The report of the judicial commission investigating the loss of the MV Bukoba, which sank in Lake Victoria with the loss of 700 lives last May (TA No 55) was published on September 6 and spread the blame widely – the Tanzania Railways corporation’s Marine Division for operating the vessel without due care (it had a long-standing stability problem yet on its final voyage it was overloaded, there was improper storage of cargo and inadequate ballasting); the division was said to have been characterised by gross negligence , inefficiency and corruption; the government was blamed for buying a defective ship (although this was partially because of a lack of expertise on the Tanzanian side and the crisis in Lake shipping caused by the collapse at the time of the East African community’s Lake steamer services; this had placed Tanzania in a weak bargaining position with the suppliers); and the Belgian shipbuilders (BSC) for supplying a vessel which did not correspond to the specifications and for not giving the users adequate guidelines on the extremely delicate handling the ship required. The report also described as ‘regrettable’ the failure of the Belgian government to finance promised rehabilitation work on the ship. The Belgian government has since refused to pay compensation to the victims stating that the shipbuilders (who are believed to have gone out of business) were responsible. But the matter remained under discussion in the Belgian parliament.

The Director of Public Prosecutions announced on November 27 that criminal charges were being prepared against a number of people in connection with the tragedy.

morning
I wake in darkness. Through the morning coolness and a packed ground comes the steady ‘thud, thud, thud’ of Zawadi preparing breakfast with her sister. The ‘Today’ programme on Radio 4; the six o’clock news with Jumbe Omari Jumbe. Outside, the soft rain cuts through the cold mist which blurs the orange street lights as I wait for my morning lift. Jodie furrows her brow, brushes crumbs of toast and chocolate off her chemistry homework and glances at the furious action on the video. seven-thirty, the sun already high in a pure sky, I walk slowly up through the village towards the school; footsteps and dragged leaves behind pause briefly into ‘Shhhikamoo’ and then Zawadi rushes away to beat the late bell.

assemblies
Spread like a net over the slopes of the school grounds, the students slash the grass short, each in their assigned area. Prefects and class monitors supervise. Those near the drive stand to attention “Good Morning Sir” and my bag rushes away ahead of me. The bell is rung again and students sweeping their classroom hurry to join their fellows on the parade ground. The Headmaster arrives and teachers join the students at attention, sing the National Anthem as the Flag is raised. “Good morning, everybody!” “Good morning, Sir!”. The Headmaster addresses the school for some ten minutes in English. School fees must be paid soon. Next week, pupils who have not yet paid fees for at least half the year of 4,000 shillings (or roughly four pounds) will be sent home to get it. Attendance is poor. People are picking oranges to earn money instead of coming and studying! The students have brought in woven palm leaves to contribute to a school income generating project; these are stacked under the prefect’s direction and then they go into their classrooms. Zawadi’s form have an English lesson first.

Jodie is chatting with three friends, eating crisps. The boy’s half of the room buzzes with last night’s big football match, seen live on TV. The ref was a MORON! …• “Morning all” I say, entering with the register. “Sir, you’re so sad!” says Jodie. After a few minutes I persuade them to stop discussing Manchester United, East Enders and the fate of baby seals long enough to answer the register. I hastily collect parent’s notes from those who have been absent. Then we go off to assembly. The room, cleaned by contract cleaners the previous evening, is already messy with chewing gum wrappers and trodden-in crisps.

“Good morning, Year 10”. ‘MmmmmmggMsss’. The Head of Year addresses the students in English. She reads a short story with the moral ‘always treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself’. This is taken from a commercially produced book of such stories specifically aimed at school assemblies. She goes on to talk about the problem of bullying which has been surfacing again. Jodie kicks the leg of her friend’s chair and asks her what lesson is first? French.

modern languages
Both teachers address their students in a foreign language. “If I had a lot of money I would buy a nice house”. “Who can give us another sentence like that? .. Quiet … Four thousand miles apart, two girls stare at their desks … Quiet ….

“Zawadi!”. “Jodie!” “Have a go” … Quiet … muffled laughter … a long. long pause, then … (both) “If …. I have .. ah, … had a lot of money …. I go in America”.
“Excellent! Thank You, … let me help you improve the second part”.

