Where Spirits Fly

By Jackie Barbour

Where Spirits Fly tells of the adventure that unfolded for Jackie Barbour and her husband when they decided to give up their city lifestyle and accept the challenge of opening and operating a small medical clinic in a remote location on the East African coast.  Her stories are of travel, cultural differences, spirits, adventure, traditional medicine and beliefs, personal emotions and much more.   With the art of a born story teller she recounts how they found themselves experiencing the joys and tribulations of living in a very different environment while taking on a major project and how it changed their values and outlook on life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jackie Barbour
• Release date: Dec 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223014836

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Table of Contents

Where Spirits Fly

Where Spirits Fly | Stories from Mama Jackie's bush diary

Jackie Barbour

Dedicated to: | Rob | Sarah and James | the loves of my life

2

6

doctor, including charms etc.

to a doughnut without a hole.

Where Spirits Fly

Jackie Barbour was born in Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1966 as Jacqueline C.E. Tuin. She chose a career in the Royal Dutch Marechaussee (Federal Police) and, as a sergeant, was fortunate to serve on a peace-keeping mission in the Middle East in 1993. It was in the Sinai desert of Egypt that she met her husband, Rob Barbour, who was serving as the doctor with the same mission. Born in Kenya, Rob had moved with his family to Australia when he was ten years old, but his passion for East Africa had always remained. After marrying in 1994, Jackie moved to Australia and had a change of career, becoming a paramedic and first aid instructor.

Rob and Jackie have two children; Sarah and James who grew up in Tanzania. Jackie now divides her time living in the Netherlands, Tanzania and Australia to be able to spend time with husband Rob who mainly works in East Africa as a private wildlife guide, daughter Sarah who lives in Australia and son James who studies in Africa.

Where Spirits Fly

Stories from Mama Jackie's bush diary

Jackie Barbour

Text edited by Allan Watson

Illustrations by Terri Owen

Published by Jackie Barbour

First published in Australia in 2002 by Jackie Barbour

© Jackie Barbour 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Barbour, Jackie, 1966- .

Where spirits fly : Stories from Mama Jackie's bush diary.

Bibliography.

Includes index. ISBN 0 9581425 0 5.

1. Barbour, Jackie, 1966- . 2. Visitors, Foreign -Tanzania – Chole – Biography. 3. Chole (Tanzania) -Biography – Anecdotes. I. Watson, Allan. II. Title.

916.7800869

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Typesetting and production by Nutshell Books, Western Australia Illustrations by Terri Owen

Dedicated to:

Rob

Sarah and James

the loves of my life

Foreword

I first met Jackie Barbour with her husband, Rob, on a beautiful warm evening in Dar es Salaam. As we sat looking out over the Indian Ocean, Jackie told me of the medical clinic they had established. Her story was both fascinating and intriguing, but it wasn't until I started receiving reports from Tanzanians about the wazungus on Chole Island that I was truly aware of the significance of their achievement.

Tanzania has for centuries beckoned adventurers. With this same spirit of adventure Jackie and Rob left the modern comforts of Australia behind, travelling to Chole Island to establish a clinic for its community. Situated to the south of Mafia Island, Chole is a remote island with very few modern comforts. While rich in natural beauty and the warmth of its people, it is certainly far from the minds of most, and consequently receives little in the way of medical assistance. I can only imagine how Jackie must have felt when she first arrived on Chole and the magnitude of the task that lay ahead of her became a reality.

While the spirit of adventure may well have drawn Jackie and Rob to Tanzania, it was their courage, commitment and love that left a lasting impact on the small Chole community. These qualities are evident in Jackie's account of life on the island, which is full of stories of its wonderful, warm, gentle people. She recounts her experiences with a sensitivity that truly captures the spirit of the people and their way of life.

Jackie and Rob's dedication, which touched so many on Chole, continues to touch them today. The clinic is still running effectively and continues to provide invaluable support to the Chole community. Mama Jackie and Rob are now living in Dar es Salaam, but they remain strongly tied to Chole. They still play a part in overseeing operations and maintain an active role in encouraging international doctors to volunteer services and in continuing to raise much-needed funds for the clinic.

The opportunity to make a difference, a real difference, presents itself to few. Even fewer have the strength and passion not only to take up the challenge, but to see it through selflessly for the benefit of others. Jackie's account of life on the island and the challenges of establishing a clinic there is inspirational. I am honoured to have been asked to provide this foreword. I know how grateful the people of Tanzania are to Jackie and Rob and on their behalf I sincerely thank them for their tremendous kindness.

