60 Years in East Africa: Life of a Settler 1926 to 1986

By Werner Voigt

60 Years in East Africa:  Life of a Settler 1926 to 1986 describes sixty years of experiences of a settler, during which he built plantations for his German and other employers and finally acquired his own. He and his family experienced hardship, regards, jubilation and disappointments while living in East Africa from the 1920s to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burnstown Publishing House
• Release date: Apr 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781772570977

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BURNSTOWN PUBLISHING HOUSE

5 Leckie Lane, Burnstown, Ontario K0J 1G0

Telephone [phone]

www.burnstownpublishing.com

ISBN 978-1-77257-097-7

Copyright © Evelyn Voigt 2013

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means without

the prior written permission of the publisher or,

in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence

from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),

1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.

Cover design: Derek Ewen.

Published in Canada.

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Frontispiece

Epigraph

Dedication

Prologue

PART ONE

My Dream Begins in Childhood

Childhood Memories

The 1914 War

Growing Up

PART TWO

My Early Years as Plantation Manager and Adventurer

Bagamoyo

Old watchtower/observation post outside Bagamoyo

First German administrative building, Bagamoyo

Old well (in former times, slaves were washed while sitting on the seat shown here)

Coconut processing factory yard, Bagamoyo, 1927

Typical coastal African house

The beach in Bagamoyo. This is where dhows came to shore because larger ships were forced to anchor farther out in deeper water.

My First African Christmas

A salt saline (salt evaporation operation)

Mr. Voigt and the first hand-operated gramo­phone—a sensa­tion, 1927/28

Beginning of plantation, 1927

Kidagoni

Werner Voigt and Mr. Arras in front of Mr. Voigt’s palm leaf hut, 1927

W. Voigt and his cook with a dwarf coconut palm between them, 1927

Malaria

Locusts

Little Animal Stories

Leni

My Best Cook

The Indian Ocean

A Fateful Outrigger Trip

Ngalawa, an outrigger

The former mayor of Bagamoyo, a very good friend of Mr. Voigt’s

The Old Slaver

I Get New Neighbours

Stomach Trouble

On Leave

Back in Bagamoyo

PART THREE

My Own Plantation

Up to Mufindi

Railway station, Dar es Salaam, 1930

Railway station in Dodoma; passengers and goods preparing for departure to Iringa, 1930

Cape to Cairo Road in the rainy season

Ford through Ruaha River—vehicle is pushed through

Ford through Ruaha River—vehicle is pushed through

German settlers arrive in Iringa, 1928

Main road in Iringa, 1928

The Settlers

The Settlements

Mufindi Highlands

Settlers ploughing with oxen

A settler’s house, walls made from wooden frame and clay; thatched roof

Bush Ambulance

Post office in Mufindi, still in operation in 1995

Some Settler Types

The Lupa Goldfields

Panning for gold at the Lupa Goldfields

Panning for gold at the Lupa Goldfields

We Build a New House

Pit sawing boards for Voigt house

Pit sawing boards for Voigt house

Voigt house, 1934

PART FOUR

Helga Is Coming

Helga Arrives

Helga on the road to their house, 1934 (Note: Compare the small cypresses at the left to those in the picture on page 204; this shows the same road in 1965, thirty-one years later.)

Nazi Time

The Trial Safari

Helga’s Ship Acquaintance

The Oil Mill

A Very Special Honeymoon

The oil mill

District officer in his Boxbody

The Dance

Werner with eland

Liuli

In Dugout on Lake Nyasa, Helga Wearing a topi

Bridge in the bush

The Big Disappointment

Pyrethrum

Werner Voigt standing in his Pyrethrum, shortly before the War, 1939

An African Eye Specialist

Father’s Death

First German tea factory (approx. 1932)

The first tea produced in Mufindi

The first tea produced in Mufindi being loaded

Mufindi settlers

PART FIVE

War and Interment

Everything Is Taken Away

Baviaansport

The Foreign Legionnaires

Bad News from the Women’s Camp in Salisbury

Norton Internment Camp

Werner and Helga Voigt with children Werner (Jr) and Peter, Norton Internment Camp, 1946

Helga Voigt with children Werner (Jr), Peter and Evelyn, Norton Internment Camp, 1947

Certificate identifying Werner Voigt as a member of the Antinazi Democratic Group in Norton Internment Camp

Steward Voigt

Apartheid – 1947

PART SIX

Starting Over with Nothing

Back to Mufindi

Voigt family back in Mufindi after internment, 1949

A Fair Lady

Another Job

The Nachingwea Groundnut Scheme

A Little Surprise

Peter Is Coming

An African Episode

Two of the Voigts’ staff and the children; Omari started as an ayah (babysitter) and played an increasingly important role in various positions. Ena was an ayah and is holding Evelyn; Peter and Veronika are sitting in front.

