Samson Ramadhani

Tanzanian Samson Ramadhani (a police officer) won the gold medal in the marathon at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne on 19th March. He was in fierce competition with Kenyan Fred Mogaka throughout much of the race and finished the 34 seconds ahead. “I knew that the Kenyans were very strong – they were the favourites to win – but I didn’t use my strength. I used my brain” Ramdhani said. According to the Arusha Times he returned home with not only the gold medal but also with some newly acquired football skills from ‘Down under.’ Ramadhani had spent his final hours at the athletes village enjoying a game of ‘kick-to-kick’ with his compatriots and emergency services personnel. ‘Australian Convicts’, an organization which promotes Australian Rules Football overseas, donated two balls to the runner, in order for him to bring the game home to his fellow Tanzanians.

By Jane Bryce

When my parents arrived in Tanganyika in 1949, they were sent to the Rondo Plateau, a remote area in the south, where my father’s job was to map a forest. This he was to do by foot safari, camping in the bush for up to weeks at a time, with a team of porters to carry the tents and provisions. Before she became pregnant with me, my mother went on foot safari with him. I have the pictures they took – a record of the dying days of colonialism, the white administrator with his canvas bath, dinner served at a folding table by lamplight, my mother washing her hair in a stream…but my memories are all of Moshi, where we lived from when I was three to seventeen. My parents spent nineteen years in Tanzanian Government and left in 1968.

The writer’s father’s office at the Hardwoods Research Station, Moshi

Continue reading →

The Kihansi spray toads (featured in an earlier issue of TA) which are regarded as a threatened species, and which were taken to the US in 2002 have multiplied from the original 72 to 216 in zoos in New York and Ohio and San Diego. Plans are now being made for them to return to Kihansi and for the possible establishment of a domestic breeding facility there. The government initiated project was assisted by World Bank funding.’ The toads might prove useful in future with the growth of biotechnology, especially in the pharmaceutical industries –Guardian.

Cover featured Jakaya Kikwete during the elections