Didier Murcia

Honorary Consul

United Republic of Tanzania

in Australia

Acknowledgments

In writing this book I relived my sixteen months at Chole and realised again just how special this time was in my life. The things I learnt about myself, about the people and about medicine will always remain with me wherever I go and whatever I do.

I thank my husband, Rob, for believing in me and for supporting me throughout my time on the island. Whether he was with me physically or halfway around the world, without his patience, love, strength and guidance I would not have been able to do what people came to expect of me. I also thank him dearly for his imagination and vision when it came to the monstrous task of editing the first draft of this book.

Rob and I sincerely thank:

The people of Chole and especially the staff at Chole Health Centre, who allowed us to live and work with them and made us feel part of their families. It was a pleasure to work with the clinic staff, whose hard work and willingness to learn brought the Chole Health Centre to where it is today.

Our family and friends for their help, their moral support and their mail, which was especially important to me. Mum, thanks for sending me instant soup and coffee! I will never forget the time I spent at Chole with my dad, my sister Monique, her husband, Mark, and Rob's parents, Richard and Jeanann.

Anne, Jean, Didier and Maya DeVilliers for being such good neighbours to us at Chole. Their insights into the Swahili way of living and Anne's knowledge of the Chole culture and language proved to be invaluable.

The Women's Front of Norway (represented by Agnete Strom) and Fokus, who were the initial donors for the projects on Chole.

For their friendship, assistance and compassion, Massimo and Katia, Geoff and Tess Woad, Lisa and Mark Walker, Mel and Al Cooke, Julie-Anne Buck and Lon Tuin.

Our Chole house staff and friends Salama Rajabu and Mgeni China Makungu, for looking after us and allowing for my silly mzungu ways.

Terri Owen for providing the illustrations and Allan Watson of Perth Editorial Service for editing the text.

I want to thank Mr. Didier Murcia, Honorary Consul of the United Republic of Tanzania for Australia, for writing the foreword to this book.

Last but not least our very special thanks to all the people who in any way worked on or donated their expertise, time, materials and/or money to Chole Health Centre. Your support was very much appreciated by Rob and me, by the staff at Chole Health Centre and by the people of Chole and the Mafia Island District.

Without the help and support of all these people, including the people whose names have not been mentioned (but you know who you are!), my life at Chole would not have become the experience it was and this book would not have been written. My warmest thanks to you all.

Terri Owen dedicates the illustrations of this book to Brant, Who makes all my dreams come true.

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New Challenges

Diary entry Tuesday 9 February 1999:

I'm so bloody fed up with being hot, sweaty, sticky and wet all the time. Bloody tropics. I hate it! If I rub my skin anywhere, skin comes off, just like that.

I'm longing for cold weather, where you can put a fragrance on that actually keeps you smelling nice for hours. Where your skin stays dry for hours. Where it takes a workout to get sweaty. Where you wear layers of clothing and still don't sweat. Here I can't even get fing dressed without sweating. I hate the tropics. I want to stop sweating and be dry for a change.

This quote from my diary brings back the muggy, heavy emotions of a humid day when I felt tired and fed up with things. I had lived in a temperate climate all my life, and the tropics came as a bit of a shock to my system, to say the least.

Sitting here, writing it all down in air-conditioned comfort while sipping an ice-cold drink, those desperate feelings seem so far away. Did I really make that hot-and-bothered entry in my diary? Yes, I most certainly did. At times the heat or my experiences at the clinic or any one of a whole lot of other things got me down. Why then did I choose to live on that little far-from-anywhere tropical island?

Rob, my doctor husband, was coming to the end of an exciting career in the Australian Army, with which he had served as the medical officer for various units both within Australia and overseas. This had given us the chance to travel, which we both enjoyed immensely. We were looking for a challenging experience that we could share and that might give us the opportunity to serve people who had been less fortunate than ourselves. We had no ties of children, mortgages or poor health and were looking for an adventure.

Like many people who lead a busy city life, I had been dreaming of living on a secluded tropical island with white beaches and palm trees surrounded by a turquoise sea. But when my dream came true and I found such a place, I sometimes had mixed feelings about the experience. The dream could be more like a malaria-induced delirium from which I would wake in a sweat.

