Na, vitu vya mwisho

I fly back to the UK today so this is the last of my blog until I return, which - God willing - I intend to. As I write we have no water, we had a delivery last week but the pump is bust, but we do have electricity, so one out of two isn't bad. The GOM keeps buckets of the stuff in every bathroom and loo for such predictable occurrences, so I shouldn't smell too bad when I get on the plane to Qatar.

Tanzania nakupenda, na mzee, nakupenda sana pia.

Kwaherini na karibuni tena

Barabara na maendeleo

Ten years ago, if you were planning to go to Bagamoyo you were advised to stay there overnight. One senior civil servant the GOM knows well had never once been there. This was because of the road: from Dar, it was a difficult 3 hour journey at best. The journey back a few days ago from Bagamoyo to Tegete on the outskirts of the Dar conurbation took us 35 minutes on a road in very good condition. The difficulties now start in the city and its satellites. Dar traffic management is a misnomer.

The picturesque "real Africa" is gone on the Bagamoyo Road, if you equate picturesque with poverty stricken. The ribbon development along the road is certainly not picturesque, -cement block buildings with corrugated iron roofs would never merit that description- but it is indicative of an increase of economic prosperity for the whole area. There are businesses of all sorts set up and obviously it is easier to get goods to market.

There are changes in Bagamoyo itself. Ever since I first came to Tz, Bagamoyo has been talking about how it is going to transform itself, and meantime all you could see was everything crumbling around you, year by year. This time for the first time I can see changes - a new local government office, (predictably so; Tz is still finding it hard to shake off the the command and control economy of its earliest post Independence years, so that would be its first priority). World Heritage status is being discussed but not yet granted, but the grant giving organisations are already active.
The sisters' house at the mission housing a very good little museum (the museum has always been very good but it was housed in decrepit surroundings) has been restored. The primary school set up by an Ismaili merchant from Pakistan, Sewa Haji, in 1896, and in constant use ever since, and attended by the present President, has been restored by the Germans and very nice it looks too. Henry Stanley thought Sewa Haji was a crook, but then it takes one to know one. He was very rich through his control of the caravan routes into the interior (trade wasn't just about slaves) but in Bagamoyo he was seen as a philanthropist.
His condition for donating the primary school was that all races should be admitted. I thought that the reason it was three storeys (a very unusual height for a building here) was because of the number of children, but no, - the African children were educated on the ground floor, the Indian children on the first floor and the Arab children on the second.
He also gave a hospital, making it conditional that there was free treatment for all races. That still continues, though from the bit we have seen, the hospital could itself do with some restoration.
There are a couple of Swedish doctors there, and the Swedes originally set up the College of Arts and there are always Swedish students who come for some months as part of their art courses. The assistant director of the local Dept of Antiquities is a young Swede. Swedes seem to like Bagamoyo. Despite the history of Sewa Haji, there doesn't seem to be much involvement of the Aga Khan foundation, but they are heavily invested in the restoration of Stone Town in Zanzibar.

Restoration of old buildings may seem to be peripheral, but Bagamoyo's salvation has to be tourism, and they won't get far with the ancient wrecks that speak of the town's very faded glories. They are now letting you into them - I don't think anyone has given any thought to the possible advisability of public liability insurance. Caveat tourist is the line.

However since I was here last year, the first tarred road ever in Bagamoyo complete with white lines - my, there's posh - has been laid. In India Street, the one time premier location in town, ( it reverted to its original name so called after the number of Indian merchants once there, following spells as Kaiser Strasse, and then King Street) they have paved the road. I'm not sure how that will stand up to vehicular traffic.

My point being that this first stirrings of activity rather than hot air, is directly linked to the building of the Bagamoyo-Dar road. This is the second attempt. There should have been a road years ago, but the money disappeared in a series of corrupt contracts. It was so blatant, that even here there was a corruption trial of some of the ministers and civil servants involved. When I left in 2002, this was lazily meandering through one court adjournment after another. I asked the GOM what happened, and he has no idea. If there had been convictions it would have been a huge story so either the case is still going, or it petered out. But I will not get started on corruption!

