There is one main road that stretches up the hill from Lake Tanganyika. It starts at the train station, which was completed in 1914 by the German company Holzmann. From there it passes through the downtown commercial center--dominated by 2 banks, many Indian-owned stores, and the town market.
Further up the hill you enter Mwanga, where hair salons, spare auto parts, and stationary stores line the streets. Driving here means swinging to the right to avoid bikes loaded down with charcoal, hay, pineapples. Or swinging to the left to avoid big trucks coming in from the Kasulu road. And overtaking daladalas that chug slowly up the hills. And remembering which stretch hides the speed bumps.
Soon you come to a crossroads: to your left is the road to Dar es Salaam and Bujumbura. Straight ahead is the road to Ujiji. Mwanga market is the place to buy plastic buckets, nuts and bolts, wire mesh.
After two years, turns out I'm still am interested in "reading" the city, "decoding" the city. I still have the feeling that what I understand ("pouring over maps and photographs") about this place barely scratches the surface of how Tanzanians experience it. Drawing a map, creating categories, and finding a logic is satisfying, but not necessarily accurate. The linear roads tell an incomplete story. More important are the hidden neighborhoods and winding alleyways.
