Chapter 552 The Past
There was no one supervising Claire and her group's self-isolation, but East Africa was not afraid that the people of Rowenad Village would run around. As a relatively underdeveloped area, the Nile Province not only had a small population but also had very backward transportation, and running around could result in death.
There is only one road leading to the city in Rowenad Village. This road was not built by East Africa, but was originally made by the black people themselves. You can imagine how bad the road condition is. Of course, it is not that East Africa has no intention of building roads, but Rowenad Village is a new immigrant village, and East Africa has no time to take care of it.
There is a necessary prerequisite for building roads, that is, roads are for people to walk on. So originally there was no one living in Rowenad Village, so there was no need to build roads. It is impossible to build the road and let animals walk on it!
In fact, Rowenad Village is not an isolated case. As East Africa develops inland every year, many new villages are built. These villages lack everything, including roads and other infrastructure.
Of course, there are some exceptions, such as being assigned to live next to existing roads or railways. For example, many immigrants in Matabele Province (Zimbabwe) live along both sides of the Central Railway.
"Seeing this makes me miss the days when I first arrived in East Africa. However, the lives of new immigrants nowadays are much better than we were back then." Claire, who has settled temporarily in Rowenad Village, said to her assistant with emotion.
The condition of Rowenad Village was very similar to the second place he stayed when he first came to East Africa. He landed in Mombasa and later arrived at a village near Kisumu. At that time, conditions in East Africa were very poor, and even Mombasa could not be said to be that good. It could only be regarded as an African port that was not ranked high.
Today, Mombasa is developed and its infrastructure is better than most ports in the world. This is related to the development time of Mombasa. The later Mombasa was developed, the newer the buildings are, the more reasonable the planning is, and the more advanced the infrastructure is.
Not to mention Mombasa, even Kisumu has developed very well. If we only consider the urban construction, it is on par with many small and medium-sized cities in Europe. In short, the eastern part of East Africa is no longer what it used to be.
It is difficult to find a model that is as backward as the original East Africa. It is possible in the new immigrant settlements in the west, but the conditions in these new immigrant settlements are much better than when Claire first arrived in East Africa. This is because East Africa's productivity has been improved.
"Director, did you live in a room like this when you first arrived in East Africa?" asked the assistant.
Claire shook her head and said, "The conditions in rural East Africa at that time were worse than those in Rowenad Village, but overall there wasn't much difference. How did you get from Mombasa to Kisumu? How long did it take?"
"Of course I took the train. It took about three days!"
"You see, you now have railways and roads to choose from, but back then I could only rely on walking, stopping and starting along the way. It took me a full month to cover the same distance. After you arrived in Kisumu, you switched to water transportation and then took a boat, right?" Claire asked.
"certainly."
"You see, the immigrants of my time didn't have this benefit. They could only continue to move inland along the shores of the great lake. Fortunately, I was assigned early and stopped near Kisumu. The immigrants who came later suffered more than I did. Only a few were assigned to stay in the east, and most of the rest still had to move inland."
Claire then sighed, "Especially when there were no railways, I can't imagine how much suffering people in the Hohenzollern and Swabian provinces (Zambia and southern Congo) suffered on the road at that time. That was a journey of thousands of kilometers."
In fact, it was not as exaggerated as Claire said. Although it took longer for immigrants to go inland, the coastal areas had already been developed by then and could provide material supplies, which made immigration to East Africa much more convenient.
Although Claire only said a few simple words, the assistant could already imagine how difficult life was in East Africa.
Seeing that he was lost in thought, Claire smiled and said, "But the more you experience the rapid development of East Africa, the more you can feel the development potential of this country. The previous European description of Africa was actually quite reasonable, but you newcomers didn't experience it. By the time you set foot on the land of East Africa, it had completely changed."
The assistant nodded in agreement and said, "Yes, Director. I first arrived in East Africa in 1876. Mombasa was already quite prosperous at that time. I felt that Mombasa was no different from those prosperous cities in Europe. It was even more advanced and more pleasing to the eye."
This is inevitable. Every city in East Africa is rationally designed and planned, thus avoiding many shortcomings of European cities. This is most vividly reflected in urban buildings and roads.
Of course, cities in East Africa also have their own shortcomings, that is, there are not many of them. In fact, this is normal. Many administrative cities in East Africa are not cities in the strict sense. Cities in the true sense are definitely administrative cities.
When comparing East African cities with European cities, we certainly cannot compare administrative cities with European cities. An administrative city is a name at the administrative district level. Even if it is just a village, if the East African government sets it as the seat of the administrative city government, it can also be called a city.
This is the case with the city above Rowenad Village. Of course, East Africa is not so poor that a village would be used as the seat of the municipal government. The seat of Rowenad Village's superior municipal government is a township. The total population of the entire city and its affiliated villages is only more than 4,000 people. This is also the current population situation of the Nile Province.
Claire said, "So East Africa is developing rapidly. Don't think that Rowenad Village is just a small village now. In the future, it may become the administrative center of the surrounding area. At the very least, it will be a township, because it is one of the earliest developed villages in the Nile Province. When I was in the East, I saw many villages develop into towns step by step. Take the First Town for example. It was just an inconspicuous colonial outpost at the beginning, but now it has directly become the capital."
"The most typical example is the city of Nairobi, which was originally a wasteland, but has now become the textile industry center of East Africa with a population of over 100,000."
"There are many places like this where counterattacks can happen. Rowenad Village also has this potential because it started relatively early in the Nile Province, and the Nile Province is so vast. You know, the area of the Nile Province is larger than many European countries, so Rowenad Village has unlimited future prospects."
Immigrant settlements in East Africa do not like to gather in groups. For example, in the early colonial era, many cities in East Africa had already begun to develop, but they were distributed all over the Tanganyika region at that time.
At that time, there was a consideration of enclosure, Ernst's plan of surrounding the countryside with cities, or surrounding the indigenous people with immigrants, was used to suppress indigenous forces while expanding territory in East Africa. This also hindered the development of the two port cities of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, because limited resources were divided equally among more and more inland cities.
However, the benefits were later evident. After the development of many inland cities and villages, a large amount of resources in turn helped the development of coastal cities, making East African coastal cities eligible to participate in world trade and contributing to the last agricultural economic crisis.
(End of this chapter)
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