‘It was the cow that built your school’: Mama Anna’s grassroots revolution on Mount Meru, Tanzania
Her story is both local and universal: When women are equipped with training, trust, and the tools to succeed, entire communities thrive.
Originally published on Global Voices
Mama Anna at her home in Mulala village, balancing a bunch of bananas on her head as she welcomes visitors. Photo by Sydney Leigh Smith. Used with permission.
High on the slopes of Mount Meru, in Tanzania’s Arumeru District, lies the quiet village of Mulala. With just 2,000 residents, it is easy to miss — but it is here that one woman, known simply as Mama Anna, has reshaped what local development can look like.
Her transformation from subsistence bean farmer to community educator and entrepreneur began with one unexpected gift: a cow.
“Tears are a waste of water”
Dairy cows at Mama Anna’s home provide the milk used to make cheese for the women’s cooperative. Photo by Sydney Leigh Smith. Used with permission.
Mama Anna — Anna Pallangyo — is a Meru woman, a mother of six, and one of 717 women in the FAIDA Small Enterprise Promotion network. With only a primary school education and limited resources, she began by growing beans to support her family. But the returns were modest, and she saved what she could, determined to find another way.
When a development worker brought her a cow, she wasn’t sure what to do. “What can I do with a gombe [cow]?” she asked aloud. Then she learned to milk it.
Each day, she served milk to her family and friends. When the milk began to overflow, she made a decision: “I’ll sell the maziwa (milk).” Every morning, she walked down the long hill to town; every afternoon, she climbed back up, coins chattering in her pockets “like monkeys.”
“Tears are a waste of water,” she said. “So I fill myself with laughter.”
As the cow gave birth, she passed the calves to other women. Her act of sharing turned into a village-wide cooperative model — spreading not just cows, but ideas.
From beans to biogas, milk to markets
Mama Anna observed early on that many households in Songoro Ward had cows, but land scarcity made zero grazing the norm. Sensing an opportunity, she began sourcing animal feed from wholesalers in Arusha town and selling it to her neighbors. For a time, she was the only supplier — until male neighbors joined the trade.
She pivoted again.
Through FAIDA-SEP, she enrolled in a one-week milk processing course, learning to make yogurt and cheese. This allowed her to store milk, stabilize sales, and generate more reliable income. She took a business management course, swapped her bean plots for flowers, and installed a biogas unit at home to reduce her domestic workload.
She still hosts FAIDA’s Technology Exchange visits today, sharing her story with women from across the region.
When asked what advice she gives to others, her answer is simple: “Perseverance, determination, some imagination — with a little advice, it always goes a long way.”
“We will build a school for our children”
People preparing homemade coffee at Mama Anna’s home in Mulala village, using traditional tools to grind roasted beans. Photo by Sydney Leigh Smith. Used with permission.
With more milk and more cows came more women, more products, and more questions. “What can we do with all this maziwa (milk)?” the other mamas asked. Mama Anna replied: “We’ll make chizi (cheese).” She walked to the city to learn how, then taught the women what she had learned.
When the cheese began to exceed local consumption, the mamas turned to her again: “What will we do with all this chizi (cheese)?” Mama Anna had another idea: “We will sell our chizi (cheese) to visitors.” They invited tourists, opened a shop, and began earning income.
The women returned one last time: “What will we do with all this madonge (money)?” This time, Mama Anna’s answer was transformative.
“We will build a skuli (school) for our watoto (children).”
And they did. The first preschool rose from dairy profits. Then a grammar school. Then a secondary school. In a place where education — especially for girls — was once out of reach, there are now classrooms on the hill, filled with students.
When the children thanked the women, Mama Anna laughed and said, “Don’t thank us. It was the gombe (cow) that built your school.”
A legacy of community-led change
Today, Mama Anna is more than a successful entrepreneur — she is a builder of futures. The women of Mulala now run their own small businesses producing fertilizer, honey, coffee, and dairy. Many were once financially dependent on men. Now they are sustaining their families and investing in education.
Her story is both local and universal: when women are equipped with training, trust, and the tools to succeed, entire communities thrive.
Her vision was never for herself alone. It was always for the children, for the women beside her, and for the girls walking into a classroom built through collective work and shared determination.
Mama Anna’s message to women around the world is as clear as it is powerful:
“If they can do it? So can you.”