ABSTRACT

The local government office was surprisingly unpretentious. Standing beside a main road in the upper reaches of Mt. Kilimanjaro’s middle belt, it was a small concrete building painted blue and flanked by a beer shop on one side and a tiny dry goods store on the other. Inside, pictures of President Julius Nyerere hung in the two rooms, which were furnished simply with a large wooden desk, benches, and chairs. The secretary sat at a small table with a typewriter, and he tried to shoo away the people who were looking in the window to see what I would do.