I am planning to volunteer for 3 weeks in Ipalamwa, Tanzania. The elevation there is about 8500 feet. I was told to bring a sleeping bag, probably because it will be cool or cold but also because they don't have any bedding for the volunteers. My question: Can someone give me an estimate of what the night time temperatures in October? (preferably in F. degrees but I will take it either way).
I prefer not to drag along a sleeping bag with my luggage. So if I do need one, could I buy one in Dar es Salaam? If this is possible, how expensive might this be? Any other ideas would be appreciated.
TIA....
cycleoregon
1
alpiner84
If you can't find a sleeping bag in TZ, there's always blankets. You can buy those in any city, and they're definitely functional, and you can layer! I don't know what the temps are like. Good luck!
-Sarah-
2
fulana
If they told you to bring a sleeping bag, you will need it. At that altitude, my guess is the temperature at night falls down to somewhere+15C perhaps (btw, in Africa SI-units are used). As your stay is very short, why don't you contact your embassy (or do you have other contacts?) and ask if there is somebody who has a sleeping bag and could lend it?
3
schaffer9
We just got back from Ipalamwa a couple of weeks ago with a Global Volunteers group - we assume you're going with the next group that starts out in Dar on Oct 13 - right?
We found that the nighttime temperature was never below the low 50s F from Aug 27 until Sept 10, and since you'll be there during warmer weather we would expect that it will rarely go below 60F at night. Also, there were foam mattresses (but no sheets) for our group of five in Ipalamwa. Therefore, we think that you don't NEED to bring a sleeping bag, but you might want to bring a sleep sack and buy a heavy blanket while you're at the Iringa market picking up supplies. Haran and Mohammad will know where to go for blankets.
There are a couple of other things you might need that you should know about. For instance, there is "no electricity" per se, but there is a fluorescent light in each room that is ALWAYS ON when they run the generator from 7 - 11 p.m. every night. Eye shades are a good idea if you have trouble sleeping with a light on. Don't expect to want to stay up until 11 p.m. when the light goes off because the roosters don't let you sleep past about 4-5 a.m. Earplugs might also help because the generator is only about 75 feet from the bedroom windows, which don’t all have glass in them. And by the way, the elevation is 5,500 feet -- we verified it with GPS readings.
That said, we want to assure you that you'll have a great experience in Ipalamwa -- we enjoyed it very much. And, we a have two requests:
1. My wife is a molecular biologist and had taken a few water samples to bring back to her lab for testing, but accidentally left one sample in Ipalamwa. Would you be willing to collect a water sample or two for her if we send you some small (~2 oz) plastic tubes? It would require hiking down a steep path to the spring so you would need shoes with good gripping soles or hiking boots. We will give you instructions on how to collect the samples. Since this is water that the locals use for drinking we see no reason why there would be a problem taking the samples through customs. We put them in checked luggage and didn’t feel the need to declare them.
2. Haran, the group leader, has a guitar with very old strings and he didn’t know where to get more strings in TZ, so I bought 2 sets, along with a tuning pitch pipe and some picks that I want to send to him. I also have an envelope of pictures from our visit that I want Haran to give to the students and villagers. May I send these things to you to give to Haran?
Whether or not you’re able to help us out, please let us know if you have any other questions that we can answer for you.
Mark & Nia
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