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MOUNT KILIMANJARO is not a “peak”: Rather, it has three peaks

Mt K’njaro

AMONG the sectors that are at the heart of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, is that of tourism and she is doing all she can to promote Tanzania as a major tourist destination. In this endeavour, she has a number of keen supporters, one of whom, is the Kivukoni Ward Councillor, featured in a photograph which appeared on page 5 of the Daily Blog of August 24.

Here is the caption to the photograph: “Kivukoni Ward Councillor, SC, ‘takes’ a souvenir picture at the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, the ‘highest peak in Africa at 589 metres’ to support efforts of President Samia Suluhu Hassan in her campaign of promoting the country’s natural resources and tourism”. The caption implies that Mount Kilimanjaro is a peak, the highest in Africa at that. I see it slightly differently.

Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest in Africa, has three peaks. According to experts, the Mountain is a large dormant stratovolcano composed on three distinct volcanic cones: Kibo the highest at 5895 meters, Mawenzi at 5149 metres and Shira, at 4005 metres.

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Mawenzi and Shira are extinct, while Kibo is dormant and could erupt again. The last eruption of Mountain Kilimanjaro occurred over 150,000 years ago (mein Gott)!

It is thus an ancient event in geological terms. Back to our caption. The Kivukoni Councillor is not taking a picture, since he is not holding a camera to make us believe that he was taking a “selfie”. Somebody else took that picture. So he should be described as “posing for a souvenir picture”, not taking it. Also, at 589 metres, Mountain Kilimanjaro would really be a dwarf mountain. Clearly, the caption needs some tweaking.

Here is a recommended version: “Kivukoni Ward Councillor, SC, ‘poses for’ a souvenir picture at the Kibo (also known as the Uhuru) peak of Kilimanjaro, which at 5895 metres above mean sea level, is the ‘highest mountain in Africa’, to support the efforts of President Samia Suluhu Hassan in her campaign of promoting the Country’s natural resources and tourism”. Well done Councillor SC.

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Many of us dream of conquering Mount Kilimanjaro one of these days, God willing. We now turn to page 2 of the same paper and here, we find a large colourful photograph, with a caption which is of interest for this column.

This is how it reads: “A Yombo Kilakala resident in Temeke Municipality, watchfully walks on the pedestrian’s pathway on the dilapidated Tingetinge railway bridge of the ‘Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) whose ‘barriers’ are vandalised, endangering the safety of people, as captured in Dar es Salaam, yesterday”. The pictured resident, a tallish gentleman, cannot be walking on anything “authority”.

He is walking along a dilapidated railway line. It is suggested that the abbreviation TAZARA could have two meanings, that of an institution owning or running the railway line, or the railway line itself. In case of the latter meaning of TAZARA, we are talking of Tanzania-Zambia Railway and this is what is relevant to the caption.

The caption also aimed at emphasising that the area, Yombo Kilakala (not, the resident captured in the picture), is in Temeke Municipality. There is therefore a need to re-write the caption, re-arranging the words and leaving out some.

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Also the vandalised parts of the bridge, which the writer calls “barriers”, have a name: “guard rails”. A “guard rail” is a system used on the sides of bridges to keep people and vehicles from entering unsafe areas, or falling off the edge. In view of the above observations, the caption needs re-writing.

Here is my version: “A resident of Yombo Kilakala in Temeke Municipality, watchfully walks on the pedestrians’ pathway on the dilapidated Tingetinge railway bridge of the ‘Tanzania-Zambia Railway line’ (TAZARA) whose ‘guard rails’ are vandalised, endangering the safety of people, as captured in Dar es Salaam, yesterday”.

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