Our Home Town (apparently)

Carla was adding up the total time she has actually spent in Iringa since we arrived and it amounts to just one-quarter: the rest of the time either we have been on the road as a team, or she had to do baseline observations in the north. Subsequently, we haven't discovered much of our little town other than the sokoni (market), the bus station, a few regular shops for household items, and of course Neema Craft (wifi!!!! And brownies!!!!). I have been here a couple of weeks longer when I was representing the team doing the admin side of things but I was so ill I didn't have the energy to explore an awful lot. But let me tell you a little of our town: the population is estimated at 110,000. There is a clock tower which kind of represents one end of the main town centre, and a roundabout at the other end, with maybe a mile and a half in between. This section in between covers maybe 3 main roads running parallel-ish, and with quite a lot of smaller interconnecting roads. It is all Tarmac. Well, the roads are; there aren't any pavements as such.

The town itself sits about 1500m above sea level, a right turn off the main road about 8 hours out of Dar es Salaam on the way to Makambako from where you can go south to Njombe and Songea (in the direction of Mozambique), or west to Mbeya then into Zambia, or head north-west to Sumbawanga. It is on the edge of Ruaha National Park where there is the largest gathering of elephants, and the only National Park (I believe) to have both Greater and Lesser Kudu in it together.

In Iringa itself there are several official buildings such as Tanesco (the electricity providers), the Post Office, and some banks dotted around. There are a few petrol stations and they all seem to be functioning i.e. selling petrol and diesel (this may sound obvious but when I was in Mtwara riding the motorbike I was looking for a petrol station and it was only the 4th one I stopped at that had any fuel...), although the attached 'shop' is not maybe what you would expect if you were in Europe (see Mtwara post!). There are a couple of bus stations, one each side of the main road but set back behind a row of shops, with dala dalas heading to Dodoma and the north on one side, and the dala dalas and larger buses heading everywhere else on the other. There is a large covered market selling food: bananas, avocados and dried fish at one end, then towards the town centre more fruit and vegetables such as onions (always small red ones like shallots), potatoes, mango, papaya, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, ginger, citrus fruit, garlic, and watermelons. There is another market which is much more interesting, hidden between the stalls and behind the shops just down from the covered market where you can buy spices, household items, and you can stop to eat lunch there with the locals sitting on the stone while they cook using their local soforia: chipsi mayai (chip omelette), or rice and chicken for example. Back on the street you see shops and individual sellers everywhere, as well as people sat at sewing machines in doorways and down alleyways. The place is a hive of activity. There are the more established shops such as the chains for the Internet providers to top up your phone or your modem dongle (Tigo & Vodacom), and down one particular street (Mhindi Street) a few larger shops that stock fairly luxurious household items such as fridges, TVs, microwave ovens, cookers and blenders, although the customer area is quite small so you have to stand behind the counter and point. (And none of these places take payment by card - everything is cash only.) But predominantly are the small stallholders, the individual sellers who have their own business of stationery, or shoes (usually second-hand shoes, Masaai sandals, or Chinese plastic), DIY, fabric like kitenge and kanga, or music (which look like pirate copies although I would not like to label them all as that).

There are some guesthouses and a couple of drinking holes, and when Bart was here we discovered another fruit & veg market that seemed more local than the main one we usually use. So you can see it is a large town and has a lot to offer, and we haven't even finished exploring it ourselves yet. Reachable by only an 8-hour bus ride from Dar and on Tarmac roads, visitors are warmly welcome to come and see for themselves!