity was essential in the general social fabric of village life. If it came from expertise in brewing, it was as good as the school teacher's or even the pastor's.
There were many and varied reasons for brewing and coming together to drink. Well, one of them was for popularity. The more often people came to your house simply to drink the more popular you became. Then there were anniversary celebrations. Local family courts also imposed fines of drinks to a guilty party – mostly a spouse - in a dispute.
Often husbands brought cases to the clan elders against their wives when "they refused to give them bananas". Often too, the wife was found guilty and fined "ten gallons of pombe" to reconcile with her husband and compensation for the elders who sat in judgment.
In short, alcohol was plentiful and for many occasions. There were also "clubs" where anyone who did not want to wait on charity could buy his/her fill.
Two things were considered a problem: Drinking alone and not drinking at all. Also, there was no age limit. As soon as a baby was able to suckle milk, the baby could drink alcohol. (This is in theory only and parents did not generally feed alcohol to infants). Nevertheless, by age six to eight, most children were regularly drinking alcohol.
In those days when I was growing up, alcohol addiction was an unknown concept. That there were "walevi na wazururaji" and many who wasted all their resources – time, talent and treasure – to alcohol was indisputable. The sermons in my local church and the President's admonitions were addressed to people deemed to be morally weak. Most people never saw the problem of alcohol.
I started hearing of drinking as a problem in the pastor's sermons. They are the best sermons I still remember, more than fifty years later. I don't recall him preaching about anything else: "There is no house", I can almost hear his voice rising, "with skinny cows, a skinny dog, a skinny cat, and skinny children, like a house ruled by alcohol".
A few years later, I would hear the same condemnation in most speeches made by the then President of Tanzania:"Walevi na wazururaji" - drunks and loiterers - were targeted in most of his speeches.
We made the drinks at home, from bananas and millet. Some people had a "good hand" and their brew was always popular. Indeed, popularity was essential in the general social fabric of village life. If it came from expertise in brewing, it was as good as the school teacher's or even the pastor's.
There were many and varied reasons for brewing and coming together to drink. Well, one of them was for popularity. The more often people came to your house simply to drink the more popular you became. Then there were anniversary celebrations. Local family courts also imposed fines of drinks to a guilty party – mostly a spouse - in a dispute.
Often husbands brought cases to the clan elders against their wives when "they refused to give them bananas". Often too, the wife was found guilty and fined "ten gallons of pombe" to reconcile with her husband and compensation for the elders who sat in judgment.
In short, alcohol was plentiful and for many occasions. There were also "clubs" where anyone who did not want to wait on charity could buy his/her fill.
Two things were considered a problem: Drinking alone and not drinking at all. Also, there was no age limit. As soon as a baby was able to suckle milk, the baby could drink alcohol. (This is in theory only and parents did not generally feed alcohol to infants). Nevertheless, by age six to eight, most children were regularly drinking alcohol.
In those days when I was growing up, alcohol addiction was an unknown concept. That there were "walevi na wazururaji" and many who wasted all their resources – time, talent and treasure – to alcohol was indisputable. The sermons in my local church and the President's admonitions were addressed to people deemed to be morally weak. Most people never saw the problem of alcohol.
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