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.