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The MV Liemba is a wonderful old iron ship and a piece of history. Built the SS Graf von Götzen in Germany in 1913 for the colony of Deutsch-Ostafrika she was disassembled and transported in pieces from Europe to Africa and then halfway across the dark continent by rail to Kigoma on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. There the pieces were reassembled and she was commissioned in 1914. The MV Liemba stops 19 times on its way from Mpulungu to Kigoma. Apart from the first at Kasanga, which has a proper quay, the stops simply involve putting down the anchor and hooting the horn. Within minutes the ship is surrounded by boats of all sizes, some with outboards, some with paddles, and others which are fishermen’s dugouts, all selling something, buying something, on loading or offloading cargo or passengers. The dawn stops bring fisherman from the middle of the lake to sell their overnight catch. Other stops provide live chickens, which presumably become the evening meal.
Today, at the venerable age of 100 years, the Liemba boat is still working and represents the unique (floating) market for the villages laying on the lake shores of DR Congo, Tanzania, Burundi and Zambia countries.