Later, both classes are working in pairs to prepare short dialogues to be performed in front of their friends. The English students are basing their work on their French textbooks; the Tanzanian students are using English story books provided by the British Council. Jodie and Zawadi are encouraged by their success and try hard. However, they find the work difficult. There are so many words to look up. Many of the teacher’s instructions, although simple, are hard for them to fully grasp. By the end of a full lesson using a foreign language, both feel themselves adrift in mists of incomprehension.

chemistry
Both Chemistry teachers say in English “Today we will investigate what happens when we add certain kinds of things, certain substances, to water”

Zawadi’s teacher starts at the top-left corner of the board, writing and dictating, still in English. ‘To dissolve is defined as to change into a liquid state, especially by the process of immersion in water. The resultant solution will be determinalistically configured in its own chemical properties by 1. The valency and ….. ‘ For Zawadi the mists have thickened to deep fog. In her exercise book, the second sentence reads: ‘The resultand solution will determinally configured in by the nature of the nature … ‘

Jodie, freed from the confusions of French, can at least put her energies into struggling with Chemistry. Her teacher asks: “What properties might we measure during such an investigation?” Some students suggest ‘temperature’, ‘colour’, ‘mass’. Jodie wants to suggest ‘pH’ but doesn’t want to be called a ‘keener’ by her friends. Next, the class are shown a video on ‘solutions’. It demonstrates various laboratory investigations and shows some industrial and commercial applications such as the clothing and fashion business. Afterwards, the class work in small groups in a well equipped laboratory. Jodie respects this teacher and wants to try hard but she has very little confidence in herself. She can’t see the point of trying to measure too accurately. The teacher has to spend some of her time with a group of boys who are being quite noisy. Eventually, one of then breaks Jodie’s flask with a coin thrown from across the room; the teacher tells him to stand outside.

Meanwhile Zawadi is copying down descriptions of similar experiments and the equipment needed, in her third blackboard full of English notes. “So, what is the definition of ‘dissolve?'” asks her teacher. The first two boys have no idea and are left standing up. Then …. “ah …. a girl .. Zawadi!” She stands up, half panic, half resignation. Silence …. Suddenly the word ‘dislove’ leaps to her from her exercise book. Clutching at the chance, she reads out the first sentence and a half. “Excellent! sit down”. The two boys are called out to the front. The teacher chuckles, “wewe! Dadako anakupitia!???”. Three strokes from the teacher’s stick. The rest of the class roar with laughter.

For homework, both classes have to write up the experiment.

break
The bell goes in my classroom. Fifteen minutes break. I rush around putting away boxes of teaching resources and computers, simultaneously interrogating a student about missing maths homework. I get into the staffroom with eleven minutes left, put teabag and water into cup. “Could I have a quick word?” says Jodie’s Chemistry teacher. She explains “….. they are outside”. I go to the door – via two more conversations with colleagues about meetings and test dates. Five minutes left. After talking to Jodie and the boy outside in the rain I rush back in. Take out teabag, add milk, listen to announcement about problems with central heating, sit down. One minute left.

Around 11 o’clock the teachers start to gather in the Tanzanian staffroom. “No tea yet? Tell them to hurry!”. We have about an hour, or as long as necessary. I send a student off with 70 shillings (about 70p) to the market to buy some deep fried cassava, chips and oranges. Students come in with jugs of hot black tea and pour it for each teacher at their desk. The Headmaster leads discussion of a few matters such as the holiday shamba rota. One student comes in and asks the duty teacher for permission to travel to his home village to collect food. Another asks permission to go to the hospital; this is quite rare now that the students have to pay 200 shillings to see the doctor themselves and then buy any drugs prescribed. Many struggle on with skin conditions, bad teeth, malaria.

During break, Jodie’s friends huddle in a sheltered doorway from the cold November wind. Boys are playing football on the field and tarmaced areas. The teacher on duty, wrapped in a thick coat, stalks along the edge of the field towards the sheds where the cigarette smokers usually hide.

The Tanzanian students stream up towards the hot dusty market. They will gather round the chip selling stalls; some to spend their 10 or 20 shillings, most just to join the conversations. Zawadi watches a group of boys re-enacting the commentary from last night’s big football match, heard live on radio. “Refu MPUMBAVU!”

I hope readers will forgive my poetic licence with some time differences.
Rob Grant

NEW VOLUNTEERS
A further group of 27 British VSO volunteers arrived in Tanzania in August bringing the total number to 100 in the country. They included teachers, agricultural specialists, social workers, pharmacists, technicians, accountants and educators.

