Sun eclipse is gone and so is Wang’ing’ombe

The reason - the eclipse of the sun, a rare natural occurrence which took place in the area between 10am and 14pm and which was witnessed in the southern part of the country.
It is about 40 years since the last sun eclipse happened in Tanzania.

According to scientists, such an incident will not be witnessed again until May 21, 2031—that is after well over 15 years to come.

One bizarre thing about this incident is the way we were prepared to tap the benefits arising from it. At best we were, both as individuals and as a nation, prepared to gaze in the sky, watch the dark shade as the moon was moving betwixt the sun and the earth.

But as social animals capable of subjecting various situations to our employ and make money out of this strange occurrence, that wasn’t in our minds.

Both as a nation and as individuals we were caught off guard as the moon tiptoed in, leaving us in the dark and we made no harvests.

Reports by Association of Tanzania Journalists in Tourism (Tajat) say that no hospitality services were put in place at the village where the incident happened as travelers, some from other parts of the world jetted in.

What is bad, according to the journalists was the lack of enough and comfortable rooms to accommodate the tourists who showed up to witness the eclipse.

According to the journalists’ lobby, some of the house owners at the village increased prices for room facilities from 10,000/- to 30,000/-.

What was worse was the sporadic power tripling for many hours, denying the visitors even the chance to use the equipment that they had brought with them.

And in the absence of rapid movable safari camping facilities, the entire event which could have earned many and investors money, looked more or less like a lackluster incident in a tropical village.

Mobile phone providers, express transporters, internet providers as well as food vendors were galore missing and even where they were available they were in some way affected by the lack of complementary services.

The Thursday incident however is not inimitable as far as our behaviours in tackling issues that require urgency in our country are concerned.

We knew well over 40 years ago that the Wang’ing’ombe incident would happen on September 1, 2016. But that such an incident could be tapped by developing certain kind of products (services) that would earn us money, that was neither here nor there.

So what was a result? The eclipse is gone and so is Wang’ing’ombe. What we can probably do is to wait for the next sun eclipse on May 21m 2031, which of course will be in another part of the world and not in Tanzania.

Perhaps what we can do from Wang’ing’ombe is, as a nation and individuals, to begin to learn from mistakes. Since natural occurrences are many and diverse, where we are sure that the occurrence is certain; we should begin to make hay while it is still early.