GOODBYE TO THE OPEN SPACES IN IRINGA TOWN

 

Jalada la gazeti tulilopewa na kwenye maonyesho ya Wajerumani 1963

In 1963, Iringa had a number of open spaces where we spent our time as children. The biggest was the ground behind the Government Lower Primary School, which is now known as Mlandege Primary School, this was a huge ground because actually it was the first airport in Iringa and that’s where the name Mlandege stemmed from, planes would come from the direction of Tosamaganga or from Itamba side, and it seemed like they were eaten up by the ground. One plane did crash there, and its remains were visible until the late 50s. On these grounds we had lots of football matches, with several teams playing on the huge ground at the same time, there was time the grounds were used for inter school athletics competitions also.
The other open spaces were the neighbouring grounds at Iringa Middle School which was later named Mshindo Primary School. These grounds have a very long history. First they used to belong to the Iringa Gymkhan Club, and there was a football pitch, a cricket pitch and a cement tennis court. The football pitch became the town main football ground after shifting from the Boma  Grounds which I will soon talk about. One of the most interesting football clubs that played on this pitch was Born town Football Club, it was commonly known as  Boni. All the players in the club were born in Iringa town and in particular they had to have been born in Miyomboni and Kitanzini areas. It was a big risk playing with Boni as most of their matches ended up in boxing brawls especially when they lost. I remember even their jerseys were frightening, they wore black jerseys.
The play grounds are now the Samora Stadium. 

Photo taken on 26 April, 1974. In the background are  buildings of Mshindo Primary School, formerly Iringa Middle School before they were razed and Samora Stadiume built. In the picture Indian residents of Iringa performing their traditional dance

The other open space in our childhood was the community center grounds. Some of my sweetest memories of this open space were being taken there by my uncle to watch free mobile films every month. The day started with promotion of different brands of products, from cigarettes to Blue Band margarine. That is where I saw Bwana Msafiri, this was a musician with a trombone who would play and sing the Sportsman promotional song;

Bwana Msafiri mi nasema,
Hakuna sigara inayokufaa.
Ila Sportsman King size
Ile yenye kichungiiiiiii

There would be Coca-Cola drinking competitions, who could finish most Coca-Cola’s in the shortest time, who could eat more bread with Blue Band in the shortest time,  by collecting cigarette packets you could end up winning  a bundle of notebooks. In the evening there would be a film or two of actors with great names like Roy Rodgers, John Wayne, Lawrence and Hardy (Chale Ndute and Chale Mbwambwambwa), Charlie Chaplin and there was someone narrating what was going on.
During the day these grounds would be noisy with children playing on the ‘ mabembea’. Swings, slides and other games for children.
The other open space was ‘Gofu’. There was a European Club, known as Iringa Club, and it owned a vast ground which stretched from behind the present Iringa Library, all way to Wilolesi Primary School. It was a  golf course, with green nicely trimmed green grass and black round spots here and there. That was our ground also when the kites (vishada) season started.

And then there was the open ground between Makorongoni and Mwembetogwa, which was also used a football pitch and used also during the kites season, I think it was owned by the East African Railways as it was surrounded by railway workers’ quarters.

Mwembetogwa grounds

But the most important open space was the Boma Ground. As its name suggests, it was the ground in front of Bomani, the government headquarters. This ground is very old it was Iringa’s first official football pitch, it was on this ground that before Independence, the British army soldiers would hold their parades, and it was on this ground that the Uhuru Celebrations were held.
All the big public celebrations were held here. Once in the early 60s students from Ifunda Technical School built some small beautiful buildings  to show their expertise, and the buildings still stood until recently when they were destroyed by some official order. On this ground again there were children’s swings and slides. There was the  Uhuru fountain on one side of the ground, which  worked very well with water sprinkling out in nice artistic way. When you think of it the colonialist cared for the children more than the present peoples government does.

Maandamano towards Boma Grounds 1964

Government and political national celebrations usually began with maandamano coming from different areas of the town and all meeting at the Boma ground. Schools would come marching with their brass bands leading them, and would also meet at this ground. Each school band trying to out play the other. The school brass bands playing old King African Rifles (KAR) army song, like Tumemkamata Mzungu wa ndege, or the playing the common Ngo ngo ngi twaingilia.

The Iringa Jamat Khana Brass band

At last when everyone had gathered there would be speeches and after that exhibitions from different people, ngomas from different tribes and of course in the evening  ‘gulugulu’ or ‘patapotea’ the dice games would continue.

One of the most interesting event that I remember which took place at the Boma Ground in 1963 was the German mobile exhibition. A convoy of German lorries came to Iringa and parked at the Boma ground for some days and exhibited German products, it was a memorable event, and we were given German magazines to read!!!
We ended up just looking at the pictures.

