Njombe

Njombe is the country of the Bena, a people of the high plateau who lived, before the colonial period, in villages each under its own ruler. In the nineteenth century they were drawn into the wars of their more powerful neighbours: first the Sangu conquered them and installed their own royal family as chiefs, and then the Hehe of Iringa conquered the Sangu, and the Bena with them.

German rule reached the plateau in the late 1890s. One Bena king chose to lead his people down off the highland into the lowlands rather than live under it. Catholic and Lutheran missions followed, and in 1968 the Catholic Church created the Diocese of Njombe out of the territory of the Benedictine abbey at Peramiho.

The region itself is new. For most of Tanzania's history Njombe was a district of Iringa Region, and it became a region in its own right only in 2012, with Njombe town as its capital. It includes the high Makete plateau, the Ludewa district running down to Lake Nyasa, Wanging'ombe, and the railway town of Makambako on the TAZARA line.

The region's peoples include the Bena, the largest, and the Kinga, Pangwa and Wanji. Life here is agricultural and largely Christian, and the town has a firm reputation for cold — something that surprises visitors who packed for the coast.

West of the town, the Kitulo plateau in Makete sits at around 2,600 metres. Its grasslands are protected as Kitulo National Park, established in 2002, and between December and April they flower with orchids, aloes, irises and red-hot pokers — the reason local people call it the Bustani ya Mungu, the Garden of God. The park is shared with Mbeya Region.

Further south the highlands end in the Livingstone Mountains, which fall steeply to Lake Nyasa. Ludewa District has a long, almost undeveloped stretch of lakeshore — the beaches at Lupingu among them — reached by long, rough roads. It is some of the least visited country in Tanzania, and among the most beautiful.