Iringa

The country around Iringa has been inhabited for an extraordinarily long time: at Isimila, a short way south-west, archaeologists excavated Acheulean hand axes and cleavers left by early humans in the Middle Pleistocene, in a gully now known for its eroded sandstone pillars. In the 19th century the highlands became the heartland of the Hehe, whom Munyigumba and then his son Mkwawa welded into a powerful military state that dominated the surrounding peoples.

Mkwawa's forces ambushed and destroyed a German column at Lugalo in 1891, one of the worst defeats colonial troops suffered in East Africa. The Germans returned in force, storming his fortified capital at Kalenga in 1894, and pursued him until he died in 1898 rather than be captured. His skull was taken to Germany and returned in 1954, and is kept in the small museum at Kalenga. To avenge Zelewski's death and impose their authority the Germans had meanwhile built a military station at Neu Iringa on the defensible escarpment, and that garrison post became the modern town, with its boma and its grid of streets.

Under British rule Iringa remained a modest highland centre for the farms around it. After independence it grew as the capital of Iringa Region, as a stop on the tarred highway to Zambia and Malawi, and as a base for Ruaha. Universities and colleges opened in recent decades, missions and aid organisations established offices, and the town has grown steadily without losing its small, cool, hilltop character.

Iringa is the town of the Hehe, whose name is said to come from their war cry and whose 19th-century resistance is taught across Tanzania. Mkwawa is a national figure, and locally he is more than that: the museum at Kalenga, the great rock above the town, and the story of his skull's return are part of everyday identity. Neighbouring peoples include the Bena of Njombe to the south and the Kinga of the mountains.

Christianity shapes public life. Lutheran and Catholic missions established schools, hospitals and later universities here, and church choirs, weddings and Sunday services fill the town's weekends. Iringa also has a long-standing Muslim community from the caravan and colonial era, and a small Asian trading presence whose shops line parts of the centre.

The town's other character comes from its students and its visitors. Several universities and colleges give it a young population in term time, with cheap eating houses and bars to match, and the flow of travellers heading for Ruaha has supported craft shops, basket weaving and cultural tourism projects in the villages nearby. Manners are unhurried and formal: greetings first, respect for elders, and modest dress in a highland climate where people cover up against the cold anyway.

About 200,000 people live in Iringa municipality, making it one of the larger towns of the Southern Highlands but far smaller than Mbeya. Government offices, schools, universities, hospitals and the transport trade along the highway provide most formal employment, alongside shops, markets and a growing tourism business.

The economy around the town is agricultural. The highlands grow maize, potatoes, beans, sunflowers, vegetables and fruit, with tea estates at Mufindi to the south-west and timber plantations on the plateau, and much of the produce moves out by lorry along the Dar es Salaam road. Livestock, dairy and small processing plants add to the trade, and Iringa is a stop for freight moving between the coast, Zambia and Malawi.

Days begin cold and early, the market fills by mid-morning, and the afternoon brings buses through town and students out of lectures. Housing spreads down the slopes and along the approach roads, and water and road maintenance struggle to keep up. Current concerns include the flow of the Great Ruaha River, which has declined with irrigation upstream in the Usangu wetlands, soil erosion on steep farmland, highway accidents, and the seasonal work that draws young people away to the cities.

Iringa eats highland food, heavier and more vegetable-rich than the coast. Ugali from local maize is the staple, eaten with beans, cowpeas, pumpkin leaves, cabbage or a stew of beef or goat, and potatoes appear at nearly every meal — boiled, in stews, or fried as chips and served with eggs as chipsi mayai. Avocados, tomatoes and fruit from the surrounding farms are cheap and abundant.

Grilled meat is the sociable food here as elsewhere in Tanzania: goat or beef roasted over charcoal, chopped on a board and eaten with kachumbari, the raw tomato and onion salad, at the bars on the edge of town. Breakfast is chai with milk, chapati, mandazi or a samosa, and roasted maize is sold at roadsides.

The regional drink is ulanzi, a mildly alcoholic wine tapped from young bamboo shoots in the rainy season and drunk fresh, sweet and cloudy; it is a speciality of the Southern Highlands and is sold at roadside stalls in season. Local beers and home-brewed maize and millet beers are drunk too, and the tea grown at Mufindi and coffee from the region's farms are widely available.

Highland markets also sell honey, sunflower oil pressed locally, dried fish carried up from the rivers and lakes, and in the cold months the hot, thick porridges of maize or millet, uji, that are eaten early in the morning.