When love of family conquers distance

At their home in Mbezi Beach area, around Karibu Art Gallery, Ambassador Liberata Mulamula is not your ordinary diplomat with a stern and rigid demeanour.

She is a wife and caring mother who attends to domestic chores in the house which includes preparing food for the family.

Her taste for African culture is attested to once you enter her one floor mansion. You cannot help but pan their excited heads from one end of the house to the other in awe as you admire the magnificent internal décor and African carvings and paintings hanging on the walls. Sitting on her favourite chair and dressed in her signature African attire, Tanzania’s ambassador to the United States tells Sound Living about the challenges and rewards of raising her family so far away from home.

“It’s been a worthwhile experience. Though I was still subjected to tight schedules, I still managed to devote much of my time to my family,” says the diplomat.

A former senior advisor to President Jakaya Kikwete on diplomatic affairs, Ambassador Mulamula adds that it was her tight and hectic schedule that made her move from one country to the other, at times; spending limited time with her family. The envoy says she still had some time to spend with them, whether she was in Burundi, Canada or even in the US where she is now working.

“Though I was seeing them less, I would make the most with my family when I had them around, we are all bonded by one love; we would go out together to have fun and enjoy together,” she adds.

Like many working mothers, she has had to make particularly painful sacrifices. She recalls one occasion while still working as an advisor to President Kikwete, when she had promised to attend her second born’s parents’ day event at the Dar es Salaam Independent School (DIS), but couldn’t make it , much to Alvin’s (her second born) disappointment. According to the charming envoy, she was compelled to send Alvin’s grandmother to the event.

“Alvin grew more and more annoyed, he wanted me to take part in the events having seen other parents coming for their sons and daughters,” she says as she flashes a smile at Alvin, seated opposite her in the sitting room.

But one thing which makes the wife of Engineer George Mulamula, Chief Executive Officer of Dar es Salaam Business Incubator (DTBi) proud, is the fact that their family continues to enjoy the fruits of love that has kept the family intact, no matter the distance. It is the same love and a sense of togetherness they have cherished throughout the years.

Ambassador Mulamula reveals that she always wanted to be a journalist since university, knowing that it would allow her to speak out and have big opportunities. Having grown up on Marxists theories, the ambassador always had a passion for writing, but it was only at university that she opted for a degree in Public Administration.

“From there on, I have never regretted my choice but still kept in touch with journalists where I have used the media for interests of peace and I’m grateful that they had never let me down,” reveals the envoy. Referring to the life of being a diplomat and a mother, Ambassador Mulamula says it has been easy for her, thanks to the understanding of her husband and the children.

“As a diplomat you’d wake up one morning and be told to pack your things and go to work in a foreign country, I got used to that, I have gained respect and dignity, so has my family, and I’m happy that my family can easily cope with such an experience,” she says.

Four years after she finished her tenure as Tanzania’s High Commissioner to Canada, Ms Mulamula was appointed the executive secretary of the International Conference in the Greater Lakes Region (ICGLR) and was stationed in Burundi, between 2006 and 2011, something the 58-year-old refers to as abandoning her family. “By then Burundi was a war torn country, the nation was so fragile that I could not move there with my family, even Tanya (her first born) wondered why I had to move to a country that could hardly be located on the map,” she says.

The ambassador recalls staying in the house with only a house help.

“I felt I had abandoned my family since they could not move to Burundi for security reasons. They would still come for visits, but there was nothing I could do, this was like a calling,” she says.

Her yet tight schedule in the east troubled Great Lake Region saw her moving from one country to the other, trying to find a lasting resolution in the affected countries.

She jokingly says that she would find herself having breakfast in Burundi, lunch in Kinshasa (Congo) and later catch dinner in Kampala (Uganda).

In Burundi though, the ambassador felt she was home away from home, thanks to the hospitality of the Burundians, who considered her one of their own, partly because of her tribal inclinations to the Burundians.

“I never felt alone in Burundi, it was a very hospitable environment, they would call me a Murundikazi (a Burundi woman), that made my life easy,” she reveals.

Thanks to her tight schedule in diplomatic circles her relatives would frequently joke that she has a Tanzanian flag inside her.

Once a part time lecturer in the “Art of Negotiations” at the Centre for Foreign Relations in Dar es Salaam, who also participated in all the Rwanda, Burundi and DRC Peace Talks as part of the facilitators team, Ambassador Mulamula looks back at her experience of working with President Kikwete with a lot of nostalgia.

“It was a rewarding experience, I had worked with him before at the Foreign Affairs docket when he was still a minister…I remember he knew everyone by their first, middle and last name and their face too,” she recalls. Ambassador Mulamula still considers President Kikwete her mentor.“My job was to represent the President in some diplomatic conferences and prepare his calendar of events,” she says. It was while working at the State House that she won President Kikwete’s trust and became Tanzania’s ambassador to the United States, having taken over from Mwanaidi Maajar in July 2013. She remembers being told that she would become the country’s envoy in the US, two months before President Barack Obama’s visit to the country.

“I jumped with joy when President Kikwete told me about this. Obama has always been my favourite. I was looking forward to working with him, and his ‘Yes We Can’ slogan has for years been my inspiration,” she says.

She recalls going to the White House to hand over her credentials. The event was a memorable one for the whole family. Her daughter, Tanya recalls being surprised to find that the White House was actually much smaller than it appears on television.

Her son who had been studying in South Africa, recalls being asked by President Obama whether he had managed to attend one of his (Obama) talks given at various South African campuses during his visit to the country. Alvin was embarrassed to admit that he had not, having been caught up in lectures.

While in the US, Ambassador Mulamula has not shunned maintaining her looks in African attires. Vitenges are an important part of her. As for her hairstyle, the ambassador says there is nobody in the US who can plait it the way she wants, but she has managed to keep her traditional style. She still has love for African dishes, particularly, matoke, common among the Haya and Baganda, which she often cooks for her family in Dar.

“I have somebody who cooks for us at the embassy, and it has always been matoke,” she says with a smile.