The FINANCIAL TIMES, under this heading, gave some prominence in mid-August to a proposal that the UK government is considering issuing a licence under which the British company BAE Systems would export to Tanzania a state-of-the-art $40 million (£28m) air traffic control system. The World Bank and IMF had criticised the scheme as too expensive (they said it should cost about $10 million) and because it had an unnecessary military capability -hence the need for a licence. It would cost about half the annual income received by Tanzania in debt relief. Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry was said to favour the scheme but other ministries opposed it so that a decision might have to be taken by the Prime Minister. Tanzania was reported to be determined to go ahead with the scheme and to have made a down payment of $5 million. Oxfam had opposed the scheme because of what it described as a ‘threat to Tanzania’s sustainable development’. Admitting that, if the British Government refused to give a licence, it could stand accused of acting as a colonial power, the Financial Times insisted that the British Government should stick by its proclaimed principles and should support sustainable development in Tanzania. (Thank you Jill Bowden and Roger Carter for sending this important and topical information ­Editor).

AFRICAN TIGER
OPPORTUNITY AFRICA (first quarter 2001) wrote that Tanzania had the potential to become one of the most dynamic economies in Africa. Since the mid-1990s, strong pursuit of economic reform had enhanced Dar es Salaam’s status in the international financial community. Much of the credit for competent financial governance and the liberalisation of key economic sectors went to the Bank of Tanzania which acted as an adviser to the Government. The bank was one of the few independent central banks in Africa. Its main goals were preserving currency stability and low inflation. It had pursued a tight monetary policy which had underpinned positive real interest rates and thus provided incentives for savings. Prudent policies had also contributed to subdued inflation – this year it was projected at below 6% compared to 37% in 1994.

‘UNTIL DEATH DO US PART’
Under this heading TIME MAGAZINE (February 12th) told the story of the white woman in Botswana (Mariette Bosch) who was recently hanged for murder. It went on to state that there was another blonde white woman sitting in a cell in Arusha prison who, if convicted, could also be hanged. Kerstin Cameron, a 40 year-old German national had been charged with the murder of her estranged husband Cliff. She was initially told that she had no legal case to answer. On July 4th, 1998 her husband left an Arusha hotel where he had been staying and in which he had been drinking heavily and went to visit her and the children at their home. A few hours later, he was dead in the bedroom, a bullet in his head. The Tanzanian police twice investigated and twice concluded that Cameron, a 42-year old bush pilot, had committed suicide. But later, pressure from his husband’s New Zealand relatives had dramatically altered things and she had been arrested in May last year. The inquiry was said to be now bogged down in the Tanzanian legal system as a result of undue pressure from New Zealand politicians plus bureaucratic inefficiency, post-colonial sensitivities and murky suspicions. German officials were demanding a quick and fair resolution of the case (Thank you to several readers who sent this item and a similar story in the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (February 24) under the heading ‘White mischief on an African night’ – Editor)

MOBILE PHONE REVOLUTION
NEW AFRICAN (April 2001) devoted a page to what it described as Tanzania’s ‘mobile phone revolution’. This was said to be highly significant for a country where just five years ago a mobile phone was something that dreams were made of; now, Tanzania had as many mobile phone lines as fixed lines. Mobitel had 60% of the market and attributed its success to maximising consumer choice in the form of affordable handsets, extensive geographic coverage, pre-paid systems and flexible pricing structures.

CLOVEHONEY
The TROPICAL AGRICULTURE ASSOCIATION’S
NEWSLETTER in December contained an article by Antony Ellman on clove honey production in Pemba. He explained how he had been recruited to undertake, with staff of the Evergreen Trust (a small NGO established in Pemba in 1995), a survey of agricultural production and marketing opportunities suitable for small scale producers. Prime emphasis was to be placed on beekeeping. He went on to explain that clove honey was one of the few commodities produced on Pemba for which demand exceeded supply (it had a high reputation in the Gulf) and that steps to raise the quantity and quality of clove honey production could not only generate increased rural incomes with relatively little investment but also gave farmers an incentive to improve neglected clove plantations by adding value to the products. He described the various types of hive, colony management and honey and wax processing and marketing.

The GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT NEWSLETTER FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA (March) reported that Tanzania had lifted members’ spirits by increasing its legislated quota of women MP’s from 15 to 20 (in addition to those elected) with the result that the number of women in parliament had increased from 16% to 21%; the percentage of women in cabinet had increased from 13% to 15% (Thank you Joan Wicken for sending this item – Editor).

The EAST AFRICAN (12th February) devoted a page to the leading Tanzania Kiswahili scholar Professor Said Ahmed Mohammed from Bayreuth University in Germany. He was born in Zanzibar in 1947 and later studied and worked at the University of Dar es Salaam. He has authored or co-authored 16 titles in the linguistics and literature areas of Kiswahili. The article said that a critical look at his novels, plays and poems showed clearly that he was out to educate and expose the ills in society. He wondered why Kiswahili was not given the kind of status in East Africa that it had in the wider world. “Out there” he said, “Kiswahili is regarded highly; foreign students like studying it and speaking it grammatically”. In all foreign universities where he had taught he found Kiswahili extremely popular.

DECLINING SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
‘Tanzania is suffering a sharp decline in primary-school enrolment as a result of the ‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Relief Programme (HIPC) sponsored by the World Bank/IMF which compels poor parents to contribute to the cost of their children’s education’ according to NEW AFRICAN (February). The article went on to explain how Tanzania, having adopted the third stage of the HIPC programme, was granted ‘nominal’ relief from its stifling debts. Part of the deal was the introduction of cost sharing in primary schools which meant that poor parents had to pay part of their children’s education; this immediately triggered a decline in school attendance. Tanzania expects to enjoy debt relief of $100 million when it ‘fully’ qualifies this year by moving to the ‘completion’ stage of the programme. The journal quoted debt campaigners as saying that in a real terms the HIPC ‘completion stage’ or ‘full qualification’ only meant that qualifying countries would ‘cough more funds’ from their dried-up treasuries for debt service. Tanzania’s annual debt service would be $167.5 million between 2002 and 2009 and would rise to $258 million between 2010 and 2018. At the moment, Tanzania spent 26 per cent of its total export earnings on debt servicing.

‘ELUSIVE, MAGICAL PARADISE BUT NOT GAY’
‘Zanzibar. It really is a place, not a cafe, bar, club or any other of the many other businesses that have used its name. No marketing firm could come up with a better word to evoke an elusive magical paradise. What is it about the word? If you were to blend the decayed grandeur of Lisbon, the commerce and religion of Morocco and the exotic spiciness of southern India and set it all on an island with Bounty-advert beaches, you might just get Zanzibar. It’s a zany place’. So wrote Paul Miles in GAY NEWS (February) whose visit to Zanzibar was arranged by the travel firm ‘Simply Tanzania’. The writer went on to say that if his readers were looking for a ‘happening gay scene’ Zanzibar was not the place. Homosexuality, as in all of Tanzania, was technically illegal. No-one in Zanzibar seemed to be working on anything connected with gay rights. Although there was a dearth of people willing to identify themselves as gay, everyone he spoke to seemed to think that it was not an issue. There was even a well known gay-run hotel in Stonetown.

NATIONAL PARKS
AFRICA TRAVEL (Spring 2001) devoted 46 pages of lavishly illustrated text to the national parks of Africa. The articles on Tanzania concentrated on walking around Loliondo with a Maasai guide (‘the kopjes – islands of tall granite rock and lush green foliage strung like an archipelago across the plains;) mountain cycling in the Tarangire National Park (‘the lodges are Tarzan and Jane style’) and diving in Mafia Island’s Marine Park (‘clouds of glassfish, groups of lionfish and violin sharks – we are illuminated within by what we see of Mafia’s beautiful, secret underworld’).

Another article in the same issue featured Fundu Lagoon on Pemba island. The article said that unlike its better-known neighbour, Pemba lacked the developed tourist infrastructure of Zanzibar which gave it a refreshing sense of naivety and a feeling of blissful isolation and tranquillity. The waters around Pemba were now regarded as one of the top diving locations in the world. Fundu Lagoon was the home of a fully qualified watersports centre. Prices were $275 per person per day which included snorkelling, discovery trips, mangrove canoe safaris, dhow sunset cruises and boat transfers.

ORGANIC COTTON WOOL
A brand new line in organic products, based on Tanzanian grown cotton and called ‘Simply Gentle Organic’ is being testmarketed through more than 1000 British Waitrose supermarkets by the manufacturer Macdonald and Taylor. Approximately 5% of the pack purchase price will be used to help Tanzanian farmers in development projects. The new organic range will include make-up removal pads, balls and loose packs. It is estimated that current cotton cultivation (nonorganic) results in 25% of worldwide insecticide use. Helped by environmental experts, organic cotton farmers in Tanzania attract beneficial insects to their cotton. The organic control methods include using trap plants (sunflower and pigeon pea), ox-driven weeding, crop rotation and the use of animal manure. Research has shown that organic cotton plots bordered by sunflowers have 10 times more beneficial ants which eat the eggs and larvae of the harmful cotton bollworm. (Thank you John Leonhardt for this item – Editor.)

COMING UP TOO FAST
“I am 23 ft under water and my heart is racing. I’m desperately trying to concentrate on my breathing, but everything feels unnatural. My mask has water in it and as I try to clear it, I keep moving my fins. Suddenly, I realise that I’ve reached the surface and start to panic. One of the things that I have learnt on this diving course is that coming up too fast could be fatal. I’m afraid that my lungs are expanding and that I am about to die in the middle of the Indian Ocean ….. Back in the boat I sit there shaking, wondering what on earth I’m doing here …. I decided to learn to dive when I became hooked on snorkelling a couple of years ago. It seemed like the logical next step. The words of the diving manuals should have rung warning bells. ‘If you live life on the edge or find pleasure in pure adrenaline, you should be a diver’. I’m no adrenaline junkie. Yet here I was at the diving school at Fundu Lagoon in Pemba. The Pemba Channel is reputed to be one of the best diving sites in the world and the resort was outstanding – pristine beaches dotted with mangroves and fabulous views of the blue, blue sea from every room – Clare Thomson writing in the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH on January 7th. The same paper (March 10) reported even more glowingly about diving in MAFIA – ‘Two giant groupers, each at least 6 ft. long, pairs of huge spotted sweetlips, angelfish at least 3 ft. long and endless varieties of jumbo-sized butterfly fish, the largest black sting-ray I have ever encountered, a good 4ft.across … the diving site was Kinasi Pass (Thank you Donald Wright for this ~ Editor).

