City of sisal and quaint names

• Nestled deep in picturesque Tanzania, Tanga owes its rich heritage to 18th century explorers and farmers

It takes two hours to reach the Lunga Lunga border to cross into Tanzania from the South Coast, Mombasa. The checkpoint is not busy but the paperwork takes almost 45 minutes. After that, we drive across sisal plantations along the Indian Ocean and past local villages into Tanga.

Our first stop is at Mkonge Hotel, facing the picturesque bay of Tanga and Toten island. Mkonge is Kiswahili for sisal.

Driving past Katani House on the same street, the board reads: “Tanga is sisal and sisal is Tanga”.

The front doors of Mkonge Hotel reflect a deep sentiment for the building that houses the hotel today. It must have been the headquarters of the sisal industry.

The bronze edgings of the front doors have sisal plants engraved on them, with the inscription “Doors donated by Alfred Wigglesworth, May 1951.

The stone was laid by Consul H. Tanner, President of Tanganyika Sisal Growers Association, on October 4, 1950.

In the local languages, Tanga means “to farm’.

In 1882, Dr Hindorf, a German, smuggled 1,000 plants from Florida, USA, to East Africa, but only 62 survived the journey. Sisal (agave sisalana) originates from South America. It flourished and gave rise to Tanga.

The sturdy plant, which opens into a bouquet of spiked edges with a fibrous inside, coated with a tough sheath, was the “white gold of Africa.” It flourished in Tanga’s climate — with the sea, sunlight and moisture-laden air from Usambara mountains.

Such was the prominence of Tanga that it lent its name to the country, Tanganyika. By 1956, half the world’s sisal was produced in East Africa (225,000 tonnes), with roughly 186,000 of these from Tanzania (then Tanganyika).

Sisal was in great demand for manufacturing thick ropes in the shipping industry. But with the advent of nylon, the demand fell sharply.

Today, Tanga is a quaint town, a page from the old centres of East Africa.

The buildings are similar to those on Biashara Street, Nairobi, in the 1930s.

At Patwa’s, a local eatery, the walls are filled with sepia pictures from the 1950s of the new generation of Tanzanians. Local Tanga residents leaving work stroll by, stopping for a bite of seafood like calamari cooked by the roadside. The town is cosmopolitan, with a large mix of Africans, Arabs, Asians and a few Wazungu.

Our mission is to find the cairn where lie the remains of soldiers who fought in the Battle of Tanga on November 4, 1914. Commonwealth forces fought against a highly skilled German force for Tanga — a German military post in 1889. Tanganyika was the core of German East Africa.

The Commonwealth soldiers were mostly Indian, poorly equipped and shipped out of the country. They were killed in large numbers in “the battle of the bees”. It is said the troops were set upon by an angry swarm of bees.

From 1915, the Commonwealth forces fought the Germans under the command of General von Lettow-Vorbeck.

Finally, on November 23, 1918, the Germans surrendered, 12 days after the European armistice.

It’s a pleasant surprise for us to find the Tanga Memorial Cemetery — a Commonwealth grave — in a well kept yard with a wall of 10 panels, including those for the Tanga Jasin Memorial.

There are names of 62 Indian soldiers who died at Jasin (near Tanga) in 1915 and whose graves are not known. Buried either here or in unknown graves on the battlefield are 394 British and Indian officers. “Their Names Liveth Forever More” reads a panel.

My late grandfather, whose father was a Sikh soldier, fought in World War I and was killed somewhere in Europe.

My grandfather tried but he never found out where. Many descendents of the people listed on the panels might never know the fate of their forbearers.

With the golden cast of the setting sun, we make the outline of the Usambaras from the Tanga Yacht Club, close to Toten Island.

Toten (German for dead) stands alone in the bay, with the yachts bobbing on the ocean ripple.

The seafood is delicious and reasonably priced. We then meet some local members of the delightful club.

Email: rupi.mangat@yahoo.com