Thinking of Harith Bakari Mwapachu: A Memoir and Tribute

‘In times of darkness, love sees…

In times of silence, love hears...

In times of doubt, love hopes…

In times of sorrow, love heals...

And in all times, love remembers.

May time soften the pain

Until all that remains

Is the warmth of the memories

And the love’.

(Anonymous)

My brother, Harith Bakari, the eldest sibling of our father Hamza KB Mwapachu, died at Muhimbili Hospital, Dar-es-Salaam, at midnight on Thursday 11 February. He was admitted at the hospital on that same day in late morning after feeling terribly ill.

He was in poor health for about six months and had gone through treatment in a hospital in Bangalore, India three months before and was due to return to the Indian hospital in March this year. Our brother, popularly called HB, has left us in darkness. He was laid next to the grave of our father in Pande, Ndumi in the late afternoon of 13th. He had chosen, in my presence, about five years ago, where he should be buried when he died.

HB’s body was driven to Tanga on the evening of the 12th and laid at his luxurious and favourite home at Mwambani, a few kilometres from the centre of the City of Tanga. The wife, Sheila, daughter of Elangwa Shaidi, the first Tanzanian Inspector General of Police, had gone there earlier in the afternoon.

All the family members travelled to Tanga that day or early in the following morning. The funeral sermons and prayers took place on the grounds of HB’s home.

They were attended by hundreds of Tanga residents, children, CCM leaders and youth, men, and women. The Tanga Regional Commissioner and CCM Regional Secretary attended both the Mwambani funeral sermons and the Pande burial prayers. It was clear from the huge turnout at the of Tanga residents at the Mwambani Home and at the Pande burial grounds that HB, elected Member of Parliament from 1995 to 2010 was immensely popular amongst Tanga’s residents.

Harith Bakari Mwapachu was born in Mwanza, at the Government Hospital, on 25 July 1939. His father, Hamza, a Digo by tribe from Tanga, was a Medical Assistant and Tutor at the Government Hospital Training Institute.

His mother, Juliana Arafa, was a Dutch half-caste, daughter of a Christian Dutchman named Volter, a diamond prospector, and a Mzinza woman named Bugumba, a Moslem. Our grandfather had wanted HB to be named ‘Volter’. Father Hamza refused, telling Mama’s father that a first-born son, culturally, had to take the name of his grandfather. It was thus agreed that the next son would be named ‘Volter’. That is how I came to be named Juma Volter.

As a young boy, HB grew up at his parents’ rented house located on Sukuma Street. Our elder sister Rahma, wife of late Mark Bomani, was born on 3rd January 1941 at the same hospital and grew up in the same house on Sukuma Street. I followed, born on 27 September 1942. The leadership line of our father’s legacy began to be defined at that time.

But he was too young to start schooling when our father decided, in June 1943, to go to Makerere College to study for a Diploma in Medicine. Our father sent us to live with our grandmother, named Nipumba, in Pande Ndumi to live there during his two-year absence in Uganda. So, our mother, HB, Rahma and I lived in a village mud house with a makuti roofing. HB was then four years old and enjoyed playing in the grounds endowed with ‘viringi’ mango and ‘mifenesi’ fruit trees.

One day, sometime late in 1943, a man and woman of Mahiwa tribe, picked up young HB off the road next to grandmother’s house with intention of abducting him and the rumour at the time was that the Mahiwas, a subsect of the Makonde tribe, ate human meat. Some of grandmother’s neighbours saw young HB being carried by strangers.

They shouted at the couple who dropped HB and ran off through a bush. HB was delivered to his mother and escaped being a delicious entree that day.

Our father came to Tanga to collect us in April 1945 having completed his medical studies. He had been posted to Tabora Hospital. In Tabora, he was joined by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, a close friend from Makerere.

Andrew Tibandebage who was one year ahead at Makerere, was also at Tabora teaching at the Roman Catholic St Mary’s Secondary School. Nyerere joined the teaching group at the school.

The three friends who had established a Tanganyika Student Welfare Association at Makerere decided to undertake a coup de grace by taking over the leadership of the Tabora Branch of the Tanganyika African Association (TAA). Our father, older to both Tibandebage and Nyerere, became Branch President, Nyerere was Secretary and Tibandebage was Treasurer.

HB started schooling at Tabora Town Primary School in January 1946. He was six and a half years old. A frequent visitor to father’s house for meals, Nyerere became an uncle to us and he and HB developed a teacher-pupil relationship.

HB had a sharp and inquisitive mind which Nyerere liked in the little boy. He used to listen in on the discussions between Nyerere and his father at the house. In mid-1947, our father secured an 18-month Commonwealth Scholarship to study Social Work in the United Kingdom. He already had his mind made up to quit the medical profession and pursue a politically directed work.

