Julie alikuwa na dada ambaye jina lake ni Catherine; kaka Tom na ndugu wengine, sijui wangapi. Alikuwa na kaka mwingine. Sijui jina lake.
Walitoka Kyela ambako baba yao William Manning alikuwa medical assistant hospitali mjini Kyela. Babu yao aliwahi kuwa governor wa Nyasaland. Alizaa mtoto, William, na mwanamke wa Kiafrika kule Nyasaland kaskazini. Mama na mtoto William walihamia Kyela. William alioa pia mwanamke wa kichotara.
Julie alisoma shule, Kisa Girls' School, shule ya wasichana makao ya kanisa la Katoliki, Makete, umbali wa maili nane kutoka mjini Tukuyu, ambapo pia (Makete) kulikuwa na hospitali ya wagonjwa wa ukoma, karibu na Lutengano ambayo ilikuwa ni shule nyingine ya wasichana, moja ya shule mbili hizo tu za wasichana wilayani Rungwe.
Alipomaliza masomo Kisa, aliendelea na masomo yake shule ya wasichana Tabora. Alipokuwa anasomea sheria chuo kikuu cha Dar es Salaam (Faculty of Law ilikuwa Lumumba Street), alikuwa anakaa Ikulu. Mwalimu Nyerere alitaka akae Ikulu kwa sababu hakuwa na mahali pengine pa kukaa.
Kuna historia ya ukoo wa Manning ambayo Godfrey Mwakikagile ameandika katika kitabu chake, "Reflections on Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey", kuanzia ukurasa wa 35.
Katika kitabu hicho, ameandika pia historia ya machotara wengine wilayani Rungwe na ya wazungu mjini Tukuyu na sehemu zingine za wilaya hiyo enzi ya ukoloni, miaka ambayo yeye pia alikuwa anaishi kule.
Mungu ailaze roho yake mahali pema peponi.
Kuhusu Julie Manning kutoka kitabu cha Godfrey Mwakikagile,
Reflections on Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey:
“People of mixed race, known as half-castes in East Africa, also found themselves in a predicament for which they were not responsible and became victims simply because of what they were: half-castes or 'coloureds.' It happened in Rungwe District and in other parts of the country. Longford stated the following about some of the ones he knew in Rungwe:
'There were ten people (in Rungwe District) described in the 1952 Census as 'coloured,' and I got to know three of them well.
I felt particular sympathy for the plight of the first generation of children born to parents of different races. They were seldom completely accepted either by the communities of their fathers or their mothers. At that time, racial discrimination was not practised just by bigoted members of the white community. Many Africans were as prejudiced against coloured people as the most racist Europeans.
Kyela was the second largest settlement in the district after Tukuyu. It was situated in the low-lying plains not far from Lake Nyasa, and it had a thriving market, a well-attended school, and a very busy dispensary which was mainly for out-patients but had a few in-patient beds as well.
The Medical Assistant in charge of the dispensary was called William Manning. William Manning's mother was an African. His father had previously been the Governor of Nyasaland, and in the early 1950s, the town in Malawi (then still called Nyasaland) that is now called Mchinji was still called Fort Manning, in his memory.
Children of mixed race born in Tanganyika did not have access to the privileged education available to white children, and William did not have any formal qualifications as a doctor, but his medical skill and his dedication to the patients he served were very highly respected indeed, and his outstanding work was later recognised with the award of an MBE.
He had married a woman who was also of mixed parentage, and they had several very intelligent children.
I met two of their daughters and one of their sons. Their son Tom had blue eyes and fair hair but his features and the texture of his hair looked African. One daughter, Christine, was dark-skinned and exceptionally pretty. The other daughter, Julie, was not so pretty as her sister, but was academically brilliant. She graduated in law and became a successful lawyer. After the country achieved independence, she became Tanzania's Attorney-General.
William Manning seemed reasonably happy, because he was devoted to his family and he had a satisfying job, even though the salary of a Medical Assistant was far less than he deserved.' – (Ibid., pp. 34, 35 – 36).
Although people of mixed race faced problems during colonial rule, just as black Africans did, they were provided with equal opportunities to succeed in life just as other Tanganyikans – later Tanzanians – were after the end of British colonial rule. Julie Manning was one of the best examples....
There were other people of mixed race in Rungwe District when I was growing up there during colonial rule in the 1950s. They were also victims of racial discrimination. One of them was Cyril Wallace who was not allowed to join the Rungwe Club in spite of his status as a fully qualified doctor because membership of the club was exclusively for whites. As Michael Longford stated in his book:
'One of the other medical establishments in Rungwe District was also run by a person of mixed race. Cyril Wallace was a fully qualified doctor who was also an Anglican priest. He was in charge of a large and well-managed leprosarium at Makete (about three and a half miles southwest of my home in Mpumbuli village – comment added by Godfrey Mwakikagile).
Cyril and his assistants gave loving care to a few hundred lepers, many of whom were disfigured and evil-smelling.
Cyril's father had been a doctor working in the Caribbean, and had there married a black woman. Cyril had graduated at a British University and qualified as a doctor. His wife Linda was Egyptian by birth, a Coptic Christian. They had no children.
Cyril had the rank of a Medical Officer and was on a much higher salary scale than William Manning, but he was not eligible for membership of the Rungwe Club. Like William Manning, Cyril Wallace was also awarded the MBE for his exceptional work, but he died of cancer soon after the award was made.
