Mufindi Highlands original vegetation was most likely grassland and miombo forests. At present most land has been converted to agriculture (92%) and forest plantations of exotic species including Pinus patula, P. elliotii and Eucalyptus saligna, E. camadulensis, and E. grandis covering (8%). The major operator in the area is Sao Hill Industries Ltda subsidiary of Green Resources AS a Norwegian company that started with Norwegian development aid in the 1970s. There are 86,000 ha of exotic tree plantations in Iringa Region owned by forest industry, the government of Tanzania and small private landowners. Industrial and government plantations are large and relatively well managed. There are abundant nonindustrial forest plantations of small size mixed with agricultural crops.
Sao Hill Industries Ltd. owns several thousand ha of forest plantation along the TANZAM highway A104 (Tanzania to Zambia). It owns and operates the mill at the center of the photo (the white area among the forest plantations). It is the largest saw mill in East Africa and produces utility poles, sawn timber, chemically treated timber, briquettes made from pine sawdust, fencing posts, treated fencing posts, standard doors, glue laminated sheets, carbon credits, and wood pallets.Our village is four miles to the south of this image.The landscape is a mix of agricultural crops and small forest plantations.A rather large private nursery far from a road. There are many small nurseries. They grow mostly pine, as eucalyptus can be managed by coppicing, stump sprouts.Eucalyptus grows very rapidly to become tall straight and free of lower branches.Much timber on small plots is felled and cut immediately into lumber in the forest. The gasoline powered table saw in middle of the photo makes a very characteristic sound that can be heard for long distances. It seems one can hear a sawing operation nearby nearly everyday.The lumber is not the same standard sizes with which Americans are familiar. The lumber is cut to large dimensions, likely because they do not have equipment with small tolerances. The cut lumber is transported to a central location in town.I watched a man cut these eight feet long boards by eye with a chainsaw and no guides. Very skilled. Lumber cut in the forest is brought here to dry in the open and combine with other loads to ship to far away sites.The lumber is shipped by truck to faraway locations in Tanzania and even exported.Houses with very high metal roofs have become the style and require large amounts of lumber. This is a one story house, so most of the space under the high roof is not used for any purpose.Mufindi Paper Mills Limited is a 60,000 tons per year integrated pulp and paper mill manufacturing virgin natural sack Kraft from plantation pine. This shop where the furniture in the above photo was made is across the street from the show room. I see a planner and a table saw. Every carpenter shop I see looks just like this with mountains of wood chips.To build a wall around your yard you have a choice of brick or wood slabs from the forest lumber cutting operations. Piles of slabs from pine and eucalyptus are ubiquitous and they are very cheap. New house with a pile of slabs for the fence. His and hers drop-hole pit toilet.Fences can be built with horizontal slabs or vertical slabs. And vertical slabs do not need to be cut to length.Many houses have enormous piles of wood just outside the door for cooking.Not sure these slabs are for cooking, as pine is not a good fuel wood.Eucalyptus is an excellence fuel wood due to its high density and energy content.The kitchen for cooking is often in a separate building outback. The smoke from cooking indoors creates a very unhealthy work environment. Cooking outdoors is also an option. When preparing food for a party there are never too many cooks.
Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) is indigenous to Mexico. Here it can grow to 10 feet and become very colorful. The colored bracts which are often mistake for flower petals are actually leaves. Poinsettia flower.A flower from the Aloea genus of which there are over 500 species of succulent plants native to tropical and southern Africa, Madagascar Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula. This tiny flower bloomed during the dry season. I could never find its leaves.Hollyhocks with giant carpenter bee, maybe Xylocopa nigrita .Scadoxus multiflorus is a bulbous plant native to most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is strongly toxic and is used as a component of arrow poisons and fish poisons. African blood or fireball lily. Brugmansia aurea, the golden angel’s trumpet, is in the family Solonacea. It is endemic to Ecuador. It grows very rapidly and can reach 6 feet in a year from a cutting. Jacaranda mimosifolia (jacaranda) is a widely planted species from a genus with 49 species in the Bignoniaceae family native to tropical and subtropical regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. It bloom around Christmas.Erythrina abyssinica is a tree species in the Fabaceae family. It is a leguminous species native to East Africa. Swahili: muhuti, mjafari, mwamba ngoma, mbamba ngoma.
