Morogoro Town

The guide books call Morogoro a “sleepy town,” but that depends on one’s perspective, I suppose. To me, Morogoro seems like a modest-sized town replete with hustle and bustle that never sleeps. It’s not as large as Arusha or Dar es Salaam but it’s a growing town that boasts small traffic jams. One main road runs through the town, east and west. The road east gets you to Dar in about three hours. The road heading west will soon bring you to Erica and Nathan’s home in Mzumbe. After that, the road bends south and in another hour or so just below the Uluguru Mountains brings you to the gates of Mikumi National Park with its giraffes, elephants, zebras, wildebeests, lions, leopards, hippos, primates and birds of all kinds. Beyond Mikumi the road winds through the Ruaha River Gorge and up into the southern highlands on to Mbeya from whence you can continue west into Zambia or turn south toward Malawi.

The hustle and bustle in Morogoro comes from the shops that line the streets everywhere, selling everything under the sun. They are mostly very small stores with much of their wares piled in front on the sidewalk during the day. At night, when everything is stacked back into the shop and the iron gates swing shut, there is hardly any space left inside that little place. We don’t have a single big box store here – we have a million little box stores! This is a nice little store that I go to for household items.

The largest employer in Morogoro is an American tobacco company that raises tobacco in a western region of Tanzania called Tabora. The tobacco is brought here to be processed and then shipped elsewhere to be made into cigarettes. That habit has not caught on here and I seldom see people smoking. Otherwise, Sokoine University where Dave has an office is a major, and far less lethal, employer. Other schools and the many small businesses employ a lot of people in the area, as well.

The Aga Khan Hospital and Clinic in Morogoro is a good place for medical care and pharmaceuticals. The Aga Khan is the title of the head of the Ismaili branch of the Muslim faith. Succession to that title is hereditary in an independently wealthy family and the current Aga Khan is a kind of “Bill Gates,” pouring money into medical care, economic development, and education in East Africa and other areas. An Aga Khan hospital or school is going to have high standards and be open and welcoming to all faiths so it’s not uncommon for Christian parents to send their children to an Aga Khan school. This is the Aga Khan Health Centre where Dave went when he had a high fever a few weeks after we arrived. It wasn't malaria they said and prescribed some antibiotics. The next day he started feeling better.

About thirty to forty percent of the population in Tanzania is Muslim with an equal or slightly higher percentage that is Christian. There is a small but significant percentage that is Hindu, mostly descendants of people who came here from India in the last several hundred years. There isn’t significant religious tension to speak of so far, thankfully. Across sub-Saharan Africa, there is a history of religious tolerance and understanding between Christians and Muslims that goes back centuries. More recently, zealous groups on either side have set out to “convert” the other and this can create serious problems. Much of this on the Christian side has been encouraged and funded by independent religious groups in the United States that view Islam as evil. I find this regrettable and am encouraged by the fact that mainline denominations, including my own Mennonite Church USA, with a long and tested history of working in Africa and other areas, have laid aside divisive tactics like this and try to work together with everyone around common interests.