DAR ES SALAAM, July 2 -- WHEN death comes knocking and it surely will, it tends to bring along uninvited guests: Chaos, confusion and that long-lost cousin who suddenly remembers the cow your father promised him in 1993.

It is time Tanzanians got comfortable with an uncomfortable truth: Writing a will is not inviting death, it is preventing disaster.

Despite growing literacy, improved access to lawyers and churches that now double as financial advisory centres, very few Tanzanians are willing to put pen to paper on the one thing that could save their families from heartbreak and that is a will. Why? Because many still believe that talking about death invites it.

If that were true, insurance agents would have vanished from the face of t...