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by removing water and organic volatile compounds from wood by thermal decomposition called pyrolysis in the absence of oxygen. Because water and organic volatile compounds have been removed, charcoal compared to wood has advantages of light weight, burning at a higher temperature and giving off very little smoke.
Artisanal production of charcoal from wood is ancient. It involves building a tight pile of wood and burying it with turf while leaving a small opening for igniting the wood. The wood burns under low to zero oxygen by glowing combustion that releases a lot of smoke and steam and leaves behind about 60% by volume and 25% by weight of charcoal.
The favorite wood by far for making charcoal in the Mufindi Highlands is black waddle (Acacia mearnsii), a fast growing extremely invasive tree species native to Australia. Although wood from pine and eucalyptus is very abundant, I have never seen anyone make charcoal from them. Black waddle grows everywhere in thickets and does not need to be encouraged or planted. When the trees get to about 30 feet tall and 6 inches in diameter it is common to see them cut and converted to charcoal on site.
It seems everyone will produce charcoal when the opportunity arises. Our neighbor collected a small amount of wood from clearing a field for planting maize and made charcoal from it right in the field in a couple weeks.
Just about every store has charcoal for sale in small buckets up to large 100-pound bags. It is sold along the highway and some producers ship it to the city to sell at a much higher price. We pay about $7 for a 100-pound bag that can last a month or two depending on whether we use it to heat the house during the cold season. The quality varies a lot. Some charcoal bags contain a lot of unchanged wood that produces abundant smoke. The size of charcoal in a bag can vary from large volumes of small almost unusable dust to enormous chunks that need to be cut to size.
Black waddle thicket.Black waddle as big as it gets. It is not a long lived species and it is cut often.While preparing his field for planting maize our neighbor collects all the wood from cut trees to make charcoal with the help of friendsThe tight pile of wood is covered with turf. One end is left open to ignite the pile.The open end is finally covered and the charcoal making process of controlled pyrolysis continues for several days producing a lot of smoke and steam.There are some large commercial operations in the neighborhood. The wood is brought to a central facility for charcoal production. Charcoal production procedures are the same regardless of the size of the operation.Small roadside operation.This load of charcoal is likely bound for Dar es Salaam where the price of charcoal is three to five times that of the village where it is produced.We buy large bags of charcoal delivered by motorcycle, and they last a couple of months. We use charcoal only for heating water for bathing and washing dishes. This contrasts with families in the community who do all their cooking on a charcoal fire in a jiko shown in the photo. The flame is from wood kindling to start the charcoal. Local families cook meals on two or three jikos in a kitchen either attached to the house or separate. All the cooking is done on the floor. We do our cooking on a two burner gas stove that is fueled from a bottle that must be replaced every three months.
The Mufindi highlands are characterized by undulating landscapes with gentle to steep slopes and soil derived mainly from granite that is deeply weathered and consists of a mixture of red and yellow clay loams with dark humic top soil. In most areas the agricultural productivity rating of the soil is medium. Elevation ranges from 1700–2200 m.
The mean annual
rainfall of 960 mm falls from November to April. There is a long dry season
from May to October. The area has high
annual potential evaporation, 800–1200 mm. The prevailing winds blow from east
to west. Mean annual temperature is about 20°C. The warmest months are October
to December and the coldest months are June to August. The highest temperature in December may reach
30°C and even during the cold months the temperature never drops below 5°C.
The vegetation is mainly unmanaged grassland and some remnants of scattered native species of miombo trees and shrubs. Although 92% of the district is arable land, only 40% of arable land is cultivated. Forests, rocky outcrops and water bodies cover 8% of the district. Most of the land is in the hands of small landowners and there are some large landowners including Unilever Tea Tanzania Limited, Mufindi Tea Company, and Sao Hill Industries owned by Green Resources AS.
Mufindi is a big producer of both food and cash crops. The main food crops are maize, beans, Irish potatoes and wheat. Although vegetables are readily available is the markets, vegetable production is small. The major cash crops in order of importance are tea, sunflower which is a food and cash crop, pyrethrum (chrysanthemum) and coffee. Major livestock production includes cattle, poultry, goat and sheep. The forest industry is fairly large contributing to timber and paper production as well a wood for charcoal, cooking and fencing.