AN AFRICAN SUCCESS STORY
Under this heading the American CHRONICLE OF EDUCATION (6th April) published an article by Burton Bollag which included some very good news about the University of Dar es Salaam. Brief extracts: ‘The university’s air-conditioned internet cafe is usually packed with students checking their email, or searching the Web for scholarship information. Across the hilly, green campus, the law school is busy putting its course outlines and reading materials online. The university library is getting a new wing, and new buildings are going up to provide more classrooms and a faculty office. Dar is one of a handful of African universities winning praise — and increased financial support from the West — for their efforts to transform themselves ….. When four major foundations based in the United States announced a five-year, $100-million aid package for African higher education last year, they singled out three institutions (Mozambique, Makerere and Dar) whose own efforts made it likely that they would be able to benefit from assistance in strategic planning, curriculum development, and increasing financial autonomy. Dar es Salaam is also one of the first institutions receiving support through the program. The Carnegie Corporation of New York, one of the four foundations, has awarded the university a three-year, $3.5-million grant for new technology, for library improvements, and to study the effectiveness of the reforms adopted there ….. Dar has scored a number of significant successes since embarking on its Institutional Transformation Program, in the early 1990’s. It has begun creating new degree programs in response to Tanzania’s rapidly changing needs — for example, in public health, computer hardware and software, and transportation engineering. It has become probably the best-wired sub-Saharan university outside South Africa, with most campus buildings connected to the Internet via high-speed, fiber-optic cables. The university has cut costs by sharply reducing its non-academic staff, farming out such services as operating cafeterias and cleaning dormitories to private companies. It has generated new sources of income by offering evening degree programs in business administration for fee-paying students (all students theoretically pay tuition, but for many undergraduates that remains theory, not practice) providing consulting and training to companies and government agencies, and selling computer services and software. And on a continent with a glaring gender imbalance in higher education, Dar has instituted an affirmative action policy that has increased the enrolment of female students from 16% of the student body seven years ago to 29% today …. Courses in “African Socialism” have been eliminated, and research on such topics has been discouraged ….. (Thank you Peg Snyder for sending this article – Editor)

OLIVE BABOONS AND BLACK RHINOS
BBC WILDLIFE (December) reported that wild-caught olive baboons awaiting export from Tanzania for use in international biomedical research were being kept in the ‘worst conditions ever seen’ according to an undercover investigation carried out by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). Investigators had infiltrated two businesses in Arusha where baboons were often held for some weeks before being shipped to the USA. At one holding station, the Tanzanian Wildlife Corporation, they found an entire baboon family in one cage with the adult male desperately trying to protect his family despite the confines of his captivity. BUAV is calling on the Tanzanian authorities to place an embargo on the export of baboons.

In January the same magazine reported that the black rhino, once the most successful member of its family, was now listed as critically endangered; there were thought to be only 60 to 70 left in Tanzania compared with the estimated 10,000 30 years ago. 70% of those remaining were believed to live in the Selous Game Reserve; those which were left constituted about 6% of the world population. They had survived mainly due to their inaccessibility and remoteness. The article want went on to describe the work of the Selous Rhino Project. Tanzania’s Wildlife Division had assigned six scouts to the project in January 1996 but their task was difficult because, unlike their larger, less fierce ‘white’ rhino cousins, which were happy to eat grass in wide open spaces, black rhinos favoured very thick bush and could not be seen easily from the air. The Scouts had to walk until they found them and averaged 1000 kms for every rhino sighted. Protecting rhinos was reported to be an expensive business – some $32 per km with one ranger covering perhaps 150 kms. Future plans included the development of DNA fingerprinting from samples of dung. This non-invasive method used micro-satellite markers enabling the detection of genetic variability within the small, fragmented rhino groups. (Those wishing to support this project should contact ‘Save the Rhino International at 02073577474. (Thank you Christine Lawrence for sending these two items -Editor).

THE WORK OF SIXTY ARTISTS
THE EAST AFRICAN (15th January) featured the ‘Art in Tanzania 2000’ exhibition which was held in Dar es Salaam in December. It was described as more successful than the previous exhibitions with about half the displayed works being sold. It featured works by almost 60 artists living in Tanzania and comprised sculptures, paintings, cartoons and photographs. Prices ranged between $187 and $500. More than 1,000 art lovers attended the exhibition over the three weeks that it was on. Probably the most striking work was said to have come from Damian Msagula from Mtwara. His paintings were said to have a touch of Ethiopian art while retaining a strong individuality that set them apart from the swarm of tingatinga paintings on display. Msagula has had his work exhibited in Belgium, Finland, Ethiopia, South Africa and Germany.

GENETIC FINGERPRINTS OF ELEPHANTS
Tanzanian, Kenyan and US scientists have been collecting samples from across the African continent to establish whether there are sufficient variations in elephant DNA to identify a piece of ivory from a particular region. Mapping the genetic fingerprints of elephants (each elephant has a unique fingerprint) could provide conservation authorities with sufficient scientific evidence to secure court convictions against traffickers after seizure of illegal shipments of Ivory – The TIMES – February 24. (Thank you Simon Hardwick for sending this – Editor).

Many publications featured Tanzania’s elections but they expressed highly critical views. Examples:

The TIMES (October 31) showed a picture of an opposition supporter in Zanzibar being thrown into a truck after clashing with police. The INDEPENDENT quoted the adverse comments of the Commonwealth observers. NEWSAFRICA (November 20) headlined its election coverage: ‘Nyerere’s legacy sold out; Party political squabbling and claims of fraud and vote rigging have exposed the political vacuum left by Julius Nyerere’. The BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (October-December) lamented the lack of debate during the election on policies eg: AIDS, economic restructuring, public health, the East African Community, Burundi. All attention had been directed to personalities and they all seemed to have broadly the same policies. Under the heading ‘Costly victory’ Jackson Mwalalu in AFRICA TODAY (December) wrote that Tanzania’s ruling party got the candidate it wanted into the presidency of Zanzibar ‘but the Union may suffer as a result. President Karume, promising to open a new chapter in the history of the islands, must be aware … that the new chapter could well turn out to be as ugly as the olive branch he is extending to his opponents could be pointless ….. ‘ But NEW AFRICAN (December) under the heading ‘America can learn a thing or two’ brought in a new angle. ‘What’ it asked ‘do Tanzania and America have in common? Tanzania listens while America preaches what it doesn’t practice’. It quoted adverse American comments on the Zanzibar election and went on: ‘Interestingly, two days after the re-vote in Zanzibar, ‘irregularities’ were established to have taken place in Florida; … unopened ballot boxes found in a church … results delayed …. people divided, America, the great preacher of free and fair elections had not been able to have one. .. Salman Rushdie writing in The TIMES (December 9) said that it would be a long time before America could preach to the rest of the world about electoral transparency. The American election had been about as transparent as ‘a Floridian swamp’. The ECONOMIST (November 4) headed its article ‘Not so good in Zanzibar’ and wrote that CUF had almost no access to radio or newspapers during the election period and had reason to be angry. The EAST AFRICAN’S leader (November 6) under the heading ‘Thuggery by Mahita’s Men’ (Omar Mahita is Tanzania’s Inspector General of Police) wrote that ‘a cloud of shame is hanging over Tanzania because of the brutality visited upon citizens in Zanzibar …. In the same issue Tanzanian Michael Okema said that CUF knew that CCM would not readily concede defeat … but it needed an election through which it could expose the real intentions of CCM. CCM also needed an election behind which it could act and also to portray CUF as a party of troublemakers …. CUF obviously feels it cannot topple the government democratically or otherwise because the nature of the Union is such that the mainland will always prop it up. Weakening or even breaking up the Union then becomes a priority for anyone who wants to seize power in Zanzibar. In the same issue, Tanzanian Issa Shivji’s article was headed ‘CCM Clearly Out to Steal the Election in Zanzibar’. He concluded: ‘People are said to get the rulers they deserve. I would like to believe that that does not apply to the children of the Mwalimu’. Under the heading ‘A question of democracy’ NEWSAFRICA (December 4) quoted CUF presidential candidate Ibrahim Lipumba as saying that the election process had been full of fictional goings-on that could only be found in Chinua Achebe’s novels. The article went on: ‘Given the level of acrimony, it was unsurprising that the opposition boycotted President Mkapa’s inauguration ceremony. How could one celebrate the crowning of a leader who stole votes’. President Mkapa however had dismissed the unco-operative opposition as people blinded with greed for power. The article added ‘President Karume, Zanzibar’s youngest President, is already cutting the figure of the humane and considerate President he is….. Many people, the opposition in particular, say the outcome of the last elections was depressing and disappointing. Many Tanzanians must be missing the late President Nyerere’. But FOCUS ON AFRICA’S January-March issue reported that ‘On polling day the ZEC official responsible for the Urban West Districts absconded, not reporting in until the following day. As a result many polling stations opened hours late’ thus confirming the CCM explanation ofwhat had happened.

In South Africa among the headlines in BUSINESS DAY were: ‘Victory for Mkapa will be bitter sweet. … Election Chaos as Tanzanians Vote’. An article by David Martin in the SUNDAY INDEPENDENT had a touch of nostalgia. He wrote: ‘There was much to be cherished in the old system in Tanzania: The two contestants in each constituency (both from the CCM party) had to travel together in transport supplied by the party, sleep in the same room and eat from the same plate….from their joint platform the candidates could not promise, as is the way with politicians worldwide, that if voted into power they could do this or that for the electorate … under the western multiparty system anything goes, it has spawned a new breed of politicians who are younger and often unaware of the country’s history … money counts and buys votes … ethnicity and religion are rearing their ugly heads … ‘ (Thank you David Leishman for these and other items below from the South African press ­Editor).

ROBINSON CRUSOES ONLY
Under this heading The South African MAIL AND GUARDIAN (November 10) advised readers, if they visited Zanzibar (,where the beaches are postcard perfect~ white sand, green sea’) to leave again. It recommended them to go to a tiny strip of land about 13 km away which was even better: ‘Chumbe Island’s nature reserve beat 115 projects from 42 countries last year to win British Airways ‘Global Tourism for Tomorrow’ award. . . . Chumbe Coral Park was founded by Sibylle Riedmiller, a German environmentalist in her 70’s who visited the uninhabited island in 1991 … she turned it into an eco-resort for the free education of local children … only 14 overnight guests are allowed on the island at a time and they must have ‘zero impact’ … climb the 131 steps of the lighthouse built by the British in 1904 and you get the full 24 ha. extent of the place so thick with vegetation that no one has seen its rare deer population in years …. ‘ .

The Australian CAMBRIDGE POST (October 21) featured as its main headline the arrival at the Isanga primary and secondary schools adjacent to the Resolute Gold Mine in Nzega of two container loads of books, sports gear and clothes donated by the paper’s readers. There was so much material that four other schools in the district benefited also. (Thankyou Mr Gledhill for sending this item -Editor).

UDZUNGWA
The 124~page winter edition of TRAVEL AFRICA contained an article on one of Tanzania’s least known and least visited national parks astride the Mikumi~Ifakara road -the Udzungwa Mountains. Extracts: ‘The park is renowned for its endemic species which include monkeys, the rare Abbott’s duiker, the endangered wild dog, the unusual and globally threatened forest partridge, the Rufous-winged sunbird, the dappled mountain robin and many butterflies and other smaller creatures found nowhere else. It is also the only place in East Africa with unbroken forest cover from lowland to montane. But most people who visit the area want to climb up to see the beautiful Sanje Falls’.

