Kilombero: The market that Nyerere had wept on

By Valentine Marc Nkwame

Arusha, also boasts its own Wall Street! Now, this is a rather weird Wall street, known as Kilombero, named after a certain place in Morogoro region, where sugar is being produced.

Of course, no sugar is produced at the Arusha’s Kilombero Wall Street, but plenty of it is being sold there. In fact, even sugarcane is traded there, together with, plums, mangoes, avocados ...!

Oh! By the way, Kilombero is a market, probably the biggest one in Arusha, complete with pay toilets, an integrated super market and a fully fledged bus station.

Kilombero is well known for its tendency of, Not taking any sides. For instance, we

are not quite sure about the name of the location on which the market stands.

Apparently, our Kilombero Wall Street is located at a "No Man’s Land," focal point, where about five wards of the Arusha municipality converge.

These are, Ngarenaro, Levolosi, Town Centre, Makao Mapya and Unga Limited wards all of which claim lion shares of the giant shopping centre.

Nobody knows for sure, when was the Kilombero outfit built, but we all know that it went up in flames and got razed down in the early months of 1994.

The fire erupted somewhere between Monday and Tuesday, at midnight. Mind you, it was also between February and March ... Again, Kilombero took no sides to both the time and day.

Everything was gutted down! Well almost everything, other valuable items were saved by street hooligans, who allegedly looted them away ...There were also some speculations that it was actually the cops who "saved" the valuables away!

Never mind, but the following day, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who happened to be in Arusha at that time, visited the site and reportedly wept over the debris mounds of the gutted market.

This reminds me of the Biblical, Old Testament Prophet, Jeremiah, who had also wept over Jerusalem .... due to some foreseen doom pending over the City of King David.

Nyerere by the way, used to be the King of Tanzania physically reigning between 1961 and 1985, but as many people believed, Mwalimu allegedly continued to rule this country via a remote control, from then until his death on the 14^th of October 1999.

By the time of his death, Kilombero Market had been closed down for re-construction, courtesy of the World Bank .... Everything here is being constructed aegis of the WB.

Later, the market was re opened and as usual, some politicians went round and laid down a concrete foundation stone, to mark the occasion.

For some reason, the Municipal Council officials have no idea of who exactly had laid the inaugural foundation stone ... Despite the fact that, the market was placed under their charge.

Some say the foundation stone was laid by President Mkapa while others argue that, it was actually done by Prime Minister, Frederick Sumaye.

Not surprising, because the foundation stone was grounded to dust, a few months later, by some angry traders who were protesting against harassments being imposed onto them by the Municipal fathers.

Also knocked down and grounded to dust, was the wall which was initially built to fence the newly constructed market. This time however, the vandalism was done by the Municipal fathers themselves .... For some even more weird reasons.

In his Woe on Jerusalem, Prophet Jeremiah had lamented that "... No stone shall be left standing in the city!"

Maybe when Nyerere wept, he had seem a similar fate that was to soon to befall the Kilombero market, its foundation stone and surrounding wall.

Never mind, hate or love it, Kilombero remain the outstanding market centre in town, having undergone fire, brimstone ( and foundation stone) plus mass destruction yet survived to not only tell the tale but also to yield a bus terminal in the process.

Our Wall street is also the most reliable breeding nest for cholera, a doyenne for local noise pollution and if you happen to be shopping around for new bunch of con men, then by all means head straight there.

Now with the introduction of that giant Shoprite Supermarket on its adjacent side, the Imalaseko mini supermarket right inside it and a bus station on the opposite side, is Kilombero a market, a bus station or simply a Wall street .... But without the Wall?

nkwame@eudoramail.com

Last modified: October 10, 2003.
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