There are more development experts than you could shake a stick at, and I'm certainly not one, but I have always believed that road construction (and free passage on those roads) will kickstart economic growth. But you have to stop local authorities having roadblocks and imposing local taxes on produce being taken along those roads, thus strangling smallscale enterprise - it's been illegal for many years but it doesn't stop it happening.
When our youngest was in Thailand she heard complaints about the state of the roads and thought - you reckon this is bad, you should see Tz. It's too simplistic to link that with the different profiles of development in Asia and Africa over the last 50 years, but it makes you wonder.
My views wouldn't be shared by Bagamoyo locals - they have great expectations for their future because one of their own is now President.
There will always be a downside of course, and we saw one on our way to Bagamoyo. On one side of the road there were very smart members of the Field Security Force wearing riot helmets with visors and carrying machine guns. Nobody gets in the way of the Field Force. On the other side of the road there were a group of 20 or so mostly women and children, with a home made banner. Later I found out that they were villagers who had been turned off their land because it was now owned by a commercial farmer.
In Dar, the road problems are different but equally important. The city is slowly strangling itself on its traffic; it has got worse and spread to new areas even in the year I have been away. Yes it would be great if more roads in the city were tarred and those that were were properly maintained but simple things like traffic lights at some of the busiest junctions would make a lot of difference. However a lot of grid locks are caused by driver behaviour. At the risk of sounding Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells like, there should be a no tolerance policy. The GOM told me that at one time the police would haul out bad drivers at the US Embassy junction, make them park up on the side take their keys off them and hang on to them for an hour or so. I should think if applied all over Dar that might just work to ease the problem - if it was kept up. It'd hit the GOM hard though, he drives like a fully paid up Tanzanian.

Haditha kwa makaburi

I've always been partial to a good graveyard. The Kaole cemetary has quite a lot going for it- graves from the thirteenth century onwards, of the Persian traders who set up in the Kaole port before the mangroves swallowed it up. There is a touching double tomb of two lovers who drowned on the same day and were buried together. How do they know? Oh, never mind, it's a good story. There is also Sherifa's grave - allegedly a direct lineal descendant of the Prophet. She is supposed to be very effective at answering the prayers of women and others who come to pray at her grave and there are usually lots of small offerings, but when I saw it there was only a small oil lamp container. I did hear this long story about how before Independence, Nyererere had to go to London, and the local waganga - medicine men - gathered at Sharifa's grave with him, ( a devout Catholic) and for 6 nights they circled the grave reciting the Koran, and at the end of it, the mats he was sitting on had become so tiny you could hardly see them. I think the inference was that he also could become that small, and so sneak on the plane without paying. Handy, if true, as he spent a lot of the 50's going round fundraising for his air fares etc.
The crossover between Islam and magic is seamless here, and in the ruins of the mosque, there is an ancient well whose water is deemed holy by observant Muslims and highly esteemed also for the making of efficacious spells.
If you need a really good spell, the Bagamoyo region is where you go, and the creme de la creme of the local spellmakers are to be found in Kaole.
When we had our barbecue a couple of weeks ago, I reminded Saloum of a story he had spun me when we had our spot of trouble in 2001. The Trade Union leadership had, it was well known, gone to Bagamoyo to have spells put on the senior management. In fact, when everything was finally settled, the GOM, as an unwritten side-bar to the main agreement, secured undertakings that the spells would be lifted. Despite all their protestations to the contrary, his managers needed that reassurance.
The story Saloum told was that there had been a spell put on the GOM also. The Leaders returned to the mganga to protest that the GOM showed every sign of being as fit and healthy as ever. "No, he's dead" was the reply -"see it says so on my computer."
One graveyard not satisfying my appetite, I went to the small but very well maintained German cemetary near Badeco, a monument in stone to the Scramble for Africa. Mostly very young German soldiers died in a series of battles in the 1890's because the local African tribes could not understand the concept of lebensraum, and quite fancied hanging onto their land. Their cemetary including the graves of those hanged for such presumption is a little way further up the hill. It didn't take long for the Germans to establish home from home: by 1900, even though the Germans had decided Dar es Salaam had a better port and downgraded the importance of Bagamoyo, there is the grave of a 6 day old baby born in the colony. In one corner of the cemetary there is the isolated but best kept grave of all - that of the British Regional Commissioner, who committed suicide in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. I guess that even the disgrace of a suicide would not have allowed the British colonialists to bury him away from his own kind in the German cemetary, if he had killed himself a few months later. He apparently shot himself 3 times in the chest when his wife left him for another man. It sounds a most incompetant if not impossible way to commit suicide. I'm certain there is more to the story than that. Which is why I like graveyards....