CONSERVATION AND THE MAASAI
Issue No 11 of DEVELOPMENTS, the International Development Magazine, contained a letter from environmentalist Dr John Henshaw complaining about criticism of the Tanzanian wildlife service for its alleged ill treatment of Maasai. He wrote that he saw no evidence of a vendetta against them by Tanzania National Parks, the Wildlife Department nor the Ngorongoro Conservation area many of whose staff were Maasai. Local people were involved in community participation programmes and the Maasai had received economic, compensatory and cultural benefits as a direct result of wildlife conservation and management programmes. The same journal also gave the story of a factory on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam -a mothballed clothing factory put out of business by second-hand western clothing imports -which had been converted into weaving mosquito nets. The factory now employed 140 people and was producing a range of nets sold on the streets where business was booming. In some regions less than 5% of the people were using nets -the only practical weapon against malaria where the drugs westerners rely on, at 20 US cents a daily dose, are prohibitively expensive.

ASYLUM SEEKERS
The political crisis in Zanzibar has turned the islands into a refugee-producing hot spot according to NEWSAFRICA (November 6) but British immigration authorities will not list Tanzania as a refugee-producing nation. The result is that the Zanzibaris are now applying for political asylum masquerading as Somalis, Sudanese, and Burundians.

STAMPS
THE SWAHILI COAST (No 7, 2000) had an article headed ‘Zanzibar: Its history in stamps’ which explained how the first stamps were Indian and sold from a little office in the British Consulate in 1875. In 1890 Zanzibar became a British Protectorate and Thomas Remington was sent out from London to become the first postmaster. The Indian stamps were overprinted with the word Zanzibar. The first set of Zanzibar stamps showed Sultan Hamid bin Thwaini but before the stamps arrived from UK the Sultan had died. The article then traced the rule of other Sultan’s represented in stamps. After the 1964 revolution all mail had the Sultan’s face crossed or blacked out in ball pen and then new Zanzibar Republic stamps were produced. Other articles in this issue featured Bagamoyo and photographs of ‘millenium’ fashion.

TANZANIAN GIRLS HANDICAPPED
The UN’s AFRICA RECOVERY (July) wrote about the education of girls. Extracts: Tanzania has been more successful than many other developing countries in achieving gender equality, with girls making up 49.6% of the enrolled primary students in 1997. But only 56.7% of primary school age children attended school in 1998 … more than a million girls were still not in school. But girls in school suffer discriminatory practices like household workloads and their performance is consistently lower than that of boys especially in science and maths ….

SOUTH AFRICAN ZANZIBARIS
The November issue of SAWUBONA contained an illustrated article about a community of people whose origin is Zanzibar but who live in Chatworth, Durban. The article recalled how the slave trade had been abolished in 1807 and the Sultan of Zanzibar had declared the export of slaves forbidden in 1845. However, the abolition merely served to increase the price of slaves since only one in four of the dhows transporting the slaves managed to slip through the British and French warships patrolling the oceans. An Arab dhow transporting Zanzibaris to Arabia was intercepted in the Red Sea by a British warship and escorted back to Zanzibar. The British Consul had heard that there was a shortage of labour in Natal and over the next three years 600 Zanzibaris, an rescued from Arab dhows, were shipped to Durban as indentured labourers. The Zanzibaris established a community at King’s Rest in Durban. They cleared the land and built homes; they planted fruit orchards and large vegetable gardens. During apartheid in 1966 they were forcibly removed to Chatsworth. The government, not knowing how to classify them, put them in the ‘other Asians’ category. But the Indian community didn’t identify with them and the Zanzibaris found themselves isolated. 34 years later the community has grown from 600 to 5,000. Many have married into various African cultures while remaining faithful to Islam. The community is campaigning to be allowed to return to their old homes in Kings Rest. Sadly, many younger men are suffering from drug abuse and delinquency but the older generation still dream about being able to visit their motherland.

It is not often that the WALL STREET JOURNAL features Tanzania on its front page. On September 25 it wrote: ‘For a Tanzanian long-distance runner the first order of business at the Australian Olympics was to bring the finish line into focus’. Restituta Joseph’s spectacles had been stolen at a track meet in Algeria but in Sydney she soon had a new pair. The day after, four other Tanzanian athletes went to see the dentist. “1 got my upper dentures refitted” said chef de mission Erasto Zambi showing off a smile. “They’ve got very good medical examinations here” he said. “Very good” …… The clinic helped over 1,000 people during the games. (Thank you Nick Weston for sending this item -Editor).

‘A GRAND OLD LADY’
Under this title REFUGEES wrote some time ago about how refugees who fled Zaire in 1996 were helped to return home by the 1,500ton lake steamer which shuttles between Kigoma and Uvira in the Congo. Originally named by the Germans ‘Gotsen’ she was converted into a gunboat during the First World War before being scuttled just outside Kigoma harbour, first taking care to oil all her machinery so as to be able to salvage her after the war. She was raised by the British and her story inspired the book ‘The African Queen’ and the 1950’s film.

GOING UP
AFRICA TODAY (August) quoting the latest data from the UN’s annual Human Development Report said that Tanzania had risen 17 places to 156th last year out of the 174 countries included in its human development index. Uganda was down because of a drop in life expectancy to 39.6 years and Kenya was up by 18 places. Bottom of the list were Burundi, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone.

LUGUFU
The July issue of the GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE included four pages of pictures and some text under the heading ‘Life on the Inside’ about Lugufu refugee camp, one of three purpose-built Congolese refugee camps in what was described as ‘a remote area of mosquito-infested marshland’ in Kigoma region. Extracts: ‘This urban society of 45,000 people supported by donors including the Red Cross, living in 34 villages is larger than Kigoma with shops, discos, wrestling arenas and hairdressers in abundance. The camp even has its own radio station and cinema and numerous bars selling pombe and banana beer to the accompaniment of Congolese Lingala music. The Lugufu bicycle-taxi company runs 20 ‘cabs’ between villages and, for the equivalent of $2 offers a bone-crunching day trip along rutted roads to the nearest Tanzanian village. There are 40 churches, a mosque and 10 primary schools following the Congolese (French) curriculum plus one additional subject -‘peace and conflict’ .

A less happy picture of Lugufu was presented earlier in the year by INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL which wrote as follows: ‘Most of the refugees are women, and to compound their desperate plight, they are sexual prey for the men … rape is something you have wherever you have refugees said Kenyan Red Cross Reproductive Health Coordinator Mama Obaso. “The men want children …. to replace their dead relatives. They cannot afford the bride price to marry again so they rape a girl. The victim’s family, anxious to cover the shame, force the girl to marry the man … they turn it into a positive thing. About three months ago 50 refugee women were raped one afternoon while trying to reach the camp from the Congo’ .

LIFE AND DEATH
The SUNDAY TELEGRAPH published a moving story on July 2 by Lindsay Hawdon under the heading ‘An Englishwoman Abroad’. Extracts: ‘I notice him first because he seems too old and tall to be leaning on his mother’s shoulder. His head tilts to one side as if it is too heavy to hold upright. They are the first to board the bus. They move slowly up the aisle, settling somewhere in the middle; she by the window, he by the aisle. The bus engine starts and coughs black fumes from its exhaust. “Are you American?” the driver asks as I pass him. “No, English” I reply. “Ah, Margaret Thatcher” he says, flashing a gold tooth in his smile. Finally, everyone is aboard and we set off down the bumpy road out of the Tanzanian capital. I am cramped across my rucksack with my feet almost around my head ….. the driver is singing. And then there is a groaning sound that becomes distinct above the noise of the engine. The tall boy has flung his head back against the seat and his eyes are moving erratically from side to side. His groans catch in his throat and seem to choke him. The mother takes his head in her hands and brings it down to rest on her lap. I try to think of other things. I’m counting potholes and dreaming of home …. The mother starts rocking back and forth. She holds the body against her chest, squeezing him tightly. His eyes are open, staring unmoving at the roof…. It is only when she starts to sob high, drawn-out wails that I know he is dead. She tries to close his eyes but the lids seem fixed open. The driver is no longer singing and is looking worriedly behind him. Eventually he stops the bus. But the mother tells everyone that there’s nothing they can do and that she wants them to let her take him home. Everyone is quiet. Occasionally a hand reaches out to squeeze her shoulder comfortingly. For most of the four hour journey we sit in silent sadness. The mother looks back towards her son -and still she cannot close his eyes … (Thank you Paul Marchant for sending this ­Editor).

MAMA NYOKA (SNAKE WOMAN)
“This business has been dominated by men for too long” said Salma Moshi in an interview published in the EAST AFRICAN (May 8). Extracts: ‘Sahna (38) claims to be the only woman in East and Central Africa who dances with snakes and makes a good income from doing it. She has six snakes of different sizes and types which she refers to as pets. Her favourite dance partner is a cobra, whose ability to stand on its tail thrills the crowds who flock to watch her. She has been bitten twice on the hands and once on the chin. When that happens, she quickly wipes off the blood and keeps going or otherwise the crowd would take off… .Apart from being a source of income, the snakes also keep thieves way from her house. “Sometimes I leave the doors open, but no one dares come in” she says.

TRADITIONAL PLANTS AND MALARIA
The Maasai people have a strong tradition of using plants for healing, often as a ritualised retreat called orpul aiming to increase both physical and spiritual strength. POSITIVE NEWS (Spring 2000) explained that many of the plants used by the Maasai have already been demonstrated scientifically to be effective against particular diseases, such as zanthoxylum chalybeum for malaria. Research into this field is being undertaken by the Aang Serian Peace Village in Arusha, in association with the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health at Oxford University. To celebrate this vibrant heritage of ancient healing wisdom a festival of traditional medicine and culture was recently organised in Arusha. The festival also commemorated the inaugural meeting of the Research Initiative on Traditional Anti-Malarials (RITA) which was held there to develop a strategy for more effective, evidence -based use of traditional medicines. The Peace Village contact address is P 0 Box 21103, Arusha (Thank you John Porter for sending this item -Editor).

