Tanzania flag

Mention Tanzania and generally you will get two reactions – the first is a dreamy eyed look with awe inspired utterings of Mount Kilimanjaro or some mention of the Serengeti, the great lakes like Lake Victoria, or the Kalambo water falls in the southwestern region.  The other reaction is a blunt, “where on the earth is Tanzania?’.

Tanzania lies on the east coast of Africa with the warm waters of the Indian Ocean lapping its shoreline. Bordering Tanzania to the North are Kenya and Uganda.  To the west are Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  And to the south, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique are Tanzania’s neighbors.

While Tanzania is a rich in beauty and natural resources, it a little over twice the size of Montana, with a population of close to 56 million.  While tourists enjoy its great natural resources – these wonders are beyond the experience of the subsistence farmers and herdsmen in the bush villages.  Its people are amongst the poorest in the world – with a per-capita income of barely a dollar a day.

Compassion Tanzania has delivered most of its water wells to villages that lie between the Serengeti and Lake Victoria.  The population of the villages ranges between 1,500 and 6,500 people.  Most have primary schools, none have electricity or running water.  Here, women and children spend hours each day searching for water from traditional water sources: ponds or shallow hand dug wells filled with dirty water in the rainy season that disappear during the dry season.