Isimila Stone Age Site, Neema Crafts, Iringa Referral Hospital
Outbound to Iringa, May 24, 2024
By: PJ
Isimila Stone Age Site
We visited the Isimila Stone Age Site, which was not too far from Iringa. We hiked down to the river to see stone hand tools, believed to be made by Homo erectus around 270,000 years ago years ago. It was amazing to see so many stone tools in huge piles. Rock hammers, axes, scrapers, all just jumbled together.
We then followed the meandering riverbed, picking our way through shallow rivulets of water and climbing over low riverbanks. Along the way we saw recent footprints of animals. Probably cows but also what looked to Ray like Dik Dik prints and some handprints of monkeys. We arrived suddenly at the most spectacular natural pillars which towered over us.
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| A Isimila hoodoo |
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| us and the hoodoos |
We took lots of pictures and then hiked back to the National Park Museum which was very well done, I thought. We also did a bit of shopping at the gift store.
Neema Crafts
By then it was close to lunch time and we went to the Neema Crafts Center for lunch. It was originally the first Anglican church built in Iringa and is now a nonprofit run by the church. People with different disabilities are hired and trained to work in the restaurant and gift shop and also make all of the crafts that they sell. We could watch them weaving and sewing through a glass window into the workshop.
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| Lunch at Neema Crafts Center |
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| Neema Crafts Workshop |
Iringa Referral Hospital
After eating lunch and a little more shopping we all walked over to the District Hospital and were invited in by Dr Alfred. He told us how the health system in Tanzania starts with small clinics in the villages and then dispensaries which take the sicker patients and then smaller area hospitals and up to the big District Hospitals in the major cities. Some of these are teaching hospitals, as the Moshi Hospital is. He also told us how well Tanzania is doing fighting the historic major diseases such as malaria and cholera. However the statistics show that he painted a very rosy picture for us. We got to meet the head of surgery, gynecology, and the head administrators.
Treat our host to dinner
After walking back to Neema we went home and had a short rest. Then we all took our hosts out for dinner. Our hosts are Tito and Naomi and 2 year old Emil. Tito’s brother Nickson also joined us. So did Shaina and her hosts Joel and Rebecca and 4 year old Jayden. We went to the Sunset Hotel and had a wonderful dinner and when we finally got home at 11pm I went straight to bed and slept soundly!!!
It was a very big day and we learned so much!
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| Ray & PJ M with Tito & Naomi |
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| Steve & Terri with their hosts Babette, Winnie, Freddie, Angel, Dr Sully |
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