Building in Dar es Salaam

Bagamoyo 1951

Outrigger Trip to Dar es Salaam

We Become Tea Planters

Labourer Hieronomus, preparing for tea planting

Young tea

Normal Members of Society Again

Driveway to Voigt house, 1965 (compare to picture on page 119)

Voigt house with the extension, 1965

Voigt children,

Ras Roale

Werner’s Death

Our Island Paradise

Ras Roale, the Voigts’ island paradise

Unloading supplies

Ras Roale scenery

Building a bungalow in Mufindi

Completed bungalow on Ras Roale

Original lifeboat

The boat transformed into a cabin cruiser, using timber from trees Mr. Voigt planted shortly after arrival in Mufindi

Transport of lifeboat from Dar es Salaam to Mufindi

Voigt children with fish

Werner Voigt and all three children on the island

Helga with Peter and Veronika

Some fish caught off the island

A Planter’s Life on Kifulilo

PART SEVEN

Rwanda Times – Our Years Apart

Rwanda

Mulindi

Cutting papyrus in the swamp

Canal similar to the one the woman fell into

Tea in Mulindi Valley

Dancers

On Leave

Changugu

Bukavu

Helga Comes to Rwanda

PART EIGHT

The Dream Fades

Kifulilo

Kifulilo tea plantation 1985, shortly before Helga and Werner Voigt left Tanzania

Tea pluckers

Helga with visitors to Kifulilo

More visitors

Tanzania Is Independent

Helga and Werner Voigt, 1983

Werner Voigt in front of his tea

Our Wheel Falls Off

Some Nasty Visitors

More Nasty Visitors

Retirement

The Court Case

PART NINE

The Sale of Our Plantation

Epilogue

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Werner Voigt thinking in the sitting room of his home

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Helga Voigt lighting lanterns in Kifulilo (Kifulilo was the name of the Voigts’ plantation)

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Map of Tanzania as drawn by Werner Voigt

This story is written as I remember the different episodes; a bit embroidered, perhaps. I make no claims to the historical accuracy of my account. In many cases, the names have been changed.

This book is dedicated to my brave wife, Helga,

and to our children and grandchildren.

Prologue

In 1996 Werner and Helga Voigt went back to their beloved Tanzania for an incredible visit. Werner was ninety years of age, Helga eighty.

Thanks in large part to their good friends the Fox family of Foxtreks Safaris, they travelled to Ras Roale, their island paradise; to Kifulilo, their tea plantation; and to the Ruaha game park, a favourite weekend retreat. They visited with old friends, experienced once again the joys of everything African, and simply drank it all in. Werner, in particular, relished every single moment—each flat tire was an opportunity to reminisce about challenges of old; each rough road was an autobahn compared to the mud-soaked pathways of his day; and each accommodation was an extravagance. The tougher the journey, the happier he was—his eyes sparkled. This, he would say, time and again, this is Africa!

Werner and Helga were welcomed back to Kifulilo with a ngoma (traditional party and dance), where they had an opportunity to meet former friends, neighbours and staff. This was a very emotional reunion, during which it was announced that the laboratory that forms part of the Tea Research Station now located on their farm would be named after Werner. There were speeches and stories, dancing, and of course abundant food and drink.

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Werner at the ngoma on Kifulilo meeting Charles, a special friend and employee, as well as other friends

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Other guests at the ngoma

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The Werner Voigt Tea Research Laboratory

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Helga at the ngoma, conversing in Swahili with some of the guests

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Fireplace in the Voigt home. The concrete mural was carved by Werner’s father.

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Werner and Helga on the steps of the Iringa Hotel (formerly known as the White Horse Inn), sixty-two years after they first set eyes on each other on these same steps

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On the way to the Ruaha Game Park, Werner and Helga stopped at the Iringa Hotel to remember the day they first met sixty-two years earlier . . . to remember the moment when eighteen-year-old Helga first set eyes on the man she had fallen in love with and promised to marry through correspondence between Germany and Tanga­nyika. Helga arrived in August 1934, and on Friday the13th of March 1935 she and Werner were married.

