Usa River

Attached are lists of villages and other offices where you may find a circular date stamp. Well, most are circular and almost all are dated. The lists are loosely arranged as follows:

Name as it appears in an early cancel or in the majority of cancels. Many town names, especially in Africa and Asia, have a number of spellings in English. These are ignored. But, if the town name changed significantly, the newer name is in parentheses. Names often changed because of confusing same or similar names in the same colony.

Also, independence led to de-Anglicization, especially if the town name included words such as "fort". If the town is a post office outside of the colony but administered by the colony, that is indicated.

Next is the earliest date "known" of a dated cancel or, sometimes the date of opening. If not from literature, then from my collection. Sadly, most early dates from my collection are not that early.

Then there are letter or numeral killers used alone or in conjunction with a date stamp. Sometimes several different numbers were used, perhaps in different styles. This is a huge field, only touched on here.

Lastly, the location of the village is given (or will later be given) by latitude and longitude. Sometimes this is only approximate, variables including inaccurate old maps, inaccurate new maps, moving of towns, confusion over similar town names, quirky software and my own clerical errors.

The lists are a place to get started. They are incomplete, the degree depending on what literature is available to the author. Focus is on villages with post offices around the turn of the century without attempting to include newer offices. The cut-off date for each colony varies, depending on manageability of the number of offices.

Many of the village marks are rare. Occasionally, only a single example is known. Some offices were open only a few months and have disappeared from modern maps.

TANGANYIKA

[short list, with some names from Northern Tanzania]

Arusha 1922 3s22 36e41

Babati 1935 4s13 35e45

Kondoa 1920 4s54 35e47

Loliondo 1937 2s03 35e37

Mbulu 1920 sl 3s51 35e32

Monduli 1939 3s18 36e26

Moshi 1917 3s21 37e20

Ngare Nairobi 1928

Oldeani 1934 3s21 35e33

Singida 1926 4s49 34e45

Usa River 1929 3s22 36e50

Situated on the south-eastern slopes and at the foot of Mount Meru, approximately 14 miles from Arusha, lies Usa, perhaps, the most densely settled in the whole of Tanganyika.

From. the main road, one looks at green wooded slopes with houses nestling among the trees, while above the farms lie the banana and maize plantations of the Wameru and majestic Meru itself with its barren rocky summit, a towering sentinel over the peaceful scene below.

As brevity is essential, it would not do to dwell too long on the grandeur of the scenery with which nature has endowed Usa; suffice it to say that she has been lavish in her gifts.

A recent unofficial census shewed a total European population of 125 in the Usa area, most of the planters being engaged in the production of Coffee. Saw and flour mills form additional industries, and it is gratifying to hear from the settlers the unbounded confidence they have in their small part of the territory.

The Usa Planters Association which boasts a large and active membership under the Presidency of General Boyd-Moss, C.M.G., D.S.O., has formed an Angling Society, and intends to stock the Usa and Chai Rivers with Trout; its Rifle Association with Major Russell, O.B.E., M.C.,as Chairman, has built its own Range, and in Competition Shooting is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Looking down towards the Masai Reserve in the South and South-east, one sees the valley of the Kikuletwa, an area comprising roughly a quarter of a million acres, rich in possibilities and crying out for development. Approximately. 60,000 acres have already been alienated and Sisal planting has commenced by three large Companies.

It is to this fertile land of volcanic ash that many settlers are looking for the future of the whole of the Usa area, one thinks, not without justification, for Sisal can be produced more cheaply there than in heavily wooded country which requires expensive clearing.

Time will prove as to whether ones faith has been groundless, but no matter how unkind nature may prove in the future, she will have a tremendous barrier to break down, that of unbounded optimism, and the faith of the Usa Settlers in the future of their Area.

On our way back to Namasagali [Uganda] he wanted us to see an extraordinary project in northern Tanzania. Usa is a village of 167 people close to Arusha in northern Tanzania. A year ago each of the villagers was equipped with a longlife mosquito net. In the months since, the incidence of Malaria in the village has fallen to zero. Elerehema Manga, a 60-year-old farm labourer earning "2 a week, is typical. He was given nets not only for his bed but also for his windows and the gaps in the eaves of his hut. The total cost was "8, hence the need for outside funding from agencies such as Unicef. I asked him about his experiences of Malaria. "I had it three times last year. Now, since the nets were brought in February I haven't had it once."

The source of Elerehema's malarial relief is the A to Z plastics factory in Arusha. The revolutionary net is being produced here on a truly dramatic scale. The net is made of extruded resin sold at market price by Exxon Mobil. Hardly at the forefront of altruistic repute, Exxon too is a member of the global partnership to "Roll Back Malaria". The money it makes from the Saudi-produced resin, Exxon gives back to Unicef to buy more nets, to try to create a mosquito net market. Sumitomo hasn't given money. Instead it has made a free technology transfer of the secret ingredient that gives the net its longlife properties. Mosquito repellent is introduced into the resin compound which, when extruded, enables the chemical to bleed very slowly out of the yarn - so slowly that the repellent remains effective for between five and seven years. This is a remarkable advance on the standard nets, which require "reproofing" every six months. Such nets are rendered useless by a lack of funds, equipment and organisation to respray them.

Inside the A to Z factory, blue longlife netting cascades from 50 huge industrial looms. There are about 1,200 African workers working to save the lives of other Africans. But Anuj Shah, who runs the company is no do-gooder. He's in it for profit and is determined that net making in Africa is a seriously commercial activity. Currently producing 3m of these nets a year, he expects his new factory, which is under construction nearby, to start producing 7m a year by April. After that he hopes to expand to 20m - a tenth of Africa's entire need.

Technology transfer and money from the G8 and beyond have combined to enable Africa to start combating its number one killer disease. So far, so good.

Namasagali is to be the next serious "upscaling" of net testing. A village 10 times the size of Usa it is to be netted up for a year to see whether blanket net provision can make as startling a difference on a bigger scale.

By the time we arrived in Uganda, a small committee headed by the village chief had already been established to handle the dispersal of the nets. The process of handing them out was orderly despite my own slight suspicion that the good parishioners of St Paul's saw me as some kind of "second coming". We shall return to Namasagali in a year's time to see who's had Malaria and who's sold their net, or simply gone fishing with it.

As we left Namasagali news came through of the Ugandan government's decision to go after the officials who had stolen $280,000 of Global Fund money made available to buy the longlife nets. Among those under suspicion was President Museveni's own brother-in-law.

The money is there. The nets are being manufactured in a process that has the potential to be rolled out right across Africa. Africa's governance alone now seems to stand in the way. For Malaria to be "rolled back" by 2015, the goal set by Gleneagles, the answer seems to lie with Africa itself.

" Jon Snow's film on Malaria aired on Channel 4 News on January 3 2006