Water Brings No Harm. Matthew V. Bender
organizations have provided funding to my work over the years. I thank the Fulbright-Hays Program and the Boren Fellowship programs for supporting my early fieldwork, as well as the Department of History and the Institute for Global Studies at Johns Hopkins. I had the privilege of spending a year as an Agrarian Studies Fellow at Yale University, under the mentorship of James Scott and Shivi Sivaramakrishnan. Much of this manuscript was written in my time there, and I cannot thank them enough for their skillful guidance. My fellow Agrarian Studies colleagues—Rishab Dhir, Todd Holmes, Janam Mukherjee, Juno Parrenas, and Gabe Rosenberg—lent support and wisdom.
Several communities of scholars have given me a home over the years. My fellow scholars in African studies and Tanzania studies have been a resource as well as an inspiration to me. Special thanks go to Jamie Monson, Jan Shetler, Greg Maddox, and Sheryl McCurdy, who have supported me since my earliest days of fieldwork. I also thank Jesse Bucher, Barbara Cooper, Steven Fabian, James McCann, Wendy Urban-Mead, Fran Vavrus, and Julie Weiskopf, as well as the many others who have attended conference panels and engaged my work. I am part of a growing community of scholars focused on water history, and these individuals have helped me think more critically about water and gain a perspective that extends beyond Africa. I am grateful to Ellen Arnold, Maurits Ertsen, Heather Hoag, Johann Tempelhoff, Terje Tvedt, Terje Oestigaard, Maya Peterson, and many others.
I am fortunate to work at The College of New Jersey, an institution that supports the research passions of its teacher-scholars. I have received financial support from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Support of Scholarly Activity program, and the Gitenstein-Hart Sabbatical Prize. The Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience has helped fund undergraduate research collaborators. I thank those in the administration who have supported me, including R. Barbara Gitenstein, Jackie Taylor, Susan Albertine, Ben Rifkin, and Jane Wong. My faculty colleagues have supported me over the years and have contributed to my scholarship in more ways than I can count. I give special thanks to Maggie Benoit, Lynn Gazley, Marla Jaksch, Mindi McMann, Janet Morrison, David Murray, and Amanda Norvell as well as my colleagues in the History Department, particularly Dan Crofts, Celia Chazelle, Chris Fisher, Jo-Ann Gross, Laura Hargreaves, Craig Hollander, Adam Knobler, and Robert McGreevey. Above all, I thank Cynthia Paces, my friend, mentor, and avid proofreader. The College of New Jersey prides itself on student-faculty collaborative research, and my work is all the better for it. I am grateful to all the students who have engaged with my work, particularly those who served as collaborators: Katerina Buchanan, Beatrice Kwok, Taylor Hart-McGonigle, Ryan McClean, Corinne Winters, and Tamra Wroblesky.
Ohio University Press has been an excellent partner in bringing my book to fruition. I am thankful to Gillian Berchowitz for her encouragement and support and to the editors of the New African Histories series—Jean Allman, Allen Isaacman, Derek Peterson—for their careful and caring engagement with my work. Two anonymous readers carefully read my manuscript and provided a wealth of comments. Special thanks go to Nancy Basmajian and Sally Welch, who expertly guided me through editing and production and provided me with excellent advice. Ricky Huard, Samara Rafert, and Beth Pratt helped me with questions related to images, copyrights, and marketing. I thank Alice White and Robert Kern at TIPS Technical Publishing for their help with copyediting and typesetting. Brian Balsley did a skillful job of generating the maps. Alice White also lent her expertise in creating the index.
This book includes excerpts from some of my previously published works: “‘For More and Better Water, Choose Pipes!’: Building Water and the Nation on Kilimanjaro, 1961–1985,” Journal of Southern African Studies 34, no. 4 (2008): 841–59; “Millet Is Gone! Considering the Demise of Eleusine Agriculture on Kilimanjaro,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 44, no. 2 (2011): 191–214; and “Being ‘Chagga’: Natural Resources, Political Activism, and Identity on Kilimanjaro,” Journal of African History 54, no. 2 (2013): 199–220. I am thankful to the publishers for their permission to include this material.
My greatest thanks go to the peoples of Kilimanjaro, who shared their stories and memories and welcomed me into their communities. My work would not have been possible without their contributions and encouragement. I thank Efraim Muro for introducing me to the mountain and making me feel at home in Machame. Joachim Mkenda and Monica Lasway assisted me in Mkuu Rombo. Father Aidan Msafiri introduced me to Kilema and challenged me to think deeply about the role of water in everyday life. I am most grateful to Aristarck Stanley Nguma, my research assistant in Kilema and someone I am proud to call a friend.
Lastly, this book would not have been possible without the love and support of my family and friends. I would be nowhere without my mother, Betsy Flynn, my greatest supporter and inspiration. I am grateful to my stepfather, father, sisters, brothers-in-law, and my numerous nieces, nephews, and godchildren. Your belief in me means more than you know. Thanks to my good friends Sarah and Joe Adelman and John and Linda Jusiewicz for their support over the years. Chris Josey has been my best friend and confidante for more than twenty-five years. Thanks to Doc for the afternoon hikes at Baldpate.
I dedicate this book to the memory of my grandparents: Frances and Clem Farny and Benjamin and Helen Bender.
Abbreviations
| CMS | Church Missionary Society |
| DOAG | Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (German East Africa Company) |
| IMF | International Monetary Fund |
| IWRM | Integrated Water Resources Management |
| KCCU | Kilimanjaro Chagga Citizens Union |
| KNCU | Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union |
| KNPA | Kilimanjaro Native Planters Association |
| MAJI | Ministry of Water [Tanzania] |
| NGO | nongovernmental organization |
| NWP | National Water Policy [Tanzania] |
| PBWO | Pangani Basin Water Office |
| TANESCO | Tanganyika/Tanzania Electric Supply Company |
| TANU | Tanganyika African National Union |
| UN | United Nations |
| WDD | Water Development Department [colonial] |
| WD&ID | Water Development and Irrigation Department |
| WUA | water user association |
Tanzania and Mount Kilimanjaro (Brian Edward Balsley, GISP)
Introduction
IN JULY 1937, several prominent wamangi (chiefs) from Mount Kilimanjaro wrote the colonial governor of Tanganyika to express the most pressing problems facing the mountain.1 The peoples of Kilimanjaro, known to the administration as the Chagga, had recently emerged as a success story, with a thriving economy based on coffee cultivation and a population that was eagerly investing in education, health, agriculture, and infrastructure. Yet these developments sparked their own challenges that the wamangi sought to address. Their memo focuses on two issues they see as crucial: land and water. “The Wachagga are mainly agriculturalists and such work is good and profitable to us all,” they state, “but, for this, two things are necessary – room to cultivate and an adequate supply of water to our farms.”