EXHIBITS
The Usambara Project: Landscapes of Continuity and Change in the West Usambara Mountains, c. 1910: Mlalo
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Introduction
The Mlalo Basin is an important place in the northwestern Usambara Mountains. Like Bumbuli and Gare, Mlalo was an important rainmaking center. Because the climate is generally drier than the farming zones to the south and east, the Mlalo residents supplemented mountain horticulture with irrigated rice and maize crops that they grew on plains below at Kitivo along the Umba River. Although only a few furrows remain today, Mlalo’s farmers were expert irrigation engineers. People from Mlalo also know the wider world. In the past, people from Mlalo did not hesitate to relocate temporarily to coastal towns like Pangani, Mombasa, and Tanga, and indeed in many other parts of East Africa.
