Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The United Republic of Tanzania has a chequered history, and Boston and I began to be-
lieve we could see the results of it in the attitude of the locals we came across. Tanganyika,
which formed the greater part of what would later become Tanzania, was originally part
of German East Africa but, after Germany's defeat in the First World War, the country be-
came a British mandate. Britain treated Tanganyika in the same way it did its other African
territories, parcelling off much of the country to retired generals and servicemen in gratit-
ude for the years they had devoted to consolidating the Empire, while at the same time in-
vesting in railways, roads, farming and the other infrastructure that made modern countries
flourish. Wheat became important to the Tanganyikan economy, but the most important
product of this era was the humble peanut; British investment in what became known as
the 'Tanganyika Ground Nut Scheme' brought an influx of Western migrants to the coun-
try and, though the groundnut scheme itself was not successful, it transformed the makeup
of the population.
After the Second World War, when the independence movement in the neighbouring
Kenya was lurching towards violence, with the Mau Mau fiercely resisting British rule,
Tanganyika somehow bucked the trend and found itself gliding towards self-government
in an ordered and peaceful fashion. After the war ended, it became a United Nations trust
territory and, in 1954, a schoolteacher by the name of Julius Nyerere - one of only two
Tanganyikans educated to university level - founded a political party, the Tanganyika
African National Union. Nyerere would go on to oversee the transition to independence
when, in 1961, Tanganyika became self-governing. Two years later, the neighbouring ter-
ritory of Zanzibar declared its independence from Britain and, after a bloody civil war,
threw off the shackles of its own monarchy and formed a government. One year later, Tan-
ganyika and Zanzibar were formally joined, and symbolically united their names to form
the new 'Tanzania'. It was a joining of cultures as well as governments - for, though both
countries had at one time been British colonies, Zanzibar had first been subsumed by the
Portuguese expansion into Africa and had, latterly, become part of Islamic Africa, with
the island nation being pivotal to the Arabic slave trade. This joining of different histories
gives Tanzania a flavour unique among African nations.
Christmas came two days into our time in Tanzania. In that time we had slowly made
our way north, along the bank of the Kagera river. The water was wide and slow-mov-
ing; there would be no rapids to speak of until we crossed the Ugandan border and came
close to the great lake. Tanzania had a wilder, edgier feel to it than Rwanda, even with the
ghosts of Rwanda's past. 'It's because of the Communists,' Boston declared. The banks of
the river here were fed by countless little tributaries that we were forced to cross, and the
best way of doing so was to enlist the help of local villagers and their small dugout canoes,
made from native palms. The hostile way the local fishermen looked on as we climbed into
their precarious little crafts was enough to convince me of Boston's theory: years of Com-
