the CIA estimates, another $10.8 billion arrived. According to the World Bank, $5.4 billion more was given between 1990 and 1994. This is more than $20 billion, without even trying to pump the figure by adjusting for inflation. John told me that good farmland in Tanzania sells for a million shillings an acre, about $1,650. Since there are 29 million Tanzanians, $20 billion would have bought each family a larger-than-average farm plot, and everybody could have gone back to doing what they were doing before ujamaa was thought of. One more reason that Tanzania is poor is that we’ve paid them to be. John and I took the hammering ride back across the Rift. When I got green from being jiggled, John said, “ Safari means ‘hard journey.’” Dust devils the size of major-league ballparks roamed across the Maasai homesteads. The Maasai didn’t bother to glance at these swirling circles of debris, which hit us with high- speed curtains of dirt and filled our van like a window planter. The Rift Valley is the work of continental drift. Africa is being pulled apart. Some day, Tanzania will float away from Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, and Uganda. And Tanzanians deserve the move. Tanzanians deserve a lot of things. Tanzanians certainly don’t deserve what they’ve had since 1961. The scum tide of ujamaa has receded, but it’s left behind such things as the awful road to Makuyuni we were on. Ujamaa woozy thinking has also left the Tanzanian public mind strewn with intellectual jettison. The national budget, in its “Agriculture” section, asserts that the government is encouraging “private sector participation in production,” and, in its “Land” section, claims that the government seeks “to ensure equitable distribution and equal access to land by all citizens.” So you’re encouraged to farm your private plot, and everyone else is encouraged to farm it, too. The high-school history book gives a disapproving economic analysis that’s a combination of marxism and Ross Perotology: “General Tyre Corporation built one tyre factory for the whole of East Africa in Arusha. But soon after this decision, another corporation, Firestone, built a similar factory in Nairobi. This meant the competition of imperialist capital.” And even John, who was completely sensible, said, “We have lots of bananas, but we don’t do anything with them—just use them for food.” I said, “Huh?” John did tell me, however, that nobody even thought about trying to put the Maasai into ujamaa villages. Say what you will against the blood sports, people who spear lions for fun are well-prepared for political rough
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