On My Father's Wings: An Entrepreneurial Journey of Finding Humility, Resiliency, and a Lasting Legacy

By Michael Shirima

"If you start slowly from the beginning, there is only one direction you can go—up.”

​Michael Shirima is an exceptional figure whose perseverance and stalwart principles of faith, family, and friends contributed to his astounding and inspirational career navigating the inherent challenges and obstacles of the air transport industry in Africa.

In this candid and riveting memoir, we discover the thrilling journey of an aircraft performance engineer turned serial entrepreneur who, after resigning from an executive position in a national airline, began his private career trading coffee and other commodities culminating in his founding of Precision Air—Tanzania’s largest privately-owned and premier airline—in 1993. But more than just a catalog of his mistakes and successes, this is also the story of a son guided by the wisdom of his father, the story of a devoted husband, and the story of a loving father to his own children as well as to those at the orphanage he founded at the base of Kilimanjaro.

Richly observed and suffused with humility and ingenuity, On My Father’s Wings equips us with important life lessons—on the value of taking risks; being kind to everyone no matter what age, race, status, or gender they are; and to never lose sight of what’s most important in life—from one of the most influential figures in the aviation industry, to remind us why we fly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781632995964

Book preview

1

THE ACCIDENT

"Hey, who put that rotten fellow out there?" my teammate Swedi yelled.

Yeah? I thought. Well, at least I’m on the field, not the bench!

But he was right; I’d missed another pass. Still, I didn’t like that he pointed it out to the entire football team. I wasn’t all that good at sports to begin with, but I was playing worse than usual. Something just wasn’t right.

I was still fuming when I sat down at my desk the next day. Baba—my father—valued education so highly he’d sent me to school at the tender young age of five, even before my fat little legs could walk the two kilometers from our home to the schoolhouse in the village of Usseri, in the Rombo District of the Kilimanjaro Region. In April of 1961, I was eighteen years old, and there were only a few weeks left until the O Levels (high-school entrance examinations). Tanzania—or Tanganyika, as it was known then—was still a trustee territory of the United Nations under the administration of the United Kingdom. As such, students were required to sit for the Cambridge School Certificate O Level examinations before qualifying for the two-year A Level course if they wished to continue on to university. Passing the O Levels was one step closer to pursuing the university engineering degree I wanted. I knew it was what I had to do—both for myself and for Baba.

The teacher rapped the desk with a ruler. Boys, I know it’s Saturday and you want to be out enjoying yourselves, but pay attention. The O Levels are coming up faster than you know, and you’re very lucky to get these extra classes to help you prepare. Now, who can tell me the answer to this equation?

I was just about to raise my hand when Mr. Mundy, our headmaster, popped into the classroom.

Michael Shirima, please come to my office with me.

I followed him out, knowing I was in trouble. In those days, if someone was called to the headmaster’s office, they were likely to get caned for some misdemeanor. But the first thing I saw when I left the classroom was a familiar beige car parked in the courtyard. It was tribal chief Alfred Salakana’s Land Rover. Why was he here? He was of the same clan as my mother, but more than that, he was my father’s best friend. And why was Uncle Athanas there with him?

Neither man said a word—not even hello. They simply stared at me and started walking with the headmaster to his office. I followed a few steps behind, a knot growing in my stomach. When we got there, Mr. Mundy told us to sit. He looked just as grim as the chief and my uncle.

Michael, Chief Salakana and your uncle have come to take you to your father. He was injured in a bus accident last night.

That was all he said. I felt like someone had kicked me right in the heart.

I followed the others to the Land Rover. Chief Salakana was already behind the wheel, and my uncle was in the passenger seat, his lips pressed tightly together as he looked straight ahead.

The chief’s wife and a couple of other women from the village, one who was as close to me as a second mother, were in the back. I respectfully greeted them, but when they answered, their voices were barely audible. Mama had made it abundantly clear when I was little to never, ever start a conversation with your elders until they first speak to you. Everybody was so silent, so solemn—I knew better than to ask the question burning in my mind: What has happened to Baba?

Mr. Mundy stopped me as I tried to get in the car. Michael, you need to go to your dorm and pack. You might have to stay for a while.

I ran to the dormitory and threw some clothes into a bag, my mind muddled with unanswered questions. Was Baba going to die? Why wasn’t anyone talking to me? I headed back to the car, and I’d barely climbed aboard before the chief started driving. No one spoke, and no one would meet my gaze. I wanted to yell, Why won’t you tell me what’s happening? Their silence was worse than knowing could ever be, but I bit my tongue. I knew my place.

About three kilometers down the road, someone in an oncoming car motioned for the chief to stop. They spoke for only a moment, and I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but the driver definitely mentioned my father’s name. I heard the words accident and dead. The chief shushed him and pointed at me, and we quickly drove off. None of this did anything to calm my fears, of course.

My mind went into high gear, but I did not want to go where it kept trying to take me. I wished someone would tell me, but I didn’t dare break the stony silence in the car.

A while later, we turned onto a narrow dirt road, worse for wear and slick from the recent rains. The chief skillfully negotiated deep, muddy ruts for the next hour as I tried not to believe what my heart knew. Baba can’t be dead! I saw him just yesterday. He can’t be dead!

When we finally parked at the mission-hospital complex, the chief motioned for me to follow him. The corridors were crowded with people I recognized from the village—some Baba’s close friends, others I didn’t know too well. My stomach clenched, and my heart pounded faster as they parted when I approached, making room for me to pass.

I was ushered into a room that was empty save for my godfather, Bernard Touwa. He was praying, on his knees, next to a covered body. An exposed toe sticking out through a hole in a sock from under the blanket caught my eye and embedded itself in my soul.

Stop that! the chief ordered my godfather in a harsh whisper. You’ll only make Michael emotional. He needs to be strong.

