Chapter 552 Past
Claire and his party are in self-isolation without supervision, but East Africa is not afraid of people from Rowenad Village running around. As a relatively underdeveloped area, the Nile Province not only has a small population, The traffic is also very backward, and people may die if they run around.
There is only one road leading to the city in Rowenad Village. This road was not built in East Africa, but was originally walked by the black people themselves. You can imagine how bad the road condition is. Of course, it is not East Africa has no intention of building roads, but Rowenad Village is a new immigrant village that East Africa has not had time to take care of.
There is a necessary prerequisite for building roads, that is, roads are for people to use. Therefore, it turns out that no one lives in Rowenad Village, so there is no need to build roads. It is impossible to build roads. Let those animals go!
In fact, Rowenad Village is not an exception. Every year as East Africa develops inland, 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 be next to existing roads or railways. For example, many immigrants in Matabele Province (Zimbabwe) live along both sides of the central railway.
“When I see this place, I really miss the days when I first arrived in East Africa, but the life of new immigrants is much better now than it was for us.” Claire, who has temporarily lived in Rowenad Village, said to His assistant sighed.
The situation in Rowenad village is very similar to the second place he stayed in when he first came to East Africa. He landed in Mombasa and later went to the village next to Kisumu. The conditions in East Africa are very poor. Even Mombasa cannot be said to be very good. It can only be regarded as an African port that is not ranked highly.
Now Mombasa is developed, and its infrastructure is better than most ports in the world. This is related to the development time of Mombasa. Mombasa was developed later, and the buildings are newer and the planning is more reasonable. At the same time, the infrastructure is becoming more advanced.
Not to mention Mombasa, even Kisumu is developing very well. If we look at urban construction alone, it is on par with many small and medium-sized cities in Europe. In short, eastern East Africa is no longer what it used to be.
It is difficult to find models that are as backward as the original East Africa. It is still possible in these new immigrant strongholds in the west, but the conditions in these new immigrant strongholds are much better than when Claire first arrived in East Africa. This is because the productivity of East Africa has improved. .
"Director, did you live in a room like this when you first arrived in East Africa?" the assistant asked.
Claire shook his head and said: "At that time, the conditions in rural East Africa were worse than those in Rowenad Village, but there was not much difference overall. How did you get here from Mombasa to Kisumu? It took a lot How long?”
“Of course it took about three days!”
“You see, we have railways and roads to choose from at that time. We can only rely on walking, stopping on the way, and it took a full month to cover the same distance. After you arrived in Kisumu, you switched to water transport and then took a boat, right?" Claire then asked.
"Of course."
"You see, immigrants at that time did not have this benefit. They could only continue to go inland along the banks of the Great Lakes. Fortunately, I was assigned early, in Kisumu It stopped nearby. Later immigrants suffered even more than me. Only a few will be allocated to stay in the east, and most of the rest will still have to be filled inland."
Claire then lamented: "Especially without the railway. when I can’t even imagine how much people in the Hohenzollern and Swabia provinces (Zambia and southern Congo) suffered on the road at that time, which was often thousands of kilometers away.”
In fact, it is not as exaggerated as Claire said. Although it took longer for immigrants to go inland later, the areas near the coast had been developed by then and could provide material supplies, which made the immigration business in East Africa much more convenient. Although Claire only said a few words, the assistant had already imagined how difficult the life in East Africa was.
Seeing that he was in a daze, Claire smiled and said: "But the more I have experienced the rapid development of East Africa, the more I can feel the development potential of the country in East Africa. In the past, Europe's description of Africa was actually quite reasonable, but you newcomers He has never experienced it. By the time you set foot on the land of East Africa, he will have been completely transformed."
The assistant nodded in agreement and said: "Yes, director, it was 1876 when I first arrived in East Africa. At that time, Mombasa was already quite prosperous. At that time, it felt that Mombasa was no different from those prosperous cities in Europe, and it was even more advanced and pleasing to the eye.”
This is inevitable, for everyone in East Africa. Each city is rationally designed and planned, so it avoids the shortcomings of many European cities. This is most vividly reflected in urban buildings and roads.
Of course, the cities in East Africa also have their own shortcomings, that is, they are not large in number. In fact, this is normal. Many administrative cities in East Africa are not cities in the strict sense. A city in the true sense must be an administrative city.
When comparing East African cities with European cities, you definitely cannot compare administrative cities with European cities. Administrative cities are a term at the administrative district level, even if it is just a village. The East African government sets it as the administrative and municipal residence. , then he can also be called a city.
This is the case for the superior city of Rowenad Village. Of course, East Africa is not so poor that it would actually use a village as the seat of its municipal government. The seat of the higher-level municipal government of Rowenad Village is a township, and the entire city is The total population of the villages attached to it is just over 4,000, which is also the population status of the Nile Province.
Claire said: "So the development in East Africa is changing with each passing day. Don't look at it now. Rowenad Village is just a small village. In the future, it may also become a surrounding administrative center. The minimum limit is a township, because It is considered to be the earliest village developed in the Nile River Province. , When I was still living in the east, I saw many villages develop into cities and towns step by step. Take the first town and city as an example. It was just an inconspicuous colonial stronghold at the beginning, but now it has directly become the capital. "< br>
“The most typical one is Nairobi, which is originally a wasteland. Now it has become the center of the textile industry in East Africa, with a population of hundreds of thousands.”
“There are many places that can counterattack like this, and the village of Rowenad also has such potential because it started in the Nile River Province. It was relatively early, and the Nile Province was so empty. You need to know the area of the Nile Province. But it is larger than many European countries, so the future of Rowenad Village is unlimited.”
Immigration strongholds in East Africa do not like to be clustered together. For example, many cities in East Africa have begun to develop in the early colonial period. They were distributed throughout the Tanganyika region at that time.
At that time, there were considerations of enclosure. Ernst's plan of cities surrounding rural areas, or immigrants' plan of surrounding indigenous peoples, was used to suppress indigenous forces and expand territory in East Africa. This also made Dar es Salaam and Mongolia The development of Barcelona's two port cities has been hindered because limited resources are equally divided among more and more inland cities.
However, the benefits also emerged later. After many inland cities and villages developed, a large amount of resources in turn assisted the development of coastal cities, making coastal cities in East Africa eligible to participate in world trade, and in the last agricultural industry Adding fuel to the flames of the economic crisis.
(End of this chapter)