African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 565: Chapter 243 Past

Claire and his crew isolated themselves without supervision, but East Africa wasn’t worried about the people of Rovinard Village running around. As a relatively underdeveloped area, the Nile River province not only had a sparse population but also extremely backward transportation. Running around recklessly might lead to death.

Rovinard Village had only one road leading to the city, and this road wasn’t built by East Africa but was originally treaded by Black people themselves. One can imagine how poor the road conditions were. Of course, it’s not that East Africa didn’t intend to build roads, but rather, as a new immigrant village, East Africa hadn’t had time to take care of it.

Building roads had a necessary premise: the road is meant for people. Therefore, since originally no one lived in the area of Rovinard Village, there was no need to build roads. Surely you wouldn’t build a road for animals to walk on!

Actually, Rovinard Village wasn’t an exception. East Africa developed inland every year, creating many new villages that lacked everything, including roads and other basic infrastructures.

Of course, there were some exceptions, such as those assigned near existing highways or railways, like many immigrants in Matebel Province (Zimbabwe) who lived along the sides of the Central Railway.

”Seeing this really makes me nostalgic for the days when I first arrived in East Africa. But now new immigrants have a much better life than we did back then,” Claire commented to his assistant while temporarily residing in Rovinard Village.

The state of Rovinard Village resembled the second place he stayed when he first arrived in East Africa. He disembarked in Mombasa and later moved to a village near Kisumu. At that time, East African conditions were poor, and even Mombasa wasn’t considered very good, merely a mediocre African port.

Now Mombasa has developed, and the infrastructure is better than most ports in the world. This relates to the later development of Mombasa; newer structures mean better planning and more advanced facilities.

Not to mention Mombasa, even Kisumu has seen considerable development. In terms of urban construction alone, it’s comparable to many small and medium-sized European cities. Overall, East Africa’s eastern region has transformed significantly from its past.

Trying to find a template as backward as original East Africa is difficult; the new immigrant points in the west might be possible. But even these points have much better conditions than those Claire experienced when he first arrived in East Africa, because East Africa’s productivity has already improved.

”Director, did you live in such rooms when you first arrived in East Africa?” the assistant asked.

Claire shook his head, saying, ”At that time the rural conditions in East Africa were worse than those in Rovinard Village, though overall they weren’t much different. How did you get from Mombasa to Kisumu? How long did it take?”

”Of course by train, it took about three days!”

”You see, you have railways now, plus highways to choose from, whereas back then I could only rely on walking. With stops and starts along the way, the same distance took me a complete month. Did you turn to water transport after arriving in Kisumu and take the boat?” Claire continued asking.

”Of course.”

”You see, immigrants like us didn’t have this benefit back then. We could only continue towards the inland along the Great Lake’s shores. Fortunately, I was allocated early and stopped near Kisumu. Later immigrants had it worse; only a few were allocated to stay in the east, while the majority still needed to fill up the inland.”

Claire continued with grief, ”Especially when there was no railway, I can’t imagine how much suffering people in the provinces of Hohenzollern and Swabia (southern Congo and Zambia) went through on the way, as those were journeys easily over a thousand kilometers.”

Actually, it wasn’t as exaggerated as Claire said. Later immigrants did spend more time going inland, but by then the coastal areas were developed, capable of providing material supplies, greatly facilitating East Africa’s immigration efforts.

Although Claire just said a few words simply, the assistant could already imagine how arduous the days in old East Africa were.

Seeing him somewhat lost, Claire smiled and said, ”But the more one experiences East Africa’s rapid development, the more one can feel the development potential of this country. Previously, Europe’s depiction of Africa was quite reasonable, but you newcomers haven’t experienced it. By the time you set foot on East African soil, it had completely transformed.”

The assistant enthusiastically agreed, nodding, ”Yes, Director, when I first came to East Africa in 1876, Mombasa was already quite prosperous. At the time, I felt Mombasa was no different from those flourishing cities in Europe, even more advanced and pleasing.”

This was inevitable. Every city in East Africa was reasonably designed and planned, avoiding many of the shortcomings found in European cities, which was most vividly reflected in the city architecture and roads.

Of course, East African cities had their own shortcomings, such as their small number. This was normal; many administrative cities in East Africa strictly didn’t count as cities. The real cities were administrative cities.

And comparing East African cities to European ones couldn’t simply take administrative cities against European cities in comparison; administrative city was a name for an administrative district level. Even if it was just a village, the East African government could designate it as an administrative city for the government seat, so it could be called a city.

The superior city to Rovinard Village was such a case. Of course, East Africa wouldn’t truly be so poor as to make villages the government seat. Rovinard Village’s superior city government seat was a township, with the whole city’s population plus affiliated villages only exceeding four thousand people. This also represented the current population status of the Nile River province.

Claire said, ”So, East Africa’s development changes rapidly. Don’t look at Rovinard Village now as merely a small village. In the future, it may also become the administrative center nearby, with the lowest potential being a township, since it’s considered one of the relatively early developed villages in the Nile River province. Back when I was still mixing in the east, I witnessed many villages step by step develop into towns. Look at First Town City, initially just an inconspicuous colonial outpost, now directly becoming the capital.”

”The most typical example is Nairobi City, originally just barren land, now becoming the textile center of East Africa, with a population of tens of thousands.”

”Places that reverse fate like this are numerous. Rovinard Village also has this potential because its starting time within the Nile River Province is relatively early, while the province is so vast. Know that the area of the Nile River province is larger than many European countries, so the future prospects of Rovinard Village are limitless.”

East African immigration points didn’t like clustering, just like during the early colony era, many cities were already beginning to develop, yet they distributed themselves across various regions of Tanganyika at the time.

At the time, there was consideration of enclosing land, Ernst’s city-to-village strategy, or immigrant containment of indigenous plans, used to suppress indigenous forces while expanding East Africa’s territory. This also dragged down the development of the port cities of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, as limited resources were divided among more and more inland cities.

However, the benefits later manifested, once many inland cities and villages developed, a large amount of resources in turn assisted the coastal cities’ growth, enabling East African coastal cities to qualify for world trade and even play a role in the previous agricultural economic crisis.