Land of Constant Complaints..

In Tanzania, is it that they complain too much, or they expect too much? Since the beginnings of economic and political liberalization in the 1990s, the nation has charged forward; the print media is bold and vociferous in both of the national languages, English and Swahili—especially the latter. Paved roads connect every part of the country, reaching towns and villages previously cut off during the rains; cellphones are in evidence everywhere. The country is connected. It’s as if an engine turned on one day, and the once laid-back country, known as “the land of not yet,” woke up. So what are the complaints about? Or, as a slick, modern voice on the radio says in an angular Swahili, “Wapi ni beef?”

Indeed, the country is rich. Besides coal, there is gold, uranium and natural gas, and perhaps oil; food is grown abundantly in many parts and there’s plenty of cattle. Then why the incessant complaints from everyone I meet, not only in the nation’s capital, Dar es Salaam, but far away here in Mbeya and Kyela, where you cannot starve even if you tried? The problem is governance and corruption
. Every morning in Mbeya you see trucks doing the rounds, piling up with bananas to take, presumably, to the capital. There is no adequate transportation for the produce. Tazara, the Tanzanian-Zambian railway, which once connected the south to the capital and port of Dar es Salaam, is now more or less defunct and remembered fondly. The Central Railway Line, built by the Germans when they colonized the country in the early 20th century, and which goes from the coast all the way to lakes Tanganyika and Victoria, is also useless. Air Tanzania, once thriving, is no more. The government, in a show of optimism, is planning another railway in the south, to be built perhaps with Chinese help.
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