All land is used for something: upland crops in large fields of maize, wheat and sunflower; bottomland crops in small plots of beans, peas, tomatoes and greens; and upland plantations of pine and eucalyptus.In early June the maize planted in December is drying and the wheat planted much later in mid-February is green. Both crops are harvested in July and August.Lowland irrigated crops are planted year round.It takes four oxen to pull the plow. They also use small tractors on hire.A jembe is used to finish field preparation for planting maize soon after the rainy season begins in November.Maize left to dry in field until August and harvested by hand.Maize is dried further at home on open ground.Threshing (kupukuchua) maize at home before storing in large bags.Corn as high as an elephant’s eye.Sunflower seeds dried on sheets on the ground is made into oil used mainly for cooking.Sunflower seeds drying in Makambako.Wheat planted in mid-February, late rainy season, is harvested in August, middle of dry season. Reaping, threshing and winnowing are done in the field. New planting of sweet potato cuttings.Beans, beans, beans.Greens and taro (large leaves).Tomatoes.Sukuma wiki; kale, collard greens; Brassica oleracea var. acephala Bamboo (Oxytenathera braunii) cultivation for ulenzi, bamboo juice fermented to produce an alcoholic carbonated.Coffee under banana. The coffee is not being maintained.Bee hives. They must be African bees and they looked a lot like the European honey bee we have in America. Honey is extracted by the farmer and sold in the local market in reused bottles.Bee hives are hung from trees and placed on posts above the ground to avoid army ants and other predators such as snakes.This land was originally open grassland and scattered miombo woodland. It was cleared long ago for agriculture and industrial forestry. Growing trees for many different products has become a popular activity for farmers who often grow their own trees from seed. There are large producers of seedlings.Cattle are grazed where there is grass in plantations and non-cultivated land between crops. I have not seen improved or dedicated pasture. Some farmers move cattle daily to find pasture where they can. Others keep their cattle in a fenced area and bring them cut grass. A teacher told me he has to cut 80 kg of grass each day for his dairy cattle.Not easy to separate a calf from its mother. The three calves are held in a cow shed through the night to protect them against dogs.The still unhappy mother looking toward the shed where the calves are held.Calf shed on left and cattle pen on the right.
Latitude of Tanzania ranges from 1°–12° S, Iringa Region is 8° S
Elevation = 800-2300 m
Undulating plains
Highly weathered granites and gneisses, outcrops rare
Deep sandy loam and sandy clay loam soils
Acidic soil, pH 4.5 to 6.5
Mean annual temperature = 17°C-19°C
Rainfall = 600-1600 mm
No cold season rain, abundant warm season rainfall
The original vegetation was most likely grassland and miombo forests. At present most land has been converted to agriculture (92%) and forest plantations of exotic species including Pinus patula, P. elliotii and Eucalyptus saligna, E. camadulensis, and E. grandis covering (8%). Most planting was for carbon credits by a Norwegian company. It has led to an important local timber industry for lumber, paper, utility poles and charcoal.
Rural
Low population: 45 persons per km2
Very young: nearly 50% under 15 years
Water mainly from wells, nearly 100% use of pit latrines, only 3% households have electricity
Annual per capita GDP: TZS 1,207,000 ($600) in 2008
Live below poverty level: 24%
Moderate wealth distribution: Gini index = 43; Tanzania = 30-40; USA = 40-45; low is better
Firewood for cooking: 98%
Agriculture is the dominant economic activity because of a favorable climate and moderately productive soils. Nearly 92% of district is arable land and only 40% of arable land is cultivated. The major agricultural products are listed below.
Note: Pyrethrum is the name given natural insecticides made from the dried flower heads of Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium and Chrysanthemum coccineum.
Tea plantations are widespread. Unilever Tea Tanzania Limited is very important to the region and much of the raw material goes to Lipton Tea.
Bottomland crops grown in small fields benefit from year-around water.
Bottomland corn grows as high as an elephant’s eye.
