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Sisters and novices of the Community of St Mary at Chanikanguo.
The old church at Nangomba and, the new one behind it being built
out of burnt brick.
An ordination service at the village of Mpeta
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Masasi Diocese
was formed out of the original Diocese of
Zanzibar in 1926, although Christians had been there ever since
1876.
In that year Bishop Edward Steere of the Universities Mission to
Central Africa led a group of freed slaves from Zanzibar to found a
settlement at Masasi.
From that small beginning the Christian faith gradually spread out
to the neighbouring peoples of the area. Faithful missionaries, both
African and European, preached the Good news and gave their lives to
serve the people. Schools were begun, hospitals and clinics started
and eventually a large cathedral was built, not far from where the
earliest Christians began their work.
Today the Diocese covers a large area of Southern Tanzania,
stretching 250 miles from the Rufigi River in the North to the
Rovuma River in the South, which is the border with the neighbouring
country of Mozambique. From the coast it stretches inland for about
200 miles.
The largest towns are Mtwara and Lindi on the coast, and Masasi,
Newala, Nachingwea and Tunduru inland. There are Anglican parishes
in all of these towns but most Anglicans are concentrated in Masasi
District, where parishes can have up to ten outstations and
sometimes more.
This part of Tanzania is isolated from the rest of the country,
especially in the rainy season when the only roads in are
impassable. But the rains are erratic and harvests often fail,
leaving people with little to eat and little money to pay for school
and hospital fees. The soil itself is sandy and not fertile except
in the few river valleys. The main cash crop is cashew nuts. These
trees are grown everywhere, along with mangoes and coconuts, pawpaws
and bananas, and form the typical vegetation clothing the landscape
of the area.
The staple diet of the people is maize, rice and cassava, but many
sorts of beans are grown, and chicken peas, peanuts and pumpkins. In
the rainy season it is possible to grow tomatoes, spinach and okra.
In the few river valleys people grow sugarcane and yams.
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