The Wallaces were on home leave in Britain when I first arrived in Tukuyu, but I met them both soon after they returned. They were very hospitable people, and we often visited each other's houses.
One Sunday, I was having lunch with them at Makete when Linda started to talk about the suffering that the colour of their skin had caused them....' – (Ibid., pp. 36 – 37).
Those were just some of the racial indignities educated Africans including my father, as well as others with less or no formal education, were subjected to, during British colonial rule in Tanganyika.
There was another doctor from Rungwe District who was unfairly treated during colonial rule. But he did not practise there.
His name was Francis Mwaisela. He went to Malangali Secondary School, the same school my father attended. I don't remember if my father said he met or knew him the way he knew Benjamin Mwakosya, another doctor from Rungwe District, who also went to Malangali, and who once was President Nyerere's personal physician. But I remember he talked about Mwaisela – and about Mwakosya – now and then when he was talking to my mother and even knew how Mwaisela died. (He drowned in Nzega in 1951 when he was trying to save an Indian child. Indians and Arabs had earlier denounced his appointment as the doctor in charge of the hospital in Nzega. He died not long after he returned from Britain where he went for further medical training in 1948).
When I asked him years later if he and Mwaisela were in school together at Malangali, he said by the time he got to Malangali, Mwaisela had already left after finishing his studies; so had Mwakosya, which leads me to believe that Mwaisela and Mwakosya were probably together at Malangali as schoolmates and maybe even as classmates.
My father's interest in them, and why he talked about them, stemmed from three reasons. They were in the same medical field, my father being a Medical Assistant. They went to the same school or schools, even if at different times; my father being a classmate of Wilbard B.K. Mwanjisi since primary school who also became a doctor. They all came from the same district, Rungwe, and from the same area. Mwakosya and Mwanjisi came from an area only a few miles – not more than five – from where my father grew up. I remember he said Mwaisela came from Kyela which was then still a part of Rungwe District....
Mwaisela was one of the examples of highly successful Africans who, in spite of their success, were not rewarded accordingly during colonial rule because of their racial identity. He was trained as a doctor at Makerere University College, one of the best academic institutions in Africa, and was excellent in his field. Yet he was grossly underpaid; so were his colleagues.
I met his son at Tanzania's medical school at Muhimbili National Hospital in 1972 a few months before I left for the United States.
I used to go there to visit two medical srudents, Hezekiah Mwakasala and Reuben Lwesya who were my schoolmates at Mpuguso Middle School (1961 - 1964) and were then studying medicine. I was a news reporter at the "Daily News" (under Benjamin Mkapa as the manging editor and Costa Kumalija as the deputy managing editor). Hezekiah was my classmate at Mpuguso. Reuben was one year ahead of us but all of us were together in boarding school at Mpuguso during the same time.
The son of Dr. Mwaisela, who was also Francis Mwaisela named after his father, was their friend. He later became a successful doctor in the United States. He was still there after I returned to Tanzania years later."
– ( Godfrey Mwakikagile,
Reflectionson Race Relations: A Personal Odyssey, pp. 37 – 40. See also Michael Longford, a District Officer (D.O.), Rungwe District in the early fifties, in his book,
The Flags Changed at Midnight: Tanganyika's Progress Towards Independence).
Mwaisela hakuwahi kuwa daktari hospitali ya Kyela. Alikuwa Sewa Haji Hospital mwaka 1943 kabla ya kupelekwa hospitali ya Nzega mwaka 1944 akilalamika sana kwamba mshahara wake wa shilingi 160 kwa mwezi hautoshi hata angekuwa peke yake licha ya kuwa na mke. Alioa Mjamaica. Lakini alifanikiwa sana katika kazi yake hospitali ya Nzega. Kuna Mwaisela Health Centre, Nzega, pamoja na Mwaisela Ward, Muhimbili, kwa kumbukumbu yake. According to Wikipedia, Baba mzazi wa Godfrey Mwakikagile, Elijah Mwakikagile ambaye pia alizaliwa Kyela kama Mwaisela lakini kakulia Tukuyu, alipata mafunzo ya udaktari Sewa Haji na kuwa Medical Assistant pamoja na Austin Shaba ambaye walikuwa darasani pamoja mwanzoni mwa miaka ya arobaini. Baada ya Mwaisela kufariki Nzega, akatokea daktari mwingie maarufu kutoka Nzega miaka iliyofuata:
"His death (of Mwaisela) robbed Tangayika of a man who would surely have been among its leaders at independence. But Nzega produced, in Aloysius Nhonoli, the country's most distinguished physician of the next generation." - (John Illife,
East African Doctors: A History of the Modern Profession, ibid., p. 83).
William Manning, aliyefariki mwaka 1971, pia bado anakumbukwa kama daktari mkubwa sana hospital ya Kyela na kuwa mmoja wa madaktari maarufu nchini Tanganyika enzi ya ukoloni na hata baada ya uhuru. Mtoto wake Julie Manning anakumbukwa na Watanzania kwa ujumla kwa uzalendo wake na kwa utumishi wake kwa taifa lote, na siyo na watu wa Kyela tu.
Asante na hongera kwa hii historia fupi iliyojitosheleza ya huyu jaji.
Watu wa aina yako ndio angalao mnaifanya JF iendelee kubaki na sifa yake.
