September 1964, northern Tanganyika

It was after dark when the bus we were taking upcountry from Dar es Salaam to the Tengeru Agricultural School (see previous post) passed just south of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Therefore, we missed seeing it. Subsequently, however, whenever it wasn’t obscured by clouds, I saw the great mountain a number of times, first from near Tengeru and then, its snowy summit gleaming on the eastern horizon 120 miles away, from various hill tops and mountain slopes in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Prior to joining the Peace Corps, my most vivid images of Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania) were of dense herds of ungulates on the Serengeti Plains, the yawning expanse of Ngorongoro Crater, and of Mt. Kilimanjaro rising majestically above herds of exotic looking wildlife, its snow-capped peak sometimes taking on an ethereal quality, floating in the sky.  Therefore, whenever possible at Ngorongoro I looked for it and sometimes, weather permitting, there it was: Tanganyika’s shining mountain (the meaning of Kilimanjaro in Swahili). And it never failed to impress.

Kilimanjaro is a mountain of superlatives. At 19,340 ft, it’s the highest in Africa, higher than anything in Europe and, except for Denali in Alaska and Logan in Canada, any peak in North America. Fifty-five miles long by thirty-five wide and with two widely separated peaks, Kibo and Mawenzi, it’s almost a small mountain range in itself. Kilimanjaro’s visual presence is further emphasized by its rising, not from a jumble of other mountains but from an extensive plain. It’s the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

Thus, it’s unsurprising that Mt. Kilimanjaro had a place  on Tanganyika’s (and now Tanzania’s) official coat of arms.

However, there is more to Kilimanjaro than rugged good looks. In addition to its great height and sheer mass, it lies within a favorable climatological region with two rainy seasons a year (compared to only one season in the south of the country), and is composed of volcanic rocks rich in minerals (compared to, say, the sedimentary and metamorphic materials of the Usambara and Pare mountains to its east). These four factors have combined to make the mountain economically extremely important. Indeed, some (Gunther. Inside Africa. Harper & Brothers. 1955) have suggested it might be the most useful mountain in the world.

Breasting moisture-laden monsoon winds blowing in from the Indian Ocean, Kilimanjaro forces them to rise, cool and condense into rain which, falling throughout the year on the mountain’s highly fertile volcanic soils, supports dense forest, intensive, highly productive, agriculture and one of the densest human populations in the country.

Consequently, the Chagga people who live on Kilimanjaro’s slopes have become the country’s third largest ethnic group. They also are one of the most influential. Early to convert to Christianity and become educated and westernized, they were, by 1964, when our Peace Corps group arrived, Tanganyika’s wealthiest and most organized people. Much of their wealth came from coffee, which, following its introduction by the German colonial government before the First World War, the Chagga grew and marketed with such zeal that by 1955 they owned 12,000,000 coffee trees and belonged to probably the most successful co-operative in East Africa, the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union (KACU) which, by the way, is still in operation.

And that was before tourism took off.  These days Mt. Kilimanjaro also generates considerable revenue from people who want to climb or just visit the mountain. The climb (which I admit to never having done) requires no technical expertise but rather is a long, hard slog, three days up and two back, its primary risk being the chance of succumbing to altitude sickness. Still, so many people visit the mountain, the upper half of which is now a national park, that Kilimanjaro is now Tanzania National Park’s second highest revenue earner (after the Serengeti of course).

I meant to end this post with an amusing explanation for the positioning of the international boundary in relation to Mt. Kilimanjaro (see map below). In the late 1800’s when the colonial powers were carving up Africa, with Britain and Germany respectively claiming Kenya and Tanzania, Kaiser Wilhelm II complained to his grandmother, Queen Victoria, that she had (in Kenya) two snow-clad mountains (Kenya and Kilimanjaro), while he had none in Tanganyika. So, she gave him Mt. Kilimanjaro as a birthday present. And that, the story goes, explains why the international boundary which supposedly once ran in a straight line northwest from the coast to Lake Victoria,  passing south of Kilimanjaro along the way, now passes around its eastern and northern flanks.

Now, I’ve treasured this story of family relationships in a geopolitical setting for over half a century; just imagining the expressions on the faces of Queen Victoria’s councilors’ upon hearing  she’d given away a sizable chunk of her Kenya dominion always induced a grin., Unfortunately (for me at least), I’ve since learned the story is mere myth. Apparently, Kilimanjaro had always been recognized as being within Germany’s sphere of interest, as was the coast of Tanganyika. The eastern part of the international boundary actually reflects the southernmost extent of Great Britain’s control of the Kenya coast.

It’s sad, actually.  I really liked that story.