BEIJING, April. 14 -- They came in countless numbers, young and old, men and women, and from near and far. They walked, jogged, danced and ran after - some barefooted - local torchbearers, who carried the flame on its first trip to a sub-Saharan country.

The 5-km relay yesterday marked the debut of the Olympic flame - a symbol of humanity's common ideals of friendship and peaceful coexistence under the Olympic spirit - in the region widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the human race.

The flame visited Egypt during the Athens 2004 Olympic global torch relay but it has never been to any of the 46 countries located south of the Sahara desert, where tens of millions of the world's most impoverished live.

That all changed yesterday, when descendants from the home of Mitochondrial Eve, the Mother of us all, joined their distant relatives from other continents on this most inclusive relay.

Beijing Olympic Torch Relay spokesman Qu Yingpu said: "It was so touching to see kids take off their shoes and socks when a pool of water submerged a section of the route... at that moment, Olympic passion and the Olympic spirit soared."

Dar es Salaam - which means abode of peace in Arabic - was the first city in the world to sign the 2008 Olympic torch relay pact on the date, itinerary and local participation of the relay.

"As the African continent has never hosted an Olympic Games, and Tanzania has never hosted an Olympic torch relay, China would like to share with African people the passion, glory, dreams and joys of the Olympiad," Chinese ambassador to Tanzania Liu Xinsheng told China Daily.

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