Deodatus Privatus Pius

Lists of names are somehow always interesting and if you are a teacher it is hard to resist the temptation to amuse the class, Rowan Atkinson-style, when you call out the register. Here in Dodoma they have some lovely names. Class lists (long ones, up to 75 per class) are in alphabetical order of first names. Spelling is not considered important so, as with Shakespeare, the same person can write their name in two or three different versions, even in the course of one day. Sign the attendance list for an exam one way, then write your name at the top of the paper a different way. Especially common is an optional -i or -y at the end of the name. Daniel or Daniely. Alfred or Alfredi. Class lists are prepared by the form teacher writing down each name as they hear it, so this can produce yet another variant. If you can't find Hadija under H look for Khadija under K. Francis? Check Phlancis. L and R are interchangeable. Can't find Leonard? Look for Reonald. The Old Testament provides some nice names - Ezekiel, Nehemiah, Samson, Shedrack, Meshack, and Abednego. Deific compound names like Godlove, Godheaven, Godlisten are common for boys. And one fairly average lad in Form II has the middle name God. For girls Happy and Happyness are very popular. Tanzania's German colonial era might be responsible for the occasional Adolph. To finish, here are a few of my favourites: Filbert, Sixbert, Golden Leonard Tibu, Rashid Hunter Charles, Deodatus Privatus Pius, Godlove Goodluck Mahali, Wilbrod Renatus Mtuka.

Ex libris

By far the best thing we've achieved at the school here is the establishment of the library. I spend all my free time there and I still get a bit choked when I look round and see groups of students reading or studying quietly. We've got a decent number of books; all the text books previously kept untouched in a locked room have been released into the library, plus we have tapped into various charities which ship unwanted books from UK and USA. You don't get much choice about what you get, but books are books. We have a lending system which works fine now that pupils have finally believed that they are allowed to take books home. I'm just as keen a borrower as anyone. The cast-offs from the Britain and America are happy hunting grounds for me. Dumbing-down in the developed world could be the raising-up of the third. We have every Shakespeare play. Last week I read Measure for Measure. Not bad. "But man, proud man, dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as makes the angels weep." The angels have plenty to weep about in Tanzania. It was about 20 years ago that I found I could read Shakespeare without a teacher telling me what it meant. Last week I opened “The Franklin’s Tale” and found I could understand it. What next? The Mahabharata in the original Sanskrit? I suppose I could try "Finnegans Wake" again. Not all our books have come direct from UK or USA. I recently read “As Berry and I were saying” by Dornford Yates, with a book plate saying “Nairobi Club Library”, last borrowed 18 Mar 1957 and stamped Sold. Quite enjoyed it. Berry coming out with gems like “as much use as a belch in a barrage” which earned him a “You filthy beast” from his wife. Daphne called lots of people “filthy beast”, "filthy brute" or “filthy swine", entire nations in the case of the French and Germans. So, mildly entertaining but you hope no-one under 40 catches you enjoying it. Ernest Hemingway is another guilty pleasure, as he swaggers his way across East Africa shooting anything that moves. The school library has all the American classics: Fenimore Cooper, Melville, Edith Wharton, Hawthorne. I've just finished "The Scarlet Letter". Unconsciously I always thought it meant an incriminating epistle but in fact it's a big red A for adulterer the heroine is condemned to wear. At home in my hotel I read on my Kindle. What a wonderful gadget. Predictably Mrs Scrooge mostly downloads old stuff ie Kindle Price $0.00. I also shamelessly use it as a free, if primitive, internet provider.Every so often it refuses to connect to Yahoo or Google or whatever and displays a polite but firm message saying that the Kindle's internet connection is supposed to be for buying books and I have overused it this month. So then I quickly try to mollify it by buying a couple of books with above zero prices. I like things set in Africa eg some of William Boyd's. The other day I bought one called "The Baobab Accord". It started with a few paragraphs written in a brilliant pastiche of the sort of African English so common here; a pompous, ungrammatical mish-mash of tenses and disjointed phrases. Here’s an excerpt: “Martin then opened and proceeded to chair the meeting for which no minutes would be scribed, by welcoming everyone and thanks them for their attendance, and by not wasting too much time in the hot forty degrees baking sun. Martin got straight to the point of how to move forward with this brutal regime, alternatively what other options are at his disposal.” I know the style only too well from English language newspapers, government propaganda, pamphlets, school text books and exam papers. Boyd had captured it perfectly. I read on…… Chapter one,…….Chapter two……”OK Boydie” I thought, “You’ve made the point, enough is enough, start writing properly.” But no, it continued, and it gradually dawned that this wasn’t the William Boyd. When I looked back I saw that the author was one William R. Boyd, probably a graduate of Dodoma University. When I went back to Kindle store I found some angry letters from other victims of this outrageous deceit. So, one of the very few drawbacks of the Kindle. I don’t think I would have been fooled if I had picked up “The Baobab Accord” in Waterstone’s. But, the one “Bookshop” in Dodoma sells only stationery and school text books, so I’m not going to start complaining about the Kindle.

