Leaving Tanzania

After more than 12 years, I am leaving Tanzania! When I first moved here, I never could have imagined staying so long and making the country my home. I am so grateful to have been able to see the country and experience the people and the culture, as well as the natural beauty and wildlife. Both my work and personal life was enriching and allowed me to see most of the country and interact with people from every single region and I was lucky enough to live and work in three different regions, each unique with its own tribe, customs and culture. 

When I first set foot in Tanzania a year or two before Magufuli’s rise, the place felt like any other country in the region, rich in potential, yet hampered by bureaucracy, inefficiency, and low-level corruption. Then Magufuli arrived. He made sweeping changes, digitizing services, showing zero tolerance for “ghost workers,” firing officials, and launching major infrastructure projects like the Standard Gauge Railway, expanded healthcare and schools, and electrifying rural areas. These initiatives signaled real progress and offered hope that things could change. I'm curious if the youth, having none of the Nyerere influenced upbringing, will break the insular thinking that most of the older generation has. 

On the other hand, his leadership style came with trade-offs. Political space tightened into a true authoritarian regime; media was restricted, opposition voices stifled, and elections were criticized for repression and lack of transparency. In the 2020 elections and again in 2024 the internet was shut down for several days following the elections. 

One piece of Tanzania’s restrictive environment, however, had nothing to do with Magufuli. The lack of a path to dual nationality or easy naturalization long predated him. The firmly nationalist citizenship framework dates back decades, codified in the post-union era and the 1995 Citizenship Act, which still prohibits dual citizenship except for minors and imposes strict naturalization requirement. 

So when I arrived a couple of years before Magufuli, the Tanzania I encountered had the same limitation, a place where foreigners, even those who’d lived there for years, faced an uncertain future. Magufuli didn’t introduce that; he just made it more visible as the climate shifted. Many people who had arrangements to "own" land and businesses were suddenly stressed and we knew several people that had to leave. This meant that we always knew we would move on, though it was still difficult to do so. 

It's been an amazing run, I've gotten to see a ton of the country, learned a language, created relationships and got to live a lifestyle that had an immense amount of freedom. Tanzania can be a difficult place to live as well, the indirect communication style, lack of urgency, and poor general infrastructure can be taxing, but for those of us that found a way to balance it all, Tanzania was an incredibly enriching place for me to have called home.