Growing up in
Tanzania
 

A personal experience

The Tanzanian flag was adopted on June 30, 1964. The Tanzanian flag originates from the flags of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the two countries that merged together to form Tanzania in April 1964. Tanganyika's flag was green with a yellow edged black horizontal stripe centrally placed; while Zanzibar's flag was a horizontal striped tricolor of blue, black and green. Tanzania chose a diagonal design to show equal status to both flags.

 

 

 

 
I was born in Liverpool, England in 1957. In 1961, my mother died. In late 1962, my father having remarried, my parents took me to live in Dar-es-salaam, Tanganyika.

Consider at this point that my father did not know me particularly well as he had been overseas for some considerble time.  Further consider that he did not tell his new wife (my step mother) about me prior to the marriage as she thought I was my sister's child.  Shortly after the marriage, I was taken to Africa

The original arrangement was that my eldest sister, Margaret (17 years older than me) was to have accompanied me and Dad, to settle me in and if I didn't settle in, to return me to England. However, father's new wife, Terry, my step-mother usurped Margaret and from then, my fate was sealed. What was to happen then, with hindsight, I have likened to being 'kidnapped and sold into slavery' on the dark continent.

We lived in a house called "Villa Capri" on the Bagamoyo Road and a few minutes ride from Dar-es-salaam city centre. Terry did not like children; believing that they should be seen and not heard and over time I became terrified of her although I learned through pain and suffering how to combat this emotion.

Unfortunately, this learned habit became entrenched further when I was sent upcountry to a catholic boarding school called St Michaels, Soni. Here the Rosminian order of priests took over from where Terry left off and between the two of them I learned how to conceal my feelings, avoid confrontation and become invisible. Those of us who went to St Michaels called in by another name; Soni Prison Camp.

It has become absolutely necessary for me now to relinquish the feeling of guilt and shame that I feel by telling how it was for me.

It is pertinent to learn that history will show that I was kidnapped by a man who hardly knew me and by a woman who had not known of me and sold into slavery on the dark continent by being put in a school, 300 miles from anywhere, with priests of whom a small number pleasured themselves with the little boys in their care.

I am in the middle of a depression illness which is badly affecting my memory and concentration but worse than that, I have flashbacks or half forgotten childhood memories from my time with Terry in Tanzania, Yemen and Geneva and the priests of Soni.