RAP -REGGAE -TAARAB
Yusuf Mahmoud described in the Spring issue of ORBIT how in Zanzibar, between calls to prayer from the many mosques, you can also hear American rap and Jamaican reggae. But around the next corner you will just as likely hear music from India or the latest chart toppers from Egypt and the Gulf States. The article went on: ‘Equally popular are local musical forms, in particular, ‘modem Taarab ‘. This is derived from the Arabic Taarab meaning to be moved or agitated -it is sung poetry. The Malindi Music Club is the oldest group dating back to 1905. Legend has it that, in the 1870’s, Sultan Bargash sent a Zanzibari to Cairo to play the qanun, a kind of zither, common to the Arab speaking world. Besides the qanun other instruments in a taarab orchestra include the oud (an Arabian lute), violin, accordion, cello and keyboard. ‘East African Melody’, currently, the biggest act in Zanzibar, plays ‘taarab to dance to’ which has sparked a debate about the debasement of traditional culture’

WATER OF LIFE
The intervention of former US President Carter together with the very persistent persuasion of a London-trained Bavarian-born anaesthetist has led to a unique production system for the water which is dripped intravenously into patients to enable them to recover from a multitude of illnesses. So wrote MISSION AVIATION NEWS -MAF (June-August) which went on to explain how the liquid is produced using the reverse osmosis method (once clean and softened, using ion exchange, the water is forced through an osmotic membrane so fine that it stops microbes from passing through; it is later further cleansed through a filter made of pressed glass dust) -a method employed by NASA as part of the USA space programme. Although it was secret, President Carter allowed Dr Kamm at the Christian Medical Centre in Moshi to develop production and the system has now been installed in 54 Tanzanian hospitals. MAF uses its planes to help technicians to travel to even the remotest hospitals and to distribute medicines and medical equipment (Thank you Christine Lawrence for sending this item -Editor)

HOW UGANDA LED TO NYERERE’S DOWNFALL
There was strong reaction in the July/August issue of NEW AFRICA to an article by Henry Gombya which it published and which was referred to in Tanzanian Affairs No 66. A Kenya reader described the suggestion that Nyerere lost power because the soldiers he sent to Uganda were exposed to Ugandan ‘riches’ as a lie. Another reader described the article as ‘shocking’ and said that it portrayed a ‘very ungrateful Ugandan’. ‘It is a pity’ , he wrote, ‘that Gombya did not see that Nyerere deserved credit for trusting his ‘school dropouts’ to chase ‘the rich’ Idi Amin out’.

THE NEW DAR ES SALAAM
In a glowing 16-page supplement on Dar es Salaam in its May 22 issue the EAST AFRICAN said that ‘the sun never sets for Dar’s exciting nights; the city is as awake at night as it is during the day’. Articles spoke of the new Strategic Urban Development Plan (SUDP) -the city now occupies 1,350 square kilometers compared with 51 Sq. Kms. at independence; annual revenue collection rising in the last three years from $125,000 to $11 million largely from rapidly expanding business and industry; many new high rise buildings; massive refurbishment of roads and telephone services; 200 licensed taxis; a huge modem port which welcomed its first cruise liner this year ….. .

A ‘TRAINEE COMMUNITY MUSICIAN’
Kate Murdoch writing in THE INDEPENDENT (April 22) told of her experiences last year when she was taught traditional music -as a ‘trainee community musician’ by the nephew of the well-known Tanzanian musician Dr Hukwe Zawose. ‘The Zawose household boasts 11 professional performers and everyone else in the family plays sings and dances too’. Her classroom was a shady mango tree and under it she learnt ilimba (the Gogo word for ‘thumb piano’ -a series of metal or bamboo tongues fixed to a wooden plate). After classes, a room stuffed with thumb pianos, stringed gourds called ‘zee zees’, skin drums and xylophones became the focus of activities. She explained how ilimba music evolved in the dry dusty plains of Dodoma as cowherds played while walking their cattle to water.

GENITAL MUTILATION
The EAST AFRICAN MEDICAL JOURNAL in its May issue published a table comparing estimates of the prevalence of female genital mutilation in African countries. Countries topping the list included Egypt (98%), Sudan (89%) and Mali (94%). Kenya was said to have 50% while the figures for Tanzania (10%) and Uganda (5%) were the lowest in the table of29 countries.

‘A SKIN-DEEP AFRICAN AFFLICTION’
“Kaburu” children scream as Mohamed Msoma pushes by on his bicycle. Being called a Boer is just one of the many taunts hurled at the middle-aged religious teacher. He is an Albino, chairman of the 80­member Albino Society in Morogoro. As in other African countries albinos in Tanzania face social stigma. Mr Msoma claimed that he was sacked from the local tobacco factory because he is an albino. The superintendent said that he could not work properly with poor eyes. Health problems do indeed compound discrimination. Weak eyesight, blisters, bums from the sun and skin cancer are common afflictions …. American researchers estimate that one in 17,000 people has some form of albinism -THE ECONOMIST. (Thank you Jill Bowden for sending this item -Editor).

THINGS HAVE CHANGED
Michael Korda writing in the NEW YORK TIMES (May 7) contrasted a recent visit to the Ngorongoro crater with what a visit used to entail 15 years before. Extracts: ‘Our first surprise was that everyone at Kilimanjaro Airport was pleasant, helpful and friendly. On previous visits it had been like flying into East Germany in the old days … .At the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge the decor is breathtaking. The phrase ‘over the top’ scarcely does it justice. Not since I was in Cher’s house in Malibu have I seen anything so extraordinary. Here are giant fireplaces, African sculpture and weapons, fine bronzes, English country furniture, very beautiful tile work in the Moorish tradition …. The men’s room is so unexpected and luxuriously decorated that we all go to visit it -it’s as if Versace had been asked to design a urinal -only then did we discover that the ladies room was even more baroque…….’ (Thank you Peg Snyder for sending this story from New York-Editor).

THE PRIVATISATION SONG
‘There cannot be many countries that have composed a privatisation song but this has happened in Tanzania and is a point of pride for the Parastatal Sector Reform Commission and symptomatic of the transformation taking place as the country changes from socialism to capitalism … ‘ This was how Mark Turner and Michael Holman of the FINANCIAL TIMES began a 6-page supplement in the July 24 issue. After a slow start, Tanzania was said to be gathering momentum: ‘Dar es Salaam, once not so much sleepy as comatose, now boasts cybercafes and satellite dishes. New hotels are opening to cope with the foreign investors now responding to the new business climate. South Africans are in brewing, British in banking, Canadians in mining, Japanese in cigarette making, Germany in telecommunications and a Philippine company is about to take over the port’s container facility. But when President Mkapa goes to the polls in October he will have a lot of explaining to do ….. ‘ The article goes went on to list the alleged rigging of the last Zanzibar elections, the treason trial, heavy-handed powers to limit freedom of expression, poverty, unemployment, corruption, AIDS, the fear of competition amongst local manufacturers and hence tariff barriers and cumbersome bureaucracy. ‘But Tanzania now looks a better regional investment base than ailing Kenya and the sooner Tanzania meets the objectives of the new East African Community Agreement the better’ .

A wildlife conservation scheme started by an American conservationist and a professional hunter has brought benefits worth more than £50,000 to 18 villages according to an article in the DAILY TELEGRAPH (January 3) which explained that, when Tanzania banned game hunting from 1973 to 1983, there was no one in the reserves to police them against poachers. Maswa District lost 15,000 animals a year and long lines of snares would cover every gap in the bush. Now, local people are paid £3 for each snare and much higher rewards for help in the arrest of armed poachers. Hunting clients are invited to pay up to £2,500 on top of their bills to benefit the villagers who accompany game rangers on anti­poaching patrols. Long-line snaring has become a thing of the past.

In what the CHURCH TIMES recently described as possibly the largest wide span structure to be built by the local people, a new 20 x 45 metre cathedral is taking shape in Musoma -‘the fruit of a living link: between Tanzanian Christians and the congregation of st. John’s Church, Blackheath, London’. Last July 15 church members from Blackheath went to Musoma to help erect the first of the cathedral’s 11 seven-ton roof trusses. The arched Gothic window frames were made on site by gluing and clamping together 13 separate strips of wood (Thank you Ron and Liz Fennell for sending this item and the one above -Editor).

Asha Mtwangi writing recently in the BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA featured Dar es Salaam’s informal trade sector: ‘There is no escaping it. Or, rather there is no escaping the machinga, the energetic young hawkers who have overrun the streets of Dar. Their talents are remarkable. They know the tastes of different kinds of potential customers. How about a sleek cordless telephone, or a handy self-wringing mop with bucket or a Rado 21 jewel watch for your girlfriend? …. the Ministry of Labour and Youth Development says that it has the interests of the machinga at heart and promises to make soft loans available … but the machinga are not interested. They get all the loans they need from the Indian merchants who lend them fancy merchandise; no financial hassles, no paperwork, no demands for collateral. Just trust and confidence in the machinga’s innate trading nous … .it certainly feels that the machinga are here to stay. The word has been extended to all petty businessmen. And that’s a tribute to the enterprise of the original machinga from the south of Tanzania’ .

London’s TIME OUT magazine (March 22) published a critical review of the new play ‘The Man With the Absurdly large Penis’ showing at the Young Vic Studio. The reviewer said it was difficult to resist saying that it was ‘bollocks’. ‘The play is a fictional monologue from a man with a 102cm penis caused by Proteus Syndrome. The play’s author, Rob Young, was quoted as saying “I am always asked if it’s autobiographical. I based the play on a visit to Tanzania where some men had testicles the size of carrier bags, after malaria caused elephantiasis”

One of the participants in a group researching the rain forests in the Udzungu Mountains, Iringa is Jennifer Walker. Quoted in the NEWCASTLE JOURNAL (April 7) she said that the forests have exceptional bio-diversity value and her research will feed into a study to develop forest management based on active community participation
(Thank you Jane Carroll for sending this item Editor).

A 16-page supplement on Arusha (‘Tanzania’s most endowed region’) in THE EAST AFRICAN (March 27) included an article pointing out that the region had the largest variety (50 different kinds) of minerals including the famed Tanzanite which represents 80% of the region’s gemstones exports. Other minerals mentioned included decorative stones like anyolite, crystalline marble, aventurine and amazonestone. Other minerals include high quality graphite, kyanite, limestone, and phosphates.

A three page article in the April issue of NEW AFRICAN by Henry Gombya, a Ugandan, headed ‘How Uganda led to Nyerere’s downfall’ presents a new angle on the Uganda-Tanzania war of 1978 and its aftermath. Extracts: ‘The Tanzanian People’s Defence Force that assisted Ugandan exiles to attack the Amin regime was mainly made up of secondary school students, school dropouts and village militias. Having spent more than a decade living under Nyerere’s failed socialist system, their entry into Uganda, a capitalist state even under Amin, was to prove a cultural shock for them …. What they found was an affluent, well-dressed society living not in … mud houses but in concrete block houses with corrugated iron roofs … this shock was first translated into envy when the Tanzanians …. went on to raise to the ground any building or house that looked beautiful. One such was the Masaka Town Hall, the most elegant building in South Uganda ……(later) Nyerere perhaps made history when he became the only African leader ever to rule another independent African country ….. one of the most important things missed by the media in its adulation of Nyerere was the effect his interference in Uganda had on his own people. In 1985 the soldiers returned home with the spoils of war. These ranged from massive stockpiles of weapons to cars and trucks loaded with household goods and they returned with loads of money. Nyerere was soon to realise that he had made a mistake by sending a peasant army into another country. He knew they had been exposed to riches his polices could not give them. He decided to abandon his polices and eventually to hand over power to another leader …… ‘

’11-year old Ledida, went with friends to draw water from a local water point. On their way back home a rogue hyena suddenly appeared and attacked the children mauling them in turn. The children’s screams and their attempts to ward off the hyena made the beast more aggressive. Ledida’s face was particularly badly mauled and she suffered fractured upper and lower jaws. She was taken to Loliondo Hospital which called the FLYING DOCTOR SERVICE for a mercy flight to Nairobi. During the journey her face was all bandaged up leaving only a breathing tube. Ledida will be in hospital for some time to undergo all the phases of re constructive surgery’.

