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Emmanuel : Stories : Lambo Sisal Estate (1921 - 2000)
Lambo Sisal Estate (1921 - 2000)
The information in this story is from my father, Constantine G. Emmanuel, who shared it with me in Athens, Greece, during autumn 2000.
By Gregory C. Emmanuel, December 2000
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Click the thumbnail to see a full-size map or image. |
In 1921 Grandfather Gregory Emmanuel bought Lambo and a coffee estate called Chombo from the original German owners. To do so he borrowed money from Nicholaos Christofis, a wealthy Greek also from Tenedos, who became Grandfather’s silent partner. (Christofis never worked the farm, only shared in the profits.) Later he became Constantine (Costas) G. Emmanuel’s godfather. Costas has the original survey map of Lambo, drawn with white lines on dark blue, which was drafted at the time of purchase and registered at the Moschi (Moshi) land office.
Lambo lies on the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro, at 3,000 feet, about 10 miles west of Moshi, at Machame. When Grandfather bought it, Lambo had only a few coffee trees and the house, which had been abandoned for some time. The house had thick walls built of river rock and a corrugated sheet metal roof. There was no verandah at the front, just a flat area of packed earth covered by a huge bougainvillia which also covered a substantial part of the house. When Grandfather went to take possession, he discovered a male lion sleeping at the front of the house under the bougainvillia. Fortunately the lion took off when it realized there were humans about.
Since Grandfather lived at Chombo, the Greek Community leased the Lambo house from him and operated it as the first Greek school in Tanganyika. It was a boarding school until the 1930's, with about 20 boarders, and it was the first school that Costas attended. He told me that one time a boy who walked in his sleep was taken by a leopard in the night.
Grandfather planted the first sisal at Lambo. He had an agreement to share the costs of installing and operating a sisal decorticator with his neighbor, an Italian farmer named Mongardi (Dado’s father), who also intended to plant sisal. But World War II came and Mongardi, fearing internment by the British, left Tanganyika for Italy. When he returned to Africa after the war he was too old to start in sisal, so Grandfather developed the plantation and built the sisal factory with his sons. Dado, old man Mongardi’s son, was one of Costa’s best friends and hunting companions. Dado’s children, Georgio, Massimo (who was the same age as I and was one of my best friends), and Roberto were our constant playmates and good friends. Massimo passed away when we were in our twenties and I was devastated. |
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Grandmother Irini, Costas, and his siblings (Eleni, Dimitris and Nicos) left Africa in 1933 and returned in 1945 after surviving the horrors of the German occupation and the first battles of the civil war in Athens. Eleni and her family returned to Tanganyika a year later. For the first few months after he returned Costas stayed on at Chombo with his parents, then he moved to Lambo and lived with Stelios, his uncle (Aunt Marika, Grandfather Gregory’s sister, was Stelio’s mother). At that time a partnership between Grandfather and Stelios was dissolved as the agreed upon work was completed (plant a small area with corn, install a small 50HP Robey decorticator and some raspadoria). When Stelios left, Costas became Lambo’s general manager.
The salary of a manamba (contract farm laborer in the days before trade unions) in 1945 was 50 Tanganyika cents per day, plus 1 lb. of maize flour, 6 oz. of beans, salt, and a small amount of karanga (peanuts or groundnuts) or cottonseed oil, and some fruit. The manamba signed contracts for a year. They were conscripted by the colonial government, usually from the Wagogo tribe, which was going through a period of severe famine and drought at the time. When trade unions came to Tanganyika, they demanded that a higher percentage of a worker's wages should be paid in cash instead of food. Unfortunately this resulted in a noticeable increase in drinking and malnutrition.
After the war the price of coffee was so high that Grandfather was able to pay off all the debts incurred by Grandmother during the occupation fairly quickly. Paying off these wartime debts was rare; many Greeks refused to do so, instead accusing their lenders of taking unfair advantage of them during the war. Since Grandfather was now financially solvent his sons persuaded him to end the one-sided partnership with Christofis. Grandfather agreed, so Dimitris went to see Christofis in Cairo, where he lived. Christofis agreed to the dissolution, so the three brothers bought him out and in partnership with their father became the outright owners of Lambo and developed it as a sisal estate.
During the Korean War (1951-52) the price of sisal skyrocketed (£250/- per ton FOB New York) because it was a strategic material, and the Emmanuels made good profits. With this money they bought Silverdale Estate and planted more sisal, thus enlarging Lambo. They also built the foreman’s house (Christos Yarinakis and his sister, Fofo, lived there) near the main Moshi-Arusha road. In addition, they installed a large Robey decorticator (corona) and a hydraulic baling press. The Robey was a huge, beautiful machine, with revolving drums of shiny brass, flapping canvas drive-belts, and a feeder chain that looked like a gigantic bicycle chain. It was eventually replaced by a more business-like German Krupp decorticator, which was installed on concrete foundations and under a steel I-beam roof specially designed by Costa’s best friend, Costas Kalliambetsos. During this time they also bought the Tongoni Sisal Estate in Tanga in partnership with Pygmalis Karageorgelis and another Greek named Stavropoulos. It was a terribly humid place and everything was coated with a gritty film of red dust that never washed away.