Someone pulled the blanket back. My eyes were immediately drawn to the froth at the corner of Baba’s mouth and his lifeless face. I couldn’t believe it. I tried, but I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. But I didn’t cry. The chief was right. I was Baba’s oldest son. I had to be strong.

They didn’t let me linger in the room; I was quickly led out to a garden. I lay down on the grass and tried to make sense of it all. Friends and acquaintances milled around, speaking in hushed voices and busying themselves with the next steps. Catching snippets of their conversations, I started to piece together what had happened.

Baba had visited me at Old Moshi Secondary School the previous day, and he had met some friends afterward for a bite on the fourth floor of the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union Hotel. Usually, he took his own motorcycle or pickup truck to Moshi town, eighty kilometers from our village home, but that day, he had opted to take public transport. No sooner had they ordered their fish and chips than Baba looked through the window, saw the Rombo bus arriving, and jumped up from the table. He wanted to get home, and no amount of urging from his friends could convince him to stay and eat with them.

The road from Moshi to Rombo was treacherous, with sharp turns around steep mountain ravines. I knew Baba always navigated it with utmost care. But the bus he was on had tumbled down a particularly steep ravine around four in the afternoon. Had the driver gotten distracted? Had the steering malfunctioned? Had the brakes failed? No one will ever know.

The driver and seven other people were killed outright. Baba was badly injured and, someone said, died on the way to the hospital. At another point, I heard someone else say that he was baptized en route and given the name Cornel.

2

BABA’S REQUIEM MASS

My Baba was baptized?! As a very staunch Catholic, I felt flooded with relief. Since my own baptism five years earlier, I had fervently wished Baba would also be baptized. Piecing together the stories I heard as I lay in shock on the lawn, I realized Baba had probably been baptized shortly after arriving at the hospital, in that sliver of moments before he died. Otherwise, they could not have given him all the rites according to the Catholic tradition.

Baba would go to church sometimes, but he always derided his friends who had been baptized, saying he was just as upright as they were. I conduct myself just as well if not better than you, he’d tell them. In any case, he contended, he could not be baptized because he was a polygamist.

Both my mother’s and father’s families belong to the Wachagga tribe, which historically is made up of a mixture of different tribes that migrated from Kenya back in the 1800s looking for fertile land and good weather. They settled on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, snowcapped yet only three degrees south of the equator. Kilimanjaro is a volcanic mountain considered unique, as it is made up of two standalone peaks rising from the plains. The highest is called Kibo, 5,895 meters, and the other is Mawenzi, 5,149 meters. The settlement was around the mountain: east, south, and west. My ancestors settled on the eastern side, near to the Maasai tribe of Kenya—in fact, we’re likely descended from that tribe, known for maintaining their tradition uninfluenced by the colonialists.

I was seven years old and well aware when my father married his second and third wives. I was too young to have an opinion. Polygamy was both legal and common in those days and is still practiced today, although not by so many people as in the old times. The introduction of Christianity in the second half of the nineteenth century prohibited the practice for those who joined the church. Its legality remains such that, on the marriage certificate, the couple has to indicate a choice between a potentially polygamous marriage or a monogamous one. Except for our Muslim community, I cannot imagine the choice of the former. My mother’s marriage certificate, issued by the local administration, was silent on that matter. I cannot imagine a bride accepting a potential polygamous wedding at any time.

The feasibility of polygamy, apart from anything else, depended on the availability of resources—especially land, which Baba was not short of. My mother and her children remained at the ancestral home, considered the principal place, while the other two wives and their children were separately allocated relatively large tracts of land for a home and to grow crops for food and rear cattle, goats on zero grazing, and chickens freely roaming the field. Banana was grown as the main source of food in the green state. Coffee was grown in between banana trees for selling to the cooperative union of the tribe, and it became a major source of income to pay for education. Baba supported with laborers to assist when it was necessary.

The relationship between wives was cordial and friendly, but occasional misunderstandings were not completely absent. My mother exercised superiority on her cowives, from whom she got deep respect. The last and youngest cowife referred to my mother as Mama.

My relationship with my stepmothers was extremely friendly. They were fond of me, and I was of them. Sometimes, in order to escape my mother’s stern discipline, I used to go stay with either of them. Baba stayed more at the original home where we lived with mother and which was the center of his businesses, although he had a house for himself at each of the other wives’ homes as well.

Despite his marital status, Baba was in very good standing with our local priests, nuns, and other clergy and would even donate money from time to time, and I believe he had a relationship with God. Sometimes, when I was quite small, I would sleep next to him at night, and early, early in the morning, I would hear him pray loudly.

Baba did not know that my head teacher and mentor at Nanjara Middle School, Mr. Michael Clemens, had encouraged me to attend catechism classes and that I willingly went. If I wanted to go to Heaven, Mr. Clemens taught me, I needed to be baptized to be cleansed of my sins. I wanted to be baptized Michael, after my mentor.

I was so glad to get rid of my birthname, Mjeuri. I never understood why Baba had given me such a name. In Kiswahili, it means someone who is assertive, obstinate, and never wants to lose an argument. It also means he who rules and is steadfast. I wanted a name like my baptized friends. I wanted to be a George or an Andrew or a Peter. Anything but Mjeuri.

Baba had not opposed my baptism, although he was a bit displeased that I had just gone and done it without consulting him. Still, that did not stop him from inviting all his friends to celebrate the occasion. His love for me superseded his disappointment.

Of course, truth be told, I had wanted Baba to be baptized when I was, because I secretly wished he and Mama would both get it done and then be formally married in the Catholic church. It would not have made any difference in the local community, but I would have felt better. Still, I consoled myself, at least Baba had been baptized before he died. I was grateful and relieved