Throughout my stay I kept a diary in which 1 recorded tales of my trials and tribulations. Nearly every day I would make an entry. I recorded accounts of daily experiences at the little home where my chickens and goats kept me company while Rob was away. I wrote stories of my interactions with the local people, many of whom I attended to when they were ill. I wrote about the weather. I also wrote down things the locals told me, recording fascinating stories about their culture and their lives. My diaries became a collection of experiences, emotions, tales and drawings. To Rob's disgust and amusement, they also became a museum for pressed plants, flat insects – including malarious mosquitoes – and other paraphernalia of our life. Making time to collect and write proved to be therapeutic for me. Glancing through the pages, I happen upon a story that brings back vivid memories of my Chole adventure.

There is an airstrip at Utende village? I asked incredulously of my patient.

Yes, but only few people can use it. My elderly patient was nodding his head solemnly as he spoke.

I was unaware there was an airfield at Utende. 1f there was, it would have been nice to be able to use it, instead of having to land at Kilindoni and drive to Utende along that terrible muddy road with all its potholes. Perhaps use of the airstrip was controlled by the government or some other organisation.

Where exactly is the strip?

In the main street of the village, he answered matter-of-factly.

Now wait just a minute... Airstrips are not in main streets of villages.

I couldn't have asked the question properly. I tried again. There is a place for aircraft to land at Utende? Yes, I told you. I fly from there at night.

I was now completely confused. I had never seen or heard any aircraft landing at or taking off from Utende. Certainly not at night. We would hear sounds of drums and singing (especially when there was a soccer match on), but no aircraft sounds at all.

I knew not to judge a book by its cover, but I found it hard to believe that the elderly villager sitting in front of me in his worn clothes was a pilot. I was baffled, and only managed to stare blankly at him. Meanwhile there were signs that he was becoming impatient with me. He sighed and said: I put in a flight plan and ask to take off. Then I fly at night and I visit people and do my job.

Yes of course, it all made perfect sense – were it not for the fact that this man had probably never even seen an aircraft up close. Was I becoming part of some practical joke? Yet he seemed so determined that he was able to fly. and what's more fly at night. It was Mohamedi, one of the orderlies and translators, who came to my rescue:

This man is bush doctor. He spoke in a low voice that wasn't much more than a whisper. I noticed how he kept his eyes firmly on the patient as he spoke. He has power to fly at night without real aeroplane. People pay money for this man to do jobs.

I managed to ask, What sort of jobs?

He goes to visit people in the night to make problem or to put a spell. This man is very powerful. Mohamedi finally brought himself to look away from the patient, then he held me in his gaze as he said, very seriously. "He is a mwanga."

Speechless about the turn that this conversation was taking, I looked back at my patient. The elderly man sat quietly in his chair, fumbling with the seam of his dirty shirt. He had come to the clinic to see me about a medical problem, but now we found ourselves discussing witchcraft, spirits and ghosts. I was intrigued. It is not often that you are introduced to a mwanga who flies at night without the use of an aircraft.

The old man spoke again: The other people cannot see the landing strip. Only people like me, they can see it. I fly and visit many places at night and then I come back and land there.

I asked many more questions and the witch-pilot answered all of them in the same matter-of-fact way. I wondered whether he was suffering from mental illness or whether I was dealing with a cultural phenomenon that was new and strange to me – or possibly both.

People's voices and the impatient shuffling of feet in the courtyard reminded

me I had a job to do. I treated my patient for his presenting minor ailment and sent him on his way, but with a promise that he would return for review. I was very keen to find out more.

When Mohamedi was sure the old man was well beyond hearing distance, he leaned towards me and, in a tone of conspiracy, continued his story:

"I know how the mwanga fly They use the juice from secret plants and mix it with other things. Then they put it on skin. They take off all the clothes and put it all over the body. Also they need a dead female and they take out the private parts. They dry and put in a cloth like a hirizi [a charm or amulet kept in a pouch]. Then they can fly.

"I also know how mwanga can call each other. They use penis of dead people. They cut off and dry, then they can use as filimbi (whistle).¹ When they use filimbi other mwanga can hear and they can fly there. You see, mwanga are

bad.

"I think also they come to this clinic at night. Mwanga, they like to eat dead people. When patient come here with wound they make bad smell. The mwanga they like bad smell, it is like dead people smell. The mwanga then come here to dance. The askari (night watchman), he cannot see mwanga because they have dawa (medicine) on their skin. The mwanga, they are bad. Do you know?"

Rob and I had been at Chole for only a short time and had already found ourselves thoroughly confused at times. Apart from what we had more or less expected – a change in lifestyle, different foods, a new culture and endless medical mysteries to solve – we found ourselves challenged in areas we had not foreseen. Every day presented at least one occasion where we looked at each other in utter amazement. Now I had this to tell him. Our lives had taken a strange and new turn.

