If you enlarge this map it gives an idea of where the area is - the top of the map.
The West and East sides are not exact as the boundary is indefinite.
I worked in the Ngarenanyuki (sometimes spelled as Ngare Nanyuki) for five years, but with a split of two making my knowledge of the area gained over nine years.
During that time I was intrigued that 'development', especially water schemes, seemed run down. At Kisimiri where we carried out an environmental program with the the women's group of the small Lutheran church, I could see that a large gully there had been dammed at one time - no doubt as a water catchment. The dam has burst long ago and it occurred to me what had become of the people below when the mass of water came down. Nobody could tell me.
I am always interested in history, and why things happened, so I asked some questions and read whatever was available about the history of Ngarenanyuki. I don't really have a history here but some of what happens needs to be readily available, so I will try.
There are similarities in this question to what happened here in New Zealand, and it is easy to roll your eyes and think 'not again', when Maori issues are raised. I am from British stock, or 'the other side' but it is not difficult to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
Particularly I think of the Maori whose 'ancestral lands' (if that's the correct term) were at Omarama. Settler-farmers felt threatened by the Maori presence and 'lobbied to have them removed. Historically fortunately, not the army, but the police escorted the Maori to the mouth of the Waitaki River, the journey taking a long time in cold weather causing a high death rate.
Then there was the 'land buyer' who forged Maori signatures and pocketed the proposed land purchase payments. So the settlers though they had legitimate rights whereas the Maori thought the land had been stolen.
The fundamental mistake colonizing nations have made through the ages is the belief that they are educated, therefore intelligent, while indigenous peoples rate merely as savages. Just because people develop differently does not equate to 'intelligence'. Of course the invaders usually bring with them technologically superior weaponry and disease.
The first part about the history of Ngarenanyuki is the climate. I was told that in earlier times the area was greener and there were dairy farms there, but now farming is difficult because the short rain invariably fail.
Anecdotal information is not always completely accurate and I suspect that the Ngarenanyuki area has always been a rain shadow area but in recent times climate change has tipped the balance just slightly so the area has become drier.
The reason dairy farming were able to survive was because the farmers managed the water better by way of irrigation schemes.
Ngarenanyuki is primarily Meru homeland with the Arusha tribe and the Maasai on some of the fringes.
What is Tanzania now, in 1884 became German East Africa and Lutheran missionaries were first at Akeri but no doubt there was German occupation wherever there was good land. viz Lushoto.
I have no idea of what the Germans did at Ngarenanyuki, but after WWI in 1919 Tanzania became the British Trust Territory of Tanganyika and it seems the Germans returned the Ngarenanyuki lands back to the Meru. In reports I have read, the word was sold, but in inverted commas - whatever that means. But there were obviously German who developed farms in the area. We lived in a German built house at Makumira - and the standard was high.
Again I have no idea about the British influence up to and during WW2 but the date 17 November is important for Meru because the British forcefully evicted 3000 Ngarenanyuki people to make room for European farmers. Like the Omarama situation, it was the police who enforced the eviction. The 3000 were moved to the King'ori region which begs the question of how the King'ori people felt about the 'invasion'. This sort of thing goes on even today, but not by colonialists this time - in Zimbabwe (1996) we saw the inhabitants of Matopos National Park being evicted and in Tanzania today tribal lands of the Hadzabe and Maasai are threatened. Beaches, long the food and income source of Unguja Is, (Zanzibar) have been displaced in favor of tourist accommodation.
There are reports that the 3000 looked back to see smoke when their homes were set alight and with their homes some of their livestock. Bitterness and anger would have been felt among the Meru people and they intended to have their lands returned to them.
I guess the European farmers that were installed believed they had a perfect right to their new farms - just like much of the South Island of New Zealand.
I am assuming that it was these farmers who set up the water projects that I had seen - but it may have been earlier. Nobody told me. We carried out six water projects, all of them repairing or hooking into old schemes.
It seems that the farmers installed into the area had been 'helpful' to the British war effort. Just what that means, I'm not very sure, but the farmers were not necessarily British people.
The good thing about all of this was that post WW2 the United Nations was formed and while the Meru protest (about the confiscation of their land) was 'a matter for all African Tanganyikans', the Meru leaders determined to retake their lands peacefully and legally. The leaders managed to avoid violence by their youth - called moran, the same as the Maasai warriors - who were no doubt fired up!
There was a Meru Citizens Union (who had formed a constitution), there was an Indian lawyer from Moshi, named Seaton, there was a young Julius Nyerere and there were others who contributed to an application to the United Nations for the return of the Meru land of Ngarenanyuki.
The Meru won! A short sentence but within the corridors of power in the UN you can bet that the Meru application/appeal was not easy. Britain was a powerful world leader and the bureaucrats would not have liked the Meru stirring things up! There would have been all sorts of delays and tricks played.
However peacefully, the Meru won the day and the European farmers had to vacate their properties. They would not have been happy with the situation and it seems that they did not leave all of their facilities so they could be used by the returning Meru - they would have felt bitterness and anger. One church above Olkung'wado was destroyed - and other things I do not know about.
It is my guess that Ngarenanyuki was not unique - maybe the resolution was, but I refer to the scenario of land acquisition. It may be said that under British rule, the country ran efficiently and deteriorated after Independence, but it is no wonder Tanzanians celebrate Uhuru - freedom, and revere Julius Nyerere as the Father of the Nation.
There are always silver linings and one of those is at Kisimiri. The descendant of a Swiss farmer (from which regime I am not sure) has for a long time provided great assistance at first to Kisimiri Primary School. We too had some involvement there.
I am guessing it is the same family who drive the 'Friends of Kisimiri' extending assistance to the wider Kisimiri area including the secondary school.
