First Days in Iringa

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I'm sorry for the delay in posting! I was having issues signing into my blog. Here is a post that I wrote early last week. Later I will write more about all that has happened in the past week!

Tuesday (November 6th) was very busy and included visits to a market manager, a street vendor association, a recycling business, a scrap yard, a corn flour manufacturer, and a 22 year-old entrepreneur who started an impressive environmental group/business. We had some really interesting conversations about what kind of waste is generated, how waste is collected and handled, and what the main challenges and opportunities are. 

The 22 year-old was really inspiring. His group is collecting waste from households, cleaning office buildings, making compost, gardening, and organizing an environmental campaign in schools. We need more energetic young people like him. The compost facility is really good, since there is not much composting happening here and the majority of the waste is food and other organic waste.



Other than work, I’ve been enjoying going on walks near the hotel. This was also one of my favorite things to do in Mbeya. Both my hotel there and here are on the outskirts of the downtown, so it’s really peaceful and pretty.  In Mbeya it was so green and I really loved the groves of eucalyptus trees. Mbeya reminded me so much of the region of western Honduras where I lived in the Peace Corps. It is a very similar landscape and both had lots of banana trees, coffee, and some corn. Here in Iringa, it is a drier landscape. The hills are full of enormous boulders. It makes me think of parts of Colorado but I haven’t been anywhere that really looks like this. There are lots of little lizards, and lots of birds.




One day this week when I was walking, I actually saw monkeys! They were on top of a really large boulder in the distance. I could only see their silhouettes and at first I thought they were people sitting and I was wondering why there would be people so far back in the hills on top of a rock. But then one of them was on four legs and I thought they were dogs. And then I suddenly realized they were baboons, just as one of them was running across the road in front of me! It was very exciting.

The hotel I'm staying at has a big terrace overlooking the town below and has amazing views of the sunset. It's actually called Sunset Hotel. So I enjoy sitting there in the evenings when I have dinner and when I'm doing work. 

Being here has its challenges and the project is complicated, but I am very happy that I get to do it in such an amazing, beautiful place.

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