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Werner, Chris and the elephant

While in the Ruaha Game Park Werner was invited by his adopted grandson, Chris Fox, who currently owns and manages the Mwagusi River Camp in the park, to approach some wild elephants. Werner, never one to shy away from a challenge, agreed. The picture captures one of the mock charges that resulted from this adventure, which, without a doubt, became one of the highlights of Werner’s triumphal return to Tanzania.

Werner died peacefully in Ottawa on February 8th, 1997. The treasured picture of Chris and the elephant was with him in the hospital. He died, as he had lived, with exceptional courage, absolute joy in adventure, and full acceptance. Death, to him, was just another adventure, as evidenced by the fact that for months he had been pointing at funeral homes and saying: Look. There’s my next travel agency!

Helga, at eighty-eight years of age, recently led a delegation consisting of her two daughters, Evelyn and Veronika, plus eleven close friends in another very emotional visit home to Kifulilo, Lazy Lagoon and other special sites in Tanzania.

Gord Breedyk

January 2004

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Helga, Veronika and Evelyn Voigt at emotional Mufundi reunion in December 2003 (photo by Sharon Casey, Ottawa)

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Beach and guest houses (to the left) of the Lazy Lagoon lodge owned and operated by Foxtreks at Ras Roale, the Voigt island, December 2003 (Photo by Wolfram Hogrefe, Germany)

PART ONE

My Dream Begins in Childhood

Childhood Memories

My father liked to smoke cigars and I loved collecting the empty boxes. On these boxes there were always wonderful coloured pictures, showing coconut palms, tobacco and black people, and at times Indians with feathers on their heads. For a little boy of five years, they were fascinating. I wanted to go to the places where these people lived.

I could barely read and write properly when my father bought me a book. Little did I know how much this book would shape my life. Seventy-five years later I remember that book well. In it there was a picture of a white man clad in skins and a black one, rather naked, with the blue sea, sand, and palms in the background. About eight years old at the time, I read and reread this story, totally captivated by the story of Robinson Crusoe. I was fascinated by Robinson and his boy, Friday. In my childish fashion I even rewrote the story. Robinson became my hero. I wanted to lead a life like him, live in a place like his, and do everything myself with my black friend.

The 1914 War

The year was 1913. At school there was great excitement; all of us children were assembled in the great hall for a very special occasion—the Kaiser’s birthday. Our headmaster and several teachers wore uniforms with sabres dangling at their sides and spiked helmets on their heads (as became reserve officers). We had only seen them in normal clothes and now they were dressed in these splendid uniforms. How spectacular they were!

There were long speeches praising our beloved Kaiser, extolling his virtues, raving about what a fantastic man he was, and bidding us to admire him. We were told that we were all his children, and, as his children, we must obey him. Then we all joined together to sing enthusiastically:

Heil Dir im Siegerkranz, Herrscher des Vaterlands, Heil Kaiser Dir. (Hail to you in victor’s wreath, ruler of the fatherland; hail Kaiser to you.)

Of course, the occasion was marked by a school holiday. Everyone, grown-ups and children alike, celebrated this important day. At the school and throughout the town were all the marks of the occasion. There were flags, parades, military music bands, and soldiers, all in their best uniforms. As a young boy any school holiday was a grand occasion; all the pageantry made the day even more grand.

By the next year, war has broken out. Everybody must fight for the Fatherland. At school we sing:

Siegreich wolln wir Frankreich schlagen. (Victorious we shall beat the French.)

Our teacher, her eyes shining, proudly shows us a photograph of her husband, an officer in a smart uniform.

Yes, and just a few months later, she shows us the same picture—but it now has a black frame around it. Her husband is dead. He has been killed. Her face is stoic, but with tears running down her cheeks.

My father, too, had become a soldier. When he left he said, It will be only for a short time, do not worry. Then he came back on his first leave. When he departed again, Mother and I stood at the window watching him walking down the road. He kept turning his head to catch our eyes again and again, his sadness quite apparent—would he see us again? Would we see him again?

At first there was news of war victories—until late at night young paperboys ran through the town shouting Extrablatt! Extrablatt! (Special Edition). Behind our house was a factory being run by young recruits. After school, we boys used to watch them train, sorry that we were still too young to join them.

