TANGA DAY THREE...I MEET THE WAGOSI

 I woke up in the morning of day two, very excited, I was going to meet the 'Wagosi wa kaya'- the men of the house. Before coming to Tanga I had contacted some old comrades and told them about my trip, one of the comrades I had contacted was Kassim Siaggy whom we had met and played soul music together at Klerruu Teacher’s college in 1972, you will know more about him later in this blog. I was later told by the elders that Kassim’s father was a great football player in the 60s.

I also contacted Clement Mang’enya who was my class mate when we still children in Mbeya in 1964. His father was then the Regional Mines Officer, his uncle Erasto Mang’enya was the chief of the Wabondei, one of the major tribes from Tanga,  and he  was also the first African Deputy Speaker of the Parliament in 1960.  Clement is a publisher of a magazine known as Sauti ya Tanga . His contacts were going to be valueable to my trip.

I also contacted Wallace Mkello another collegemate in the 70s. Wallace’s father Victor Mkello was one of the earliest politicians in Tanga, one of the first members of TANU Party (Tanganyika African National Union) back in the 50s, he later became an Area Commissioner in various districts in the country. Wallace, himself now a retired teacher, is the CCM Party Chairman of Kisosora South Ward in Tanga. Wallace had organized for me to meet several elderly people who were music fans in the past. Wallace and his comrades were waiting for me under the shade of a tree, it was a hot day. I was introduced to Oliver Waziri, Azaria Mwinde who was also a radio presenter on a Christian local radio station, Godfrey Chowa  and later Frank Sekihota, after the introduction, what followed was an amazing experience of knowing Tanga and its people before 70s.  I concluded that these elders knew so much about Tanga and would add great value to the Tanga Urithi Museum, and so we also discussed how best they could help Tanga Museum collect more information on Tanga. By the time were through with that very informative meeting, they had elected their chairman and were ready to work with Tanga Urithi museum, I was to talk to the museum on how this could start taking place. In the afternoon I went to Ziggy Said’s place and gave him the flash disk with about 54 Atomic Jazz Songs.
And then I went to Tanga Urith Museum and gave  a feed aback about my meeting with the Tanga elders and also presented to the museum a framed photo of two famous musicians from Tanga, Mabrouk Khamis, who was famously known as ‘Babu Njenje’ and Tatu Said Msengi who was better known as Bi Shakila.

Mabrouk Khamis (Babu Njenje) - Tatu Said (Bi Shakila)

Both these musicians were born in Pangani on 14^th June 1947.  Mabrouk’s mother breasts were not producing milk, so Mabrouk began life being breast fed by Tatu’s mother. And they all went to become famous singers. Tatu Saidi Msengi, Bi Shakila died on 19^th August 2016 and Mabrouk Khamis Omar died on 24^th May 2020.  I definitely had to come back to Tanga  there was still so much to work on. Next stop Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region. Thank you ILAM