Harambe

**Harambe** also known as the **Port of Harambe** and formerly as **Harambe Village** is the setting of *Africa* in *Disney's Animal Kingdom* and the *Jungle Cruise*'s spiritual successor attraction, *Kilimanjaro Safaris*.

## Description

Harambe is a city within an unidentified East-African nation. The port is located along the Uvumbuzi river, connecting to the Indian Ocean.

### Points of interest

* **Harambe Wildlife Reserve**:
* **Pangani Forest**:
	+ **Gorilla Falls**:
* **Sokoni Road**:
* **Uvumbuzi River**:

#### Old Town

* **Dawa Bar**:
* **Harambe Fort**: This was a European fort established in 1420 and used by European imperialists.
* **Harambe Fruit Market**:
* **Harambe House**: The Harambe House was a building designated a historic site in 2019.
* **Harambe Railway Station**: This railway station was connected to the Eastern Star Railway, running from Lusaka to Nairobi and Kisangani.
* **Harambe Theatre**:
* **Hoteli Burudika**:
* **Kilimanjaro Safaris base-camp**: This was the base-camp for Kilimanjaro Safaris tours of the Harambe Wildlife Reserve. Their outpost was repurposed from the former base of the colonial *Smythe-Wallis British East Africa Livestock Ltd.*.
* **Kusafiri Coffee Shop & Bakery**:
* **Mombasa Marketplace**: This is a business named for the Kenyan city of Mombassa.
* **Tamu Tamu Refreshments**:
* **Tusker House**:
* **Ziwani Traders**:

## History

### Background

#### Origins & Colonial history

Harambe was originally known as the Village of Harambe, with its name being a Swahili term that meant, "Communal labor" or, "Working together". Around 1420, Harambe was colonized by a European empire that would exploit the village as a trading port for practices including ivory trading, big-game hunting, metal trading, and slave trafficking.

Harambe stayed under this hellish imperial rule for centuries. In the 19th through early half of the 20th century, the port was visited by several colonial explorers who wished to exploit the indentured land. Colonial explorers were often harboured at the estate of Tusker House and assisted by the *Kilimanjaro Safaris* company. Entities to come around this period included the Adventure Trading Company, Trader Sam and possibly the Wilderness Explorers.

#### Harambe Revolution

The Africana people of Harambe finally gained their independence in the year 1961 thanks to a revolutionary movement. Harambe went through several improvements amidst the decolonization process such as repurposing the Smythe-Wallis British East Africa Livestock Ltd.'s base into the Harambe Wildlife Reserve to protect the port's native wildlife. The Harambe Wildlife Reserve would join forces with the former colonial powers of the Wilderness Explorers and Kilimanjaro Safaris to assist in caring for the wildlife reserve. At some point, Wildlife Reserve member Dr. K. Kulunda founded the *Wildlife Conservation School* on the reserve's land. In 1980, the Harambe Market was opened.

Around the 1990s/2000s, Harambe hosted the travelling, *Festival of the Lion King* in the Harambe Theatre. This show was a celebration of Simba, the lion king of the African *Pride Lands* which included his adoptive-fathers Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog along with an elephant, giraffe and, "Tumble Monkeys" from the Pride Lands. This travelling celebration was hosted by the four human performers Kiume, Nakawa, Kibibi, and Zawadi. A *Conservation Station* would be built outside of Harambe's limits by around this time, seemingly created and/or run by the mandrill Rafiki, the Royal Mjuzi of the Pride Lands. Harambe's Eastern-Star Railway would connect to this station via a train deemed, "The Wildlife Express".

In 2019, the building, "Harambe House" was turned into a preserved site by order of the ministry of culture. This building hosted the elusive group, Club 33, even having the Swahili words for 33, "*Thelathini na tatu*" painted outside the structure.

## Appearances

### Adventurers Outpost

A bulletin board in the outpost has field-notes on Rafiki's Planet Watch while a chalkboard identifies days of travelling to the Harambe Reserve Main Station, Harambe Wildlife Reserve Warden Station, and Pangani Forest Trail. A mural shows parts of Harambe's gates.

### Adventure Trading Company

The Daily Gnus newspaper journalist B. Pepperella mentioned Harambe having been visited by the Adventure Trading Company alongside the Lost River Delta and Mystic Point.

#### Kilimanjaro Safaris

Harambe is the setting of this attraction which is based on Walt Disney's original plans for the Jungle Cruise.

### Disney Springs Marketplace Co-Op

A flight-board mentions Harambe connecting to the town of Disney Springs alongside many other locations connected to Disney materials including theme-park locations Tomorrowland and Progress City (EPCOT), the real-world locations which hold the Disney Parks, and the settings for Disney media including Arendelle from Frozen, Agrabah from Aladdin, Wonderland from Alice in Wonderland, Passamaquoddy from Pete's Dragon, Neverland from Peter Pan, Toontown from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Tortuga from Pirates of the Caribbean.

### Jungle Cruise

In 2023, a souvenir banner from Harambe was hung over the Banana Troop door in the Amazon River Base.

### Skipper Canteen

In the library of the *Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen* is a book titled, "The Harambe Chronicles" by an author named Wilson.

### Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar

There is a photograph in this bar of Trader Sam on elephant-back safari in Africa. The message on the photo from Sam reads, " Embarking from Harambe Village on a Safari" and the logo for Kilimanjaro Safaris is on the saddle of the elephant.

### Other connections

#### The Lion King

Harambe is the setting of *Festival of the Lion King*, a celebration of Simba which features several Lion King characters such as Simba, Timon and Pumbaa attending the Harambe Theatre. The Harambe Railway Station also connects to the in-universe, "Rafiki's Wildlife Reserve" which is named for Rafiki from the Lion King.

## Trivia

* Harambe is one of the fictional settings composing Disney's Animal Kingdom along with Anandapur, Discovery Island, Diggs County, and Pandora's Valley of Mo'ara.
* Harambe is likely set in Kenya, Tanzania or Mozambique due to being a coastal port in East-Africa where Swahili is a major language.
* The Uvumbuzi river translates to, "Discovery river", a reference to how the artificial river it is represented by is named the Discovery Rivers.
* The name Harambe might have been inspired by the song "Harambe (Working Together for Freedom)" by Rita Marley.
* Some have theorized that the evil Harrison Hightower III of the *Pillagers Brigade* and *Society of Explorers and Adventurers* might have visited Harambe as he was an active colonial explorer during Harambe's imperial rule, was portrayed by Animal Kingdom imagineer Joe Rohde and wrote a book in the Skipper Canteen titled *Treasures of the Animal Kingdom*. However, while he is seemingly referenced as having visited Anandapur, the Animal Kingdom divisions the Valley of Mo'ara and DinoLand, U.S.A. would not have been active during Hightower's lifetime.

## References

1. ↑ https://blogmickey.com/2020/01/sneak-peek-inside-animal-kingdoms-club-33-harambe-house/
2. ↑ https://www.charactercentral.net/L1316\_DisneyCharacters\_WaltDisneyWorld\_AnimalKingdom\_AdventurersOutpost.aspx
3. ↑ http://www.mainstgazette.com/2017/10/gate-change.html
4. ↑ https://allears.net/2023/08/23/25-things-you-didnt-know-about-jungle-cruise-in-disney-world/