Jaywig's Journeys

Still in the zone of Zeds ... we are in Zambia

LETTER FROM ZAMBIA, 20.12.11

Dear S,

I wonder whether you ever returned? Even if you had, they tell me massive change has occurred even in the past five years. I feel tremendously optimistic and blessed to have lived to see how it is now.

This is still a friendly country, even friendlier with the threat of military action gone, vanished as if it never was. Even the elderly musungu in Planet Books did not discuss it; she’s been here 54 years – came for a holiday, married, returned to England only after 14 years. Fourteen years!

Kabulonga, Northmead, Woodlands, they are run-down remnants of the ‘70’s. Places you used to go “hunting” for butter, cheese, cooking oil, soap, toilet paper, even rice. Those were the days of shortage and as my new acquaintance in the bookshop said, it made us resourceful, resilient.

Here I am with a battery-powered computer typing my story straight into something printable. Forget the world of banda machine, carbon paper, chalk and board. The youth here is as up-to-date as no doubt your students back in England were.

At home with my hosts, the news stream on the 70 inch screen continues to update us about Kim Jong Il’s successor, his son, Kim Jong Un, and Egypt’s misfortunes, Syria’s resistance, deaths in the Philippines from floods.

We had no such access to the international stage. The good memories belong in Kasama: firelit suppers when power failed and we cooked outdoors; disco nights, special events such as Soap Ball and the Dinner Dance, and Independence Day suppers, all in the New Dining Hall; Athletics Competitions on Unity Day and Africa Day where you and I recorded scores and organised competitors. We made do, loved the challenges.

Here, the dependence on government employment has largely been replaced by enterprise and creativity. The roads are lined with furniture makers, charcoal sellers, marble grinders, pillar and brick makers, charcoal burner makers, gate makers. Everywhere there is activity – young men touting shirts, flags, car parts, fruit, talk-time tickets (keeping the mobile phone culture going). E. and I pass the small stall on the corner of her street in Roma and she tells me the young man sitting there has funded his entire schooling through the revenue he’s generated. Gone are the days when only women sold roasted mealies along roadsides as was the case in 1985. The streets are alive with the sound of urgency, action, intentionality, and so many young men.

Can you believe the banks are open all weekend these days, some of them from before 8 am and up to 22:00 hrs on weekdays as well! People work so hard. And still, dancing and singing are said to be an integral part of life. I don’t hear it in the streets. Shops selling CD’s aren’t overflowing as I remember that one in the Location in Kasama being. But maybe it was always thus here. Or maybe it’s another change everywhere.

I have met up with some of those students we trained not to fear authority, change, true independence of thought and action. This world is of their making. I wish you had lived to experience the difference you made.

Here are photos of Northern Province, not Lusaka.
 

Kasama's Post Office

Lake Tanganyika, dusk

The valley that Kalambo Falls tumbles into

Past and present: remains of the open thatched shelter at our favourite picnic spot, Chishimba Falls, and the modern tourist facility behind

Kasama's Airport

One of the three sections of Chishimba Falls

Beadwork takes on new dimensions.

Heading for the port on Lake Tanganyika at Mpulungu

Lake Tanganyika, trade route to Burundi and Tanzania

By the time I took these photos my Panasonic Lumix had got a bad case of Internal Lens Humidity and refused to work. The search for a replacement is a story in itself, involving three stores, a back lane and four cameras in a glass case purchased secondhand on e-bay.

It was not my dream camera.