Jua, pwani, bahari na .....vinyago

Beach holidays have never been our style, well not since we got past the sandcastle stage with the kids, but we decided a bit of sybaritic hedonism wouldn't come amiss, just as long as it wasn't too long. After a couple of hours I'm looking for something - anything - to do.
We stayed in the Travellers Lodge in Bagamoyo, a tourist hangout, which we'd last been to in 97 or 98. I remember it well as the GOM got the worse case of the runs there that I've ever seen him with. He probably could, and would if asked, chronicle more harrowing episodes.


There is a glorious garden and the bandas are set out well apart from each other; our beach fronting one gave the illusion that we were alone in our own little paradise.

Naturally, there has to be a serpent in every Eden, and Bagamoyo continues to be known for the muggings on the beach. Every resort posts askaris outside to cover their own places, which helps, but it isn't advisable to go for long oceanside walks, which is annoying. The town, -after talking about it for decades - is now really trying to make itself attractive to the tourist trade, but this means it really must get a grip on security. Bagamoyo does not need a rider in every Travellers Guide warning of beach robbery problems.
Not that I had any difficulties: even the curio hawkers were not as persistant as in Zanzibar. But I did stay within sight of the askari at all times.
The owners of Travellers Lodge now are a South African/German couple, but at least when we were there they didn't see the need to oversee their extremely good staff - especially not the 'mpishi mnene' the very fat cook, whom as the GOM observed clearly enjoys her own food. I had an absolutely delicious lobster, which as nearly the most expensive thing on the menu set us back an eyewatering 15,000 shilingi or 6 quid. The fisherman's platter for two was what I really had my greedy eye on, but the GOM is allergic to shellfish. What a waste- living where he does.
And neither of us got food poisoning.
In the reception bar and dining area, are incorporated wooden sculptures. Bagamoyo has had for the last 20 odd years a highly respected College of Art.
One of the areas of excellence is its training of wood carvers, and some of the graduates have developed very intersting artistic styles. The basis of their training has been based on the tradition of Makonde carving - which is two fold. One is that of ijumaa -tree of life, complex life cycle intricately rendered in a realistic fashion and carved out of a single piece of wood sometimes 8 or 9 feet tall. The second tradition is
that of shetani or spirit carvings which tend to be grotesque verging on abstract. The carvings in Traveller's Lodge are anything but airport art and are a melding of these two traditions. My photos fail to do them justice

