THE BRITISH WEEK AND THE REAL BRITISH-TANZANIANS

A ‘British Week’ took place from September 29. A ‘Britain in Tanzania’ Exhibition was opened by First Lady Mama Anna Mkapa included information about the Zanzibar Mbweni Mission, originally a school for freed slave girls but the real highlight was the ‘Flight of My Life’ offered by British Airways under which a group of children were given a flight to Kilimanjaro and back. The Mangrove Steel band from London entertained large crowds. ‘No sex, We’re British’ was showing at the Little Theatre.

Under the heading ‘Let us celebrate’ the Daily News published a letter from a reader who signed him(her)self as ‘a rejoicing British-Tanzanian’. Extracts: ‘We love the British. They were an honest lot (for the most part), straightforward, gracious, hospitable, often fun-loving, punctual, disciplined, ….. a few can be hurtfully sarcastic and tell mean jokes.. . .but some British officers in colonial times lived with local women and gave them children . . . .only very few families were fully supported by their British fathers.. . .the children were not accepted in society as African … Nor were they accepted as British.. . .’Yes, the Real British-Tanzanians – a lonely and dejected race.. . ‘

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