KARATU AREA

The town of KARATU lies about 80 miles west of Arusha.  Tanzania is divided into 25 regions, similar to states in the US.  Each has a capital:  The city of Arusha is the regional capital of the region of Arusha.  Each region is subdivided into districts; the region of Arusha has eight districts of which the most westerly is Ngorongoro  which Kararu is the capital.  The road from Arusha is paved for about 70 miles; the remaining 10 miles are under construction, funded by Japan.  Upon leaving Arusha the countryside becomes progressively dryer.  The road goes into the great rift valley without any noticeable escarpment on the east side.  We passed through the farming village of Myo-wa-Mbu on the far west side of  the rift.  The last  mile or so is a lush irrigated area with water coming from springs on the edge of the rift fed by rainy season precipitation in the Ngorongoro Highlands.  Immediately past Myo-wa-Mbu the road climbs steeply out of the Great Rift Valley.         The maps to the right show progressively closer representations of this area.  The immediate vicinity is boxed on the map image to the top right.  The second map shows the Ngorongoro conservation area and its immediate vicinity. The bottom one shows a closeup of the immediate vicinity of Karatu, as well as the locations of the Farm House and the three schools we visited.  (Click on each image to see an enlarged view.)         The soil around Karatu is quite red, apparently of volcanic origin.  Some of it is quite light, making clouds of red dust which gets into everything.  But some of it has enough clay content that fired bricks are made of it.  We past several brick making places in the last few miles before Karatu.  These low quality bricks seem to be the main local building material.  They need to be covered with plaster or stucco to have much permanence.  The country is rolling at an elevation of about 5,000 - 6,000' (as read from a map having color-coded elevations, but having to guess the location of Karatu).  The weather was cool and dry while we were there.  There is enough rain during the rainy season to support substantial crops of wheat.  The Ngorongoro Highlands, the dominant feature of the local horizon, appears to be about 2,000' higher than the country around Karatu.         It appears that most of the people depend on the growing of crops and animals for their livelihood.  There are a number of tourist lodgings in former colonists' farm residences.  The people here are mainly of Iraqw (Iraqee) tribal origin (no relation to present day Iraq), but the Maasai have been present here for some time.  Prior to colonial days, the Maasai were aggressive and very successful warriors.  European colonization began seriously shortly before 1900, mainly by Germans.  After the First world War, the Germans were kicked out by the British who took over this part of Africa under a League of Nations mandate.  They remained nominally in control until the nation of Tanganyika assumed independence about 1960; it united with the island nation of Zanzibar to become Tanzania in 1964.