The Germans' convoy map

1963 FUN AND GAMES AT MAKORONGONI

 

1963, my mother was busy with her work as Mama Maendeleo (Welfare Officer), her office was at the Community Center in Kitanzini better known as Olofea from the word Welfare, she would wake up in the morning and go to her office on her bicycle, me and my sister would go to school, in those days Saturday was  a working day so on those days sometimes  I would accompany her to work place, it was a fun place to be, many children gathered there, there was a teacher who took care of small  children who  wanted to just  sing and play, his name was Mr Mwambola, and for the older children there were so many games there, boxing, darts, card, some older children were practicing their choir music, the community center was a noisy fun and safe place for the children, all paid and run by the Government .

Back at  Barabara Mbili Street, after school hours we were busy, very busy. Let us take a typical Saturday, the day would start with a bowl of maize porridge with a slice of bread and that was the breakfast. Sometimes while drinking the porridge from afar you would hear,

Kikojozi kakojoa
Na nguo kaitia moto
Kidumbwe ndumbwe
Chalia

 This tune meant some kid in the street has a habit of peeing in bed, so his parents have invited his friends to parade him all over the street, with his wet bed sheets or his sleeping mat. This was a signal to rush out and join the fun.  Children would be joining from everywhere and the crowd got bigger and bigger, and we all ended up at the water stream where the last act is throwing this poor kid into the water. And for the next three four days he would be the butt of all bedwetting jokes. I wonder if that stopped them bed wetting, but I guess it did because I don’t remember seeing the same kid being paraded twice.

Where the Iringa main bus stand is now, used to be a graveyard, even by 1964 it was rarely used, for us that became our playground. We played hide and seek, built our secret hide outs, where we roasted birds we had hunted. When we got tired of playing here we would go down the road past the Mhabeshi’s (The Ethiopian) house to the water stream below to swim. Or we would go to Ilala to the main dump and search look for interesting things to play with. Another important dump was the one near the ‘European School’, St George and St Michael. At this dump we would find beautiful things, sometimes even toy cars, but it was very risky they had watchmen all the time to stop ‘African boys’ getting near the school, but it was always worth the risk.

It was the same with the risk we took going to Itamba to steal mangoes. The families of Nyamwezi a who came as soldiers in the German army, later went to settle at Itamba, and planted a lot of mango trees, now their grandchildren who identified themselves as Wahehe owned these trees, and did not like anyone stealing their mangoes. They had many dogs, but that was not enough to stop us going up those trees, a number of us broke our limbs falling from those trees when being chased by angry owners with their dogs.

One place where we were strictly forbidden to go but went anyway was down at the Ruaha River. We were told many scary stories of children who had sank and died and their bodies never found but that did not stop us going to swim and fish in that river. To go to Ruaha we would take the path that went behind the Iringa Prison and in few minutes we were down the river. We knew all the deep places and stayed away from them. At Ruaha apart from swimming, fishing, there were a lot of wild fruits. And we also went back to town carrying sisal leaves to make ropes with.
Some days we would just play near our home, making small drums using tin cans, singing songs by bands, I remember a particular song by Cuban Marimba Band that we used to play that went like this,

Mpenzi wangu siku hizi

Umenadili nia

Mpenzi wangu siku hizi

Umebadili nia  

One day  my friend Lester and I decided we had to have our own  band just like some schools had. So we first had to get a cow skin. We managed to get 5 shillings from his father, I will not say the story how we managed to get the money but we did, I guess you understand. At the end of the Makorongoni street there was a slaughter house and we went there and with our 5 shillings bought a good cow skin. We first had to soak the skin in water to make it soft so that we could make our drums. We went and soaked it at the stream where we also always swam; we want it to soak for two days so as to become soft enough to make drums. On the first day we checked it and it had started softening, on the second day we went to check it so as to start making our drums, the skin was gone. We started doing some detective work and sure enough a few weeks later we found out who took the  cow skin, but ………….
At one end of the street there was this very quiet guy who never talked to anybody, one day he tried to hang himself, luckily?? The rope he used gave away and he survived, after that we were doubly frightened of him, even though he never bothered anybody we were just scared of his silence and the fact that he had tried to hang himself.
To get make a living, this guy started a nursery school under a tree just near the Iringa Prison, he always looked funny him and his class of hardly ten children, sometimes parading and the children singing the songs he had taught them. Now someone tipped us that this was the guy who stole our cow skin, and sure enough a few days later his school had a set of newly made drums. We didn’t even try to ask him, that’s how scared we were of him.

When I think back, sure enough I wanted to form my first band in 1963.