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.

Prison visiting

No pictures this time: you're not allowed to take photos of Dodoma prison or surroundings. I suppose they think you might use them to help a prisoner escape. Really I'd be surprised they wanted to escape. The prison is one of the pleasanter spots in Dodoma. It nestles under a rocky hill and once past the outer security fence you are in a pretty village of neat houses (staff accommodation?) and vegetable plots. The prison building itself is a walled fortress with an imposing gateway, but inside there is cobbled courtyard with shady trees and flower beds with the names of the various rooms, eg "Officer's room", picked out in flowers. The prisoners themselves, in their orange suits, bustle about cheerfully, carrying buckets in and out of the gate, sweeping, watering etc. I've only been inside once, not as a prisoner I hasten to add, but to help recruit some cheap labour to put up a fence around a local primary school. (This is quite a regular thing here; you often see a group of them standing in the back of a pick-up truck with a couple of armed guards, all looking very happy to be having a day out somewhere.) Signing in at the gate was a bit of a palaver, with a lot of saluting and clicking of heels, then we were shown into the governor's office where we negotiated our requirements, and checked the work party wouldn't include any dangerous criminals. The prison governor seemed a very nice man, but it was a bit disconcerting talking to him because two of the photos tacked up on the noticeboard behind him were of prisoners who had hanged themselves (we assumed) in their cells. So we kept our eyes everywhere but there and admired the various bits of craftwork on display. "Do the prisoners make these?"we asked. "Yes. Would you like to buy something?" "Yes. We would." We were shown baskets, tablemats and doormats. The latter apparently are sent to the Comoros Islands where they are sold as local handicrafts. So if you go on holiday to the Comoros (does anyone?) and you buy a souvenir doormat it was probably made in Dodoma Gaol.

Family

I realised when I started planning my trip to Kigoma that I have some close relatives living just 25 kms away. We all have. Ninety chimpanzees live in Gombe Stream National Park, by the Burundi border north of Kigoma. Jane Goodall did, and still does intermittently, her research there. It’s on the lake shore and only accessible by boat. One of Ahmed’s “brothers” arranged for us to hitch a ride there in the National Park supply boat.

Coming back we weren’t so lucky. We had to wade out to catch the 7am public boat in pouring rain and shove our way under a big tarpaulin being held up, by the 100 or so passengers, over themselves and their goods. But we were fairly lucky with the chimps. We had a whole day trekking the forest trails with our guide Isaiah and a trainee guide, Wilbrod. Lovely jungly plants and sounds, big butterflies flapping everywhere, yellow baboons and two big troops of Colobus monkeys swooping and whooping through the trees.

They apparently thought we were chimps (thanks) who sometimes attack and eat them. We searched the hills, the valleys, the beaches, but no sign of chimps apart from their nests in trees.

We were in two-way radio contact with a tracker (Isaiah ending every exchange with “Lodger”) but the tracker couldn’t find them either. Just when we had decided to give up and head up to a 25m waterfall, we came upon a mother chimp and baby, right on the path.

I stood very, very still while she mooched past us and climbed a tree. The way she climbed, expertly but not at all monkey-like, made it completely believable that we share 99. whatever it is DNA with her. A bit later we saw another lone female. The “power shower “ of the waterfall set us up nicely for the hike back to camp. The swimming and snorkeling in the lake is also fabulous there although you have to watch out for baboons running off with your stuff while you’re in the water. That’s almost it for the Kigoma trip, except for one more stroke of luck. The indomitable MV Liemba came into port while we were there.

The Liemba was launched as the Graf von Gotzen in 1915 and scuttled by the Germans a year later. In 1924 she was pulled up from the bottom and renamed. She has been doing the 1000km round trip up and down the lake weekly ever since, the oldest operational passenger vessel in the world. Thanks to Ahmed’s mum’s first husband’s brother we managed to go on board and have a look round. The 3rd class seating area below decks didn’t look that inviting for a long voyage but the 1st class cabins above were the picture of shabby elegance. The ship’s wheel and binnacle on the bridge must have been original. Hmmmmm………………How to organize a trip on Liemba? Time to talk to Ahmed again.

Dr Livingstone, I presume

- Ujiji - For me all my life one of those places of legendary remoteness, like Timbuktu. It’s a great feeling to have finally actually been there. If anyone doesn’t know Ujiji is where Stanley found Livingstone. It’s a few miles south of Kigoma so it was the primary purpose of my long train trip. You can fly to Kigoma but that would have been no sort of way to get there. Walking would have been the best, but a slow train was a reasonable second best. Did Ujiji live up to expectations? Yes and no. - I came from Kigoma in a dalla-dalla which dropped me at the edge of town and I walked down towards the lake. The town looked exactly as it should be and as described by Stanley.

An important Arab-Swahili terminus in the 19th Century it has long since been overtaken by Kigoma. With its orderly streets of verandahed one-story houses and shady compounds reached by little bridges over the storm drains, it was easy to picture the famous scene: Everyone running out to greet Stanley’s expedition and him pushing his way through the crowds towards an unassuming figure waiting outside his own simple thatched house. We are told that Livingstone’s house no longer exists but I am surprised no enterprising local has “rediscovered” it. From Stanley’s sketch of the place you can see scores of likely candidates still in Ujiji. The tradition here is that the famous meeting took place under a mango tree at the western edge of town, where, I was told, the lake shoreline used to be. (It has receded a couple of hundred metres since then.) There is a monument purportedly commemorating the exact spot. Close by is a brand new and largely empty museum. So, the “yes” is the general look and feel of the town. The “no” is the concrete monument and the horrid intrusive museum.

- Luckily, there is a wonderful Livingstone-Stanley museum near Tabora. When the train stopped there on the way home I raced out of the station and onto a boda-boda (motorbike taxi) shouting “Livingstone House, Kwihara, faster, faster” We left the town and jolted along a dirt road a few miles, then turned off onto a sandy track at a sign for “Livingstone’s Tembe”. At the end of the track stood a large isolated house with two huge mango trees in front. The boda-boda man picked up a little boy who said he knew the curator’s house and they brought him back a few minutes later.

He unlocked the beautiful carved doors and in we went, me thinking of Stanley walking in, arm in arm with Livingstone saying, “Doctor, we are at last home”. I had spent about 20 minutes engrossed in the exhibits of Livingstone memorabilia when my phone rang. It was Ahmed saying, “Didn’t you get my message? The train leaves in 15 minutes.” Very sceptically and reluctantly I clambered back on the bike for the 25 minute ride back to Tabora station. Made it in plenty of time, of course; the train didn’t go for another 35 minutes. - And, I still haven’t quite finished the story of the Kigoma trip. So, followers, you wait ages for a blog post, and then three turn up.