I am sure I will be corrected if I have that wrong.
Take a look at www.kisimiri.ch/
I look forward to finding out more information on this issue because there are many gaps.
During that time I was intrigued that 'development', especially water schemes, seemed run down. At Kisimiri where we carried out an environmental program with the the women's group of the small Lutheran church, I could see that a large gully there had been dammed at one time - no doubt as a water catchment. The dam has burst long ago and it occurred to me what had become of the people below when the mass of water came down. Nobody could tell me.
I am always interested in history, and why things happened, so I asked some questions and read whatever was available about the history of Ngarenanyuki. I don't really have a history here but some of what happens needs to be readily available, so I will try.
There are similarities in this question to what happened here in New Zealand, and it is easy to roll your eyes and think 'not again', when Maori issues are raised. I am from British stock, or 'the other side' but it is not difficult to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
Particularly I think of the Maori whose 'ancestral lands' (if that's the correct term) were at Omarama. Settler-farmers felt threatened by the Maori presence and 'lobbied to have them removed. Historically fortunately, not the army, but the police escorted the Maori to the mouth of the Waitaki River, the journey taking a long time in cold weather causing a high death rate.
Then there was the 'land buyer' who forged Maori signatures and pocketed the proposed land purchase payments. So the settlers though they had legitimate rights whereas the Maori thought the land had been stolen.
The fundamental mistake colonizing nations have made through the ages is the belief that they are educated, therefore intelligent, while indigenous peoples rate merely as savages. Just because people develop differently does not equate to 'intelligence'. Of course the invaders usually bring with them technologically superior weaponry and disease.
The first part about the history of Ngarenanyuki is the climate. I was told that in earlier times the area was greener and there were dairy farms there, but now farming is difficult because the short rain invariably fail.
Anecdotal information is not always completely accurate and I suspect that the Ngarenanyuki area has always been a rain shadow area but in recent times climate change has tipped the balance just slightly so the area has become drier.
The reason dairy farming were able to survive was because the farmers managed the water better by way of irrigation schemes.
Ngarenanyuki is primarily Meru homeland with the Arusha tribe and the Maasai on some of the fringes.
What is Tanzania now, in 1884 became German East Africa and Lutheran missionaries were first at Akeri but no doubt there was German occupation wherever there was good land. viz Lushoto.
I have no idea of what the Germans did at Ngarenanyuki, but after WWI in 1919 Tanzania became the British Trust Territory of Tanganyika and it seems the Germans returned the Ngarenanyuki lands back to the Meru. In reports I have read, the word was sold, but in inverted commas - whatever that means. But there were obviously German who developed farms in the area. We lived in a German built house at Makumira - and the standard was high.
Again I have no idea about the British influence up to and during WW2 but the date 17 November is important for Meru because the British forcefully evicted 3000 Ngarenanyuki people to make room for European farmers. Like the Omarama situation, it was the police who enforced the eviction. The 3000 were moved to the King'ori region which begs the question of how the King'ori people felt about the 'invasion'. This sort of thing goes on even today, but not by colonialists this time - in Zimbabwe (1996) we saw the inhabitants of Matopos National Park being evicted and in Tanzania today tribal lands of the Hadzabe and Maasai are threatened. Beaches, long the food and income source of Unguja Is, (Zanzibar) have been displaced in favor of tourist accommodation.
There are reports that the 3000 looked back to see smoke when their homes were set alight and with their homes some of their livestock. Bitterness and anger would have been felt among the Meru people and they intended to have their lands returned to them.
I guess the European farmers that were installed believed they had a perfect right to their new farms - just like much of the South Island of New Zealand.
I am assuming that it was these farmers who set up the water projects that I had seen - but it may have been earlier. Nobody told me. We carried out six water projects, all of them repairing or hooking into old schemes.
It seems that the farmers installed into the area had been 'helpful' to the British war effort. Just what that means, I'm not very sure, but the farmers were not necessarily British people.
The good thing about all of this was that post WW2 the United Nations was formed and while the Meru protest (about the confiscation of their land) was 'a matter for all African Tanganyikans', the Meru leaders determined to retake their lands peacefully and legally. The leaders managed to avoid violence by their youth - called moran, the same as the Maasai warriors - who were no doubt fired up!
There was a Meru Citizens Union (who had formed a constitution), there was an Indian lawyer from Moshi, named Seaton, there was a young Julius Nyerere and there were others who contributed to an application to the United Nations for the return of the Meru land of Ngarenanyuki.
The Meru won! A short sentence but within the corridors of power in the UN you can bet that the Meru application/appeal was not easy. Britain was a powerful world leader and the bureaucrats would not have liked the Meru stirring things up! There would have been all sorts of delays and tricks played.
However peacefully, the Meru won the day and the European farmers had to vacate their properties. They would not have been happy with the situation and it seems that they did not leave all of their facilities so they could be used by the returning Meru - they would have felt bitterness and anger. One church above Olkung'wado was destroyed - and other things I do not know about.
It is my guess that Ngarenanyuki was not unique - maybe the resolution was, but I refer to the scenario of land acquisition. It may be said that under British rule, the country ran efficiently and deteriorated after Independence, but it is no wonder Tanzanians celebrate Uhuru - freedom, and revere Julius Nyerere as the Father of the Nation.
There are always silver linings and one of those is at Kisimiri. The descendant of a Swiss farmer (from which regime I am not sure) has for a long time provided great assistance at first to Kisimiri Primary School. We too had some involvement there.
I am guessing it is the same family who drive the 'Friends of Kisimiri' extending assistance to the wider Kisimiri area including the secondary school.
I am sure I will be corrected if I have that wrong.
Take a look at www.kisimiri.ch/
I look forward to finding out more information on this issue because there are many gaps.
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