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The cool night air permeates the town of Lushoto. Here, high in northeastern Tanzania‘s hills, close to the Usambara Mountains, a certain kind of order reigns. It is the kind common to all busy and active places, where life gathers pace as the sun prepares to rise above the horizon. 

People go about their daily business: children get ready for school, labourers set off for work. The distant drones of machinery spluttering into life soon breach the quiet, and cooking smells merge with the murmurs of waking households. It all galvanises the atmosphere and creates a sense of stirred motion.

But to a sleep-deprived outsider navigating an unfamiliar place in the dead of night, Lushoto can elicit a more distorted response. At 4 am, the mountain town is quiet and still. The lack of noise intensifies the chill, and the receding mist leaves a lingering tension in the air, as if something is clearing the sleep from its eyes.

The darkness clouds the outsider’s senses. It is now just after 4.15, and they have begun their day. From the base of Lushoto, starting at the bus terminal, they will traipse to one of its peaks, where they intend to watch the sunrise. They will keep climbing until they find a suitable spot.

Night Lushoto

The outsider takes a left at the old German cemetery, where solemn crosses glint in the moonlight, but everything else is swallowed by the dark. They then take the first right past the District Council Hall and Lushoto Primary School, with the Anglican Church on the left. The lights are on in all these buildings, and the outsider imagines an administrator sorting files, a teacher setting desks, a sacristan lighting candles.

The thought passes, and the outsider reaches a track. Under the pitch-black sky, the route is unclear, but the path feels unpaved and gives less purchase than the road through town. But this new way is steeper, and it begins to climb, past a football pitch as deserted as the graveyard. 

The walking person feels detached, as though their presence fails to register on whatever frequencies flow through the region. Not that the outsider minds. It is the dead of night, and people have their own lives to lead. Nobody expects anything of anyone else, and the outsider is free to pass through unseen, unheard, unnoticed.

High overhead, the full moon begins its descent over Lushoto. The celestial body, its scarred form highlighted by the void-like depths surrounding it, washes the valley in a vague, skeletal murk. On its way down, the moon watches the sun haul itself upwards, using a complex system of levers and pulleys. The two bodies fail to note each other’s presence.

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Isolated in Lushoto

But that doesn’t stop either, or perhaps both, of them from emitting a radial light. The striking glow reveals only a fraction of Lushoto, which the outsider interprets as a reflection of their detached status. A lack of sleep intensifies the walker’s isolation. Their thoughts begin to drift off on strange, unreal tangents. It is not, they note, an unpleasant feeling to feel so alone.

And as their mind starts to wander, the outsider perceives barely discernible shapes through the shade. Perhaps the forms are trees, or maybe they are buildings. Their outlines are vague and incomplete, and seem to end without ever resolving into a definable shape. The lack of light makes it impossible to tell, and the moving shadows change position with each degree the darkness fades.

All around, a soft wind teases through eucalyptus trees, which respond with a sharp, citric scent. The day is gathering pace in Lushoto, and shouts and calls echo across the valley. But the noise is distant, and their distance amplifies every snapping twig and the shuffle of feet on dirt.

The outsider bristles against the cold and strides forth, leaving the open road behind them. The mood around them is sombre and controlled, which is to be expected at this time of the day; in their head, they semi-expect that a klaxon will sound and a cord will be pulled, suddenly setting the day in motion.

Lone walk

But no such thing happens. Instead, a lone owl shares a hoot that gets no response and echoes briefly around the valley. The path is steep now, but the terrain has stayed the same; the outsider walks carefully, slowly becoming accustomed to the gradients and avoiding the tree roots that might otherwise trip them up.

This route will take them to the peak. There, they can find a spot to watch the sun come up. The darkness has softened, and the outsider can see that the path traces an incomplete circle in the shape of a horseshoe, snaking around the perimeter of the bowl. In daylight, the entire bowl would be a hive of activity, verdant farmland layered up the hillside and tended by the families who live thereupon.

The path, now forked, leads its wanderer closer to their destination. In the distance, figures appear from the darkness and dissipate soon after. They all seem to head downwards; to where, the outsider could not tell. But each time these figures cross paths, they share a mutual nod, visible even in the distance. The soft sparkle of their breath meeting the cool night air is the only sign that they are not a figment of the outsider’s imagination. 

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Life in Lushoto

In reality, these figures are people going about their business. And the outsider knows this. But their mind is still waking up, and their responses are lagging just a little. It takes a bit of time for reason to settle down and make sense, especially after being jostled when the private world of a midnight walk gives way to the incursions and busyness of waking day.

For some reason, the dark hangs heavy over Lushoto. Or at least it does, as far as the outsider can make out. Such weight may have to do with the time of day, the position of the moon, or even the latent effects of cloud cover or a receding mist. Or perhaps none of those things. Either way, for the outsider, the night in Lushoto seems as black as any they have spent in Tanzania.

The outsider knows people do not simply appear from nothing, walk past another person and then vanish again. But still, they never see what happens to the distant passers-by. For a sleep-deprived mind driven by wonder rather than realism, a materialisation makes as much sense as anything else. 

All the more shocking then, when the walker suffers an unwitting jump scare. The shock, brief and sudden but not lasting, derives entirely from their own overactive, tangential thoughts, and comes when a figure emerges seemingly from nowhere and just as quickly disappears. The passer-by walks with speed and purpose, and confidently strides where the outsider hesitates on unfamiliar ground. It is that time of day when the first call to prayer is close at hand, and perhaps the figure is on their way to the mosque.

Shocked awake

It is not the stranger that shocks the outsider, but rather the sudden piercing of their daydream. The passer-by pays them no heed and strides calmly down the hill, totally aware of their surroundings and with no need for a flashlight. Their calm nature suggests to the outsider a person content to navigate the dark on instinct, knowing full well that they do not move like a shadow or part the curtains of the night. They are as much a part of the landscape as the trees, the rivers, the farming equipment and the distant plains.

The outsider knows that they lack the natural comfort of their surroundings. They are the anomaly, but the pace of Lushoto, which seems to ignore the newcomer, removes the pressure on them to perform an imagined role for a stranger. Nor do they expect the place to adapt to their rhythms. People go about their lives, and they do what they do. And today, the outsider seeks to watch the sunrise, knowing full well that the vast majority of the townsfolk will never even know they exist.

First call

As they move closer to the top of the hill, the walker passes under an overhanging lamp. The night has just enough of a lingering presence that the light creates a ghostly atmosphere; there is no one on this stretch of the path, and no buildings. For the first time on this walk, the outsider feels attuned to the place. 

Down below, the Adhan call to prayer sounds, its dubby and distorted echo resonating in the valley. The sound is low but piercing, and it tells the outsider that the clock has just struck 5am. The brightening sky draws the outsider out of their reverie. They find a place to sit, and wonder over which part of Lushoto the sun will appear first.