Tengeru 2013

George and Gills visit to Tengeru September 12^th 2013.

These days Arusha is a bustling busy town, some of the Jacaranda trees were just beginning show their purple flowers. Mount Meru dominates the skyline when it’s visible. Early morning both Meru and Kilimanjaro show their form but by 11 am the heat haze and clouds often completely hide the two mountains.

From Arusha we got our guide to drive east on a pleasant tarmac road towards Moshi and Kilimanjaro airport. The roadside is full of shanty shops (one was called “Old Trafford – Manchester United”) selling local produce grown in the rich fertile fields on the slopes of Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro and watered by the numerous streams and springs that flow from these slopes. After 12km we reach the village of Tengeru.

At Tengeru we follow signs for the tourist lodges (Mountain Village) at Lake Duluti. The Poles regularly bathed in this lake adjacent to their camp. Along the bush road you pass the entrances to these Lake Duluti lodges and soon you arrive at the gates/barrier to Tengeru LITA (Livestock Training Institute) incorporating Tanzania Seed Certification/Testing Institute. These institutes make use of all the old Polish buildings. With a few pleasantries in Swahili between our driver and the gate guard the barrier is lifted and we are allowed to drive into the institute campus.

Buildings poke their forms out from amongst the numerous trees, hedges and bushes that I suspect are much more dominant from the days of the Polish inhabitants. I try to imagine what the buildings were used for during the Polish days. Which was the hospital, the Tailoring School etc. The residential homes are still there, now housing the students on Agricultural training courses and also local workers who tend the fields, crops and seed beds.

Of course the straw roofs from Polish times have been replaced with tiled and corrugated roofs. We drive along the main trail south for 500m and then see a sign for the Cemetery of Polish War Refugees (1km) and the Tengeru Chapel.

We turn left and follow the bumpy tree lined road until we come to the Seed Institute where we ask again for the cemetery. We then drop down past a farm to a dry river bed cross this and we come to the entrance sign for the Polish cemetery. A pleasant lane then sweeps you round to the cemetery walls and gate.

Simon Joseph the keeper of the cemetery is there to greet us – emerging from one of the adjacent homes. We have a chat and he opens the gate to let us in.

The cemetery is clean and tidy and well maintained with graves from the Polish community of Tengeru from 1942 to the present time.

Christian crosses, Orthodox crosses and Jewish Stars mark the 150+ graves. One line of graves with non-standard headstones mark the graves of the local Poles who stayed on and lived in Arusha after the British closed the camp.

A pink grave belongs to Sabina Szeliga who died in 2007 at the age of 84 who was married to Mr. Edward (Wȯjtowicz) who still lives in Arusha.

In the corner of the cemetery is a round building which is now an information centre of the Polish Refugees. Here we read some of the details and view the old pictures one of which shows the old Polish church with its tall straw roof. I ask Simon if it’s still here and he confirms that the Tengeru chapel is in fact the same building but that the old straw roof has been lowered and replaced with a corrugated one and the brick work has been rendered, it’s still in use– we must have passed it on the way to the cemetery hidden amongst the trees. We sign the guest book which shows evidence that there is a constant flow of Polish visitors to the cemetery.

Simon explains that before he became caretaker his father performed the task and he lived to a ripe old age of 113. Now Simon was getting ready to prepare the graves for All Saints Day. Leaves and dead plants will have to be removed, graves spot painted where appropriate etc. ready for a visiting Polish priest to say mass with the local helpers and Mr Edward. We bid farewell and head off to find the chapel.

Hidden by hedges and trees we find the Tengeru Chapel. Alongside is the old bell tower. Our driver pulls the chord to see if it still works and it clangs in to life. A couple of young boys come out from bushes bordering some of the residential homes to greet us. I have a picture of my mother in a group in front of the church doors with very unique door hinges – it’s the same doors that we open to check out the inside. New pews are evident but also at the back are some old benches that I presume date back to polish times. We say a few prayers and it’s time to head back.

Before we get to the campus gate as we drive along I notice a very small area of shanty shops for the campus locals, a couple of these have a lady in front of an old Singer sewing machine offering seamstress/tailoring services – I wonder if the sewing machines came from the Polish Tailoring college that my mother attended here in Tengeru?

We leave in the knowledge that after the horrors of Siberia, Tengeru was a pleasantly quiet happy and safe place, far removed from the war raging in Europe – a little Poland in the heart of East Africa dominated by Kilimanjaro and its daughter Mount Meru.