I miss those Happy New Year days in Arusha’s Njiro

It was sometimes in early 1998 when I moved residency from the company house in the leafy Corridor area in the sprawling Arusha City to my private residency in Njiro Block B, a suburb south east of the city.

The move naturally changed my life on account of the new and community - inspired Njiro life I found myself in.

In Njiro, a new middle class suburb, I was welcome to a well organised community with a well structured outfit to support residents and solve natural and other social and economic problems.

For starters residents here had formed their own Njiro Development Association (NDA) which took charge of almost all aspects of life here. The NDA was handling security, (in collaboration with the police); infrastructural problems (roads, water and power supply); and social programmes.

In a nutshell, I was amazed by this community spirit and in due course I fully joined it and even rose through the ranks to become its Chair.

Among the social activities the NDA promoted was sporting activities for its mostly middle aged residents.  We even managed to successfully negotiate with the management of the neighbouring General Tyre Company to avail to us their modern sporting grounds for our weekly Sunday sporting bonanza.

Eventually this bonanza became so popular that it even attracted most of the local and international staff residing and working in the many diplomatic outfits in the city and employees of private and public institutions there. By then Arusha was host to several regional and international institutions, including the UNICTR, the EAC, ESAMI, Commonwealth Health Secretariat, CIRDAFRICA, and Pan African Postal Union, just to mention a few. The sporting bonanza even gave birth to the Arusha Wazee Sports Club, which embraced all these local and international personalities residing in the city. But then this is a story for another day.

What has inspired me to write about Njiro is the togetherness of its residents which reached its peak during the New Year festivities.

Prior to the New Year day, the NDA would form a committee headed by its Social Committee Chairman. The Committee would come out with an elaborate programme for the day with the requisite contributions from members.

On the 31 December members and their families would assemble at our local, ‘Kwa Tondi’ at around noon. On arrival they would first be served ‘Kisusio’, a popular Chaga soup mixed with blood, followed by barbecued and boiled chunks of goat meat with the appropriate accompaniments of boiled potatoes and bananas.

Drinks will naturally be flowing and the music band - we always contracted a band - would be serenading the members and their families.

Rounds of drinks and bites will continue being saved while members deliberated on how to assist members who are sick or bereaved, or are facing some other major problems.

Eventually the children would be sent home before darkness as we the elders settled for the New Year’s arrival. Naturally the midnight hour arrived while most of us were already ‘tired and emotional’ as the British would call it.

Those who were strong enough would hang around until early next morning when they would be served with some really hot chilled soup, to presumably sober them up.

Those were the days. The NDA is no longer there. The ‘Kwa Tondi’ is gone. A number of fellow members have already transitted to the next world. And we are all struggling to make ends meet - everybody for himself and God for us all. Oh! How I miss those days. Notwithstanding; may I wish you a Happy New Year!