Eating in Iringa

A number of people have asked about how Russ and I are eating here. The answer: very well! We cook for ourselves about one night in three, but the rest of the evenings we're usually eating out with various friends. I think we've mentioned that our house is located in the Wilolesi area of Iringa and that the Wilolesi Hilltop Hotel (check it out: wilolesihilltophotel.com) is right next door. How convenient that they have a full restaurant! Even when we're not eating there, we stop often for drinks. Robert is our favorite waiter, and though he doesn't speak much English, he's always friendly. His greeting is always the same: "Red wine and cold Kilamanjaro?" We say yes, and he always answers with, "Ahuh. Foodi?"

Iringa has several good restaurants. There's Hasty Tasty for lunch (run by our friend Shaheen and his mother); there's Lulu's for lunch or supper (run by Abbas and wife); there's Seafood Bites for pizza (we have yet to find seafood on the menu, but it's a good name!); and there's the Neema Crafts Center and Restaurant (run by Susy and Andrew from the Anglican congregation). Just a little way out of town is Riverside where you can have a wonderful buffet. We've even been adventuresome enough to visit a Central Market eatery where we ate beans and rice, no ordering because there's no English and no menus.

When we eat at home it's a mixture of fresh vegies and pasta or rice plus fresh fruits. Our kitchen has only a tiny oven (not big enough for baking) and two burners, but it works. The only meat we've actually cooked has been hamburger ("mincemeat") that we can find frozen at Wingred's, the Lutheran grocer in Iringa.

At noontime during Tumaini days we often eat on campus at the faculty dining room. The fare is beans, rice, pasta, chicken, bananas, avacado, cooked greens, and sometimes beef. Generally speaking the meats are tough and spare, very different from America where meat is taken for granted. Here it's an expensive luxury.

I think the baked goods are our favorites: mendazis, chapatis, and samosas. We buy them for home from either the bakery downtown or a local cooking school run by an Italian nun. Mendazis (like a donut) are deep-fried; we get them daily at tea at Tumaini. Chapatis are mostly for breakfast--especially when we're out at one of the many rural congregations on a Sunday morning--and samosas are meat- or vegie-filled little triangles, also deep-fried.

So you can see, we're doing very well in the nutritional deparment. The fresh vegies are brought in daily from area "shambas" (small farms). We're very spoiled.