Tanzania
& Uganda
The passage of the twice weekly train between Tanzanian capital of
Dodoma and the nearly inaccessible inland city of Kigoma on Lake
Tanganyika draws vendors scurrying toward the train at full tilt to
sell their produce. An extended pause in the village of
Kazuramimba around sunset attracts a colourful lot of friendly
villagers. Sugar cane, fresh fruits and ground roots seemed
particularly popular. This train is one of the rare links between
the Indian Ocean and the inland Tanganyika region, and the many
Burundians and Congolese (such as the one pictured) aboard are
returning home from commercial trips to Dar es Salaam.
An example of English colonial influence in the thriving Tanzanian
metropolis of Dar es Salaam. Dar often gets bad reviews from
travellers because there's essentially nothing to see or visit here,
but I liked the cosmopolitan multicultural vibe that pervades the
city. Arabia meets Africa, Muslim meets Christian, Europe meets
its colonials, Sea meets Land, and the Indian Ocean trade route for
spices essentially terminates here. Outsiders feel comfortably at
home amongst the sophisticated and highly educated (by African
standards) natives of Dar and weeks of eating cornmeal mush and
bland beef were blissfully ended by the profusion of tasty and
well-cooked maritime treats available in Dar.
The arabian culture of Zanzibar and the African culture of inland
Tanzania essentially blend together in Dar, overlaid with British
infrastructure and organization and sprinkled with Indian adminstrators
and merchants. The Asian and Arabian influence is more pronounced
in the affluent centre of Dar, where sophisticated commercial practices
honed from centuries of maritime trading predominate. However,
poverty is the rule in inland Tanzania, where natural resources
continue to be carted out to the sea and where there has been little
development apart from basic infrastructure, which is still
considerably better than in its even more impoverished landlocked
neighbours. Inland, the scourges of deadly malaria, a history of
enslavement, and unfertile soil still take their toll with little
relief in sight. Unlike most sub-saharan African countries,
Tanzania has managed to avoid civil war and ethnic labelling, in part
due to the fact that there are no large dominant tribal groups but
rather many small tribes who all consider themselves
Tanzanian. Language homogenization instilled by the
socialist regime of Julius Nyerere (ki-swahili is spoken by everyone),
further contributed to a cohesive national identity conducive to
development, that is sorely lacking in many tribal war-torn African
countries.
An odd tourist attraction in the Tanganyika lakeshore village of
Ujiji. Colonial British romanticise the historical encounter
between explorers Stanley and Livingston. Stanley's immortal
words "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" were uttered here. Or perhaps not,
as a village in nearby Burundi also claims to be the hallowed
site. In any case, Ujiji isn't waiting around for this historical
dispute to be resolved. They are constructing a new Dr
Livingstone Museum and research centre in their sleepy village to
attract tourism.
I entered Uganda at Kabale, near the eastern Rwandan border checkpoint
along the main Kigali-Kampala road, and would later come to realize
that it was the most pleasant town I'd visit in the country.
Local Kabalans are effusively friendly, so much so that at first I
couldn't get myself to take their friendliness at face value.
Their uncomplicated blithe manner and openness to foreigners reminded
me of Ghana in west Africa, and later on I learned that these two
countries are often compared culturally. Not to mention for their
big smiles, low cost of living, devout christianity and very tasty
pineapples. Uganda, with Ghana and Malawi, draw a devout
following of backpackers due to the relaxed, accommodating, honest
demeanor and English language skills of their people. To a first
approximation anyway. Though all three countries are developing
slowly, they are mired in poverty and their subservient attitudes I
believe will eventually be an impediment to their future economic
growth. Kabale turned out to be an unexpected place to
score a nice haircut. Black Africa poses a unique problem for
straight-haired travellers looking for a competent haircut.
Street barbers only know how to cut hair with clippers. In Kabale
though, a local Indian shopkeeper led me to their barber Alex, who I
later learned cuts the hair of every Indian in Kabale. Today's
Indian merchants in Uganda are a different generation from their
predecessors who had been expelled by Idi Amin in the 1970s in an act
of ethnic cleansing, leading to the economic collapse of Uganda.
Not surprisingly, the current dictator Museveni reinvited Indian
merchants back into Uganda in the 1990s and the economy has since been
picking up steam. Most of the expelled Indians from the previous
generation received asylum and are now prospering in first world
nations like Britain and Canada. Many of them claim that the
expulsion was the luckiest thing that ever happened to them. The
dependence of African economies on Asian merchants and bureaucrats (not
unlike the dependence on Chinese merchants in Southeast Asian nations)
highlights the impact of cultural factors and prioritization of
education on development. It may be politically incorrect to talk
about these factors but no remedy can be formulated without a clear
understanding how they contribute to the economies.
Lake Bunyoni and its archipelago of islands was hands down the most
beautiful place in Uganda for me. I regret not having had more
time to locate and visit the pygmy tribes at the far end of the
lake. Pygmies only live in central Africa, and are often
described by travellers as "little, happy giggling people." For
some bantu Africans, they may not even be considered people.
Recently invited to Brazzaville to participate in a traditional dance
show for foreign dignitaries, the Congolese president housed the
pygmies in the municipal zoo.
A backstreet local market in a suburb of Kampala, the capital of
Uganda. I managed to buy that last pineapple you see on the
cart. For just US$0.25 a fruit, which they'll cut up and bag for
you, Ugandan pineapples are of one of the great cheap and simple
culinary delights of Africa. Kudos also go out to pineapples in
Ghana and Togo, where they were one of the cornerstones of my diet.
Kampala's central station of matatus (shared Toyota vans ubiquitously
used as public transportation in almost all of East Africa). It's
hard to believe how vans can get in and out of this lot, but they
manage to do so very efficiently even in rush hour when vans fill up in
seconds. Of course once they leave through one of the three street
exits, they are immediately engulfed in the brutal traffic jams of
central Kampala. The narrow and windy hilly streets that wend
through Kampala are a quagmire for traffic that can literally take an
hour or more to escape. Kampala has the dubious distinction of
having some of the worst traffic in the world that I've ever seen,
considering how few private passenger cars circulate in such a
poor country.