Iringa is one of a handful of towns along the highway that is Zambia's only overland connection to the coast. And when I say highway, I mean a narrow road with one lane going each way. This is The Route to get people and import goods from the coast to Zambia, and every place in between. So semi-trucks, giant buses, gasoline tankers, and trucks crammed with tomatoes, potatoes, onions, or cattle rattle along this road, competing with private cars, local mini-buses, military convoys, and the ubiquitous NGO-owned, donor-funded Toyota Landcruiser SUVs going 80 miles per hour.
No one wants to drive this road after dark--there are no street lights at all, and the road sometimes curves through mountain passes with steep drop offs, and other times directly through villages with everything from bicycles to goats to three-year-olds crossing the street at any time. Buses are determined to get their passengers to their far-flung destinations in one day, too, so they drive insanely fast, rumbling over villages' speed bumps and potholes as if they were nothing. The semi-trucks have their deadlines to get their goods to Zambia, but this often takes several days, and truck stop restaurants and cheap guesthouses dot the highway. The remains of trucks and buses that have rolled off the road in deadly accidents also dot the highway.
Speed limits are enforced in only two ways: speed bumps (called speed humps here, lol) and police stops. The police don't have cars to catch speeders, no. Police just get dropped off at random places on the highway, and they flag you down as you drive by. Even if you aren't speeding or passing illegally (absolutely everyone passes illegally, on blind curves and narrow bridges, up hills in mountains; they just try not to do it if they can see a police stop in the distance), the police almost always find an excuse to ask for a "fine." Either you were one kilometer over the limit, or one of your many registration/insurance/fire safety inspection/who-knows-what stickers are out of date, or you don't have the proper stamp on your registration. One policeman even claimed that we needed to paint our address on the body of the vehicle (it wasn't even our car).
The police, you see, are bored, or hungry, or greedy for a, ahem, "fine." We've found that speaking in very rapid English--it doesn't matter about what--does the trick to get us a clean pass. Once, Justin went off about Juma's school in Baltimore and what subjects he learns there. What matters is that the cop sees how many other cars are driving by without being stopped, and realizes he's wasting his time on the fast-talking mzungu, and waves you along. As one of our expat friends explained, they'll never ask for a "fine" in English, they don't really know how, so if you reveal your Swahili abilities, they've got you.
Last summer, we decided being stopped by the cops is inevitable. But on this most recent trip down to Iringa, we weren't stopped even one time. We felt very proud of this accomplishment, though I think it had everything to do with the fact that we were driving a rental car, with the company's well-known logo on the driver's side door, and nothing to do with us.
Before, we were renting a car from some friends, a monster of a car we had a love-hate relationship with. We called it The Green Machine; the owners called it the Avocadomobile.
We spent more money on repairs for it than we did in rent, and we got three flat tires within the first week. Once, we got two flat tires at the same time, high in the mountain pass where the road was the narrowest, the drop offs the steepest, and there was no cell phone reception. Thankfully, we had two spares. Another time, it broke down completely on the side of the road in town and Justin and Juma had to wait for two hours for help. That car scared me so much I never once drove it, all last summer. Justin, awesome husband that he is, did all the driving. As much as that car helped us build character, well, we're happy to be driving a more reliable car now. And, yes, I do drive this one, though re-learning how to drive a manual, and on the left side of the road no less, scared me. (And every time I drive it, it scares Justin.)
Despite all that crap, the drive through Tanzania is actually quite scenic. We pass through rolling hills with banana, coconut, and mango trees; a national park where you can see giraffes, elephants, baboons, zebras, and water buffalo while driving by; a huge forest of baobab trees; tiny villages; plantations of sisal; and beautiful mountains that remind me of Utah. There's one place about half-way through that serves Swiss food, oddly enough, and right next door is a snake park with pythons, cobras, vipers, and green mambas in cages. And as we get closer to Iringa, the air gets noticeably cooler, the road climbing up into the Southern Highlands, Tanzania's coldest regions, and our home.
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