Not Easy Being an African Mzungu

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

NEWS
2 November 2007
Posted to the web 2 November 2007

By Stella Barozi

Richard Satterhwaite Mabala is known around his Sinza neighbourhood as 'Mzungu Mswahili'. He feels Africa is where he belongs. With his wife, Manka at home.

He is known in his neighbourhood as Mzungu Mswahili, which literally means White African. And in case you are stranded as you are looking for his house, that is the nickname that Richard Mabala advises you to ask for among the taxi drivers at Sinza-Afrika Sana.

As I went to meet him, a mechanic at a nearby garage told me they call him Mzungu Mswahili because ìhe can even speak Kimangíati,î the language in Manyara region.

Apart from his African name, Mabala who is originally from England speaks Kiswahili so fluently that you would be forgiven for thinking he is African if you are talking to him on phone. Mabala is used to the surprise on peopleís faces when they finally get to meet him and discover he is a White man. When he encounters this, he teases them further that he is actually a Mnyamwezi-Mkorogo (meaning, a Mnyamwezi but only that he has bleached his skin). Mabala is a Nyamwezi name.

I was surprised when I met him for the first time. Having read his book ëMabala the Farmerí back in 1988 while in school, I grew up believing the author is African. He is also the author of ëHawa the Bus Driver, which we also used in school during my time.

In fact, Mabala who was born Richard Satterhwaite in England, 58 years ago, is a Tanzanian. He also fancies everything African - from the vitenge and other ethnic types of clothing that he wears to the Ugali that he has on his dinner menu daily. He says he likes the shirts because they are simple, comfortable and colourful while he finds suits to be horrible.

At his home, he shows me a photo depicting the last time he wore a suit. It was in 1999 during his wedding to his second wife. He explains that he wore the suit out of respect for his in-laws, otherwise he belongs to the ìrevolutionaryî generation of the 1960s that was typified by, among other traits, their desire to depart from such traditional encumbrances.

I ask him if he would describe himself as African and Mabala pauses a bit. If I do, some people say you are not,î he replies after a while. ìI feel African though I recognise I wasnít born African. So if the criteria for being African is birth or colour, then I am not African.î

His Africanness is something that has unsurprisingly proved an issue in more than just a few instances in his life. He says, ìI came when young. My first commitment is Africa. Sometimes I feel I am stigmatised. I feel African. I do recognise that some people donít think I am African.î He adds his whole life has been changed by Africa. He respects those who think he is not African though he gets embarrassed when they actually say so.

But the scepticism has done nothing to faze Mabala in his love affair with Africa, specifically with Tanzania. ìI enjoyed Tanzania from the first day to date. I have lived in Tanzania for 34 years and I canít believe it because it has gone too fast,î he says.

Apart from his surname, people also get surprised when they discover that a mzungu could choose to stay in Sinza rather than in a leafy suburb like Oysterbay, Masaki or in the chicer side of Msasani.

His house is situated along a dusty roadside a stone throw from the Afrika-Sana bus stand, just behind the famous corner bar. The rather crammed neighbourhood undeniably fits the tag ìUswahiliniî and it is populated by petty traders, a small tailoring mart here and there, charcoal vendors, chips sellers and legions of jobless young men hanging around shop verandahs.

Indeed there is nothing ostentatious about Mabalaís house which is separated from the neighboursí on both sides by perimeter fencing.

There was no doorbell at the gate as you would have expected and the house help, rather than a uniformed guard, is likely to answer the door when you knock.

The house is modestly decorated inside with ordinary furniture, African paintings and a striking portrait of Albert Einstein whom Mabala idolises for his ìcrazy ideas. The picture depicts Einstein pulling a face. ìHe was crazy,î says Mabala. ìI like that. Look at him. You have to be an independent thinker. I love him for that.

Mabala also considers himself crazy. He says one needs to be crazy if they are to bring about change. ìYou have to be a bit crazy in life.î

Clearly, old habits die hard as they say. For the Mswahili that he is, Mabala still canít help chiding me, albeit jokingly, for being five minutes late for our appointment. However, if you are expecting him to serve you your coffee from a coffee maker, you will be disappointed. He makes his coffee plainly by mixing it with hot water in a cup.

