Clock Tower

I had to become sociable again because my colleague Azaria, he who has left us as of this month but who is a good egg, was travelling with two of his brothers from Dodoma to a town further south, Iringa, for his family Christmas. He was in touch and I hopped in for the ride, in the interests of going with the flow.

The drive was around four hours along an enjoyable route, much lighter in traffic than some of Tanzania’s arteries. For some stretches, baboons were more commonly seen than cars, standing sentinel for bus passengers to throw scraps of food or trash. The Mtera Dam is a notable feature along the route, complete with some government skittishness about foreigners passing through its checkpoints. After some discussion about my residence permit we concluded that I was free to press on. After the dam the road climbs up into the Southern Highlands region, with a stunning landscape of forested crags, more baboons and buses hurtling Tanzanians home for Christmas.

I didn’t know what arrangements I’d be able to make in Iringa, so I could empathise with Joseph and Mary rolling into Bethlehem on Christmas Eve all those moons ago. I did find a room at a recommended guesthouse so didn’t have to bed down with any livestock. If J and M had had the same good fortune maybe the course of human history would have run differently. Because there’s no way a regular innkeeper would have let that gaggle of shepherds, animals and old men bearing suspicious packages create such a scene.

It was getting dark on arrival in Iringa, so the main conclusion I reached was that it has moody skies, as pictured over the town’s clock tower. It also has a thriving dairy industry and the ostentatious mansions of the dairy magnates were visible flanking the main road into town.