AFRICAN DECISIONS, in its June-August issue, reported on the praise Tanzania had received from IMF officials for its steadfast implementation of macroeconomic policies and its progress in structural reform during the past three years, despite severe economic disruptions caused by adverse weather conditions. The key to the macroeconomic stabilisation effort had been a strong fiscal stance, a rigorous cash management system and the introduction of VAT supported by tight monetary policies.

The first anniversary issue of the lavishly illustrated publication THE SWAHILI COAST included articles in its fourth issue on the Mwaka Kogwa festival which ‘encompasses the many faces of Islam, Zoroatrianism and traditionalism’ in Zanzibar, a brief history of trading by dhow, what it described as the ‘hidden grace and lost splendour’ of Pangani, an article on the doors of Zanzibar plus a selection of Swahili seafood recipes.

Kate Kibuga explained in a succinct article in the COURIER (July­August) the background to and reasons for the increase in violent attacks on women suspected of being witches, especially in northern regions of Tanzania. She traced the original ceremonial and advisory roles of older women and how these had changed under the influence of their struggle for day to day survival, the refusal of young people to listen to their advice, and the loss of traditional checks against witchcraft which used to be made by councils of elders. Many more widows now lived alone and could acquire an air of mystery in the village; they often had bloodshot eyes from cooking over smoking fires all their lives. But they were also being used as scapegoats by younger people for social upheaval, new diseases, freak weather conditions and huge increases in living costs (Thank you Debbie Simmons for sending us this article –Editor).

The DALLAS (TEXAS) MORNING NEWS also published an article on August 13 on the same subject entitled ‘Old Women victims of superstition’ in which it explained that the recent increase in attacks on old women suspected of witchcraft among the Sukuma people of Shinyanga was linked to the mining boom in the area (gold, diamonds and semi-precious stones). More than 90% of the people believed in witchcraft and, near the Mwadui diamond mine, people were digging up their own plots of land looking for diamonds and tended to put their faith in witchcraft. Some old women were being killed more for reasons of greed than superstition. Some were victims of attempts by their next-of­kin to get them out of the way and inherit their property. University of Dar es Salaam Sociologist Simon Mesaki was quoted as saying that the relocation of peasants into ujamaa villages in the 1970’s had seriously disrupted traditional life and local chiefs who had dealt with community problems had been replaced by distant bureaucrats (Thank you Peter Park for this item. The Shinyanga Police Commander stated recently that 84 alleged sorcerers were murdered in 1997 -40% less than in the previous year and some 310 suspects had been charged with killings in 1997 and 1998 ~Editor).

The July 12-18 issue of the EAST AFRICAN asked what Tanzania’s musical identity was now in view of the domination of Congolese Lingala music and American Hip Hop and R&B in the country. It reported that, seeking to strike a balance, was a group of talented musicians called Tatunane which had brought about a unique fusion of traditional African rhythms with jazz, R&B and other dance beats. The leader of the group was quoted as saying that “What Tatumane had done was a sort of ‘back to my roots’ thing … we have blended different melodies from Tanzania’s 124 ethnic groups with modem instruments”. Although having an uphill battle to gain popularity amongst Tanzanians they have a strong following in Scandinavia, Western Europe, Japan and Canada and now have made 5 CD’s –Thank you Geoffrey Cotterell for sending this news ~ Editor}.

The South African BUSINESS DAY reported in September that a furore had blown up in Tanzania’s tourist industry because the Mount Kilimanjaro National Park authorities had increased the tariffs for climbers in December by 100%. Some 4,000 tourists were said to have booked to climb the mountain. Warden Michael Mombo said that raising the tariffs was a way to control the numbers and environmental damage (Thank you David Leishman for sending this item from Malawi ~ in fact, 1,154 people eventually climbed the mountain to celebrate the new millennium but two tourists died while trying to do so – Editor).

‘Unchanged for six centuries the dhow is one of the most successful and beautiful trading vessels ever created’ wrote Matt Bannerman in the November 21 issue of the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH. He had gone in search of the place where dhows are still being built and found it in the Chole (Mafia) shipyard. ‘In a patch of shade, a little way from the big but still skeletal jahazi under construction (each one takes about a year to build) two small boys work industrially … I watch as their dexterous fingers assemble the rigging on a perfect replica of the jahazi their fathers and grandfathers are building. The little boat is made from balsa planks and stitched together with coconut twine and is not a toy but a demonstration of their advancing skills. Some day, they explain, they hope to be allowed to join their elders in the construction crew …. ‘ (Thank you Donald Wright for sending this item-Editor).

‘Where are you most likely to meet the man or woman of your dreams’ asked the London OBSERVER in its October 10 issue. ‘Apparently it often turns out to be Mount Kilimanjaro.’ A travel agent was quoted as saying that “Travelling with a group of like-minded people builds tremendous camaraderie. At the very least you can expect to form some lasting friendships” (Thank you Jane Carroll for sending this …. Editor).

CIVIL ENGINEERS ARE NOT BORING
NEW CIVIL ENGINEER (May 13) reported on the meeting held at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London on May 4 when the authors of a new book on Livingstone (see the Reviews Section) described to a packed audience (all 250 seats sold) their trip by bicycle, largely in Tanzania, to retrace Livingstone’s last journey. One of the authors, Colum Wilson (the other is his wife) is an engineer employed by Gibb and he described how he had managed to keep within 15 miles of Livingstone’s own route by using data from a satellite global positioning system device which “was safer than the night skies and sextant used by Livingstone”. Wilson described how they took with them a machete, a walletful of dollars (but they were frequently desperately short of money) and bicycles with four paniers into one of which a tent was stuffed. The authors were burnt, bitten and came home two stones lighter. The audience, through its loud applause, expressed its agreement with the Chairman of the evening event, Professor George Fleming, when he said “Don’t let anyone tell you that civil engineers are boring” (Thank you Dick Wailer for sending this item -Editor).

‘THE GOLDEN OLDIES’
The VSO publication ORBIT in its Third Quarter 1999 issue featured Shikamoo Jazz which it described as the ‘Golden Oldies’. The band comprises 10 Tanzanian musicians in their fifties and sixties who dance and sing everything from rumba, chacha, samba and twist to traditional Swahili music and Taarabu. Their most famous song, which was first performed at the launch of the ‘International Year of Older People’ is Wazee Tuwatunzee (Let us care for older people). The article concluded ‘It’s message is strong and simple and best encapsulates the band’s lasting legacy’ .

‘STUNNING BIOGRAPHY’
The TIMES OF SWAZILAND in a full page article by Dr Joshua Mzizi praised what was described as the ‘stunning biography’ of the late Father Trevor Huddleston, former President of the Britain-Tanzania Society. The writer was particularly pleased by the decision of the publishers, Macmillans, to launch the book in Swaziland -even though they could not expect big sales there. ‘I think the publishers are asking Swazis to take a deep and long look at a Christian Minister who made a difference in his lifetime …… Father Huddleston was a man of prayer -someone who withdrew from the crowds, like any disciplined monk, to meditate and talk with God … ‘

ZANZIBAR AND THE ‘DARK AGES’ IN EUROPE
Fascinating excavations in Zanzibar by Bristol University archaeologist Mark Horton described in THE TIMES (June 8) reveal that the popularity of carved ivory might have triggered the Dark Ages in Europe. A plague which ushered in the Dark Ages and spread across the Mediterranean during the six years from AD 541 was said to have been traced to rats brought to Europe aboard ships carrying ivory for the Romans. Dr Horton’s excavations show that the Port of Unguja Ukuu dates back to the 6th Century AD. The dig has produced typical 6th Century Mediterranean pottery together with the bones of the black rat Rattus rattus which is not indigenous to Africa and must have arrived in ships. The local rodents had become immune to the plague but may have acted as a reservoir of infected fleas and passed them on to Europe-bound ships’ rats travelling with the ivory.

MUFTI DAY
The DAILY TELEGRAPH reported on June 5 that Eton College had held a ‘charity mufti day’. The boys contributed £1 each (which went to the Mvumi Secondary School in Tanzania) and were then allowed to ditch for one day the formal tails they normally have to wear. One group dressed in drag and some wore just jock straps or bin liners. Prince William was wearing face paint and a sort of Lawrence of Arabia outfit.

HUNTER GATHERERS
In a study of the plight of hunter gatherers around the world by James Woodburn in NATURAL RESOURCE PERSPECTIVES (June 1999), a series published by the Overseas Development Institute, the problems of the Hazda people of Northern Tanzania were discussed. Their language was not related to any other in the world and they had resisted settlement over many years. During the colonial period there had been two attempts to settle them, both of which ended with measles epidemics and high mortality. Further efforts at sedentarising them involving armed police in 1964 and 1980 had caused embarrassment to the government. Meanwhile, land encroachment on their traditional hunting grounds had proceeded apace and wildlife resources had been depleted by urban hunters. There had been NGO efforts to help the Hazda with schools and clinics but these had been diverted to the dominant political groups in the area, the Iraq and Datooga.

DIABLE D’HIPPOPOTAME
AIR FRANCE’S MAGAZINE recounted in May the fascinating story of Tanzanian photographer John Kiyaya of Kasanga village in Sumbawanga. Weaved into the story was the fact that Kasanga was once called Bismarckburg; it had a fortress with crenellated walls, and a ‘strangely medieval appearance’; it is not far from where the ‘Liemba’ (which has a long story of its own) docks in Lake Tanganyika. The article went on to describe how the German army stopped in Kasanga in 1918 just before it surrendered, how the local fishing industry has declined and how Kasanga is also known as the local hub of witchcraft. As for John Kiyaya, it appears that he was returning home through a rice padi one day when he was attacked by surprise by a ‘devil of a hippopotamus’ -something he cannot forget. John had originally intended to become a priest but he met a French journalist on the Liemba who, after a long correspondence, sent him a camera. He began to take colour pictures of everything -his professors and fellow students, lovers, families, sewing machines, marriages, circumcisions, . … In 1992 ‘Arret sur Image’, a French photographic association, organised an exhibition of his photographs. He met famous photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, and was amazed to find how photography was treated with such respect in France (Thank you Roy Wilson for sending this item -­Editor).

HIGH COMMISSION NEWSLETTER
The first edition of TANZANEWS, a beautifully produced and illustrated 12-page newsletter published by Dr Abdul Shareef, Tanzanian High Commissioner in London, emphasised investment and trade opportunities in the country. It quoted from a recent speech by President Mkapa: “Two days ago I was reading ‘Business Africa’, a respected publication of the Economist Intelligence Unit, which stated that after three years of free market reforms economic growth was finally beginning to have real impact, inspiring growing interest among foreign investors …… ‘. Another article described the activities of the Tanzania-UK Business Group which was established in London in 1993.

