by SHARIFA KALOKOLA
Khadija Binti Kamba at 88. PHOTO/Sharifa Kalokola
Even though they are not famous and they live ordinary, humble lives, quite a few women participated in the struggle for independence. And to do it, they sacrificed their youth. As the nation celebrates 50-years of independence, we remember two female freedom fighters who laid their lives on the line for our great country.
Khadija Binti Kamba
Charming and young at heart are words that describe this 88-year-old to a tee. Khadija joined the Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu) in 1954 and has remained loyal to what the party represented. “I spent my youth working for Tanu and struggling to set this country free from the colonial rule. The colonialists were oppressive and they did not want us to develop,” she says. Khadija was born and raised in Tabora. Her father moved from Dar es Salaam to Tabora where he married and divorced many wives.
He divorced her mother when she was young and took custody of the young Khadija. She never attended school and was married off to an old man before she was 15-years-old. “My father arranged the marriage without involving my mother and he kept all the bride price to himself,” she remembers. But the marriage was short lived. Khadija ran away from her husband and went back home to live with her father. Later, she obtained a legal divorce from the courts.
Family comes first
Out of curiosity, Khadija then decided to visit Dar es Salaam. She planned to explore her family tree and trace some of her relatives on her father’s side. “I always wondered why my father did not want to return to Dar es Salaam. I figured if I could find my relatives, I would find out,” she says. On arrival in Dar es Salaam, Khadija stayed with a relative from her mother’s side as she searched for her father’s kin. “It didn’t take long to find them.
I was at a taarab concert when I saw a man who resembled my father. When I spoke to him, he said that my father’s family was big and influential. I realised that he had hidden his true identity from me all those years. I also found out that he had an older son.”
Khadija decided to remain in Dar es Salaam to live with her relatives. Eventually, she found a man who took care of all her needs. “In our days men provided for women. They did everything for us including going to the market to shop for us.” The man was so in love with her that he bought her a house that she lives in to this day. When he died, she never married again and she doesn’t have children.
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