Buguruni

Prior to colonialism, Buguruni was known for its coconut plantations, which were owned by Asians, Arabs, or Africans. One of the largest estates, the Daya Estate, was in the hands of an Indian planter. The first settler who moved from the city's coastline to Buguruni was called Momba. He parceled out land to others who followed, many of whom married into his family. These new settlers included names like Kirumba, a fellow Zaramo, and two Pogoro ex-slaves, Feruz Ambari and Farhani. Some of the most important figures in Buguruni's recent history derive their stature from being descendants of these early settlers and from owning coconut plantations. Two of them, Binti Madenge and Mwinyi Amani, had Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Party branches named after them in Buguruni (Leslie 1963, 65; Mwijarubi 1977).

During German colonial rule, Buguruni grew out from a Zaramo village into an unplanned settlement on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. In the late 1960s its population was 10,000. Since then it grew nearly five fold, to a population Of 48,247 in 1988 (Bureau of Statistics 1989). Leslie

found that 68 percent of Buguruni residents were Zaramo in the mid-1950s (1963, 258); today almost half the residents are Zaramo. As a renowned Zaramo area, Buguruni attracted people from throughout Dar es Salaam in search of its famed Zaramo Mdundiko dance troupes and medicine men.

The Ward of Buguruni belongs to the Ilala District of Dar es Salaam Region. The ward is made up of four branches: Madenge, Mnyamani, Malapa and Kisiwani, which are divided into 208 ten-house cells (Table 2). In the late 1980s about 2,171 CCM members lived in Buguruni (4 percent of the population), according to local party records. Buguruni had three schools: Buguruni Primary, Buguruni Moto, and Buguruni Visiwi, with a total enrollment of around 4,177 pupils (52 percent of whom were girls).^[3]

The ward remained primarily Muslim in the late 1980s, with eleven mosques, fifteen madarasa (Koran schools) and an Ahmaddiyah brotherhood that is growing in strength. It also had a Lutheran church (500 adult members), started in 1967, and a much smaller Assemblies of God church.^[4] In addition, there is a YWCA hostel for women, an Anglican-run hostel for young women, and an Anglican Theological College.

Buguruni's laborers work along Pugu Road in nearby factories like Metal Box, Mitsubishi, and Sunguratex. Others are drivers at Wazo Hill, or workers at the harbors, or in the army. Buguruni's residents farm in the nearby valleys of Chanika and Msimbazi, although many have farms farther away in the Coast Region—in Kisarawe District, for example—or other, more distant parts of the country. Buguruni's Zaramo residents maintain strong ties with relatives in nearby areas where they go not only to farm but also to participate in puberty and other rites, as well as marriage

and burial ceremonies, to give birth, to make tambiko (ritual offerings to ancestor spirits), and for divination and medical treatment. To this day, patrons in Buguruni derive much of their prestige from their ability to manipulate rural-urban links. They take advantage of the urban areas' dependence on the countryside for produce, bringing into the city charcoal, fruit, wood, and fish from the coastal villages (L. Swantz 1969).