Richard Satterhwaite came to Tanzania as a volunteer teacher for French in 1973 when he was just 24 years old. He was posted to Mirambo Secondary School in Tabora. It was there that he had the name ìMabalaî bestowed upon him.

They called me Mabala which means big open space - from England to Tabora,î said Mabala. He took an instant liking to his new name and so did everyone else in Tabora. I enjoyed it because I felt very honoured to be given the name. It is a nice name, descriptive, because I had jumped a big open space to get here.

When he got his citizenship in 1982, he also undertook the legal procedures that enabled him to be formally known as Richard Satterhwaite Mabala.

Mabalaís love for volunteering stemmed from his passion for taking part in development issues. This is an enduring passion in him which he has nurtured as a development worker, an activist, a writer, and a columnist.

At Mirambo, Mabala also taught English Literature, a subject he says he has always found exciting. At the time, contemporary African literature had just been introduced with Tanzaniaís departure from the Cambridge syllabus. He says the subject was particularly exciting because there were very good books available then and also because he felt African literature enabled students and teachers to confront the real issues about liberation, the role of the educated in the society, and development.

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ìThat was during the Arusha Declaration era. We used to have fantastic debates in class because the students were more politically aware,î says Mabala who taught luminaries like Prime Minister Edward Lowassa and legislator Harrison Mwakyembe at Mirambo. As he puts it, he had a great time teaching.

Volunteers usually stay in a country for two years with an option of an additional year. But for Mabala, who had read about Tanzania and had been bowled over by Julius Nyerereís new brand of socialism, the writing was on the wall: He would have to stay a bit longer.

ìAfter the three years, I thought I was beginning to understand Tanzania more. I thought I would be more beneficial to the country,î he says. He extended his stay for another year, which was followed by another year, and another one. Mabala finally told himself he had either to be fully committed or return to England. But the urge to stay in Tanzania was stronger than that of going back to his home country.

I was happier about staying than going back. I thought I was in a country that was on its way to development and I enjoyed participating in its development.î

He pauses, then adds: I think I have been very lucky in my life because I came to a country where I feel at home.î He is happy to be involved with people who love their country and are willing to develop it.

Mabala contends he got far more from Tanzania than he has given to Tanzania. ìIf people think Makengeza is good, it is because they taught me,î he says. Makengeza (which means squinting) is the name of the column he writes in the Kiswahili newspaper, Mwananchi, in which he provokes debates on different issues. He says the aim of the column is to provoke people to think critically about society, their own participation and about the behaviour of their leaders.

Some people who are not born in Tanzania may rightly wonder how a foreigner could have managed to live in the country during the Ujamaa era. But Mabala says this was not difficult at all for him. ìI was and I am still a socialist. I hate capitalism where people get rich by exploiting other people. I was inspired by Nyerereís policies. I had read Ujamaa before I came to Tanzania. I was happy to come here because I was inspired by Nyerere.î

Having seen how passionate the founding president was about the distribution of wealth, Mabala says he thinks Nyerere would probably die a second time if he came today and saw how people behave. According to Mabala, the country has lost ìthe fire and the visionî it had and with which it would have been ìfar aheadî today.

He remembers with nostalgia the day he met Nyerere upon his arrival in Tanzania. ìThat was very special. I argued with him about the use of Kiswahili. I told him that Kiswahili should be the medium of instruction and he said no. The volunteers had been invited to meet President Nyerere at State House.

Mabala says he is aware some people were not convinced by his professed love for Ujamaa and Tanzania. They felt it was not possible for an Englishman to love Ujamaa. Some said he had a secret mission, that perhaps he was a spy. This made his life a bit difficult. He says one of his lowest moments was when he was denied the chance to address a seminar at the school where he was teaching. It was 1976 and his students had organised the seminar to discuss the Soweto Massacre which had just taken place in South Africa. The students wanted him to speak but the headmaster would have none of it. He reportedly told the students that he thought Mabala was a spy.

ìThat was my worst moment. I thought I was going to be kicked out of Tanzania,î said Mabala. One of the reasons he thinks they suspected him of having an ìagendaî was because he never behaved like a Mzungu. He used to socialise and drink mtama (millet local brew) in local hangouts when some people expected him to socialise with other wazungu in the big hotels.