The war went on and on. There were fewer and fewer Extrablatts. What had at first been exciting slowly lost its glow. To buy provisions, my mother had special food cards and even then the dinner table offering became very meagre. Many people walked around in mourning clothes. Our teachers were no longer young men. Instead they were mainly old people or invalids. I remember one in particular. He had wooden hands and we had to help him often. We children could sense that something was wrong.

At last it was made official: Germany had lost the war. My father came back, very thin and exhausted, but luckily still alive.

At school, shortly after the war ended, they began to serve us children food at long tables—oats, cocoa, milk. We thankfully gobbled it down. Now I know that the food came through care packages from other countries, from the American Quakers, for example, who had taken it upon themselves to feed the undernourished children in Germany.

Growing Up

My father was a teacher. Of course, as a teacher’s son, it was assumed that I would be good at school. Unfortunately, I was not. Directly across the street lived a friend of my father’s, also a teacher, Koehler by name. His son, Fritz, was very clever. He was always one of the best in class, while I was definitely on the lower side. My father tutored me. At home I always knew my subjects, but when it came to tests at school, I did rather poorly. Worried about disappointing my father, I got very nervous and made many mistakes. Koehler’s Fritz was always much better. He was the shining example. So, as a very young boy, I felt inferior. I began to feel that I was not like the others. I decided to be a Robinson.

Several years passed. During the school summer holidays, three friends and I used to go hiking. Once from our hometown near Leipzig, we made our way up north to the Baltic Sea and even further, over to the North Sea. At night we used to ask for shelter at farms, where we slept in the barns. Often we were invited into farmers’ homes. One of my comrades played the piano very well and whenever there was a piano he used to show off a bit. We were invited to join our hosts for meals and, when we parted, we were usually given some provisions—sausages and homemade bread. To show that we were no common tramps, we always produced our school identification cards. There were youth hostels all over Germany that we used. These were mainly in towns, or, more romantically, in old castles. But if weather permitted, we preferred to camp in the open air.

My parents spent their holidays at a resort in the east of Germany at the Baltic Sea when we tramped around Hamburg. We were rather short of money, so I sent a card to my parents informing them that we would like to meet them, if possible, in Berlin. As we did not know any other place I wrote to them:

We shall be at the main entrance of the Grand Opera in Berlin on Friday the X between 10 and 11 o’clock.

Somehow we made our way to Berlin and, at the exact day, all four of us were waiting for my parents to turn up. We were cocksure they would come—actually we wanted to squeeze a bit of money out of them. Around half past ten a tram stopped in front of the Opera. Out stepped my father and my mother. I rushed to greet them; they looked at me with surprise.

Well, what are you doing here? We expected you to be somewhere around Hamburg.

But I sent you a card, saying that we would wait for you here.

Unbelievable! They had not received my card—they just wanted to have a look at the Opera. We later found the card at home in our postbox! As we were supposed to be several hundred kilometres apart at that time and my parents did not know our whereabouts, could it only have been sheer coincidence? Or was it mental telepathy?

PART TWO

My Early Years as Plantation Manager and Adventurer

On My Way

I had finished school and was debating what to do. Then somehow I got acquainted with a young man who studied engineering in my hometown. We talked and I told him that I would like very much to go abroad to farm or something like that.

Oh, he said, in Witzenhausen, the town I come from, there is the German Colonial College. There they train youngsters in tropical and subtropical agriculture.

Well, that’s exactly what I was looking for; these were my subjects. I rushed home to tell my parents. They were less than enthusiastic, but at last they agreed and I became a student at this college.

I arrived in Witzenhausen in 1923. At the big entrance gate,written in monumental letters, were the words Deutsche Kolonialschule.

It was the right place for me and I became a successful student. No longer did I feel inferior. Germany had lost her colonies, but that did not matter. Germans living abroad still sent their sons there to study tropical agriculture. We were young people from all over the world. I became more broad-minded, slowly outgrowing the provincial climate in which I had been raised. I proudly graduated with a diploma in Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture.

The year was 1926. For a few months following graduation, I worked on the college farm. One day I was called to the telephone. It’s urgent, they told me. Hurry! The caller turned out to be none other than the director of the College, Professor Fabarius.

Mr. Voigt, he asked me, do you want to go to East Africa? If so, you’ll have to go immediately to Berlin and see Dr. Hindorf. He’s the director of a German planting and trading company.