HB had to pause his standard one education in Tabora as our father decided to send our mother and us to Mwanza to stay with his friend, a Bondei doctor named Sylvester Mdachi for five months. Luckily, HB was admitted at the Mwanza Town Primary School to continue with standard one education.

HB always recalled the character of his school teacher who was nasty and abusive. His favoured form of corporal punishment was whipping pupils with a stick and this was for minor disciplinary infringements. Consequently, he was nicknamed ‘Mwalimu kunya moto’ (a teacher who fiercely uttered faeces).

It was during this brief six months in Mwanza that HB met a life-long friend Ramadhani Juma who lived along Sukuma Street. He is still alive though he lost eyesight several years ago.

To HB, Ramadhani was one person who made HB laugh by speaking English like an Englishman and Indian English like a Mumbai Indian. HB loved the company of Ramadhani above all others. Their relationship evolved beyond friendship to one that mirrored kin. HB and Ramadhani consistently recalled their missions up the rocky and mini forest hill towards the residence of the Colonial Provincial Commissioner to pick a semi-sweet fruit called ‘sungwi’. The Indians in Mwanza used the sungwis to prepare bottled ‘kachumbari’.

When the Mwanza school closed for year-end Christmas holidays, Uncle Ali Mwasora, Dad’s cousin, sent to Mum and the children railway tickets to travel to Arusha and onwards by lorry transport to Mbulu where he was stationed as Veterinary Officer. Uncle Ali had agreed with Dad that he would take over the responsibility of caring for us during Dad’s absence while he was away studying at the University of South Wales at Cardiff.

The road transportation from Arusha in a lorry, as there were no buses on that route at that time, was rough and bumpy especially for HB and Rahma who sat among goods at the rear.

I sat with Mum in the Driver’s cabin. In January 1948, HB re-started standard one, the topsy-turvy turbulence of Dad’s pursuit of education. HB was admitted at the Endagikot Primary School. He entered standard two in January 1949.

Our father returned from the United Kingdom in April 1949. He was appointed an Assistant Welfare Officer and stationed at Ilala Boma Office in Dar-es-Salaam. He quickly moved us from Mbulu to Dar-es-Salaam. We stayed at Ilala Quarters House Number 55. HB joined Mchikichini Primary School, a walking distance from our house. HB continued in Standard Two. At Mchikichini Primary School, HB met another pupil named Said Kassim who has remained a close friend until HB’s death. Said Kassim became the first Tanzanian General Manager of the National Bank of Commerce in 1973.

Dad’s engagements in Tanganyikan politics led to his transfer from Dar-es-Salaam to Ukerewe Island on Lake Victoria in February 1950. He got HB a place in Standard Three at Bwiru Middle School, a boarding school, in Mwanza which was under Mr Rwechungura as Headteacher. In Ukerewe, Dad got places for Rahma (Standard Two) and for me (Standard One) at a day Bukongo Primary School, Nansio. In late January 1953, following his wedding with Mama Maria on 21st January in Musoma, he passed through Mwanza and went to Bwiru Middle School to see HB. He met HB and gave him five shillings pocket money. He told him to share the money with Jack Nyamwaga, a schoolmate, son of a friend. Nyerere was already informed by Dad of HB being at Bwiru. The meeting was seven years since first meeting at Tabora. Nyerere was surprised at how quickly HB had grown. Interestingly, HB used to move around Nansio on Dad’s motorbike in 1953. He was quick at learning how to drive cars. He drove Dad’s new Peugeot Saloon Car in Dar-es-Salaam from 1960.

Early in 1955, Dad was transferred from Ukerewe to Tukuyu, another outpost, ostensibly a promotion to Assistant District Officer but, in reality, it was a decision driven by a move of shifting him from the surge of independence politics in Lake Victoria Zone. In that context, Dad decided to move HB from Bwiru to Malangali Secondary School in Iringa which was close to where he was transferred to. HB studied in Standard Nine and Ten at Malangali where he met a student who became a close friend, Ibrahim Mohamed Kaduma. While at Malangali, HB was taken care of by Dad’s friend Yatuta Chisiza who was an Inspector of Police in Iringa. Yatuta became the first Minister for Home Affairs of Malawi in 1964.

The friendship of HB and Kaduma extended initially to Tabora School in Standard Eleven and Twelve and later at Makerere College between 1962 and 1965. HB took his A’ level studies at Tabora School between 1960 and 1961. HB began to show signs of a sleep walking disorder. In a train journey in July 1958 from Dar-es-Salaam to Tabora to continue studies at Tabora School, he was in a first- class cabin with Chief Abdallah Fundikira, the Chief of the Nyamwezi people and a close friend of our father from Makerere College years. At night, the Chief overheard some kind of commotion. He woke up only to see HB, who sleeps in the upper berth, had opened the cabin glass window and one of his legs was dangling outside. Chief Fundikira pulled him back inside and put him back in bed. He realised that HB suffered from the sleepwalk syndrome.

To be continued in tomorrow’s edition.