The rain witchcraft trials

Todd Sanders

Toronto, Canada Artwork: Catrin Welz-Stein

Seoul, South Korea

Antonia Case: As an anthropologist you decided to study Tanzania. How did your journey begin?

When I arrived in Tanzania, I lived in my tent for the first few weeks. One village had three small colonial-era houses for local dispensary staff and one was vacant. The houses were still standing because they had brick walls, cement floors and tin roofs. The Tanzanian government owns them now, and they let me live in one - which I did for two years. From there, I spent the early months trying to get to know people: I mapped villages, where and how people lived and farmed, whatever I could do really with limited language skills. The longer I stayed, the better my Swahili became and the easier it was to join in with whatever people were doing. For example, if my neighbours were going farming or herding or whatever, I’d ask to tag along. And the longer I was there, the more