THE WORLD’S SHORTEST WAR
The Daily News reported on August 27 about a photographic exhibition being put on by the Zanzibar Department of Archaeology to mark the British bombardment of Zanzibar in what was described as ‘the world’s shortest war’ – two and a half hours – a century ago. The war involved the bombardment of Sultan Khalid’s Palace (now known as the House of Wonders) to force him to hand over his powers to a Sultan of Britain’s choice. Museums Curator Professor Abdul Shariff said that from the date of the protectorate in 1890 the British were the actual rulers of Zanzibar and that the Arab Sultans were mere figureheads – Daily News

“AT THE TOP OF OUR LIST”
A year after the UN’s fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, Susan Kindervatter of the non-profit ‘Inter Action Coalition’ said on August 22 that Tanzania was clearly in the running for a gold medal as far as implementation of the resolutions of the conference was concerned. Tanzania had presented one of the most comprehensive lists of commitments and was already taking action to increase the number of women in governmental decision-making positions to a minimum of 30% by the year 2,000 she said. The other front runners were the Philippines and Uganda – The Express, Dar es salaam.

THE END OF THE LITTLE THEATRE
The celebrated Dar es Salaam ‘Little Theatre’ which has seen many fine performances over several decades, will shortly be converted into an apartment hotel with 48 flats, swimming pool, bar and restaurant and conference facilities. Investors include players and actors of the theatre – Business Times.

WHICH ARE THE HISTORIC BUILDINGS?
In the last issue of TA there was an article headed ‘The Demolition of Dar’. On September 15 a Mr Mchume wrote to the Daily News on the same subject. He deplored the planned transformation of Dar es Salaam into a concrete jungle and listed the buildings he thought should be preserved. These included the Cosy Cafe, The White Fathers building, St. Joseph’s Cathedral, the Arab Mosque, the British Council Library, Ocean Road Hospital, the Forodhani Hotel, the Lutheran Church and the Botanic Gardens. There were many others he said.

A TERRIBLE YEAR
Anne Outwater writing in the Daily News (October 19) reported that for the chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream National Park 1996 had been a terrible year. Following cold and rainy weather in March many chimps had come down with serious respiratory infections and one third of the population of about 30 were reported either dead or missing. The regional veterinarian had recommended daily antibiotic treatment but getting the chimps to take the pills proved difficult. So each pill was divided into six or seven bananas and “luckily, chimps never get tired of bananas”.

In our last issue an article under this heading described the development now underway of the significant natural gas deposits at Songo Songo, Kilwa and mentioned the indignation of many people in southern Tanzania because the gas is not to be used in Kilwa but piped to Dar es salaam for conversion into electricity. The Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDF) has since placed large advertisements in the press to explain why this decision was taken. Firstly, it was said to be cheaper and safer to transport gas than electricity and none of the energy was lost en route (compared with up to 20% in the case of electricity); it was easier to hook in the gas along the route for other uses (16 villages would have their own gas-generated power stations) but this would be very expensive with high tension electric wires; power generation alone would not have been economical unless industrial use of the gas was included in the project and this could be done only in Dar es Salaam where large industries existed. The advertisements emphasised that the pipes would be made of special material that could not be easily punctured and would be laid a metre underground.

A big fertiliser plant employing 2,000 people is expected to be built at Kilwa Masoko. Gas at Mnazi Bay is to be used to provide electricity to Lindi and Mtwara.

In what many considered to be a disaster on a par with that of the ‘Titanic’ in 1912 (over 1,500 people perished) some 700 people died when the Lake Victoria passenger ship ‘M V Bukoba’ capsized on May 21 just 30 minutes before reaching Mwanza port. Only 53 people survived. President Mkapa declared three days of national mourning. Governments and individuals all over the world sent their condolences.

Eye witness survivors told how the ship was loaded with many more than its 433-passenger capacity should have allowed. At eight am, with Mwanza in sight the ship began to sway. Huge jikos, dishes and kitchen equipment in the restaurant crashed to one side; the loud bang created a panic and as people rushed to the deck the vessel turned over. Ironically, the vast quantity of Bukoba bananas the passengers had earlier asked the crew to throw overboard, later helped survivors by giving them something to cling on to in the water. There were not enough lifebelts. The vessel remained on the surface, partially buoyant. But then rescuers, who could hear trapped passengers screaming and banging, ignored the pleas of fishermen, and decided to drill a hole into the hull to rescue those trapped inside. The effect however was to release the air which had kept the hull afloat and shortly after 3 pm the boat sank.