Grandmother Irini passed away in 1961. That same year Chombo was sold so that Grandfather, who was 85, could retire. In December of that year Tanganyika gained its independence from Britain (and later changed its name to Tanzania). In 1964 Grandfather finally left Africa and returned to Greece, retiring to a small flat on the 1st floor of the apartment building at Spartis 7 Street where he lived until 1978, when he passed on at the age of 103. His daughter, Eleni P. Lekanidou, lived on the 6th floor of the same building.
Talk of possible nationalization of white-owned farms and a general slump in the price of sisal made profits dwindle, and in 1964 the Tongoni farm was sold. In its place the Emmanuels bought Lewa Sisal Estate (a larger farm, also in Tanga) in partnership with Nicos Zannetos, George Issaias, and Pygmali Karageorgelis. Also in 1964, Dimitri Emmanuel left Tanzania for Greece, where for many years he worked in a shipping office in Piraeus. The Lewa shareholders also became involved in a shipping company of their own, but the ships were not profitable because they were World War II vintage Liberty ships that needed either a lot of maintenance or outright replacement. At the same time the shipping market slumped and they lost a lot of money before liquidating the company. Dimitri took me aboard the company’s S.S. Eland when it was in the roads off Piraeus and I remember a large steel cutout of an eland’s head on the ship’s funnel and in the ship’s mess eating watermelon with feta cheese for the first time.
In 1967 the Arusha Declaration was signed and soon after the first white-owned farms were nationalized. As Lewa was considered to be owned by resident rather than expatriate whites, it was nationalized only by 60% instead of 100%. Eventually some compensation money was paid to the shareholders and with his share Costas bought an apartment at Spartis 3 Street in Athens.
Lambo and many other white-owned farms in the Machame and West Kilimanjaro areas were nationalized 100% in 1972, the year I entered the Metsovion Technical University in Athens. The house, Land Rovers, tractors--everything was lost. As for our personal things, Costas sold almost everything (all our books, clothes, toys, furniture, camping equipment, etc.). to a Catholic convent; whatever wasn’t sold was given away. He left the house an empty shell, without even light bulbs. The only things he took with him were his personal car (a Ford Cortina with plates MSA 10) and his clothes. Behind his office he buried a cigar tin with a $20 banknote inside it, as the possession of foreign currency was a crime; this tin is probably still buried there. He had to borrow cash to cover his daily expenses as his personal bank account was frozen.
After nationalization Costas rented a house at Arusha Chini, next to Thanos Papadopoulos. The house had a swimming pool, and I remember swimming there as a child when the Wells’ lived there. Now the pool was empty, with scummy water full of insect larvae and tadpoles at the bottom. During this time Costas worked with his brother, Nicos, farming seed beans in the Sanya Plains, next to Kilimanjaro International Airport. They were the first to farm that area. Sometimes we lived in tents at Sanya, constantly choking in clouds of powdery gray dust, with never enough water. I roughly surveyed this farm and drafted a map, which my father, Costas, kept and gave me in November 2000.
When Costas left Tanzania in 1974 he went to Greece, where he worked in a shipping office as an accountant. In 1977 he returned to Tanzania and with Uncle Nikos traveled to Dar-Es-Salaam where they negotiated a compensation price for their nationalized farms with the government of Tanzania. This was wasted time and effort, as to this day compensation for the loss of the farms has not been paid out. Costas returned to Greece. In 1978 Costas left Greece and went to Kenya to manage the Dwa Estate at Kibwezi. He bought a small farm at Hosti, on Crete, in 1981, and adjoining property in 1987. Costas worked at Dwa until 1990, when he returned to Greece, dividing his time between Athens and Crete. He never went back to Tanzania.
I last saw Lambo in 1974. The fields were neglected, with abandoned farm equipment in them and deep erosion gullies.
In the mid-1990's my uncle Dimitri B. Georgiadis visited Tanzania and Lambo. He sent us some photos that show no trace of the garden or the trees around the house. The house itself looked abandoned.
In November 2000, my parents (Ketty and Costas), my aunt (Eleni Lekanidou), my wife (Lacen Horter), and I went to the village of Mili on the Island of Naxos to celebrate my Uncle Niko's 75th birthday. He told us that after nationalization in 1972 the co-op running the farm so grossly mismanaged the estate that all production was stopped; the house was abandoned and was in a state of partial ruin.
Lambo (2001): Costas G. Emmanuel's visit to Lambo in March 2001.
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