NYERERE LEGACY: Karibu to my Bongoland new tribes!

 I do recall narrating this episode somewhere else. However, with the current political develop-ments in this part of Africa, I feel there is need to bring it to light for the benefit of us all. I vividly recall that it was in the early 80s when I landed in Germany. I had just completed a six month journalism diploma course in the then East Berlin of the then Ger-man Democratic Republic or East Germany as was popularly known. But then I was immediately invited to the then West Berlin of the then Federal Republic of Ger-many or West Germany for a similar course. Talk of the East-West Cold War divide! I was at the receiving end of that set-up. Notwithstanding these politi-cal acrobatics, one snowy evening I arrived at this international college in West Berlin, which had a number of other aspiring young journalists from several African, Asian and Latin American countries. I was allocated a room with another Bon-goland scribe.We soon hit it off and were insepa-rable whether at college or when exploring the beer pubs of Berlin. A few months later I received a letter – yes it was physical letters then - from one of my uncles in Njombe urging me to look for his son who had gone to study medi-cine in Hungary more than a decade earlier and was incommunicado. Fortunately, the letter included my cousin brother’s address in a small suburb of Budapest called Debre-cen. Out of respect to my uncle I wrote to my cousin with the mes-sage from home and that I was also in central Europe, in Berlin to be more precise. I had forgotten about the whole episode when one evening, a month or so later, the caretaker of our hos-tel called saying there was a guest of mine at the gate who claimed was my relative. It was a great reunion with my cousin, Dr Godfrey, whom I had not seen for more than a decade. I took him to my room and intro-duced him to my roommate. What a shock its was! They greeted each other in my mother tongue. Appar-ently my roommate was not only a fellow Bongolander, but also a tribe-mate. And, for the past four or so months that had never cropped up in our daily life together. It took my cousin’s visit – apparently they were together in primary school – to bring that to light. My cousin, Dr Godfrey, was by then already a gynaecologist in Debrecen. Naturally, he enjoyed certain special perks in that profes-sion including being gifted with bot-tles of vintage wines whenever he conducted a successful operation or birth to his patients. That evening as we savoured the wines and cheese with my co-stu-dents from Africa I introduced my cousin to them and added, “This is the relative who had travelled all the way from Hungary to join us this evening in happy re-union. But he has also brought to light how, we, Tanzanians, have discarded tribal affiliations and formed new non-ethnical tribes.” I then narrated what had happened earlier. My classmates, some from far as Ghana and Nigeria and as near as Kenya and Uganda, jointly com-mented that Bongolanders should thank Mwalimu Nyerere for this healthy transition. Seeing what is presently happening in other trib-alised African countries and the problems that they face in the name of that system, I have resolved to be an ardent advocate of new tribes – tribes formed by Bongolanders who either went to school or college together; Bongolanders who attend-ed National Service programme together; Bongolanders who pray or work together; and even Bongolan-ders who drink together in the many pubs and groceries scattered all over the country. Welcome to my Bon-goland New Tribes!