Tanzania here I come

Tanzania is a great country. But don’t take my word for it. Look around eastern and southern Africa and make comparisons. It can get so hot and dry in parts of Dodoma that one is inclined to believe the Sahara must have paid a visit. Yet the temperate climate in the northern and southern highlands has attracted missionaries and visionaries to settle and make the land their home for decades. We have the greenery to match it.

Rains frequently causes flooding yet a few days later laid back inhabitants can be seen walking upright in search of water for domestic and other uses. Whatever happened to the spirit and practice of self-reliance that made villagers dig dams for agricultural irrigation and home consumption? Did that fly through the wide-open windows of change that ushered in a watered down leadership code that recognised the constitutional right of political leaders to own substantive property?

I love trees not only because I was born on the slopes of volcanic Kilimanjaro Mountain where Albizia, coniferous, camphor and Gravilea trees abound, but also because I lived in barren Afghanistan where one can travel for three hours without seeing a tree taller than Michael Jordan the basketball player. It is very satisfying to live in a country where all four presidents since independence had so much personal commitment to environmental conservation especially reforestation.

I shake with rage whenever I travel the breadth of Tanzania I see fires started by lazy farmers who practice shifting cultivation. I just marvel at the mercy of the Almighty because if we were to experience the kind of out of control fires like those that appeared in Athens Greece recently, California fires in the USA or the raging fires that ravage parts of Australia, we would be in real trouble. We cannot afford to battle such fires even if we had the material and financial resources.

People who cut trees really get on my goat. And those whose actions result into more trees being cut fall in the same category. When the power supply company raises tariffs for electricity, they just push more urban and semi-rural families to revert to charcoal and firewood. They are as guilty of environmental destruction as the wood gatherers of fortune who sell our trees in raw timber to middle and far eastern countries for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver.

Recent efforts by government to protect water catchment sources such as Mbarali and Usangu areas are highly commendable. We need more such efforts. The major rivers are flowing with plenty of water nowadays even as the crocodiles of Ruaha river were adjusting to dry land. Now, if we could plant enough trees in Tanga and Coast regions, we could shift the national food basket to the Wakwere and Wadengereko. Will this happen soon? Don’t bet on it.

It is amazing how the Wasukuma of Shinyanga manage to cultivate so much rice even though they hardly eat it and their land is relatively dry. The Warufiji and Waulanga brethren on the other hand, are floating in natural flood plains and river delta, yet they grow barely enough to feed their families. We need a quota system for food production.

Being a citizen should carry measurable objectives and indicators, duties and responsibilities. Every adult must produce food and cash crops. This thing about theyap-yap flavour young men and women rushing to Dar es Salaam and other cities in search of jobs must cease. Who do they think will produce food for them in future after their parents and grand parents whom they left in the villages rest in piece? Their lives will fall to pieces, I tell you.

Which supermarket will they be eating from? What clothes will the ‘machinga’ generation wear if none of them will grow the cotton? I don’t like leaders whether youth or political who are trying to help ‘machingas’ settle in towns. If majority of these able-bodied men and women become petty traders and others turn to small-scale miners scavenging the earth for mineral dust, what future are they building for their children? We cannot all be traders, some must be buyers. Just like we cannot all be prospecting for Buzaragi gold.

Where I was born we have a special respect for land, perhaps because we do not have too much of it. The ‘kihamba’ or garden is the basis of our roots and the root cause of most village fights. Meek villagers can turn to machete-welding ‘nturahamwe’ militias, against their blood brothers on account of one free-range chicken of the said brother, venturing only by a foot, into the farm of another sibling. Land is held dearer than the dear man’s better half.

This is why I don’t accept it when I some free thinking individuals annex illegally whole of part of public land and make it part of their urban plots. Areas reserved for playgrounds, large tracts of road reserves and other open spaces in our cities have been turned into private territory by daring but powerful individuals. I am even more surprised when government of the people does nothing to take back the land and punish perpetrators. When will this madness end?

The Dar es Salaam master plan for example contains quite a number of areas reserved for shops, schools and places of worship. Many have been eaten away by free-ranging people. Some have completely blocked off legitimate roads and denied access to the public in general but their neighbours in particular. Funny thing is, neighbours just take it lying down. Until the whole place gets regularly flooded because someone blocked the ‘mifereji’ or drainage channels.

They tell us that a large proportion of urban areas are built but in areas which have not been officially surveyed. In recent months, authorities using local and donor resources have become busy fixing new infrastructure in un-surveyed areas. At the same time, many of the surveyed areas such as Igoma in Mwanza or Mbezi-tegeta in Dar have no roads, proper drainage or just simple street names for the few roads that are visible and passable. This is a contradiction in terms.

As we celebrate another Sunday, is it not time for us to remove the splinter from our eyes before we ask to remove the plank from the neighbour’s eye? Are we blind to the utter lack of basic infrastructure in for example Kinondoni municipality of the haven of peace?