Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting, the East African colony reinforced the roads within its territory.
Being poor as a church mouse was no joke. Other countries that wanted to industrialize had at least accumulated some family wealth from the agricultural age, or else had the backing of a great power.
Roads, bridges, agricultural irrigation systems, even canals... other countries and developed colonies had at least a century of accumulation in such things.
Before the colonizers arrived in East Africa, there had truly been nothing there. Even dirt roads had been developed by the East African colony itself.
One could imagine the state of East Africa's road transport. After a rain, everything became a quagmire. Fortunately, the East African grasslands were flat and open, making road construction relatively easy.
The ones fighting on the front lines of East Africa's road-building army were those native captives, while the East African Colonial Government was responsible for supervision.
More than a hundred thousand people labored on the front lines of road construction at the same time. Though their tools were crude, the sheer advantage in manpower caused East Africa's roads to multiply at a visible rate.
The East African colony's food was not bad by native standards either: high in salt and oil, ensuring they had plenty of strength every day.
The portions were naturally not large, but they were more dependable than living by hunting. On top of that, East Africa's wild animals occasionally provided these natives with an extra meal.
The natives who performed high-intensity labor every day not only failed to collapse from exhaustion, but actually appeared stronger and more robust than before.
In this era, colony or not, whenever people were put to work, they were worked to death—especially outside Europe.
The construction of the Suez Canal