Mabala taught for 20 years in secondary schools and teachers colleges around Tanzania and also at the University of Dar es Salaam before he stopped teaching in 1993. He says this was because he realised he would do better as an activist.

After retiring from teaching, he went to work with non-governmental organisations such as the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme for which he is a founding member. He joined Unicef in 1999 and worked with them for seven years in their offices in Tanzania, Nairobi, and Ethiopia. He returned to Tanzania this year to do his dream project, Tamasha (the Youth Participatory Development Centre) which advocates for the rights of the youth and aims to strengthen their capacity.

I have to follow my dreams now while I still have strength,î Mabala says. He started the project because he felt the youth also needed an advocate for their needs. The centre aims at providing young people with peer education, life skills, HIV/Aids education, and leadership skills. ìThese people will then be employable.

By Mabalaís reckoning, Africa will never develop until its young people are given attention and the chance to participate in development issues. He has the misfortune of seeing so many young people buried after succumbing to Aids. He says the youth are dying because ìwe are not serious about Aids.î

Many decent young people who are volunteering as peer educators have already been infected with HIV. ìAnd it is not because they are promiscuous,î Mabala says.

To him, all disease outbreaks depend on socio- economic issues and not necessarily peopleís behaviour. Aids, he argues, results from the inequality between the rich and the poor. ìThe song should therefore not be about changing behaviour but it should be fighting the environment that encourages such behaviour. What's more, young people would change without even having to sing to them the behavioural change song if only they would be given hope.

What should be done to protect the youth from Aids is to channel the millions of money injected in prevention projects into changing the environment instead. We should abandon bill boards. Letís change the lives of the youth. Give them capital.

Apart from being an activist, Mabala is also a family man. He is married and has a son, Bahati Mabala, 24, who is a university student in the US.

If he has had his fair share of challenges in his public life, it is some of those that he has encountered in his personal life that have really tested his strength. For instance, his father's death 14 years ago. His faith would later be tested when his son developed a bone disease called Osteomelytis and had to have his leg amputated in 1990. "That was a very low point in my life," Mabala says. "But he is a strong guy."

He adds: "I love him. He is a fantastic son. We have been having serious conversations since he was five years old. He has also taught me a lot.î

One of Mabala's happiest moments, he says, was the day he was granted citizenship in 1982. "I was very excited." Mabala says back then one had to demonstrate they were truly worthy of Tanzanian citizenship. "I respect that. It is good to have to prove yourself."

He has other issues to pick with the way things are today. He complains that today when someone says he is a foreign investor, he is given priority over a local investor.

"I don't think you have to prove yourself [much] now," he says.

Despite his grievances, Tanzania is what he calls home and that he is very happy here. This does not mean that he has severed ties with his country of origin. His mother and two brothers are there as well as an old school friend that he still communicates with. The first born in a family of four, Mabala makes it a point to visit England every two years. But he says, "The truth is I feel out of place. What they talk about is not what I talk about. Their world is not my world anymore."

He got his parents blessing when he told them he wanted to become a Tanzanian citizen. But they were shocked when they came to Tanzania and saw the simple life he lives. He bought his first car in 1990. And he eats ugali daily.

His mother has been to Tanzania for seven times and he expects her to come again next year to attend the launch of Tamasha. His sister died before Mabala came to Tanzania.

Some of the lighter moments in his life as a Tanzanian happened in the daladala. People would backbite him thinking he did not understand Kiswahili. They would be ashamed when they were done and he would then turn to give them a piece of his mind.

People even took issue with the mere fact of his boarding a daladala, saying he had to be uncomfortable on the bus because he was with Africans. On account of his skin colour, they sometimes referred to him as Mirinda (the beverage) when they were talking about him.

Mabala has other interests too. With his wife Manka, they plan to open a tourist standard Tanzanian restaurant in Arusha in which they will be highlighting foods from different tribes each month. Their mission is to make Tanzanian food as popular as Chinese food. The choice of Arusha is because it is the defacto capital of East Africa and because he thinks it is time people started moving out of Dar es Salaam. Everything is in Dar es Salaam. We should do away with that.

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