“WHEN WE GREW UP HERE IN THIS LAND THE ANIMALS WERE AS NUMEROUS AS THESE TREES”
So said a Maasai elder quoted in a recent issue of SURVIVAL NEWSLETTER. The article said that, when the Maasai were moved from what is now the Serengeti National Park in 1958, they were promised compensation and the right to live in perpetuity in what then became the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. But this promise had been broken. A study by a human rights lawyer found that the Conservation Area Authority was acting far beyond its mandate and should be reformed. Survival had translated the study into Swahili for the benefit of the Maasai and it might help to prepare a law for presentation to the Tanzanian parliament so that the Maasai can regain control over their own land and lives (Thank you Wendy Ellis for sending this item Editor).

The South African SUNDAY INDEPENDENT reported recently that journalists in Tanzania had been calling on the government to introduce a Freedom of Information Act which would compel it to release information of interest to the public. They were critical of government for banning three newspapers for publishing articles and cartoons judged ‘immoral’. Gervas Moshiro the Head of the National School of Journalism was quoted as deploring the lack of guarantees of press freedom. (Thank you David Leishman for sending this item -Editor).

‘TANZANIA: STILL OPTIMISTIC AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?’
This is the title of a lengthy article in THE LANCET (Vol 353, May 1999) by Professor John Yudkin of University College London about his fourth visit to Tanzania -he has made one visit in each of the past four decades. It is a sad story of decline in the provision of medical services contrasting with the continued sense of optimism of the people involved in such provision. ‘The problems my Tanzanian colleagues faced were far beyond anything I could have coped with’ he wrote. ‘But the people got on with it and believed that things were going to improve’. He went into some detail on the situation in Pemba -which had suffered economically far more than the mainland during the last 20 years. The island had just two doctors for 400,000 people; of the 51 primary health care units (PHCU’s) none had a medical assistant; the nine assistants were serving doctor-type functions in the three hospitals and over half had been lost to the private sector in the past four years. The US$ 0.50 per person of pharmaceutical supplies supplied each year was insufficient to provide more than 1,000 chloroquine tablets, 1,000 paracetamol tablets and five vials of procaine penicillin. The author went on: ‘There seems to be something intrinsically wrong when powerful governments or international organisations can demand that health care spending is cut and debt repayment prioritised, especially when many of those governments have themselves benefited from international loans and debt rescheduling’. He recommended all caring health professionals to add their support to the Jubilee 2,000 debt campaign.

STREET CHILDREN
Melanie Clark Pullen, a star (Mary) in the BBC’s soap opera ‘EastEnders’ has been in Tanzania to publicise ‘Christian Aid Week’ according to CHRISTIAN AID NEWS (April-July). She wrote about the lack of respect given to street children who surround cars trying to sell nuts and bottled water. But, she went on: ‘one place they are respected is the Christian Aid­backed ‘Youth, Cultural and Information Centre’ in Dar es Salaam where they are made welcome and offered classes in reading, writing and the arts.

MISSION TODAY (Vol 8 No 1) reported on the problems faced by the St Charles Lwanga Seminary, Segerea which was opened in 1979 to cope with the overflow of vocations from the Kipalapala Seminary. Twenty-one diocesan Bishops now send their seminarians to Segerea (168 each year) but, although the seminary operates self-reliant projects with pigs, poultry, cattle and a garden, there are serious shorfalls in funding and a particular need for books and for a water pump –Thank you John Sankey for sending these items -Editor).

NEW MALARIA DRUG
The TIMES reported recently that the drug Malarone (a combination of atovaquone and progunil) which is used to treat attacks of malaria is now being considered as a preventative also. It was already licensed to do this in Denmark and might have a role akin to that of Larium which has been found to give severe side effects to one in 160 people who use it. British Airways in Regent Street, London is carrying out trials on Malarone and is offering would be travellers to Tanzania and other affected countries free material cover to those prepared to have a blood test before they leave and after they come back. In its major front page article on July 24 the OBSERVER featured what it described as the promising work in perfecting an anti­malaria vaccine (with a chemical rather than a biological base) being carried out by Colombian Scientist Manuel Patarroyo which includes testing in Tanzania. Meanwhile scientists attending a workshop at Bagamoyo in June described chloroquine as ineffective (failure rate 42%) and said that even Fansidar was showing failure rates of between 10 and 34%.

DRAMATIC CHURCH SERVICE
They were at church while visiting friends working on regeneration projects for the Salvation Army at a village in Tanzania called Rungaboro when suddenly it started to rain. “At first, people were delighted because water is short but then it became so noisy that the service had to stop. A friend joked that the roof might fall in. Minutes later there was this terrible noise and the wall I was standing next to was caving in towards me. I just ducked and ran. The next thing I remember is crawling out and thinking -I am alive!” The scene was of total devastation. “I started digging out the many people buried in the rubble”. One child died and 20 were injured. This nightmare experience of Karen Price, a staff nurse at Hillingdon Hospital and a friend, was revealed in the UXBRIDGE GAZETTE on June 30. When she came back Karen determined to raise money to build a new church for the village. The first step was a sponsored walk. Other donations would be welcome -to Jo Francis at the Gazette (Thank you Liz Fennel! for sending this -Editor).

REMARKABLE RESULTS FOLLOWING PAST MISTAKES
The FINANCIAL TIMES published a thoughtful and balanced 4-page supplement on March 31 in which it wrote that Tanzania was undergoing a transformation from being the standard bearer of African Socialism to an advocate of market driven reform. ‘The results are remarkable’ it wrote, and went on: ‘The mining sector is booming, tourism is growing, sold-off state companies are thriving and the government’s economic discipline has won the praise of the IMF ….. But erratic weather conditions saw floods last year and threaten a serious food shortage this year. Management is weak, the civil service is inefficient, phone lines are bad, roads are poor, illiteracy is increasing, health care is declining. Corruption is widespread and implementation of privatisation is behind schedule. Above all, Tanzania still has to overcome the legacy of the failed polices of the early post­independence period … Yet, for all these concerns, there is still a sense of opportunities being grasped and potential slowly being realised.
On Zanzibar the article is much less optimistic. Extract: ….. (it is) mid­morning … and a few milling tourists peer from a safe distance at the armed police surrounding Zanzibar town’s court. The guns and nervous aggression do not tally well with the tranquil retreat they were sold in the tourist brochures. Yet the police, watchful lest 18 political prisoners …. escape from the latest in an endless series of treason hearings, are every bit as Zanzibari as the islands’ stunning beaches and fading clove fields …. Thank you Pru Watts-Russell and Marlene Yeo for sending this -Editor.

‘BONGOISM’
Under the heading ‘Tanzania Corruption Company Ltd’ Asha Mtwangi, writing in the BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (April-June) described ‘Bongoism’ in detail. ‘Bongo’, she wrote, ‘is derived from the Swahili word meaning brain. If you’ve got one, explore it, use it and you’ll survive. Dar es Salaam is the heart of this new Bongoism ….. as you wonder how to beat the snaking lines of patients queuing for the only X-ray machine at the public hospital you have to ‘think fast’ …. Once the magic words have been said you will willingly part with a little something …. everywhere you meet middlemen, people with lists of contacts which would turn the yellow pages green with envy. You need a new passport fast. Someone knows someone who knows someone who can do it …. with wages of $42 a month in government service and $24 in parastatals it’s small wonder people survive by their wits. They have no option …. ‘ .

INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION
Peter Preston in the London GUARDIAN (March 15) described (with many references to the Warioba Report) what he termed Tanzania’s ‘institutional corruption’ and the ‘burning anger’ this was causing amongst the people. President Mkapa’s efforts to implement Warioba had waned in the face of intransigence from the very leaders the Commission had wanted sacked: too powerful; too entrenched. Would it help, he asked, if the British Government were to tighten up its act and stop the Inland Revenue from giving tax deductions for bribes paid by companies doing business in Tanzania and were to bring British law fully behind the new International Convention on Combating Bribery? It would help a little, he wrote. It would give the system one more squeeze Thank you John Pearce for sending this item -Editor.

THE ‘MOST LOVED COUNTRY’
Reporting on Canadian Governor General Romeo Le Blanc’s visit to Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Morocco and Tanzania, NEW AFRICAN (April) described Tanzania as ‘by far Canada’s most loved African country’. As part of the visit Canada announced $13.4 million of new aid. The Governor General was accompanied by some 100 parliamentarians, businessmen and government officials.

PRIVATELY CONDUCTED RESEARCH
Michael Carr and W Stephens in the TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER of March 1999 explained how the new industry-funded privatised Tea Research Institute of Tanzania (TRIT) might be leading the way for other commodity crops in Tanzania where similar changes in structure and funding of agricultural research were overdue. They explained the delicacy of the change from government sponsored research to privately conducted research and how it had proved necessary to close one research station in order to concentrate efforts at the two other stations -Ngwazi in the south and Marikitanda in the north. TRIT has set an ambitious target to raise annual production from the present 20-25,000 tons of made tea to over 40,000 tons in ten years.

PIRATES
Reporting on a workshop on the International Property Rights issue in Zanzibar, THE AFRICA LINK (September 1998) quoted the ‘Father of Tanzanian cinema’, Mzee Rashidi Kawawa, as lamenting: “Our artists continue being ripped off by pirates….There is art all over the country -in the caves, in the ground, in ruins, in houses, on the pavements, everywhere . . . . . But our cultural rivals … have been stealing and plundering our heritage, taking them to their museums … pirates and copyright violators are killing artistic creativity … our artists languish in absolute poverty”. The Chairman of the local association of musicians (CHAMUDATA) John Kitime said that a group calling themselves ‘The Big Five’ now controlled all the audio cassette business in Tanzania. The South African Film Security Office is helping in the planning steps to combat the piracy.

SIX GRAMMES OF SEAWEED
‘Seven years ago Murtaza Fazal arrived in Tanzania with a kilogram of seaweed sneaked out of the Philippines. Only six grammes survived the journey’. So began an article in the FINANCIAL TIMES (March 24) which went on to explain how seaweed had overtaken cloves and was now second only to tourism in Zanzibar’s economy. Seaweed contains a gum called carrageenan that is used as a stabiliser and in ice cream, salad dressing, luncheon meat and shampoo. The dried product is processed in Denmark or the USA. Mr Fazal’s company has seen production increase from 150 tonnes from 150 tonnes in 1985 to 1,800 tonnes last year; Zanzibar as a whole produced 5,500 tonnes last year making it the third largest producer. nut Mr Fazal warned that high taxes, poor infrastructure and bureaucratic red tape risked destroying this highly competitive industry. “To export a shipment we have to fill in 21 forms for each of our 120 containers, and I have to sort things out at the port. In America I exported 4,000 containers and never saw the port” he was quoted as saying.

