karibu Iringa!

We are in Iringa town today, having made the long 8-hour drive down from Dar es Salaam, where we have been so far. We, along with two of our American colleagues, rented a car (rental cars come with drivers here) to come. We wanted to see Iringa for the first time--Justin and I had only stopped for 20 minutes at a truck stop outside of town once in 1999--and meet some of the officials we’d be working with. .

Iringa town is on a large hill in a region of low mountains (for someone who grew up in the Rockies, they are low; for Africa, they are certainly mountains). The site was originally chosen by the German colonists because it was on a high hill, both for defense and to stay away from mosquitoes. Everyone here claims there are no mosquitoes, and the hotel didn’t even originally provide a mosquito net for Juma, but when they say “there are no mosquitoes,” they mean “there are fewer mosquitoes here than elsewhere.” Which is still too many for us. We’ve done malaria three times in our family, and we’re not eager to do it again.

Anyway, the town is hilly, and has a nice view of surrounding valleys and mountains. It’s the cool season, and that actually means cool, not like in Zanzibar, where cool means it gets down to 75 at night. Here at night, it gets down to the 50s, which is cool enough to want a blanket, and a jacket in the evenings and mornings. I’ve had long-sleeves on all day, even outside, and while inside with no fan, and I haven’t sweated a bit! It’s astounding. The plants and trees are cooler-weather ones; they even grow peaches and pears in this region, and there is a noticeable lack of coconut palms.

The drive down here was long, but pleasant enough. Had the single-lane highway not been so full of slow-moving trucks the driver had to strategically pass up, we would have arrived a lot earlier. The road takes us right through Mikumi national park, and we spotted lots of animals standing very close to the road: several elephants, including a baby; zebras, giraffes, gazelles, baboons, and a monkey. I snapped a picture of the elephants with my phone, but without a zoom. Our coworkers got better pictures, I’ll try to get one from them. The road also takes us through all different topographies, from the coastal lowlands to the baobab tree forests, to sisal plantations, to areas with bright red dirt, to onion farms, to the mountains of the Rift Valley.

Here's the obligatory picture in front of a baobab tree. Their fruits are going into a yummy candy.