Reasons why Tanzanians can’t stand Kenyans

I once had a drink on the Tanzanian side of the border in the company of a senior civil servant who shall remain nameless for political reasons.

Lord, Kenyans are a pretty arrogant bunch. To start with, all the rascals who were making merry in that pub were Kenyans led by top security officials from our side of the border.

The DCIO was shaking his formidable booty like there was no bone in it and security was maximum.

As if that was not enough, we were drinking Kenyan hooch and had bullied the DJ into playing our music. When we staggered out and drove off at midnight towards no man’s land, the senior civil servant’s bodyguards leapt out and flung the Tanzanian gates open.

“Ubaya wa hawa wa Tanzania ni kwamba hawana haraka (the trouble with Tanzanians is that they are never in a hurry)!” one of them complained.

There was a bit of a disagreement that could have gotten out of control had my friend, the senior civil servant, not stepped out to apologise and cool tempers.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Kenyans are not the most popular of people in Tanzania. Tanzanians find us rude, unbearably loud, unrefined, greedy and bossy in our third rate Kiswahili, which is not altogether far from the truth.

That is why we have been involved in a small cold war for as long as I can remember. Tanzanians pretend we all love each other as East Africans, yet their anthem is South African.

diplomatic smile

We also pretend to love Dar, yet pay far much more dowry to Kampala. It doesn’t help matters that Jakaya Kikwete has this boyish diplomatic smile but is a hardboiled Army Intelligence Chief – a wolf in sheepskin.

So we never quite know what is cooking in his mind. But in Chirau Ali Mwakwere, Kenya now has a most illustrious envoy in Dar.

An intellectual who pretends to be a clown, Mwakwere is a hard-boiled politician and diplomat – another wolf in sheepskin. Let the games begin. Go, Zi-pa-pah, go!