Bride price

One of my colleagues,let's call him Onesmo, is what is known here as a part-time teacher. In fact he seems to teach as many (or as few) periods as the regulars, but he is also studying full-time,in his 2nd year of a 3 year diploma course, at a local business college. He is paid 150,000/- a month, about 60 quid, term time only, directly by the school, not by the munispaa (municipal offices). This barely covers his college fees and he has a wife and baby to support. They rent a couple of rooms with a shared bathroom and kitchen. To help make ends meet he has a fleet of 6 boneshaker bicycles, proudly labelled Onesmotrans which he rents out by the hour. Even so, he relies on help from his parents back in the village but as he is one of eight there is not much to go round. With all this, he rarely complains; in fact he is one of the most cheerful and hard-working members of staff. Last Monday he didn't look too chirpy though and I asked him what was up. Turns out that he and his "wife" are not actually married. Tanzania is a very religious country. If I tell people that I am an atheist they are dumbstruck. But living with your "fiancee" and having a few children before marriage is surprisingly common. But Onesmo's "father-in-law" had turned up asking when he was going to pay the bride price and when was the wedding going to be. He has apparently done this before, but this time he said he was taking his daughter and grandson away with him unless Onesmo immediately coughed up 100,000/- for the bride price and 400,000/- as an initial contribution towards the wedding costs. Onesmo said "I'm sorry, I am doing my level best but I have nothing to spare now, not a single coin." So the father took his daughter and the baby away. "But what did she say?", I asked Onesmo. She said "I don't want to go but I also want to get married." Two days later they were back, but the argument continues. Onesmo says when he has his diploma he will be able to get a better job and he will have more money. But the father-in-law says "If you have more money you might find a prettier girl than my daughter." The worst of it for Onesmo is that he has been unable to make any money from his bikes for the past few days because he has been too busy running backwards and forwards parleying with his father-in-law. He says an actual wedding ceremony costs very little and he could make an honest woman of her any time, but they want the big white dress, bridesmaids, pages, video, lavish reception. I told him this is a universal problem.

Cześć

I am in Arusha for a few days and yesterday I followed up an extraordinary story that I stumbled on via a chance mention in an Ernest Hemingway novel. Did you know that 20,000 Polish people were relocated to various camps in East Africa in 1942? Their story is amazing, heroic and tragic. The Russians invaded Eastern Poland on September 17th 1939 and immediately began deporting undesirables and anti-Soviets. Over a million, including thousands of children, typical crime - being being a member of the Polish scouts, were transported to Siberia. In July 1941, after Hitler invaded Russia, they were "freed" and, emaciated and exhausted they made their way south via Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. Of those who made it, most of the men joined the British 8th Army later fighting at Monte Cassino. The British Government decided to send the rest, mostly women and children, many of whom were orphans, to East Africa. There were 22 camps, in Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, Rhodesia, and South Africa. One of them was in Marandellas where my sister and I went to school. The biggest, with 4000 inhabitants, was at Tengeru, about 10 miles East of Arusha.

Yesterday I got the dalla-dalla to Tengeru, then a boda-boda (motorbike taxi) to "Polish Cemetery". It was an exhilarating, not to say scary ride up and down some very bumpy and steep tracks, but very scenic, through an area of agricultural parkland. I was dropped at the cemetery gate.

The graves are mostly of a pattern and closely spaced, shaded by mature frangipani trees inside a high wall. The nice guardian told me that the cemetery is kept up by the Polish embassy in Nairobi. The camp closed in 1952 and, after a prolonged fight to avoid being sent back to communist Poland, the orphans eventually started new lives in Canada or Australia. The visitors' book showed quite a few Canadian and Australian Poles, some of them said "My grandmother is buried here", one said "I was born here".

I walked back to the main road through what was the Polish farm and is now an Agricultural College and Research Station. I fancied that the farm buildings looked Polish, low and tiled with shutters at the windows. The accommodation blocks also looked as if they were the original camp houses. I got most of my information from a book called Stolen Childhood, a first-hand account by Lucjan Krolikowski. There are photos of the children at various stages of their epic journey. It has also slotted a little piece into a jigsaw for me. A few years ago in a Tashkent museum I was puzzled by a school photo from the 1940's of a group of Polish children in national costume. Did they make it to East Africa I wonder? Five of the camps were in Tanzania. I might be able to track down the ones in Kondoa and Morogoro. If anyone out there has any more information I would love to hear it.