Sumbawanga

I mentioned in a previous post that Sumbawanga is located in the southwest portion of Tanzania near the borders of Zambia and Congo. I talked about the population numbers and all that but I have never really described the city itself. The first word that comes to mind is dusty. There are only two paved streets in town and auto traffic over the dirt roads raises a continuous cloud of fine, brownish red dust that settles everywhere. Where the paved streets intersect in a "t" is the only building downtown that looks even vaguely modern and houses the elite businesses of the town. On both sides of any street are three foot open ditches, sometimes covered by slatted decking to accommodate pedestrians crossing. These ditches, thankfully, no longer convey sewage as modern septic tanks have arrived. They serve as runoff canals during the rainy season lest the whole place gets flooded. In the dry season there is no water in them and the population considers it perfectly natural to toss whatever trash they may he holding into them knowing that when the rains come the refuse will be washed away. The concept of avoiding littering is unknown. I have never seen a public trash receptacle.

OK, with that unpleasantness out of the way let’s talk about the good stuff. There is a special energy here. Everyone is hustling something. There are throngs of people everywhere fixing bicycles, making furniture, repairing cars, driving taxis, selling fruit running small shops and engaging in all the kinds of familiar commerce and some we probably don’t want to know about. All of this is occurring in buildings that look like they were built yesterday out of scrap bricks, wood and tarpaper and covered with a corrugated tin roof. The surroundings may appear squalid but the attitude is beautiful. Most people are decently dressed, some strikingly with women in beautiful native designs and men in worn but serviceable western clothes. They go about their business cheerfully greeting each and when they see me they smile effusively testing out their English while I try to answer with my nascent Swahili. Everyone seems to be trying to make something happen. Most have cell phones and delight in using them. Entrepreneurs carry some of the most creative business cards I’ve ever seen and most shops offer several separate types of goods and services. There are a few nice neighborhoods,of course, with houses built in the Euopean style. These belong to local politicians and business pople but the average living conditions are simple and primitive. All in all this is not an especially attractive place. The only tourists I’ve seen are a few South Africans on their way to Zambia. It is a far cry, however, from the cliché of a stagnant third world mud hole. Cars are everywhere. They are mostly 80’s and 90’s vintage Japanese, mostly Toyota. I have not seen an American made vehicle anywhere in Tanzania and rarely see a European one. These are all four cylinder jobs with full sedan bodies. The most remarkable thing is that they are all immaculate. Whether a taxi or private car they are always clean and polished, rarely dented and recently reupholstered with pristine if sometimes garish leather. I have not seen one junked vehicle anywhere in town. There are a lot of motorcycles, mostly dirt bikes and a very strict helmet law. And everywhere there are bicycles, the chief transportation of the masses. Bikes here are very inexpensive, imported from China by the hundreds of thousands.

Walking around town one might ask if this town is coming or going. It’s a good question and the answer is not at all obvious or certain. Rukwa province is the stepchild of the government. Being a region of subsistence farming and small local markets there is nothing here for export. There are no other saleable resources other than good year round weather. Unfortunately the way things are is that the region that does not contribute much to the economy gets largely ignored. Even electricity is unreliable as we spend at least a portion of each day without power and have just ended an 18 hour outage. Water is plentiful but there is not a purification system worth the name so all consumed water is boiled or bottled.

Whether the city is coming or going in terms of development depends almost entirely on transportation. Sumbawanga remains a very wide spot on a very bad road. From Mbeya 90 miles to the south to Mpanda 150 miles to the north the only road is a rutted, potholed, often flooded and impassable mess. Everything and everybody moving in or out of Sumbawanga uses this road. The government has been promising to pave it for years but nothing seems to happen. This may be the year however. The new Prime Minister of the country is from this area. His name is Mpinda and I had the opportunity to meet and photograph him several times last year as his previous duties brought him through town and he stayed at Forest Way. My personal feeling is that when that road is completed this area will soar. The potential for manufacturing and organized farming is tremendous. Lake Tanganyika 40 miles to the west is one of the most beautiful places on earth and is located near spectacular waterfalls and almost untouched wildlife preserves. Tourism there could be as important there as it is in the North Country around the Serengeti. It all depends on that road. After that the investment will come and Sumbawanga could become one of the most important cities in south central Africa.