Tarling, Godfrey & Rachel - Tanzania

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Prayer Update 18th February 2007       

Dear All,

On Friday there was an exceptionally heavy thunder storm. Neli (15), the Uncle of  Christopher’s best friend, Johnson, here in Mpwapwa tried to take a short cut across the Mhamvwa River (usually bone dry apart from during rainy periods) rather than go by the bridge a few hundred metres downstream, realised too late that it was deeper than he had thought and was swept away. His body was recovered three miles downstream a couple of hours later.

Please pray for Neli’s family and also for Johnson and Christopher as they come to terms with this loss. Neli was one of the boys at Christopher’s Birthday Party last year and they often played together.

Neli is to be buried near to where he was found this afternoon after a service to be held in his family’s home.

The force of the water also swept away the temporary road at the TANESCO crossing that had only just been finished three days earlier, cutting the river bed some 8ft deeper

The funeral of Neli was this Sunday afternoon, once his mother had arrived from Songea. A small error of judgement cost him dearly, but given that the newly opened temporary TANESCO bridge (which opened only on Tuesday) was washed away entirely – each of the caissons of stones must have been around 2tonnes – he really didn’t stand a chance. He was seen waving his arms at the Post Office Bridge about 200m down from where he entered the river and then a few moments later other onlookers saw him strike a lump of concrete remaining from the old TANESCO Bridge (which was taken out in an earlier storm just before the New Year) 800m further on and was he hit unconscious. Where the temporary road had been laid there is now an 8ft drop, the Mhamvwa River having finally got back to the gradient it truly desires – hopefully they will now leave the replacement works until the dry season.

It is 6pm and we are just back from the funeral – thankfully no rain today. The main funeral took place at Neli’s Uncle’s house and then just about every vehicle in town including the Dar es Salaam and Dodoma buses which terminate here were employed to transport around half of those there to Ilolo Cemetery – the convoy was so slow that those who walked got there first. Johnson came to lunch before hand, and Timothy was with him for a while up at the house before the funeral began, though we didn’t see him again amidst all the crowds. Neli’s mother (Johnson’s grandmother) was not surprisingly taking it very hard indeed.

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