But to tell my story properly I must start at the very beginning of our adventure. It began when a strange-looking letter arrived in the mail.

Christmas Letters

The exotic stamp contrasted with the scrunched-up, secondhand-looking envelope with grubby fingermarks all over it, and the scratchy return address was Mafia, Tanzania. Where on earth was Mafia? The only Mafia I had heard of was a deadly Italian organisation, not a place from which people wrote letters. We were quite sure that we didn't know anyone in Mafia.

The letter turned out to be from Rob's cousin Anne DeVilliers. It brought us their Christmas greetings as well as the story of how Anne, her husband, Jean, and their two children, Didier and Maya, were living on Chole, a small island in the Mafia Island Group in Tanzania, East Africa. We looked at an atlas, where we found the cluster of islands represented by a speck in the Indian Ocean very close to the mainland of Tanzania. We learnt later that the island's name was pronounced 'choal-ee'.

The DeVilliers had been working hard to set up an ecotourism resort, the Chole Mjini Development Project, on Chole Island, the smallest of the permanently inhabited islands in the Mafia group. With its surface area of approximately 1.5 square kilometres, it lies in the centre of Mafia Island Marine Park, which was officially established in 1995 – a first for Tanzania. The marine park was unique in that it allowed for the local residents to continue to fish and live in the area and use the natural resources in a sustainable manner. Tourism and development were encouraged to a certain degree to raise revenue for the self-sustainability of the park and the development of community projects, and to provide the local people with an alternative source of income.

Anne told us that, apart from several other initiatives, there had been some move towards finding a doctor to help and advise the locals in setting up a primary health care facility on the island, since there was no reasonable facility nearby. There was a suggestion that we might be interested, though she went on to say that there was as yet no organisation to fund the project. This was Christmas 1996 and we were intrigued by the concept, but could not give it any real consideration because of full-time work commitments. Besides, there was no funding.

When 1997 came to an end, Rob took honourable discharge from the Australian Defence Force after an eleven-year career as an army medical officer, his final posting having been with the Special Air Service Regiment in Perth, Western Australia. He quickly found a new job-as the site physician for a mining company in Papua New Guinea, with which he would be on a roster of one month on duty as the doctor-in-charge at the site followed by a month off. He had recently finished his masters degree in Tropical Medicine and Public Health, and was eager to get under his belt as much experience in that field as possible. Meanwhile I was working as a first aid instructor for the Australian Red Cross in Perth, Western Australia, which I found interesting and challenging, and enjoyed very much.

Towards the end of 1997 another letter arrived from Anne. We have secured donor funding for the clinic and a living allowance for a doctor! she exclaimed excitedly. She asked again whether we would be interested in coming to live and work at Chole Island. With help from the DeVilliers and from Emerson Skeens, an American hotelier and philanthropist who lived on the island of Zanzibar, the Chole community had registered two non­government organisations – the Chole Social Development Society and the Chole Economic Development Society.

Our challenge was to start a small medical clinic, which would be owned by the local community and eventually should be sustainably funded. Rob and I would be living on a tiny tropical island far away from the hustle and bustle of Western living. The bait to lure us into a new adventure was out.

We discussed the possibilities. If we decided to take on the challenge it would mean I would give up my job with Red Cross, pack up our home and put all our belongings in storage. We would move to a remote location in Tanzania, away from friends and family, to a place with no electricity, no running water and no luxuries. We couldn't afford for Rob to give up his PNG job, so he would have to do a monthly commute that was a little out of the ordinary, involving multiple boarding passes and endless flight delays. He would leave Papua New Guinea and travel via Australia and some other African country – there were no direct flights – to Tanzania and then on to the island. The commute from hell in fact.

Worst of all was the prospect of the time we would be apart. We had experienced a lot of this during his army career, when, sometimes at short notice, he would have to go off somewhere. Often I would be unaware of where he was or what he was doing. It was a tough decision to continue with these separations, on top of being in a completely unfamiliar environment. But on the other hand it would be the challenge of a lifetime, an adventure and an opportunity to get off our bums and do something for a community that had very little. This motivation was the deciding factor that finally outweighed the negatives.

How many people dream about making a difference and doing something really useful and gratifying while they continue on, trapped in conventional lifestyles with secure employment, mortgages and car loans? How many find themselves sticking the odd dollar in a charity collection box for the leprosy fund, the International Red Cross or World Vision simply because they have too many ties to be able to move somewhere else and lend a helping hand? Besides, most people seem to think, Well what would I be able to do? I can barely organise my own life, let alone organise help for a whole community. I had similar feelings of inefficiency and inadequacy, but I felt energetic and adventurous. Without the ties of young children, debt or a highflying career, this was the chance of a lifetime.

