Salome or Mama Kiwaya as she was popularly known due to her marriage to Mr Heri Kiwaya, one of the pioneer employees of Capital Development Authority (CDA), cut a figure as a secretary, public relations guru, musician (vocalist and stage performer), politician and renowned organizer of beauty pageants.
I had just switched on the TV set fixed on a wall of my living room when a footage on a news summary caught my immediate attention, with the terse statement that ‘’one person has been killed in a road accident involving a heavy-duty truck and two smaller cars’’.
It did not mention the name of the person in the footage’s first run. It was on the second run when it dawned on me that the ‘one person’ who had been killed in the crash was none other than the Dodoma Regional CCM-UWT Chairperson, Mrs Salome Kiwaya! While working in the Public Relations Office of CDA in Dodoma from the late 1970s up to the early 1990s, I had at one point suggested to management to transfer Mama Kiwaya to my office due to her talents as an organizer and speaker.
The request was promptly granted. She ably performed her duties as a publicist for the capital transfer and construction project, which she combined with her other talents as a musician and performer after office hours.
Born in 1957, Salome ‘Kayombo’ Kiwaya (Salome Kayombo was her maiden name), this charismatic lady from the Manda plains on the shores of Lake Nyasa, pursued her education both in Tanzania and Uganda where her father had an employment stint.
It explained her mastery of the English language. True to her ‘musical’ colours, Mama Kiwaya had formed her own band, which she named Saki Stars, instantly reinvigorating the Dodoma music scene, with her taped music also making inroads into local radio stations.
She did this with all the support and encouragement from her husband, Heri, a career administrator and theatre arts enthusiast who while with CDA helped form the authority’s cultural troupe in addition to carving a niche as an eloquent speaker and stage performer in his own right.
As a multi-talented woman, it was no wonder when she was voted as chairperson of the CCM’s women wing in Dodoma Region, which also portrayed her capabilities as a politician besides her other attributes.
She is on record (as organiser) producing Miss Dodoma 1995, Emily Adolph -- a Form Three Student at Central Secondary School in the new capital-designate then. Emily went on to win the Miss Tanzania beauty pageant and represented the country in the Miss World contest.
As it happened, she was expelled from school for participating in the contest. However, due to highlevel intervention, with Mama Kiwaya playing a key role, Emily was able to finish her secondary education.
As a PR expert, singer, dancer, beauty pageants’ organizer, politician and church leader, Mama Kiwaya had endeared herself to many in Dodoma and beyond, evidenced by the turnout at the requiem mass at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Dodoma on Saturday, which was attended by high-ranking government and political party officials, including former Prime Minister Mr Mizengo Pinda, Speaker of Parliament Mr Job Ndugai, several cabinet ministers and MPs. Salome Kiwaya was expected to be laid to her final resting place at Mtila Village, Matola Ward in Njombe Region either on Monday or yesterday.
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