We had breakfast at a café just around the corner with the best Spanish omelettes ever. The tea came with milk and sugar already in it, and was spicy, with a hint of ginger. Delicious.
Ticha went off to pick up Giovanna, who had a few days off, and Walter’s car, which he had kindly lent Ticha while they were in Arusha. Ticha was also investigating yellow fever injections, needed for him, Freddy and Pius.
We, Rosie and the four boys went off for a walk to look around Arusha. When Rosie first lived in Tanzania, after returning when Sebi was a baby, she and Ticha had lived in Arusha for a while.
The town was started in the German colonial days and the original parts are very neat, with wide streets, pavements, and buildings dating back to the 1880s. The part we were staying in was the result of growth without infrastructure, or rather of unplanned growth, outside the original limits.
The centre of the city is as modern as any we have seen in Africa, with two enormous roundabouts creating focal points. One has the ‘flame of nationhood’ in the centre, with many scenes of Tanzanian progress since independence around the sides of a circular lawn.
The other roundabout has enormous realistic statues of the ‘big five’ iconic African animals – the lion, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the buffalo and the leopard.
The selection of this five is mysterious to us, since it is hard to imagine a buffalo winning a popularity contest, and what about the gentle giraffe or the smartly outfitted zebra? Some would argue that the wart hog, simply to reward its tourist friendly photo posing, should have been included.Our first impression is that there are many plump people in Arusha; that some appear to be wealthy judging by their accessories; that many are dressed in modern western clothes; that it is true that the bad synthetic wig is popular; and that despite a lot of development, people step over holes in the footpath and along dusty main street edges with resignation and acceptance.
Rosie shopped for dictionaries for Freddy and Pius, story books for Sebi and Jarvah, and souvenirs. She adeptly bargained with a man she knows to buy some batik paintings.
We bought nothing other than a couple of postcards for our grandchildren, being entirely overwhelmed by being asked to purchase something or visit a souvenir shop at every step of the way. We were much more comfortable with the style of shopping that enabled us to buy some blank CDs and a phone card, where the price is set and we can take it or leave it.Our stroll took us to the old German Boma building, which was the military headquarters and a fort. Some injured marabou storks were convalescing in the area between the fortified walls, looking very sad, with old sticky tape hanging down from where it had once held together a broken beak.
Several tortoises shared their domain. Ticha and Giovanna arrived, ready to collect the others for an afternoon at some gardens and a playground in the village where Giovanna lives. We headed in to learn more at the Boma Museum.There were four sections in different parts of the buildings, and an art collective at work out the back. The first section took us through the history of man, starting with the earliest evidence of the footprints of an upright ancestor.
Although only a copy, it was awe inspiring to look at the Laetoli footprints, made 3.6 million years ago, that survived by chance and which were found by someone who understood their significance. A series of skulls showed the evidence for the progression to modern homo sapiens that is accepted today.Various insects were featured in the second display, with fleas, cockroaches, lice and mosquitos, with information about their lifestyles and their impact on man through disease, making fascinating reading. A workshop for the repair and creation of taxidermy was full of beasts, as was the final room where they would be displayed. All the antelopes from the smallest dik dik (at about 2 kilograms) to the most enormous eland, were arranged on the one wall.
Finally, the history of the Boma and of German colonisation up until World War One was outlined.From what I could gather, the German colonisation began as an offshoot of commercial endeavours, with companies being empowered to act on behalf of the German Emperor, in ‘buying up’ enormous tracts of land. Treaties and agreements were drawn up, with two different copies being made to fool the locals. The aim of the Germans was explicitly stated to be to exploit the land, its resources and its people for the benefit of the German nation. Missionaries followed, and in tandem with traders and plantation owners, wrought huge changes on the culture. There was resistance from many tribes, so the military arm came, built their fort, and conducted many battles. Tactics which included humiliation and cruelty are documented by both the Germans of the time, and through oral histories with people whose grandparents had told them about their early lives. The development of fenced European farms led to a decrease in the numbers in traditional herds, since access to water and feed was denied. The small German community dominated the district even after the advent of other people, for example, Greeks, after the building of the railway line.
The harsh and brutal treatment of Africans by the Germans, including the regular use of capital punishment and abuse of women, led to rebellion and anti-colonial resistance. Many resistance attempts were crushed, but there was a major resistance effort called The Maji Maji Wars, which took place between 1905 and 1907. It united nearly the whole of South Eastern Tanganyika and, although there were some victories for the Africans, superior weapons for the Germans and disunity in the rebel group, led to ultimate defeat. At the time of the First World War, when Germany was stripped of her colonies, the way was paved for the British colonists, under the new British Protectorate, to step into the empty shoes in missions, schools, administration and farming.
After collecting a map from the tourist bureau, we turned towards the United Nations Headquarters, where the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunals are sitting. We found out that we would be able to attend a session the next day, and would need to bring our passports with us.
Walking back, we had the leisure to notice the building sites, with their rickety scaffolding, and the church with a fence with crosses on the top of each post.
We stopped to listen to a choir practising, lined up in a different church yard. Maybe we should have paid attention to where we were going because, although we had a map, we didn’t know where our guest house was on it, nor exactly where we were. A very kind man who spoke English, knew the place and escorted us most of the way there. It was nice and quiet at the café around the corner as we ate out lunch, very much like the food we had eaten in Farkwa. A two hour sleep gave me the chance to recharge my batteries, and to prepare me for our evening outing to have tea with Giovanna and Rosie and family, out at the gardens.Poor Ticha had to drive through the craziest rush hour, second only to Cairo. Jarvah was screaming all the way, and there was nothing that any of us could do to settle him. Stressed by it all, Ticha started to (in his words) ‘drive rough’, which is a polite description for the crazy and scary driving that followed. At last we arrived, and since Rosie wasn’t there, Jarvah screamed some more.
The gardens were the perfect antidote, with a mixture of tropical look, with banana trees and poinsettias, and of cottage gardens with neat lawns, flowering garlic chives, agapanthus and yellow lantanas. The mountain was a haze of mauve in front of us. The playground was very well cared for and all the boys started off by having fun on it. Problems arose over a little car that someone had left behind and that Jarvah was playing with, and Sebi hurting Jarvah to get it. Jarvah cried and Sebi screamed. Rosie explained calmly about not biting to get your own way, and about other ways to use if you would like a turn. Parenting can seem like a long, slow haul sometimes. Shortly afterwards, the picture had changed again and everyone was happily playing on the swings, with Sebi chatting sweetly to Jarvah and Rosie.
We moved to some shelter when a fine mist of rain arrived at the same time as Giovanna and the delicious couscous salad she had made. It made a lovely entrée. The main courses had already been ordered, so there was not the long wait we were getting used to. It was a lovely setting, and so lucky that Giovanna had time off to spend with Rosie and Ticha and all the children. The highlight of the meal was a beautifully decorated cake that Giovanna, who is a pastry chef, had made. It not only looked good, it tasted fantastic too.
The trip in the car back to our guest house was pretty crowded, but it was certainly better than poor Ticha making two trips. Under strict instructions from Rosie, he drove perfectly, especially over the speed humps. When we arrived, it was to receive a candle each for our rooms, since the power was off. We enjoyed a chat outside the shared toilet with a woman from Wales who had been travelling the world for the past 18 months with her partner, looking for the ideal place in which to start a family. Although Australia and New Zealand had both appealed, they were too far away from family, and so in the end they had decided that people rather than place was of the essence for them.
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