Tanzania and Kenya, like neighbours in a physical neighbourhood, inevitably influence each other. Whatever happens across our shared borders quickly spills over, ignoring colonial lines much like the constant movement of Kenyans and Tanzanians who cross back and forth without passports. Above all else, it is the Swahili language that binds us together.
Swahili is Tanzania’s primary language and the default for public life, with English used only when absolutely necessary. Kenya, though officially bilingual, uses Swahili more variably — strongest along the coast or when a Kenyan tries to impress a Tanzanian audience — but English remains the more admired marker of education. Yet Swahili still powers cross-border communication, trade, music, conversation, and humour. I once ordered “jicho la ng’ombe” for fried eggs in an Arusha café, only for the waiter — who turned out to be Kenyan — to apologize, thinking I was asking for an actual cow’s eye.
We are also linked by ethnic identities that straddle our border. The Maasai on both sides routinely disregard colonial lines, gathering for shared ceremonies and traditional celebrations. In tourism, we share the Serengeti ecosystem, with Kenya’s sector benefitting handsomely from the Tanzanian-born wildebeest migration. Kenyans also profit from the stunning views of Mt. Kilimanjaro from Amboseli National Park, while Tanzanians are left reminding anyone who will listen that — just like the wildebeest — Kilimanjaro is as Tanzanian as the migrating gnu.
While Swahili enables mutual understanding, it can just as easily inflame conflict. I might not recognise an insult in Chinese, but I cannot miss one in Swahili — even from someone who struggles to tell the difference between a fried egg and a cow’s eye.
Recent political tensions have turned Kenyans and Tanzanians into siblings quarrelling loudly, with debates spilling into our respective parliaments. Where the founders of East African integration imagined a region united by trade, culture, and shared interests, we now find ourselves distracted — and often divided — by the very differences they hoped we would transcend.
We cannot always agree with our neighbours, but we are firmly bound to them — we have to coexist. We cannot relocate Kenya to the middle of the Sahara Desert, though that fantasy might spare us a few quarrels and even ease President Yoweri Museveni’s recent dilemma over direct access to the Indian Ocean. With such close proximity, we must voice our differences with mature sensitivity.
Rather than tearing into each other with vitriol and insults, we should use humour to celebrate, not magnify, our differences. Tanzania has long practised inter-ethnic humour across its 120-plus communities, and Kenyans can draw valuable lessons from that experience.
