Segerea

When the small planes from Zanzibar approach Dar es Salaam city via the southern approach they pass by the airport over the Pugu Hills. Descending to four hundred metres in preparation for final approach they bank and turn and at the steepest bank looking from the left window, there you will see the orderly eye pleasing compound, with flowers neatly laid, prosperous farm stead attached, the courtyard full of people milling, that is Seregea Jail, magereza Seregea.

Hilali is the contact we have, he is family, a check bob araby boy rather dude, young to own a car, we presume he does business. George is the company, Swahili, good clothes more weight, the eyes and ears and probably the muscle. We go together in convoy to see the lawyer, his office is downtown in Raha Towers. The lawyer says he will be there in half an hour, but I doubt that because lawyers are in court at this hour. We wait in the reception of his office, his secretary has the stern style they learn, but she soon smiles at the banter. She is busy with her computer, I notice she keeps clicking her mouse. I go behind the screen, she is playing patience.

After an hour Hassan A. Mngoya of Mngoya and Company Advocates returns from court. He agrees we will go today, as soon as he has seen the queue of clients who have joined us in his reception room. I am pleased about that, it means that Gadafy is really paying for the lawyer and with the lawyer we are much more likely to get in on a non visiting day, much cheaper too. Another hour or so and we set off, for reasons known to Hilali passing through Kariakoo, Ilala, Tabata, all the most crowded parts of town. I suppose he wants to show his street knowledge and see if I can keep up amongst the dala dalas. I do, driving hard, I have been doing that much longer than he. We come out into the country again, taking the new tarmac roads which, seemingly randomly chosen amongst the many possible dirt tracks, have become the circuitous route to everywhere. We stop to buy khangas for Helens visit, short skirts and bare arms will not do for prison visits. The road bends round sharply and again, still tarmac as we leave the town to the hills, out of Tabata, the sign welcomes us to Seregea. In the priorotisation of funds for road building the road to the prison rates quite high

There is not much traffic. Seregea, like the other country prisons I have seen, is from the outside a picture of good order. There is only one other car in the park, a Discovery, another big prisoner who may be visited on a day where there are no official visits. The compound is set on a hill top with a good aspect to the forest remnants, some of the seven hundred species of birds said to have been seen by twitchers here are in song. There is a low chain link fence around set some fifty metres from the compound walls. The traffic bar is manned by a single guard. Outside some bandas for the guards to sit whilst taking lunch or beer in the evening, a vendor frying chips to serve them.

Wait. Hassan Mngoya walking, slightly stooped as tall men sometimes do in short doored societies, graying hair, not white just less black, to the compound door with the slow confidence of his profession. They enter prison confident of soon walking out. He will see what the Governor says, he thinks it will be difficult

Helen tells me she has butterflies. She has never been in a prison. The guards and prisoners around look sideways at her, not directly, that is not allowed, but the presence of a white woman amongst that entourage by the gate is an unusual but not unprecedented event, worthy of curiosity in a place of slow routine. The wait extends, Helen does not think it will be possible.

I say "You never know, but I don’t think he would have come if he did not think it possible. Not to have you disappointed by the gate

Mngoya is returning, walking to the traffic bar, he looks up he smiles, it is good, he gestures come
"Come" I say
"You are on" I take an arm to move her forward, Hilali, and George, follow.

From twenty metres Mngoya speaks

"Only one

"It will be Helen" I say to Hilali using the authority of age.

And to Helen, touching her forward by the elbow,

"Go now

There is the stillness of the afternoon. The gathering of wood and collecting of water pauses. If I were a painter or an author I would describe a scene from the theatre stage. To left groups of male prisoners in their orange uniforms with fetching darker circles, to right the lady inmates in their yellow dresses, bright as the birds, posed; still, with white smiles fixed. Mingling, keeping eye, lady guards so smartly turned out in their brown skirts and white epaulets, and male warders, brown trousers, brown shirts white lanyards. Through this set scene Helen, swathed in khangas of purple and white, walks slowly, on the arm of Mngoya, his grey suit, like a father at a wedding, down the wide sandy path, to the ornate gates of Seregea. They arrive at the chapel door in which a portal opens and Mngoya stoops and lead her through, the portal closes

Noses twitch, the silence and the spell is broken, the scene closed, by the sudden pungent unpleasant smell of lit cigar