Biashara wa watumwa

I heard on the World service yesterday of the disruption in Westminster Abbey at the service to celebrate - is that the right word? - the second century of the abolition of the slave trade. In the last week I had had to think of a similar trade which was abolished many years later, but because it had virtually no direct impact on the people who live in the UK, is unknown. The Swahili trading empire stretched to all points East as far as China - operating on a far longer timescale than that of West Africa to the Americas, and probably involving many more people over the full timescale than that trade. One academic estimate is that one and a half million people were sold into slavery on the East Coast of Africa in the nineteenth century alone: nearly a million of those were into the Sultan of Oman's clove and spice plantations in the Zanzibari islands of Unguja( which is the actual name of the island called Zanzibar by outsiders) and Pemba. Throughout the nineteenth century there were a number of largely ineffectual attempts to restrict the slave trade, but it was only in 1873(the same year that ardent opponent of slavery, David Livingstone, died) that Sultan Bargash of Oman, operating from the Zanzibar as his capital, reluctantly agreed to close the Zanzibar slave market and stop all further slave trading.
Years ago I'd "done" the slave tour, but passing by the Anglican cathedral and adjoining backpacker's hostel, Jamila showed curiousity, so we paid our entry fee. I was totally insensitive, and completely unprepared for the emotional impact that seeing the slave cellars below the hostel would have on Jamila. In an unlit space that barely could hold 5 people comfortably, 75 women and children would be packed in for 3 days awaiting the slave auction, and where human waste was twice daily sluiced out through a central channel by the incoming tide. Some days later in the Arab fort in Bagamoyo, I saw a similar room which held up to 100 male slaves waiting transhipment to Zanzibar. I was told that when the Germans took over, they reduced the holding capacity to 50 rebel Africans, and when the British ousted the Germans they further reduced the capacity to 20 prisoners. After independence Tanzanians continued to use it as a prison, ( capacity unspecified)until "human rights activists" managed to convince the local authority to build a proper prison.
In Zanzibar the cathedral is built on the site of the slave market
In the marble floor just below the High Altar there is a decal marking the spot of the slave whipping post. Male slaves would be whipped before sale - the longer they held out the more valuable they would be as field hands. These were people who had already come along one of the several trade routes from Nyasland Central and Eastern Africa; the main one that ended in Bagamoyo (for shipment to Zanzibar by dhow) was a 1200 km, 6 month trek from Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika through Tabora, Jamila's home town.
Outside the Cathedral is something new and very powerful since I was last there - in a pit a Swedish sculptress has created a family group linked by a genuine slave neck chain from Bagamoyo.

The White Fathers first came up with the idea in Africa of buying slaves - based on the biblical injunction to ransom captives. This was taken up by the Holy Ghost Fathers, initially in Zanzibar itself, where I get the impression that they were rather overwhelmed, and then from 1868 in Bagamoyo. Their records show that they raised funds which enabled them to purchase over 1200 slaves between then and abolition in 1873. Because they were at that time a German group of priests, the British consul in Zanzibar was hugely suspicious of their actions, as his reports to London show. The one thing he never suspected was that the purpose of purchasing the slaves was to liberate them. With slaves they had already liberated in Zanzibar, the mission set up a Freedom Village, the inhabitants of which were added to everytime there was a local crisis, be it a Cholera epidemic or a German or British colonial spat - the mission always flew a flag of neutrality, which the European powers involved always ignored. The mission says that the people in the Freedom Village mixed with the locals, and that effectively there wasn't a Freedom village any longer from sometime early in the 20th century. On the other hand I was told there were 3 distinct areas where the descendants of ransomed slaves still live, and use inland tribal dialects as opposed to those used by tribes on the coast.

The slave trade went underground after 1873, but still continued. In 1890, the Germans rescued from a slave caravan a Congolese baby, and took her to the mission. When Mama Maria Ernestina died in December 1974 she was the last slave ever to have been traded as part of the East African trade. But as with the USA, abolition of the slave trade was not the same as emancipation; in East Africa, the last slave was emancipated in 1922.
But what has impressed me over the last three weeks is the continual reporting in the local media of an ongoing 21st century slave trade - the continuing difficulty of returning Sudanese slaves captured in the two decade long war, to their homes: 2 years in negotiation to replace the word slave with abductee; the boys on the Ivory coast who think they are going to football fame in Europe to find themselves sold into servitude in Mali; the lorries opened to find children and babies concealed being driven from one part of Nigeria to another; the young girls from inner rural Tanzania who live in virtual imprisonment as drudges and sexual objects in the main towns of the mainland.

