A tribute to my good friend BJ, from the chairman of The Meserani Project.

It was in July 2004 that I first met BJ – I was leading my first ever school trip to Tanzania, and Meserani Snakepark was our final campsite before travelling back to Nairobi for our flight home. BJ encouraged me to take my pupils to a nearby primary school, and he kindly fixed up for some of his staff to drive us all there. I am sure he knew how shocked we would be by what we saw, and how emotional the visit would be for my pupils – but what he perhaps didn’t know is that by encouraging us to visit the school, he would set in motion a chain of events that would go on to change so many lives. After seeing how desperate the conditions were at the school, and after wiping away the tears, my pupils asked if we could do anything to help. BJ fixed up for us to meet with the head teacher, and offered to coordinate whatever we wanted to do. The project that we set up was initially called The Lesiraa Project, and with BJ’s help we spent the next two years funding the building of four classrooms at the school. BJ coordinated everything, overseeing the building project and keeping us in touch with what was happening.

In July 2007 I returned with a second group of pupils, and after making sure we all went to see the new classrooms at Lesiraa School, BJ fixed up for his staff to take us to another school – Meserani Juu Primary School. It was a case of deja-vu, and two years later four classrooms had been built at this school – funded by us, but all the hard work was undertaken by BJ. In respect of the area, we renamed the project The Meserani Project, and in 2010 we registered the project as a charity with the U.K. Charities Commission.

BJ’s next input, and it was a huge and significant one, was to persuade me to consider sponsoring pupils from the primary schools to attend secondary school. There was no secondary school in the Meserani district, and pupils could not afford to travel to secondary schools in other districts, and of course they could not afford the school fees, books, uniform and equipment. I agreed to set up a sponsorship programme, and in 2009 our first nine pupils started at Einoti Secondary School, in the nearby Kisongo district. Finding nine sponsors in the U.K. for these pupils was easy for me – but the hard work was done by BJ and Ma back in Tanzania. Queuing at banks to pay their school fees, paying their transport money each week, sorting out their uniforms and school equipment – what they did was amazing! Undeterred, they agreed to do the same the following year, and in 2010 ten more pupils started at Einoti Secondary School.

By now I was beginning to understand the true story of this man BJ. I was visiting Meserani Snakepark every year to facilitate the work of the project, and it seemed that every day I was there I unearthed another example of what BJ was doing for the local community. It wasn’t BJ who told me what he was doing – this wasn’t his style – it was what I learnt from other people. I began to realise the impact he had on everyone – his kindness, his empathy, his genuine caring. Of course everyone knows of the amazing work undertaken at the Snakepark Clinic – recognised throughout Tanzania for its outstanding treatment of snake bite victims – all funded by BJ and Ma; but there was so much more that went on behind the scenes, unnoticed except for those who benefitted individually from BJ’s generosity and genuine human kindness. Now that he is not with us any more, I only hope that he was aware of how loved he was by everyone, and how much they appreciated what he has done for them. He was known by his staff at Snakepark, and by the local residents, as ‘The man who never says no’.

Anyone who has been to Tanzania with me as a member of one of my trips for pupils, students or adults will probably remember how I always described BJ, and I said this to everybody:

“I have travelled all over the world, and have met many amazing people, but the most amazing man I have ever met is BJ”.

But let us not forget that BJ was part of a team – an amazing team. I have yet to meet a couple as devoted to each other as BJ and Ma, and whilst we mourn the loss of BJ, we must not forget that part of this great team is still there at Snakepark. Ma also possesses that inner strength that was so evident in BJ, we all know that, but more than ever now she needs the love and support of everyone around her.

As I said in my post yesterday, true and genuine legends are indeed a rarity, and the passing of a legend is without doubt a tragedy for us all. It is an incredible sadness to have lost BJ, and our love and thoughts go out to Ma, to his two sons Wade and Len, to his five grandchildren, and to his great friend Deon.

Please find below a piece of poetry that one of our sponsored students sent to me yesterday. Samwely Martine has been sponsored through secondary school, A’ Levels, and he is now in his first year at university. Samwely’s mother sells jewellery and handicrafts at a market set up by BJ – yet another reminder of how this great man has touched so many people. 

An eternal memory … …until we meet again.

Those special memories of you will always bring me a smile if only I could have you back for just a little while.

Then we could sit and talk again just like we used to do, you always meant so very much and always will do too.

The fact that you are no longer here will always cause me pain, but you are forever in my heart until we meet again.