‘THE RISING STAR’ -‘DRAMATIC REVIVAL’
The FINANCIAL TIMES (February 3) headlined its coverage of a recent international mining conference with the words: ‘Tanzania tipped as the rising star of Africa’. In the TIMES (March 1) the headline read ‘Prospectors beat a path to Africa’s (in this case, Tanzania’s -Editor) new streets of gold.’ And the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (February 28) under the heading ‘Foreign firms rush to tap potential of right rocks, right government’ highlighted what it described as the dramatic revival of the mining industry in Tanzania. It quoted Ashanti Exploration Managing Director Mike Cowley describing Tanzania as the number one country in Africa in terms of gold exploration. “If anybody wants to explore in Africa they will be trying to get a position in Tanzania” he said. The country had one of the best physical policies for mining in Africa. Thank you Ron Fennell for sending this latter item from Hong Kong. Details of the mining boom in Tanzania were given in Tanzanian Affairs No. 62 -Editor.

‘AFRICA’S MOST RESPECTED ELDER STATESPERSON’
Ikaweba Bunting of the NEW INTERNATIONALIST (January-February), reporting on a recent interview with Julius Nyerere recalled that Mwalimu had been the subject of the cover story in the very first issue of the magazine in 1970. ‘Three decades on’ he wrote ‘Mandela aside, Nyerere is still Africa’s most respected elder statesperson’. Extracts from the interview: On the Arusha Declaration: “I still travel around with it. I read it over and over to see what I would change. Maybe I would improve on the Kiswahili … but the Declaration is still valid. I would not change a thing”. On his mistakes: “I would not have nationalised the sisal plantations. Agriculture is difficult to socialise …. the land issue and family holdings were very sensitive. I saw this intellectually but it was hard to translate into policy implementation … ” On the World Bank: “I was in Washington last year. The first question they asked was ‘how did you fail’. I said that we took over a country with 85% illiterates … there were 2 engineers and 12 doctors after 43 years of British rule ….. When I stepped down there was 91% literacy and we had trained thousands of engineers and doctors …. As Tanzania’s social services have deteriorated during the last ten years when Tanzania has been signing on the dotted line and doing everything the World Bank and the IMF wants I asked them again ‘What went wrong?’ These people just sat there looking at me. Then they asked what could they do? I told them to have some humility. Humility -they are so arrogant! …….the conditions and policies of the World Bank: and the IMF are to enable countries to pay debt not to develop. That is all! ” Thank you Peter Yea for sending this -Editor.

THE BENEFITS OF HUNTING
AFRICA TODAY (January) pointed out the importance of hunting to raise revenue to help with the grave problem facing preservation of wildlife. The article said that if wildlife was to have a secure future it was essential that a value should be attached to it. In 1997 some 950 hunters practised their sport in Tanzania and revenue in excess of $440 million was obtained. This worked out at Shs 42,000 per visitor compared with the Shs 700 per visitor in the case of photographic safaris. In the same issue there was an article on the success of radio drama in developing public awareness of AIDS in Tanzania -‘Mashaka is the best known truck driver in Tanzania and his exploits are famous throughout the country. He spends most of his time on the road, rarely sees his wife and has a girlfriend in every town. A few weeks ago he fell ill and Tanzanians are holding their breath, as he grows sicker by the week. He coughs, has rashes on the skin and complains that his friends are avoiding him …. Mashaka is a fictional character in one of the country’s most popular soap operas, Geuza Mwendo, and his plight is the talk of some six million people who listen to the show every week …. ‘.

‘MWIZI! MWIZI’
‘Tanzanians who want to settle scores with old enemies only have to shout Mwizi! Mwizi! Immediately all hell breaks loose and in a matter of minutes their victim is dead’. So began an article in NEW AFRICAN (January) under the heading ‘Necklacing spreads to Tanzania’ (from South Africa) in which it was explained that mobs collect kerosene, matches and old tyres and then set victims ablaze. They call it Mwenge wa Uhuru the flame of freedom, after the uhuru torch which is raced annually through Tanzania …. ‘Many Tanzanians believe that the police are so inefficient that they are justified in taking the law into their own hands ……ignoring President Mkapa’s advice to them to stop killing the little thieves … “You have to deal with the huge looters who are milking this country dry” he said.

‘A DISAPPEARING BREED’
‘A man wearing only shorts and sandals walks along a track. He carries a hunting rifle for protection against wild animals. The sinking sun burnishes his back a deep bronze and sets aflame his shoulder-length hair. At his side lopes a lion cub, golden in the evening light. Tony Fitzjohn is among the last of a disappearing breed of game warden on a continent where wildlife is in retreat. Once an assistant to George Adamson, the renowned conservationist, the 54-year old Briton manages Mkomazi Game Reserve. The story of his amazing years in the bush is the subject of a forthcoming film To Walk With Lions starring Richard Harris as the magus-like conservationist and John Michie as his untamed protege ……..Fitzjohn has earned himself many enemies; not just sports hunters and commercial poachers, but also local Maasai people claiming ancestral grazing rights at Mkomazi……and powerful figures in the Tanzanian government who could make fortunes if sports hunting were allowed in the reserve’ -extracts from an article by David Orr in the TIMES on January 2. Thank you Liz Fennel! for this item ­Editor.

EXCITEMENT
Reporting from Toronto, Chris Roberts in AFRICA TODAY (April) wrote about the palpable excitement hanging in the air at the offices of the small Canadian oil-exploration company Canop following receipt of the results of exploration in Tanzania. Canop’s onshore and offshore concession, beginning 60 kms south of Dar es Salaam, if preliminary results are confirmed, would be able to plug into the planned natural gas pipeline of the SONGAS project led by two other Canadian companIes -TransCanada Pipelines and Ocelot Energy.

DEBT
The SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (February 20), discussing the debt issue, quoted the case of Angelus Mtego who is in his final year in school in Ludewa, southern Tanzania. He is 15 but no bigger than the average British 10-year old. His main ambition in life is to go on to secondary school but last year only 10 out of 70 in his year group were accepted. However, for Angelus the biggest hurdle is the cost. His father is too poor to pay his secondary school fees of US$IOO. The government had to introduce fees because of its huge budget deficit itself partially caused by Tanzania’s vast foreign debt. Thank you John Pearce for sending this from Australia ­Editor.

ANAESTHETIC REALITY
Dr R Towey and Dr E Kimaro wrote in the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL (December 19-26) about how difficult it was for local doctors to carry out research in sub-Saharan Africa. They wanted to find out the obstacles to safe anaesthesia in outlying districts near Lake Victoria and wanted hard data, not just anecdotes. They spent four months visiting 27 hospitals -sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes buying petrol for hospital cars to get lifts, sometimes sleeping in wards or in bus stations. Eventually they established a computer database with reliable data. Three-quarters of the hospitals had no oxygen or equipment to give safe paediatric anaesthesia. A quarter had no equipment for anaesthesia even for adults. ‘How do they manage? They give bolus doses of parental ketamine; the surgeon does his best without muscle relaxation and the patients’ lungs are not protected by a cuffed endotracheal tube; safe ventilation of the lungs is impossible; and, there is no oxygen … .it is a nightmare ….. yet the cost of upgrading the majority of hospitals to a safe level is $50,000 -the approximate cost of one anaesthetic machine in Western Europe’.

PRIVATISlNG THE RUFIJI DELTA
The East African Wildlife Society’s journal SW ARA (October -December) joined the increasing clamour from conservationists around the world against the proposed prawn farming scheme in the Rufiji Delta which the government is supporting because it insists that it is environmentally viable. The article said that the 10,000 hectare project would privatise one fifth of the Rufiji Delta which contains eight of the nine species of mangrove found along the East African coast. Two thousand Delta residents were said to be seeking permission at the High Court to sue the government for endorsing the project which they say would deny them access to natural resources including prawns and fish which they have always had. The article concluded by saying that experience elsewhere had shown that such prawn farming failed on average after ten years, leaving behind severe environmental damage. Thank you Tony Macdonald for sending this information Editor.

SAFARI
An article by Darrel Bristow-Bovey in the South African SUNDAY INDEPENDENT (February 14) reflected on the history of what we now call safaris since they began in 1895 with the establishment of the East African Protectorate (Kenya), a British response to German expansion in Tanganyika. The hunter’s trophies -horns, tusks -were tangible evidence of a land bent to the will of the settlers. The cost of safaris had escalated over the years. One safari in the late 1930’s entailed an armoured car, a mobile movie theatre, motorcycle messengers, a generator and a mobile drawing room with a grand piano. The writer went on: ‘r recently crossed the border to Arusha, safari capital of old Tanganyika. Once a rival to early Nairobi, it is now in a state of charming disrepair, home to the worst roads and best Indian restaurants on the continent….. The safari may have lost its false Hollywood glamour, but its fundamental purpose remains. It exists to mediate the experience of visitors to Africa -to keep them safe and well-fed yet to give them an inkling, however illusory, of authenticity. Safari takes you to the land, and in it you glimpse a better version of yourself, a dream of your place in the world … ..Thank you David Leishman for sending this and other items from the South African media -Editor.

ALBINOS
Michael Okema writing in the EAST AFRICAN (February 15) explained why there are so many albinos -at least two pupils in every school -in the Kijitonyama-Uzuri-Mwanyamala triangle of Dar es Salaam. He quoted researchers at the Ocean Road Hospital as saying that it was because of the matrilineal cultural practises of the coastal Wazigua, Wanguu, Wazaramo and Makonde ethnic groups. Similar genes in parents, usually found among relatives, were said to increase the chances of producing an albino child. As children of a maternal uncle belong to the clan of the wife of that uncle and therefore to a different clan from the children of his sisters and brothers, first cousins may marry, thus enhancing the chances of albino children … There is also the Arab tradition of marriage among relatives so that the family property remains within the clan. The Tanzania Albino Society says that the country has 700,000 albinos. Of the 200,000 in Dar es Salaam 60% are in Kinondoni, 30% in Temeke and 10% in Ilala. The way people often treat albinos, Okema describes as ‘apartheid in reverse’.

LIFELINE
The Oxford United Football Club was thrown a lifeline after the resignation of its managing director following allegations of fraud according to the WANTAGE HERALD (February 2). Mr Firoz Khan, who came to Britain from Tanzania at the age of 19 and who now owns 1,000 hotel rooms in London, apparently agreed to buy the club and to provide £500,000 to maintain it until the transaction was completed –Thank you Geoffrey Stokell for this item -Editor.

ADVERTISING TECHNIQUES
The Commonwealth Development Corporation’s THE MAGAZINE (September 1998) wrote about the ‘outstanding success of its Tanzania Venture Capital Fund in supporting, with its financial muscle, Tanzania Tea Packers during the last three years’. Tanzania Tea Packers blends and packs tea under its brand name Chai Bora and sells three blends – Nguvu Blend, Supreme Blend and Blue Label, and its success has been in breaking the modern rules of advertising and going back to 30-year old techniques -promotional discounts, 20% extra tea free in the pack -a first for Tanzania; wall signs; bill boards; radio jingles; simple phrasing like ‘Good Tea’ plus some exciting modern visual designs and the most modern packaging available. Kahawa Bora was due to be introduced in September 1998, then Soda Bora and then lots of other little boras, ‘all of whose aim is to provide the consumer with a simple product, at a reasonable price, a standard quality obeying environmental and food norms and, making money’.