Machezo wa maneno

When David Livngstone died in Zambia, his porters Abdulla Susi and James Chuma eviscerated his corpse and buried his heart under a tree. In the Anglican Cathedral in Zanzibar there is a crucifix made from the wood of that tree. I don't know if there are others elsewhere, but I suspect there are fewer than the splinters from the wood of the True Cross. They wrapped the body in bark and walked with it for 9 months until they reached the (no doubt very surprised )Holy Ghost Fathers in Bagamoyo. They announced "Mwili wa Daudi" - here is David's body. The fidelity of those porters, with no prospect of material reward is, in today's terms, incomprehensible.
The body was kept overnight in the tower of the newly built mission church, which, naturally, is now known as Livingstone's Tower, before being transported to Zanzibar and then on to Westminster Abbey on ....HMS Vulture.
To further lower the tone of this post, and just for the GOM who didn't get it when first told, I give you a bilingual pun, which just has to be in every Tanzanian schoolchild's joke book.
David Livingstone asked his porters the distance to the next destination. They answered "Twende tu" ("just let's go"). After a while he asked again, and got the same reply. On the third time of asking with the same response he exploded saying: "it can't still be 22 miles."
I know, I know, I didn't say it was good, I said the GOM didn't actually get it.

Ita missa est

Getting into Mass on Sunday with seconds to spare was surprisingly easy, as there was room in both the carpark and church. Usually if you are not there as the previous Kiswahili Mass comes streaming down the steps you won't get a seat in the church at all. I put it down to two reasons - firstly it was the Mass for the "special collection" for the new parish centre that is going up in true Tz fashion - a bit more is added to it every time some more money comes in. The special collection is taken up at one of each of the 5 Sunday Masses in turn, and what is special about it is that you are supposed to go up to the altar and deposit your offering in one of the wide baskets held out by the parish priest or the nuns. No pressure there then. The GOM naturally isn't having any of this religious blackmail, and sits, arms folded, bum firmly in his seat. What is coming up in the next week is the lenten alms which the Catholics use the Muslim expression zakat for - but interpret it as 10% of a month's salary - and they have a second go in Advent. Muslim zakat is 2.5% of annual income so I guess it is less, and certainly less than the Pentecostal churches who expect a full 10% tithe here. For Muslims it is one of the 5 pillars of Islam so if you cheat it is only yourself that you are cheating because Allah knows; for the Tz RCs the attempt to enforce the same sense of obligation is "if God asks it of us, who are we to refuse?" And where exactly does it say that God asks it of us?
The second reason is the continuing quiet but unrelenting power struggle that has rumbled on in St Peter's since I was first in Tz. Priests have come and gone, but this battle continues. It's just so stupid. Two old men, neither of them with a musical bone in their body, have seen off virtually every effort to get some decent music into the English speaking Mass and inflict their egos on us Sunday after Sunday. The kids get together a half way decent choir that leads the singing once a month. Then these two monopolise the other Sundays with their solo efforts. Last Sunday it was the turn of one with the self satisfied gravitas which speaks of a probable former career as a middle ranking civil servant. As a Tanzanzian, he manages to (quite uniquely, I imagine) both sing off key and be unable to keep time. On Sunday, he surpassed himself by having got the hymn numbers out of sequence so that as he boomed out each wrong number, twice, he then conducted himself with huge arm movements to a silent church full of people. Right or wrong numbers, it would have made little difference as it is impossible to sing along with him. It must have been the heat because, for once, I was irritated rather than amused. He is so full of his own self importance, that I don't think he has ever questioned why he invariably reduces the congregation to silence. He does love the sound of his own voice speaking or singing. And every time I see his grey head, I ask myself why we don't go to a Kiswahili Mass instead. So, lack of both charitable thought and deed last week. Not very Lenten.

A day or so later I was at what was signposted as the first Christian cross to be raised in East Africa. The post is wrong however - it points to the site - the cross itself is distinctly modern. There are many contradictory views about the role of the Christian missions in Africa, sometimes held at the same time by the same person. Some see missionaries as merely the spiritual arm of the colonial power, and as people who rode roughshod over pre-existing cultures. The alternative view is that the missions were the only part of the colonial enterprise to bring education and healthcare to Africans, and that it was largely in the environs of Mission schools and Colleges that the leaders of independent Africa were nurtured. Whichever is right, and both may be, they managed to plant an enthusiasm for Christian practice and belief, which eclipses anything seen in Europe, in recent decades. I did feel ashamed, thinking of the total commitment of those men and women who came to mostly die in Africa, of my petty irritation. It doesn't make me wrong though - we should go to the Kiswahili Mass