Rob and I decided to try it. We knew it didn't have to be a life sentence – or did it? We didn't realise it then, but it is hard to start a project and carry responsibility for the hopes and dreams of a community and not see it through. We had no idea how long it would take us to get the project to a sustainable level. But the overriding condition of any decision we made was that it should not adversely affect our relationship in any way. And so we vowed to each other that if one of us wanted to bail out then the other would comply immediately, no questions asked.

But what about the standard of living in this faraway place in Africa? What were we going to have to give up in order to take up the challenge and have this adventure? There were so many unanswered questions, so many loose ends that needed tying up. In the end I felt that the only way to find the answers was to go and see for ourselves.

So we decided to go to Chole Island to check it out before making a final decision. In the blink of an eye one cannot be expected to decide on forsaking hot showers, flushing toilets, iced coffee, full fridges and being able to meet your friends for a Sunday-morning breakfast at a restaurant on the beach.

Reconnaissance Trip

In November 1997 Rob and I set out. Anne had prepared us as best as she could by giving us directions on how to get there and advice about what personal luggage to bring. She also asked us to bring her a few items that had us intrigued – a salami sausage, a plastic blow-up baby bath and a tree-pruning saw. We weren't quite sure whether she was playing a practical joke on us, but we brought the items without quizzing her. As it turned out, meat was a luxury on the island, the baby bath was to give little Maya relief from the heat rash that was plaguing her and the pruning saw was for use on the old orange trees for which Chole is locally famous – the fruit they produce is the sweetest and juiciest in the district. Before we left Australia Rob looked into the medical side of things, making sure all our immunisations were up to date.

Our trip involved flights from Perth (Western Australia) to Harare (Zimbabwe), on to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and thence to Kilindoni (Mafia Island). From Kilindoni by car to Utende and a ferry would take us from Utende to Chole.

Sitting in the Harare airport departure lounge at some ungodly hour on old plastic chairs, we were fidgeting with our boarding passes in anticipation of our flight when it was announced that there was a little problem.

Rob and I shot each other a glance. A problem could mean anything: the plane had a flat tyre and there was no spare, or the crew hadn't shown up, or the airport had run out of fuel... After over an hour of waiting I found out that the president of Zimbabwe, Mr Mugabe, had commandeered our plane and taken it on a private trip. His destination was not revealed, nor the reason for his excursion. I looked at the embarrassed Air Zimbabwe staffer who had just given me this information, then in astonishment turned to Rob. You're never going to believe this one, I said.

No-one seemed to have any idea what was going to happen. Would the airline put on a new plane? How long would we have to wait? Would we ever get there, or was someone trying to tell us something?

At first the situation seemed bizarre and even comical. People were wandering around the departure lounge talking to one another about the strange ordeal that had now brought them together. But after hours of waiting the mood began to change. I was particularly annoyed by the fact that the airline staff seemed to have forgotten us. Why were there no further announcements to keep us informed? And, more importantly, where could we get a bite to eat?

Frustration and hunger emboldened many of us. We demanded to be fed! The poor people from the ground crew became flustered when the mob of waiting passengers became more and more insistent. Eventually they told us we would soon be served a late breakfast, and it was not long before we were taken back through the airport, where customs officials threw a tantrum because our passports had already been stamped Exit. We were led through back corridors past other waiting passengers and into the restaurant, where we surprised the sleepy staff – they hadn't been expecting two hundred hungry people to suddenly appear out of the blue. Having been fed, everyone seemed to settle a little and accept that there was nothing much we could do but wait. It was pretty clear by now that Rob and I were likely to miss our connecting flight to Mafia, and we were trying to think of a way to contact Anne when Air Zimbabwe served us lunch.

After a delay of almost eight hours an announcement was made that our plane was ready for boarding. As we went back through immigration, a different shift of officers scratched their heads over the Exit stamps in our passports.

When we eventually arrived in Dar es Salaam it was dark and I had lost my sense of time. We did know for certain, however, that we had missed the next leg of our flight. Staircases were rolled up to the belly of the aircraft and the doors opened to spill the ruffled, tired and annoyed passengers out onto the tarmac. I felt as if I was walking into a communal shower room, and my clothes were soon sticking to my skin.

Not knowing our way around the airport, we followed a stream of passengers who seemed to know where they were going. I had visions of our luggage having been left behind in Zimbabwe, but finally it appeared. With our bags in our hot little