It has been years since i left Kiev when i was very young to remember anything. Alot has happened since i left, like the breaking of the Soviet Union, changes in economy, the Orange revolution and the like, alot has as well happened with my family; the one i left behind when moved to Tanzania.

Going back to ukraine had many reasons for me, it was going to find part of my roots, finding my relatives and wanting to once more get familiar and solve the curiousity and questions i had been asking myself about it.

My preparations for travel took very long, and was never as easy road, but all in all i got so many dissappointing comments about Ukraine and Kiev. Some told me i will be wasting my time and i should dream for something else, some said they are on the edge of poverty and i shouldnt even think of them, and some said i will not enjoy and it wouldnt be as pleasant as i wish it to be.

But me being me, i went ahead as to me it meant alot, especially because thats where i came from, my mother, brothers and sisters were still there and i never saw them before, so i said i dont care about any situation, and even though i dont speak the language, i am determined to go and no one can stop me with their comments.

On mid november last year when i got there, at the airport i felt like i was in another world. When people were struggling to finish the check up and go to their destinations, i was just overwhelmed by the fact that i was actually there.

But to top it all, i got help from everyone who didnt even know English and managed to find a place to stay and find my relatibes within the same day i got in.

the City was soooooo beautiful and peaceful that i felt amazed by the light effects on the buildings at night and even though it was cold, i was amazed by the warmth of the people.

KIEV you are sooooo beautiful and i cant wait to come back.

This time i will be able to speak some words of the natives precious language, Ukrainean.

To all who disappointed me, you should open your hearts and find time to get to really know Kiev and even visit and then you will be supprised!!!!!!!! and amazed!!!!!!!!!!

I will always embace the memories and will always tell of how wonderful Kiev is, i am glad i didnt give up, may be it was kiev wanting me to go back,and i managed to despite of all odds.

Dear Robert and all, first thank you for posting this, and second thanks for all taking their time to give out and share their opinion, please excuse me for using English, but at this moment i would wish for us Tanzanians and anyone else visiting to understand. And i hope our fellows of the East Africa will as well visit and get to know our opionions.

I would like to start with one of the comments posted in regard to together we are united and alone we fail" Thats veryu true my brother, and thats a very good spirit. I just feel in the EAF issue, we can put that spirit aside for a while. Why i say this is because whatever we wish to practice and lead to changes in our community has to start from home. And in this case i feel US TANZANIANS need to have our unity stable before we go and look for bigger community. Though we are said to be the most peaceful and united, but we still have our small problems (like Muungano).
On the other hand, in my opinion i believe before we want to join others, we should see if those we want to join are themselves unted as a nation. Unfortunately in most of these countries, unity is still just an impractical song. And i believe for this as one of the reasons, we are all too young and too unprepared to drug ourselves in such a huge huge huge thing.
this might sound funny, but if any of you know SWOT, i wish for you to exercise it in gthe EAF context and see if it has ant promises for now.
On the other note, I feel as Tanzanians, we should not be scared to go any face the world, we are comming up now, and we still have alot to do to have our feet on the ground, i think we shouldnt invite guests before we sweep our houses and became the hosts and not the guests in our own houses.
Please note that these are just my views, and i wish we have the discussion Robert, please.
I would also like to leave us with few questions that i have been asking myself in regard to EAF, i dont need answers they are just some powerful questions that can help us brainstorm.
1) Why the EAF now and so fast?
2). Who will benefit from it?
3). Who wants it (i know i didnt ask for it so where did it come from?).
4). Do all the Tanzannians know about it in depth or are just being told what to think and what to answer?
5). Are we going back to marriages that are done because our parents decided or we choose the bride/groom in our own time and bring them home?
6). What us as Tanzanians have got to loose and what have we got to gain?
7). isnt EAC that exists now enough?
8). It took alot of effort to Unite this country to even use one language and forget tribalism, are we ready to throw it all now? and for what price?
9). Am i as individual young Tanzanian see any benefits i and my fellows can get?
10). Are we thinking and deciding or we left other people to think , decide for us and we just put our thumb stamps?

I klnow i sound very negative on this issue, trust me i am the stronger believer of unity and i believe not only do we need to have unity as East Africa, but as well as Africa in general, My only concern is we are not ready and everything has to take its own pace, and changes are better slow than hurried.

Lets take a lesson from the Europeans, it took how many years since they had nations for them to even become united?
And even now that they are United, the unity is not as what we are aiming for, they made sure individually they are strong before they went in. Lets take our sweet time, lets realize ourselves before we identify as others.
Just my views, but i hope they make sense, i love my country and i still want it.

Today we are all celebrating the World Peace day.
Some had serminars, others games and the like. In Tanzania we celebrated the World Peace day with a mix of activities, from speeches, presentations by posters, peace games, drama, songs and poems.The main thing is that we were all together young and old, did a match to the venue of the event, spared our time and prepared a way to show how we describe peace and how we wish to live with it. It was wonderful!

Our celbrations started with matching of about 3 kilometers in the center of the town towards the venue of our celebrations which was at the first parliament building. The group composed of students from different schools from those very young to high school, youth organizations, other organizations, ambassodors from a number of countries(or their representatives), officialls of the UN ( who are the main organizers) and without forgetting representatives from the government in which our guest of honor was the deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and international cooperation.

I observed three very interesting issues during all this, first was that there were representatives of 6 different religions and they all had time to say a prayer for peace, for our country and for the world. Another interesting thing i saw was how people who are involved in sports felt so much for the day and their presence was very well seen by everyone. This included the presence of a government official from the department of sports who actually was not in the program, but we were very overwhelmed and had to put her in.As well the "Right to play" organization who actually had even a peace game for the day and involved kids who were there to see how can these games demonstrate peace and even influence peace.

The second observation was within myself, and this came at the moment of Silence. That one minute seemed too long for me as i was wondering what are all these people thinking now. When it was about to end i started thinking myself, and wondered how many people can not even have a safe activity like we had, or how other people wish to have the like activities to demonstrate how much they hate anthing to do with taking peace away. And i was there, and many of my fellow tanzanians dont even know the day or find the one minute of silence to think about peace.

As i had to elaborate what continues after the minute of silence, i actually ended up telling everyone to clap and feel happy, i realised we should celebrate to have such a peaceful country, and never forget that this happiness can be gone in a minute if we dont keep out efforts to treasure it.

I wish you all a wonderful peace day, and hope you have your one minute of silence to think of peace in a peaceful way.

I forgot to tell you, i was the host of this celebration today, and i felt such a great honor, i have only one problem, Im not allowed to do this kind of work by the private company that i work with, so i gave an excuse today that i have a social responsibility to fulfil, but tomorrow i might be in papers, and today everning i might be in TV, pray for me so they dont see me,otherwise i will be jobless.