This large, rambling and rather dark bungalow was in Upanga Road*, Dar-es-Salaam. Built in the time when Tanganyika was a German colony, it was rented from the Custodian of Enemy Property by the African Mercantile Company, for which my father worked. It was the house to which I was brought home in January 1945 after my birth in the European Hospital, and where my brother joined us two and a half years later.
When I was born Tanganyika Territory was still a League of Nations Trust Territory administered by the British since 1918. In 1946 it became a UN Trust Territory.
I must have been four when we moved to another house but I do have some recollections of the old bungalow and something from it. This nativity set, along with an Imperial German flag and various other things, was found in the roof while we lived there, presumably put there by a German family in 1918 in the hope they would return. It was kept by my parents. On occasion we have used it at Christmas but most of the time it lives.... in the roof.
* Now Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road.
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