Mvumi Mission
Mvumi Mission village is part of Dodoma Rural District which is one of five districts in Dodoma Region. It is situated approximately 42kM south east of Dodoma which is the capital of The United Republic of Tanzania. Dodoma lies almost in the middle of the country and is served by a single tarmac road which joins it to Morogoro and Dar es Salaam (the old capital) on the coast. A single track railway also runs from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika via Dodoma. Dirt roads also run north to Arusha via Kondoa, eastwards to Kigoma via Tabora and south to Mbeya via Iringa. An unmade road also joins the capital to Mvumi Mission.
Mvumi Mission was established in 1900 when the Regent Chief Masenha granted Mission Hill, then known as Mita, to Bishop Peel (formerly the CMS secretary in Madras and Bombay) and lies in the centre of the Ugogo, the land occupied by the Wagogo, who are the predominant tribe in this area. The Wagogo are a tribe of cultivating pastoralists who are reliant economically on crop production but for whom cattle rearing is culturally very important (
Rigby, 1969).Mvumi has a high population density and has done for the past 100 years (
Holtland, 1994). In the nineteenth century the population in Mvumi increased due to fighting between the Wagogo and the Wahehe to the south when many Wagogo migrated towards the centre of their range for security. The current population of Mvumi Mission is approximately 10,000 with about 2,500 houses while in the whole of Mvumi District, one of the eight divisions comprising Dodoma Rural District, there are about 401,000 people living in 124 villages with about 86,000 housesholds. A rough map of the area is shown here.Mvumi Hospital sits on a small hill near the centre of Mvumi Mission which lies on an arid plain which is largely cultivated. Baobab and acacia trees are dotted across the plain and there are mango trees and palms in an around the village. The hills are generally densely covered in thorn scrub and acacia trees, but because of the pressure of collection of fire wood for cooking deforestation is a constant threat. When this occurs, erosion by the wind and rain
Language and Literacy
The Official Language is
Kiswahili, but many of the local people only speak their own tribal languages of which Cigogo (Kigogo in kiswahili) spoken by the Wagogo predominates.
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