Several hundred bodies were extracted with great difficulty by divers – people in the packed third class compartment of the ship had linked arms in solidarity before they died and it proved extremely difficult to break them free. Most of the bodies of the dead were buried in mass graves in Mwanza. An old lady in Kagera Region collapsed and died after learning that her daughter and three grandchildren had perished. One victim, a Ugandan businessman, was found to be carrying $27,000 in notes.

On May 29 the captain of the ship and eight senior officials of the Tanzania Railways Corporation Marine Department were charged in court with the murder of 615 people and were remanded in custody. They were later released. On the same day Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye announced the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry under Judge Robert Kisanga which included five other Tanzanians and six foreign experts.

On June 2 President Mkapa halted any further recovery of decomposed bodies from the wreck as this posed a health hazard to divers who had come from South Africa, Kenya and Zanzibar. 392 bodies had been recovered. At a joint service of remembrance on June 3 Chief Justice Nyalali spread a handful of soil on the lake as a burial symbol. The wreckage, which lies 27 metres below lake level, became a permanent tomb for those whose bodies could not be recovered.

ARUSHA – A TOWN OF STRANGERS
VUGHA – A HISTORICAL MISINTERBRETATATION
DAR ES SALAAM – THE PROBLEM OF THE ‘DETRIBALISED’ AFRICANS
ZANZIBAR – DYSFUNCTIONAL COLONIALISM

A conference (with almost 200 participants) entitled ‘Africa’s Urban Past’ at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) from June 19 to 21 1966 was not without pungent expressions of opinion about various aspects of the Tanzanian (or Tanganyikan) experience of urban development.

Thomas Spear of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in his paper (TOWN AND COUNTRY: ARUSHA AND ITS HINTERLAND) described Arusha’s history in some detail: from its original establishment by the Maasai in the 1830’s’ through its function as the last stop for caravans in the 1860’s; the erection of the ‘boma’ by the Germans (‘it was meant to impress – it even had electricity’); and the British notion of Arusha as a ‘garden centre’ with its carefully segregated high, medium and low density residential areas; ‘the Europeans lived above and to windward of the Africans’; land was ‘seized from the African population for golf courses, tennis courts and other European social amenities’. Throughout it all the town remained resolutely divorced from its hinterland and was populated by ‘strangers’ – Colonial officers, European shop keepers, settlers, Indian merchants, Chagga, Pare, Somali and Swahili traders – relentlessly expanding at the Arusha farmers’ expense.

In what turned out to be a controversial paper (‘A HEAP OF HUTS? VUGHA AND THE NATURE OF THE KILINDI STATE) Justin Willis of the British Institute in Eastern Africa spoke about the ‘Shambaa Kingdom’, a pre-colonial polity in what is now north-eastern Tanzania. The residence of the hereditary rulers, from the Kilindi clan, was at Vugha, in the mountains of Western Usambaa; when first visited by European observers in the mid-nineteenth century, Vugha, with perhaps 3,000 inhabitants, represented an unusual concentration of population for the region. The object of Willis’ paper was to argue that the presence of such a settlement close to the normal residence of the ruler, led European observers to make certain assumptions about the Kilindi state which were mistaken. Burton had described it as a ‘heap of huts’. Kilindi had not been a centralised polity; Vugha was not the capital of the state; nor was it even a single settlement.

When Britain took over responsibility for Tanganyika from the Germans in 1919 they inherited in Dar es Salaam a situation of urban lawlessness amongst the 20,000 African population said Andrew Burton of SOAS in his paper CRIME AND COLONIAL ORDER IN DAR ES SALAAM, 1918-39. The behavioural constraints of the ‘tribal society’ no longer applied in the multi-ethnic urban environment and this lack of constraints resulted in the emergence of that bogeyman of colonial society, the ‘detribalised African’, he said. A prominent area in which colonial law clashed with African notions of legitimacy were the regulations controlling the production and consumption of alcohol. Liquor laws were rigidly enforced – they helped to reduce drunkenness and increased the reliability of the African worker. Prostitution was considered legitimate not only by the African population but also, effectively by the state; laws prohibiting it were not implemented.

