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Mzee' is the Swahili word for an 'old timer', a respected elder.
Mzee Ali Kalikilima was born near the present-day town of Tabora in
western Tanzania, probably in the 1870s - there is mention of 'The
Doctor', Dr David Livingstone - to black Muslim parents of noble
birth. Aged 14, Ali led his first slaving safari to the shores of
Lake Tanganyika and thence, with his caravan of captured slaves and
ivory, through the malaria-, tsetse fly- and lion-infested wilds,
to the Arab markets of Dar es Salaam, some 1,200 kilometres away on
the Indian Ocean. With the arrival of the German colonizers, Ali
joined the German East African forces as an askari. He worked on
the railway line that was being laid from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma
and finally to Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria - a monumental
feat. With the outbreak of the First World War, he found himself
attached to the forces of the legendary German commander, General
von Lettow-Vorbeck. He saw action at the Battle of Salaita Hill
near Mombasa and was with the General to the end, fighting a
guerrilla campaign through southern Tanganyika, Portuguese East
Africa, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and to final surrender. After
the war, he joined the British Colonial Service as a game scout.
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