'The ambitious aim of the project was to upgrade the teaching and learning of primary maths in Tanzania'

'The ambitious aim of the project was to upgrade the teaching and learning of primary maths in Tanzania'

Frank remembers living and working in Tanzania.

Frank Gaynor

Trinity College Dublin

1993

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Frank Gaynor

Work and Employment

Life Story

Tanzania, Africa

1990's

It was June 1993 when a friend in HEDCO asked me if I would be interested in managing a project in Tanzania. HEDCO supported Higher Education projects in developing countries. Most of its funds came from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). When I was called for interview I decided to chat about it with Seamus McGowan, who had been in St Finian's with me, and was on the staff of NUIM. When I reached Maynooth I found Seamus in the car park, chatting with the playwright Frank McGuinness and Marianne Faithful, the singer, songwriter and actor who had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger in the late 1960s. Frank asked me to do him a favour and take Marianne back to where she was staying on Carton Estate. I was pleased to oblige. On that short journey together I found her to be very pleasant and relaxing company. We arrived in Dar es Salaam in September 1993. Pauline Conway, who was in charge of the Irish Embassy there at that time, had a string of meetings lined up for me, and made sure that I hit the ground running. My knowledge of the project that I was about to manage was limited to a four - page summary of the proposal, yet here I was, the morning after I arrived, sitting in front of senior officials in the Ministry of Education, trying to answer their questions on what exactly the project hoped to achieve, and how I planned to do it. The ambitious aim of the project was to upgrade the teaching and learning of primary maths in Tanzania. Before I arrived it was decided that the project would be based at Korogwe Teacher Training College, in Tanga region.After two nights in Dar es Salaam we travelled the six hour journey by road to Korogwe. It was dark when we arrived and we were very tired. We were directed to the Principal's house where we were left waiting for well over an hour while he had a shower. After some strained pleasantries he walked with us to our house and we agreed to meet the following morning. Five minutes after we entered the house the power went off for the night. The beds and light foam mattresses were in bad shape. Some of the furniture was broken. We were adjacent to three other staff houses. At 5am I woke to a chorus of animal sounds. There were goats, sheep, a couple of pigs, hens and chickens not far from our bedroom window, and all making their presence felt. A short distance away was the college piggery where some unfortunate pigs were being slowly killed. The squealing, which went on for a couple of hours, was head - splitting. When I went for my meeting with the Principal I was left sitting outside his office door for 45 minutes. When we did meet I soon concluded that he resembled Idi Amin in too many ways for my comfort. There was an inner being urging me to get out of this place as quickly as possible. If we were to stay two things had to happen: firstly, we had to move house, and secondly, I needed to be more assertive in my dealings with the Principal. We did both. Monica found a house and made it comfortable; I set out on a tug of war relationship with the Principal that continued for three and a half years.KorogweKorogwe is at the junction where the road from the port of Tanga joins the road from Dar es Salaam that continues on to Moshi and Arusha, and eventually on to Nairobi. It is situated in a fertile valley close to the Pangani River, and has the imposing Usambara Mountains in the background. In the 1960s Tanzania was the world's largest producer of sisal, with production of over 200 000 tons per year. Most of that sisal was grown in Tanga region. Because Korogwe was near to a number of sisal estates, and on the main road to the port of Tanga, it became an important administrative centre. Near our 'new' house there were traces of the filling station that was a recognised re - fuelling stop on the East African Safari car rally circuit in the 1960s. We lived in 'new' Korogwe, near the local authority offices. About 3km away was Old Korogwe, where the Anglican bishop had his residence, and where the Greeks, who managed most of the sisal estates, had a social club. By the time we arrived sisal production had fallen to 30 000 tons per year, the Greeks had left, and Korogwe was very run - down and neglected looking.Korogwe was the kind of place where it was necessary to be flexible, resourceful, and confident. There were very erratic supplies of electricity and water. Pauline Conway organised for a generator to be brought over from Pemba Island to our house. The generator looked and sounded like a small old tractor, but it served us well. Most of our water was transported to the house in large plastic tanks. For most of the year daytime temperatures were over 30 C, and the place was alive with mosquitoes. Malaria was a constant threat. During our time it took the lives of 3 or 4 expatriates in Tanga region. Most of the local people did not speak English; they all spoke Swahili. We spent a couple of enjoyable weeks in Arusha learning Swahili. The emphasis in Arusha was on grammar but as soon as we got back to Korogwe the pressure was on to start speaking it. Around our house the cook, gardener, and night watchman spoke no English. The project driver spoke no English, and the primary maths books that the project was about to develop would be written in Swahili. I was delighted when I started to have simple conversations with local people in Swahili.Our watchman, Samson, always arrived armed with one long knife and one machete. One night, as he dozed off, the knife fell out of his hand and stabbed his foot inside the big toe. Next morning when I came out I found the konde splattered in blood and a big cloth wrapped around Samson's foot. I brought him to the hospital where they dressed the wound and put in a couple of stitches. After a couple of days Samson was back on duty again. When a visitor arrived at our house Samson proceeded to demonstrate how his foot got wounded. As he swung his foot around the wound opened and the blood came gushing out once again. Our gardener, Salimu, did not have green fingers, but he was very reliable as a FAX messenger. The nearest FAX machine was in Tanga, 100km from Korogwe. Salimu frequently did the round trip by bus to send messages and collect replies. At the time it seemed an excellent way of communicating with HEDCO in Dublin.The buildings that were made available for the project were about 100m from the college's main office, and were in bad shape. I had to call on all my DIY experience to identify and coordinate the work that needed to be done. Meanwhile Monica was busy making a home out of our house, which was let to us unfurnished. Eventually all the furniture we had in the house was made by local carpenters. When some of the children arrived for Christmas the house was still only partially furnished. For Christmas dinner we drove up the steep climb to a plateau on the Usambara Mountains. There on the lawn of a tea manager's house we had probably our most memorable Christmas dinner. The menu was simple but delicious - prawns and brown bread with a bottle of wine. On the way down the steep winding dirt road a taxi came briskly up behind us and beeped sharply before passing. A couple of bends later we came on the taxi driver with only the tail of his car jutting out of a clump of bushes. Only for the bushes the driver and car would have been 500m closer to sea level In the evenings I looked forward to getting away from the college campus and relaxing in our large cool house, with its own garden and perimeter fence. For most of the time security was not a problem, but it was advisable to take precautions. One evening while we were away a German friend of ours came to the gate. When Samson did not recognise him he did not open the gate. The German started shouting and Samson decided to run away. When we returned I found Samson caught with his head sticking out of the fence at the back of the house and unable to free himself.Our nearest neighbour was an Asian trader who had a couple of shops in Old Korogwe. He lived with his family about 150m from our house. Near Christmas we woke up one night to a lot of commotion near his house. A group of 14 or 15 men, armed with iron bars and guns, had forced their way into the house, moved all the family into one small room, and forced the trader to hand over a considerable amount of cash. Around midday a man tried to rob a shop about 300m from our house. A security guard surprised the robber and hit him on the head with a machete. The robber was a big strong man. With blood streaming from his head he ran across a field towards the main road. By the time he reached the main road, beside the old Safari filling station, the alert had been raised and armed police or soldiers were there to surround him. They pumped about 30 bullets into him and then took the body away. When I visited the scene a short time later there were traces of blood all over the place.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)