Well, that was a surprise! Germany was still in the throes of massive inflation. People literally needed wheelbarrows full of money to buy food. And now I had the opportunity not only to leave this madness, but to go abroad. I didn’t just have the opportunity to go abroad, I was on my way to Africa, the land of my dreams. Wonderful! And that is how I came to go to Africa, where I was to spend the next sixty years of my life.

Must I leave, must I leave my little town? Muss i denn, muss i denn zum Staedtele hinaus? Today, my first thoughts still ring in my ears.

There I was, twenty years old, trotting along on a very cold evening in October 1926, on my way to the railway station of my hometown, Altenburg. Our neighbour, an old musician, and his friends had their regular music evening. As I passed, the old musician leaned far out of the window playing this old German farewell song on his violin for me. I had just said goodbye to my parents. They did not want to come with me to the station to see me, their only son, off to travel to a strange and faraway land.

It was a sad farewell. A short while earlier, my father had received an anonymous letter. How could he let his only son go to a place with such a dangerous climate? Would they ever see me again? Now I went to the station carrying a small suitcase; I had taken my big trunk earlier.

Who could stop a young man who was full of adventure, optimism and dreams? My destination was a place called Bagamoyo in former German East Africa, now called Tanganyika under the British.

A few days before, I had been in Berlin to see Dr. Hindorf, the director of an old German plantation company. He was a well-known expert in tropical agriculture and had been in East Africa before the 1914 War. I signed a contract for three years. Hindorf gave me a generous advance and told me to buy my tropical outfit. I was a rich young man! I went to the shop of Dingeldy and Verres, the only place to get the things I needed for the tropics. (One has to realize that it was not long after the war in which Germany lost all her colonies.) I bought an iron safari trunk, watertight and white ant proof; khaki shirts, shorts, and long trousers; white suits, shirts and so-called Buessus underwear, made of a very porous fabric especially for hot climates. At that time in the tropics one wore only khaki or white, no fancy clothes.

Tanganyika, now an English Mandate, had just been opened again for Germans and it was not easy yet to get an immigration permit. I was probably the first young German to go there after the war. The immigration formalities had been arranged by the company. I got the travelling documents, my railway and ship’s tickets and now I was ready to go.

Soon I sat in the train to Genoa, very proud, travelling for the first time in second class. At that time, the railway had four classes. The first was too high and the fourth too low for me. After several hours I passed through Munich and then we came to the Alps. Further and further it went through these magnificent mountains to Genoa.

There in the harbour was my ship, the Usaramo from the German East Africa Line, which would take me to Dar es Salaam. I went on board and was shown my cabin. Never before had I been on a big ship and now I would even set sail with her. The Usaramo was departing the next day, so I had time to look around a bit in Genoa.

When I left Germany, it was cloudy and dull, a grey sky, but here in Italy the sky was really blue and it was warmer, much warmer. As a young man, of course, I had my eyes on the girls, and noticed that they put on a lot of makeup. In Germany, a respectable girl would not do this. How times have changed—now we wouldn’t even notice!

The next morning we left, first proceeding along the Italian coast. We passed the smoking Stromboli, then the Strait of Sicily, and from there, on towards our next call at Port Said, Egypt. I shared my cabin with a Swiss about my age who was going to Tanga in East Africa. Our cabin was rather comfortable—we even had a fan. What luxury in the days before air conditioning!

Slowly, I met and got to know the passengers on the voyage. In the dining room at my table were two older Germans, one a bit stout, very jovial, and the other a good-looking man, a retired major. Herr Plange, the stout one, had been in East Africa before and told us lots of stories.

You see, you have your Africans and they do all the work. You have nothing much to do but sit on your veranda and have your tea or whisky. It is an easy life.

Well, I thought, will it really be as he says? Wait and see! I shall find out very soon for myself. I had my doubts.

One day Major Foerster and I stood at the railing chatting. Over his shoulder on a leather strap he had his binoculars and on the strap were a number of small round metal plaques. I asked him what these were.

Oh, he said, those are mementoes—prizes my racing horses have won. He told me that he had several horses and what they had done.

Well, I thought, this major really must be a very rich man.

I had already suspected that he might be rich. In the dining room he always had something to complain about. If it wasn’t the food, then it was the service that wasn’t up to his expectations. He had also let me know that he had wanted to travel first class. Regrettably, first class was fully booked and he had had no option but to travel second class. I had thought second class was quite luxurious and most certainly