The paper by William Bissell of the University of Chicago (CONSERVATION AND THE COLONIAL PAST: URBAN PLANNING, LAW AND POWER IN ZANZIBAR) consisted of a rather intemperate attack on the five urban planning documents produced there since 1919 which, the author said, had remained unimplemented. Whatever the political jurisdiction, officials had ‘repeatedly demonstrated an almost unshakable faith in the ability of a comprehensive town plan to solve all problems … the immense disparity between the bureaucratic resources, time and energy devoted to planning and its meagre results might seem astounding … but in the colonial milieu plan-making and inertia were not opposed activities, indeed they directly implied and depended upon each other.

The author went on to put the knife into colonialism – ‘parts of the plans which were actually built invariably related to the colonial economy – improvement of traffic networks and transport or port rehabilitation. At least until the revolution, pressing social needs like housing, which were often put forward as the raison d’etre of the plans, were continually postponed …… What Zanzibar reflects is the degree to-which legal contradiction, bureaucratic ineptness, official obfuscation. prolonged inaction and petty adherence to formality – all reinforced by a total lack of accountability – were powerful tools of colonial power…. The fact that this was unintentional makes it no less powerful’ – DRB.

Tanzania has the largest tsetse mass-rearing facility in Africa and the largest tsetse colony of over 600,000 female flies – the largest in the world, according to Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Hans Blix, quoted in the Daily News. Although tsetse flies were a menace to the health of people and livestock, he said, still there was a need to reproduce them en masse. The flies are reared at the Tanga-based Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Research Institute and the male flies are made sterile using gamma radiation from cobalt 60 or caesium 137 sources before their release in tsetse affected areas. Tanzania was said to be in a leadership position and could soon begin exporting flies which would help to decimate tsetse populations in other countries. Dr. Blix inaugurated a third insect rearing facility at Tanga during his visit to Tanzania.

Visitors to Dar es Salaam these days can hardly believe their eyes when they see the extent of the demolition now taking place in the commercial centre of Tanzania’s capital city. No one would claim that the city’s shopping streets were a beautiful sight. Most looked dilapidated and, according to the new Commissioners running the city, many were not fit for habitation and were condemned. But to decide to obliterate them completely seemed to many to be rather drastic treatment.

The demolition is the prelude to the launching of a Shs 90 billion ‘Dar es Salaam Modernisation Project’. The objective is claimed to be the creation of a healthier environment. No less than 176 plots including several on Samora Machel Avenue are being demolished and are to be replaced by 20 ‘ultramodern’ structures. The project is based on a city redevelopment plan approved by the Urban Planning Committee in 1982. This was followed by Government Notice Number 98 of July 1982 which recommended the demolition and redevelopment. All the cleared areas have been allocated to various developers for offices. Amongst these are the British High Commission, Swedish Embassy, the European Community, the ANC, the National Housing and Railways Corporations and TANESCO.

Needless to say, this sudden action caused considerable consternation, and several court actions were commenced by occupiers of the buildings. Cynthia Stacey writing in the ‘Family Mirror’ described it as ‘state-sanctioned vandalism’ and pointed out that in the last 14 years city planners around the world had reformulated urban planning policies to avoid cities comprising only multi-story office blocks and becoming dead and dangerous ghettos by night. ‘Trust Tanzania to get it so wrong’ she wrote.

‘Twenty-six storeys in a city prone to electricity cuts?’ trumpeted the Express in a front page headline. ‘This is a crazy idea’.

The Friends of the Museum of Tanzania convened a well supported seminar in early August. Architects, engineers, academics, health and environmental specialists and members of the public expressed alarm at the loss of the city’s architectural heritage and its unique character and its replacement by a concrete jungle. Criticism was directed at the lack of clear rules in the planning exercise, the environmental impact on people living in the city, probable traffic congestion, the lack of participation by the people in the planning process, particularly women (where were the day care centres, children’s playgrounds?), the effect on the tourist trade and so on. Why could not the example of Zanzibar’s Stonetown be followed where rehabilitation of old buildings had created a really nice place to live?

But it seems that the old Dar es Salaam is doomed. It will soon be rebuilt, like so many other cities, in the image of New York – DRB.