In February, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, my traveling companion and I boarded the Tazara, the acronym used fondly by its riders to refer to the Tanzania-Zambia Railway. The journey felt like stepping back in time, to an era when one left the details entirely to the whims of the travel gods. Conductors ushered waiting crowds aboard whenever the trains happened to arrive, rarely on schedule. Travelers had no choice but to wait and wonder when they might have a chance to embark.
There is neither an app nor a functioning website to keep one abreast of the half-century-old train’s mercurial ways. But in this day and age, one should conduct a base level of research, unlike one naive traveler who gave the Tazara one star on TripAdvisor after missing their flight in Lusaka “due to severe delays” in the train schedule. There are scores of reviews online affirming the train’s extreme unreliability — a foundational truth of its reputation. It is not uncharacteristic of the train’s operators to leave passengers stranded for 72 hours without explanation or apology, only for the train schedule to go on afterward as if nothing had happened. A more rosy perspective might construe these failings as simply part of the Tazara’s old-fashioned charm.
This long-haul railway stretches from the port city of Dar es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast to New Kapiri Mposhi, a couple of hours outside of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. In a way, the Tazara is a physical embodiment of free will, unencumbered by a schedule or fiscal obligations: It does what it wants to, at its own pace.
The history of the Tazara is intertwined with the pursuit of international influence during the Cold War. The project was the brainchild of Kenneth Kaunda, who led Zambia (then called Northern Rhodesia) to independence, and Tanzanian politician Julius Nyerere, who envisioned a transportation corridor that stretched from the great African Copperbelt to strategic Indian Ocean ports, bypassing colonially administered neighbors. It was the 1960s and 1970s, the era of African liberation, and self-reliance was paramount.
The two leaders approached international institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations for support, arguing that such a railway would expand their nations’ agricultural prowess and export capabilities.
Western powers declared the project economically unjustifiable and declined to help finance it.
Chairman Mao Zedong of the People’s Republic of China took up the challenge. In 1967, the Chinese, Zambian and Tanzanian governments signed an agreement in Beijing for the construction of the Tazara. It was China’s largest foreign aid project at the time: an interest-free loan of $400 million, equivalent to $3.29 billion in today’s money. At home, amid the Cultural Revolution, China was also confronting existential questions about domestic poverty and food insecurity. Nonetheless, Mao saw how investing in the Tazara could set the bar for expanding China’s business opportunities beyond its borders, particularly on the African continent. This decisive move also tapped into a sense of solidarity among non-Western nations defying the imperial West, vying for economic transformation. “Zambia and China are old friends” is a sentiment I heard multiple times from Zambian and Chinese individuals throughout our reporting trip.
Beyond hard cash, China also offered expertise and equipment. In preparation for the train journey, I read Jamie Monson’s “Africa’s Freedom Railway,” which delineates the history and geopolitical layers of the Tazara project, considered one of the most sweeping development transitions in postcolonial Africa. Archival photos throughout the book depict cross-cultural interactions that unfolded at a time before Sino-African relations and geopolitical competition with Western influences in Africa became a talking point. One of my favorite photos shows a Chinese supervisor watching as a young Tanzanian man learns to weld; another is of the Chinese watching their local team play basketball to decompress from a long workday.
Although no relationship is perfect, the Chinese cultivated an attentiveness toward Tanzanians that was in contrast to the sometimes colonially rooted approach taken by Europeans based in Africa. The Chinese were disciplined, “like soldiers,” adhering to strict rules of not drinking alcohol or liaising with local women, according to some southern Tanzanian communities. Many took Kiswahili language classes. For a time, working on the Tazara was seen as a rite of passage for young Tanzanian males.
Despite the Tazara’s unruliness and insolvency — failings amplified with time — it has managed to inject much-needed life into remote parts of Zambia and Tanzania. It is a through line connecting one rural village to another, even serving as a footpath in places where the dense jungle would otherwise be impassable. The water tanks at each station are popular among locals, who congregate to wash and gather water.
With all of its quirks, the fact that the Tazara runs 1,150 miles twice a week and has yet to receive significant renovations since its initial construction in 1976 is an impressive feat. I lost count of the times the train stopped unannounced, for no apparent reason, before jerking back into motion. At times, I wondered if I might be witnessing the very final hours of the train, only to be proven wrong, again and again.
There are visitors who take the Tazara out of sheer curiosity. In Dar es Salaam, a few days before departure, the driver of a bajaji — a motorized three-wheeled vehicle — raved about the train when he heard I was about to embark in a few days. Abdul Omani is in his mid-40s. When I met him, he was dressed in a traditional Tanzanian thobe. “I took it last year, and it was such a great experience,” he told me, raising his voice above the roar of his vehicle’s engine. “It was clean and comfortable, I could eat and shower on the train — I rode in first class. We Tanzanians need to experience these things more for ourselves, not wait for a foreigner to come to write about it before we try,” he continued. Omani had no idea I was there on that very mission, a coincidence that tickled me.
But I found that most passengers who ride the train do so out of necessity. The Tazara may take hours longer than a public bus, but its lower price makes it the more affordable option for many.
Going westward on the train, as it glided past the myriad of small villages dotting the southern highlands on the Tanzania portion of the journey, I struck up a conversation with Evans, a college student visiting his family. “I do this about twice a year,” he told me as we both leaned out of the car’s window, enjoying the fresh air that cooled our faces as the shadows of things lengthened in the late afternoon sun. We blew past rice paddies and curious kids who watched our train pass through their village. “Are people in America going to read about this?”
Additional reporting by Paul Stremple
Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
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