THE GENESIS OF ‘MZUNGU’
Readers of the Daily News have been responding to a question asked by another reader recently on the genesis of the Kiswahili word ‘Mzungu’. They explained that among the Wagogo people there are such terminologies as ‘Mulu-ngu’ describing God with ‘Mulu’ meaning an exceptional and ‘-Ngu’ meaning any being having power over nature. ‘Msungu’ is purely Bantoid spoken in Nigritic tone. When a white man first trod in East Africa the local people regarded him as different. They thus christened him ‘Musu-Ngu’ that is demi-god or godman’.
250 BRITONS ON TANZANIAN EXPEDITION
The Society for Environmental Exploration in London is in the midst of a year-long research project involving some 200 young British volunteer research assistants ac companied by a staff comprising scientists, logisticians, engineers, mechanics and medical personnel. The project is being organised through the Ministry of Lands, Natural Resources and Tourism and Tanzania National Parks. At the end of July 1989 the first six of a larger number of Tanzanian scientific consultants (from the University of Dar es Salaam) had also joined in the initial work together with Dr. M.A.K. Ngoile, Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences in Zanzibar. The advance party arrived in Tanzania in early July and they were followed by the first of four groups, each of which will spend some three months undertaking environmentally important tasks in Tanzania.
Eibleis Fanning of ‘Frontier’, the expeditionary arm of the Society, told the Bulletin that the aim of the project was to harness the enthusiasm of people committed to environmental protection. Participants are working at the Pande and Kiono forest reserves on plant collecting, forest mapping and bird netting; on Mafia island on sea clams and starfish, the biological control of the coconut eating rhinoceros beetle, and on permanent study plots in the mangroves of the northern coast; a group is also working at the Mikumi National Park and another at the Rufiji Delta on a mangrove sedimentation programme.
ANOTHER BIG FIRE
Four upper floors of the Ministry of Home Affairs headquarters in Dar es Salaam were gutted by fire on the night of May 19th 1989. The damaged floors had accommodated the offices of the Minister, Deputy Minister, the Inspector General of Police and several commissioners in the Police Force. This fire follows the loss by fire of the Bank of Tanzania headquarters in 1984 and offices of the Audit Corporation in 1988.
NEW AIRLINE
Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia agreed on May 5th 1989 to set up a joint airline to be known as ‘Africa Joint Services’. The airline is to operate regional and international flights. Costs will be shared equally by the three countries. Meanwhile, Swissair and Belgium’s Sabena have started joint twice-weekly flights from Brussels and Zurich to Dar es Salaam via Jeddah.
TV STATION UNDER STUDY
A special team set up to study the establishment of a television station for Tanzania mainland will soon present its final report to Government. The Party programme directs that Tanzania mainland should have television by the year 2,000.
MINISTRY TO BREED WASPS
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development has ordered consignments of wasps from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria for the biological control of the cassava mealybug in Tanzania. The wasps will be bred and multiplied at Kibaha in the Coast Region. Some 18,000 hectares of cassava have been affected by mealybugs since the out-break in 1987.
The Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development has also explained that there is no cure for the new fungal disease of bananas (Black Sogatoka) – Daily News
CHIMPANZEE RECORDS STOLEN Two years of painstaking research work on chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park may have been lost forever when thieves broke into the house of the world famous scientist Jane Goodall in Dar es Salaam at the beginning of July. They made away with 40 video cassettes. The thieves, who are believed to have reached her beach front house at Msasani by boat, also took away two outboard engines donated to the national park – Daily News.
A JOINT THEATRICAL VENTURE
The Commonwealth Institute in London is about to launch a ‘Theatre in Education’ project to be based on Tanzania and using British and Tanzanian actors. There will be half day-programmes designed for upper secondary school pupils which will be given first in London and then at schools in the West Midlands, the Isle of Wight, Bedfordshire, West Sussex and either Dundee or the Borders Region.
Mr. Turan Ali, Performing Arts Officer at the Commonwealth Institute and Mr Ghonche Materego, Head of the Theatre Arts Department of the National Arts Council in Tanzania and Adviser to the Project told the Bulletin that the play will look at the notion of independence and economic relationships in the post-colonial period.
There will be a performance for the public on October 26th 1989. Tickets (£2.50) are obtainable at the Education Centre of the Institute.