THE FISHING ROD
An anecdote from the autobiography of former British Prime Minister Edward Heath was quoted in the EAST AFRICAN (November 2). Apparently President Reagan was lecturing Mwalimu Nyerere on the need for his country to become self­supporting. “In other words” he said “I will help you to buy the fishing rod, but after that the rest lies with you. You must fish in your own pond to support yourselves” “That is fine” said Mwalimu “but what happens if you haven’t got a pond with any fish?”

UNIQUE FILM FESTIVAL
The VSO publication ORBIT published in its third quarter 1998 issue an account of the Zanzibar International Film Festival held there recently. It wrote: ‘It was a unique film festival which questioned the overwhelming presence of Hollywood and Indian Bollywood films in Africa by screening nearly 100 films from the ‘dhow’ countries, most of them African in origin ….. these were films with social realism, depth and diversity ….. one was ‘Bongo Beat’, a Tanzanian-made film featuring local musical hero Ronny Ongala and another ‘Flame’ about two female teenagers who sign up to fight in Zimbabwe’s war. By the end of the week over 1,000 people a night were cramming into the open-air fort beneath a clear sky, straining their ears above the noise of the insects to enjoy the films …. but local cinema owner Firoz complained that he lost money by showing festival films’. After the festival he was happy to go back to his regular and highly popular rota of Indian films, Titanic and James Bond. The article quoted a UNESCO estimate that film attendance in Tanzania totals five million a year -a major leisure pursuit. But Michael Booth, writing in the INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (October 25) went out to one of the 25 ‘Village Panorama’s designed to bring African-made films to African audiences. At Bambi, two hours drive from Stone Town, he found 500 people waiting for the performance. The main film was Black Ninja Group, a Dar es Salaam-made feature -‘it was probably the worst film I had ever seen’ he wrote. ‘It was a non-sensical tale of mainly kung fu bouts between baddies in balaclavas and policemen, and was edited with an axe. But it went down well with the audience who made off into the night around midnight still shouting and laughing…. Meanwhile, he EAST AFRICAN reported that Tanzania was the only country in East Africa to submit a film to M-Net’s 4th All Africa Film Awards in Pretoria in November. The film, Maangamizi – The Ancient One, did not win an award.

SOUTH AFRICAN VIEWS
The South African press continues to take a close interest in Tanzania. The SUNDAY INDEPENDENT (October 25) wrote about the estimated 15,000 prostitutes in the country. ‘Recently, eight pupils at Songea’s Girls Secondary School were expelled for running a brothel using a building near the school. The girls were found naked in the house when a team of teachers invaded it. Six customers ran away. The pupils said they were forced to make money that way because their parents could not give them any. Peggy Mengoli, a writer to the editor of the MAIL AND GUARDIAN (October 10) referred to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s call for an ‘African Renaissance’. He associated it with Julius Nyerere’s ‘African Socialism’ and wrote that, ‘when he (Nyerere) got into his stride he took control of the media, banned opposition parties, controlled the trade unions, denied members the right to strike, jailed people without trial for merely protesting and nationalised industries which had previously been doing well… leaving Tanzania one of the poorest countries on earth’. The writer concluded that ‘if Mbeki follows in the footsteps of Nyerere, it won’t be to oversee an African renaissance but an African mass funeral’. Another article on the same day in the same paper under the heading ‘Tanzania feels the pain of indifference’ quoted Christopher Mwakasese, Director of Tanzania’s ‘Social and Economic Trust’ (an NGO) as being angry about the way in which Africa’s needs for debt relief were being handled by the World Bank and IMF. He said that out of 25 World Bank agricultural projects in Tanzania 13 had negative rates of return. The South African BUSINESS DAY (November 18) reported that the South African company Murray and Roberts is going to build, starting in 1999 a large shopping complex in Dar es Salaam to be know as the Mali Msasani in which other South African firms are expected to open shops –Thank you David Leishman for sending these items from South Africa Editor.

LIBERALISED TELECOMMUNICATIONS
A supplement on Tanzania produced by PM Communications for the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (November 15) included statements by government officials and others (covering all sectors) and pointed out the rapid development of telecommunications since the sector was liberalised in 1993. Tritel, one of the main operators of cellular telephones said that it has gained 10,000 subscribers in two and a half years, and with Mobitel, the other main operator, there would be around 40,000 mobile phone users by the end of 1999. Tritel is a joint venture with a Malaysian company which has invested almost $40 million. Mobitel, which has the greater share of the market, is a joint venture with Millicom International Cellular and is busy extending its operations to Mbeya, Shinyanga and Tanga –Thank you Donald Wright for sending this item ­Editor.

THE COAST
A new glossy international travel magazine called SWAHILI COAST, which is designed to promote coastal eco-tourism, published its first issue in July. The first article advertised the Zanzibar Film Festival and the second article, supported by beautiful reproductions, featured Tingatinga art. Professor Sherrif wrote about the sad life of Princess Salme, the daughter of Seyyid Said, the nineteenth century ruler of Oman and Zanzibar, who fell in love with a young German trader, Rudolph Heinrich Ruete, who lived only three years after their marriage. The princess resided in Germany for most of the rest of her life. The concluding article was a short history of Mafia by Peter Byme.

COMMUNAL RESPONSIBILTY
Another volunteer, Patrick Wilson (from ‘Health Projects Abroad ­ HPA’) has been describing life in a Tanzanian village. His story filled a page in the SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE (May 17). ‘ ……. people have a strong sense of communal responsibility. Recently, when a man was hit on the head and couldn’t work for months, every family in the village gave his family rice or vegetables. The villagers are amused at our attitude to work; when they learnt that an HPA engineer had been working a l2-hour day in England, they were flabbergasted. “Was your family starving?” they asked …… a visit to the movies is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. One day we heard we could see a film in a certain village. After riding on our Chinese bicycles for two hours, we arrived to find a man with a video. We watched it outside on a TV run from half an old car which was so noisy that we could hardly hear what was going on. The video turned out to be a terrible Chinese martial arts film dubbed into American Irish. Every time there was a fight scene the audience leapt to its feet and an imitation fight ensued. Then the car engine cut out because it had run out of petrol. Some men cycled off furiously to find petrol. An hour later petrol was found and the video resumed. But it soon cut out again. The whole thing took all day’ –Thank you Cath Rowlatt for sending us this story -Editor.

CONVERTING FEAR INTO HOPE
‘What previous chief executives of the National Bank of Commerce (NBC 1997 Ltd) could not achieve in several years, Dr. Francis Mlozi and his team have accomplished in 10 months. Mlozi has turned the crumbling, debt laden bank from a dying loser to a profitable winner’ -so wrote BUSINESS IN AFRICA in its October-November 1998 issue. The article was full of praise for the newly restructured bank. The author wrote that Mlozi’s first task had been that of converting fear into hope for his 1,000 staff and ultimately for his customers. Thousands of customers had left. Just three months into his “change for the better programme’, NBC 1997 hit profits. These totalled Shs 2.5 billion in the last quarter of 1997 but by June 1998 had reached the “incredible’ figure of Shs 10.5 billion. Mlozi considers Tanzania ‘over-banked’ -there are now 23 commercial banks in the country -but this competitiveness was not negative in the short term he said.

CO-OPERATIVES AND LIBERALISATION
The March 1998 issue of REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL CO­OPERATION contained an article by John Launder analysing the causes of the virtual collapse of certain cooperatives in Eastern and Southern Africa (with particular reference to Tanzania) and how this has affected agricultural industries. He concludes that the effect of liberalisation of marketing has been positive for consumers and larger traders but has been a negative experience for many farmers and may have harmed agricultural development. The lack of support services for small traders, particularly for finance, has delayed the establishment of an efficient marketing system. Liberalisation was poorly managed and was introduced too quickly after structural adjustment started. He concludes that a key issue is the integration of cooperatives and other marketers to produce an effective market base for agricultural development ­Thank you Peter Yea for sending this item -Editor.

THE PAIN OF INDIFFERENCE
The GUARDIAN WEEKLY (October 18) pointed out that when Asian currencies collapsed last year the IMF came to the rescue with multi-billion dollar bail-outs. However, since 1985 when Tanzania started its IMF structural adjustment programme, the Shilling had been devalued by 1,500% yet the country did not qualify for debt relief until 2002. The article quoted Christopher Mwakasese of the Tanzania Social and Economic Trust as complaining about this and also about the World Bank demanding repayment of loans for its own badly designed projects. Out of 25 agricultural projects 13 had had a negative rate of return, he said.
Thank you John Pearce for sending this item from Australia ­Editor.

CONTROVERSIAL TOURISM PROPOSAL
DEVELOPMENTS, the journal of Britain’s Department of International Development, had a page on the proposed new £2.5 billion tourist project in the Nungwi peninsular in northern Zanzibar in its Issue 3 of 1998. The ‘East African Development Company’ has leased 57 sq. kms. to create a resort which is intended to include 14-16 luxury hotels, timeshare villas, a world trade centre, three golf courses and Olympic-size swimming pools. But ‘Tourism Concern’ is expressing alarm about the 20,000 local people who may have to be uprooted and what it terms the massive environmental damage which would be caused. The developers deny the charges. They said that the government would have 26% of the shares in the joint company and that the people would receive water, electricity, sewerage and new roads under the project.
Criticism of the project was much stronger in the London OBSERVER (August 30) which had an item on the front page and a full page inside under the heading ‘On the Crooked Road to Zanzibar’ in which it claimed that two British businessmen with criminal records were masterminding the project to turn the ‘paradise’ island of Zanzibar into a playground for rich tourists. The Observer’s reporters, having tracked down the businessmen in addresses in Hampshire, the Isle of Man and Cyprus were left feeling that the necessary funds would never be raised. Villagers at Nungwi were found either not to know anything about the project or too afraid to speak about it except a certain dhow maker (who had been making dhows since he was 15) and was very concerned about losing his living.

THE BLUE BICYCLE
In its series ‘About Us’ the BBC’s FOCUS ON AFRICA (October­December) featured its man in Zanzibar, Ally Saleh and his blue bicycle -a bike which he claimed was more famous in Zanzibar than President Amour’s Mercedes 280. ‘I take my job very seriously’ he wrote ‘and have even managed to shake the government a few times. And the government has shaken me .. .I’ve been visited by plain-clothes policemen on more than one occasion and I’m not exactly a stranger to the inside of a prison cell. I spent a 30-day vacation in Zanzibar’s central jail in May 1998 after I was accused of taking part in an illegal demonstration …. ‘ Sal eh, who is disabled following polio at the age of four, concluded: ‘Everyone tells me to get rid of my trusty bicycle and get a car. A car? What for?

ARMS TRADE
NEW AFRICAN (December) shared the surprise of many on learning that the Tanzanian Government had suddenly decided to liberalise its arms trade at a time when shootings and killings by gangsters are frequently hitting the headlines. This was a radical change of policy, the article wrote, and followed the bankruptcy of the government owned company which had previously controlled the arms trade. But Home Affairs Minister Ali Ameir Mohamed denied the dangers. “Guns are not going to be sold like tomatoes in the market” he said. “Only experienced former army officers will be arms importers and only light weapons will be traded”.