MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER CAME FROM A ROYAL FAMILY-REVISED

I thank Aunt Isabela who is the grand daughter of Adelaide Semkombe, Bibi Kongo, for additional information on  Bibi Kongos life. Bibi Kongo  used to tell us that she was a daughter of a Nyamwezi Chief somewhere in Unyanyembe. She was taken from her father by German soldiers who had been fighting with her father, she was taken as guarantee that her father would never challenge the Germans again, and she would be brought back when everything was fine. She was never returned to her parents.

Bibi Kongo outside her house March 10, 1967

The Germans took her from Tabora to Bagamoyo. It was fascinating hearing her telling us  of the journey from Tabora via Kilimatinde on a to Bagamoyo with the German army, a distance of 825 kilometers by foot, and she must have been hardly 10 years old!!,
When she arrived in Bagamoyo she was handed over to a woman who immediately turned her into a slave, in Bagamoyo she was sold about three times to different people. One of her masters used to send her and another girl slave to sell 'vitumbua' around Bagamoyo town.  One day they passed aplace  where they heard children being taught how to read, according to her she said they heard children sing 'a, e, i, o, q' it was a school. They decided they had to join these children. They rang a doorbell and a white woman opened the door and asked them what they wanted, and the two  girls said they wanted to join and sing, they were told they had to get some money if they wanted to join that school. The currency was the German Rupee. So they left, and decided to pick mangoes which they would sell and get the money they needed. And so they started their new mango business at the same time selling their masters vitumbua, they went on until they had enough money to pay for school. That's when they went back to the school but her friend changed her mind at the last minute and went back to her master, Bibi Kongo's days as a slave were over. The school was run by French Missionaries.
One day a priest came to the school and announced that he was going to a mission in Tosamaganga and wanted volunteers, Bibi Kongo raised her hand and joined the missionaries going to Iringa, 
So again she was in a 490 kilometer journey from Bagamoyo to Iringa. On the way to Iringa her group met up with a group of soldiers transporting the head of Mutwa Mkwawa from Iringa to Dar es Salaam. So it must have been late 1898 or  sometime in 1899 because Mutwa Mukwava killed himself on 19^th June 1898.
Bibi Kongo arrived in Tosamaganga, where she met the mason Kavalang’ombe and they married and went on to get 4 daughters.
Giyomana- who was baptized and given the name Benedicta

Giogela- whose Christian name became Lucia

Natalia and the youngest was Elizabeth whom we all called, Mtagulu. Who was to become my grand mother and the mother of my Aunt Isabela.