Mufindi Paper Mills LTD Mgololo, Mufindi
Health
Food insufficiency: seldom to never (84%); three meals per day (53%); meat at least once per week (87%)
Persons per hospital bed: 700, persons per doctor = 15,000
Top causes of mortality (75%): Clinical AIDS, malaria, anemia, tuberculosis and hypertension
Life expectancy: 53 years; infant mortality: 15/1000; maternal mortality: 120/100,000 (low for Tanzania = 400; USA = 21, Estonia = 2)
Serious immunization program for children and ARV drugs for HIV positive persons
Education
Crumbling infrastructure
Crowded secondary schools
Students/classroom = 50
Students/desk = 3
Students/teacher = 44
Challenges: School Administration
Truancy
Ambivalence among parents
Severe corporal punishment
Atmosphere of fear among students leading to low participation
Low morale of teachers
Low level of English among teachers and students
Teaching from the book and not for learning
Almost complete lack of critical thinking
Elaborate rules for almost every activity are often not enforced
Kitchen
Challenges: School Facilities
Lack of access to ready supply of suitable water
Overcrowding
Outdated and crumbling physical plant
Poor nutrition
Lack of electricity
Lack of modern equipment
Lack of school materials for teachers and students
Opportunities: School
Improve climate for learning by reducing fear and increasing enthusiasm for learning
We can see Unilever’s Mufindi tea plantation from our back door. It is a pleasant three-mile walk to the plantation for an picnic on a warm day. Tea is an important crop for Mufindi Highlands. Unilever and Chai Bora are two important companies producing tea in the region. The following information was copied directly from the Unilever website:
“Unilever’s tea estates in Mufindi were established in the 1940’s as the Tanganyika Tea Company, which then became Brooke Bond in the 70’s and finally in 1984 they were acquired by Unilever. The tea produced in Mufindi is exported to Unilever tea blending factories around the world and used in brands such as the UK’s market leading PG Tips, and the world’s biggest tea brand, Lipton Yellow Label.”
“The Unilever Tanzania Tea estate in Mufindi currently produces around 10,000 tonnes of tea per annum, directly employing 6,000 people and supporting 30,000 dependants. The target of this partnership is to at least double this through investment in the estate and in smallholder production of 6,000 hectares and efforts to improve the quality of tea and efficiency of the supply chain.”
Unilever tea plantations are bright green in the background, as they are irrigated year round. Windbreaks divide the plantation into blocks.Bright green fields are tea. Some are owned by independent producers who sell to Unilever of Chai Bora.This is the large Unilever tea plantation where the photos were taken.
Ulanzi is a local fermented alcoholic and carbonated drink made from bamboo juice that exudes from cut stems. Some say it was discovered by watching the erratic behavior of flocks of birds that visited bamboo thickets.
We were introduced to ulanzi by the physics teacher who seemed to really appreciate its qualities. He showed us where it can be bought and even helped us procure ulanzi on several occasions. Now we buy our own in 1.5 l water bottles at 1,500 TZS ($0.66). It is sold in establishments called Mkahawa, sometimes marked and sometimes not. Ulanzi can be highly carbonated and has a pleasant sweet flavor. I find it to be similar to the millet beer of West Africa. Although it is said to be strong, it does not appear to me to have a very high alcohol content, maybe 4% to 5%. Apparently alcohol content increases with the fermenting time after collection which lasts only a few days.
Bamboo grows everywhere and we have seen many bamboo thickets cleaned to make collecting the sap easy. Sap is collected from the cut end of the cane in bamboo tubes which are left hanging on the cut stem. We happened upon a bamboo juice collector who said he came to the fields twice each day at 6:30 am and 5:30 pm to collect juice. It seems the greatest flow of juice would be during the wet season, December to April, but we see juice collecting all year round in the well watered lowlands. And the price is supposed to decrease in the wet season; I have not seen that happen.
We buy ulanzi regularly. It is not wine but is a very pleasant drink for aperitif and served with dinner.
Bees and ants like bamboo juice before it ferments.
Collecting juice twice each day, 6:30 am and 5:30 pm.
Teaching High School Biology in Tanzania: A Peace Corps Volunteer Experience 