New Mission in Tanzania

Kondoa is a new mission diocese, nearly 700 kilometers away from Msolva Ujama, our existing mission. It is well connected by regular bus service from Dodomo, the Capital of Tanzania (170 kilometers and 300 kms from Arusha, a famous tourist centre). The area is not exactly a desert, but very arid covered with thorny bushes. Villages are comparatively small and people live in mud huts thatched with the straw of grass and millets. There are 42 thousands Catholics under 15 parishes, each with a number of substations scattered in a very vast area. The area is at an altitude of over 600 meters with very little humidity. So the weather is pleasant and healthy. There are small elementary schools attached to almost all the parishes, but no hostels, so they do not help much the children in the substations. No one studies  over the elementary level. In the whole diocese there are no secondary schools, or technical schools; nor are there any hospitals or dispensaries, except a dispensary opened recently.

Kondoa is the headquarters of the civil district and the diocese which consists of three such civil districts. Town has a population of more than 30 thousand. In the whole town there is not a single multistoried building. There is a very erratic supply  of electricity but no water supply system. The Bishop of Kondova was requesting our help in the terrible condition prevailing in his newly erected diocese, to establish a secondary school  and boarding and possibly a technical school.  So though already overburdened, we had no hesitation in accepting the invitation of the Bishop and in promising him our unstinted support.

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