TRIP20A.htm

I hadn't realized that the village we were going to visit was only a few hundred yards from the camp. Our guide, whose name was Matusa, told us he would first get permission from the village headman before we walked in. Gretta also came along, saying she had not yet seen the village either. Coincidentally, as we were walking towards the village, Matusa spotted the headman walking ahead of us. I had brought along my few remaining ball caps, planning to offer them to the people of the village as we would have little opportunity to give any away between now and the end of the trip, I thought. I first selected one to wear (replacing the hat sacrificed to the river), then gave the rest to the village headman to distribute as he saw fit.

According to Matusa, there were villages all along the Zambezi River. The local region consisted of about 12,000 people living in these villages, each one governed by a chief or headman. Then one person was selected from all the villages in the region to "represent" that region to the government in Lusaka. It seemed that this person didn't participate in the Zambian legislature, but was the contact person for all matters pertaining to this region and affecting the villages and their people. Matusa referred to the person currently in that role as the "chieftainess," indicating that it was a woman! That surprised me, as I had assumed that in this tribal society the males would occupy the leadership roles. Wrong! The Chieftainess would meet with each village headman to learn the needs of the villages, then report back to the government.

As we came to the village, we could immediately see that it was completely different from the Masai village we had visited in Tanzania. Here there was no fence or enclosure, and no gate. We just started approaching houses set at seemingly random locations.

Entering the village. Note the large termite mound beyond Capisce. Matusa, a South African guest, and Gretta.

As you'll notice from the pictures, most of the structures designed for storing anything edible were up off the ground on stilts. This included the chicken coops and pigeon coops, as well as corn cribs and grain storage areas. We weren't told what this was intended to protect them from, predators or maybe high water. Since the houses were all on ground level, I assume it was to protect the edibles from animals.

We were surprised to see in the camp a water pipe sticking up out of the ground with a faucet on the end of it, like we have at our houses to attach a garden hose. Matusa told us that before the Kiambi Camp had been built, this village had occupied the land right along the river where the camp is now. When the camp owners decided they wanted to build the camp there, they had to offer the villagers some incentive to move. One of the incentives was that the camp would provide them with running water. We thought this was not much of an incentive, because the river had for years provided them with all the water they wanted. But, Matusa went on, now they didn't have to go down to the river to get the water and chance being "taken" by crocodiles! Suddenly running water in the village seemed much more valuable!

Near the pipe and faucet was a stick enclosure with a pipe and shower head sticking up above it! Clearly the people could now bathe in the village as well as obtain drinking water, another big disappointment for the crocodiles.

A house with a thatched roof. Sticks (firewood?) are stored on the platform at left.

The village goat herd wandered freely during the day. Their pen is in the background. Thatched structure at right is a storage shed for tools, etc.

Corn crib. More elevated, protected storage. At right, a pigeon coop. Can you see the pigeon on the top?

Many of the houses had a small fenced garden plot nearby. In the one pictured below was growing bananas, corn, tomatoes, beans and other vegetables.

Some of the houses were reddish in color, and some were more yellow. Matusa explained that the people would intentionally use different colors of clay to make the houses more decorative. Some had a thatched roof, while others had corrugated metal sheets, usually weighted down with stones, logs, or other objects to keep them from blowing off. We joked about some roofs being "rated" for higher winds than others, because they had more or larger rocks on them.

The house below belonged to a single young man. He must have been trying to attract a wife! The house has decorations painted on the front of it, everything is neat and orderly as can possibly be, and along the little fence surrounding his "lot" are small blue periwinkles! Not like your typical American "bachelor pad!"

We labeled the picture below the "Village Distillery." Although I never saw a "still," the locals would mix up a brew of water and corn mash, let it ferment, and make from it an alcoholic beverage that our guide described as very strong. To do that you almost have to distill the stuff! In the tub at the right some of the yellow "corn mash" has been mixed and is (I suppose) fermenting. It smelled pretty bad!

Matusa is gathering children so Linda can take their picture with Mookie. Fermenting corn mash in black pot at right. Beyond Linda on the ground are corn cobs, with corn kernels on the cloth beside the cobs.

As we wandered through the village, we came across an area planted in corn, with several children standing or sitting around watching it. Matusa told us that they had to watch the crops night and day to keep the baboons from getting them! We also stopped briefly at what we later called the village "convenience store." It was a little local general store, selling a large variety of little items including house wares, rubber thongs, combs, gadgets, string, you name it. How they stocked it I'll never know!

Speaking of "wandering through the village," that requires a bit of description. The village was quite spread out, with small groups of houses in one area, then a path through the trees and underbrush, then another group of houses, and so on. On some of these paths you wouldn't realize you were in a village, as no buildings could be seen. It was almost as if there were little "neighborhoods." In some areas, all the houses were very neat, tidy and clean looking with little fences and flowers and foundation plantings. Other areas had houses with junk around them, no fence, and an unkempt look. Kind of like the high class neighborhoods and the lower class ones.

Another very pretty "neighborhood." Note the foundation plants. Metal roof here, with thatched roofs in background.
This child was happily pushing some kind of toy around with the stick he's holding.

After about an hour we came out of some brush and found ourselves across a dirt road from the Kiambi Camp! I had completely lost track of direction and distance, and was surprised to learn where we were. As we walked along the road to the camp entrance we took the picture below of papayas and bananas growing on the camp property.

Every meal at the camp included fresh fruit. Obviously they grew much of it themselves.

Gretta pointed out to us as we walked into the camp a flowering plant beside a building. She told us it was the passionflower, so-named not as a reference to love or sexual passion, but as a reference to the passion (suffering) of Jesus. We took the picture below of both the flower and the passion fruit below it.

According to our encyclopedia, the passionflower was named by Roman Catholic monks in the 1500's. They felt that "the flower's five petals and five petallike sepals represented the ten apostles who remained faithful to Jesus throughout the Passion. The circle of hairlike rays above the petals suggested the crown of thorns Jesus wore." Now you know!

We sat in the lounge area by the river waiting for the drums to signal dinner time. The party of South Africans had not returned from the fishing contest yet, so we were waiting for them as the sun got lower and lower in the sky. At 7:05 PM we just HAD to take some more sunset pictures! Here's what we saw.

As darkness approached we heard the sound of a motorboat in the distance, and soon hear the calls and laughter of the fishing party. It seemed that once again the guys had been unsuccessful at catching anything. Although they had plenty of excuses and comments about "next time!", the girls declared themselves the winners. Soon the drums sounded, and we were treated to another gourmet meal.

After dinner the fire was started and everyone gathered around it to review the day. Tomorrow we four would be heading downriver to the Kiubo camp, and the South Africans would be heading back to Lusaka for the flight home. I happened to mention to Ian something about e-mail, and was surprised to learn that e-mails could be sent and received there at the Kiambi Camp! I knew they had regular electrical power (as opposed to a generator or solar), but did not think they had telephone lines. He admitted that they didn't, but that they could connect by short wave radio and actually send e-mails by radio to an internet terminal somewhere!

He walked me over to the camp office, and I typed out a message to Amy and Joy. I told them that this would probably be the last chance for them to reply to us. Even though we were going to a different camp in the morning, anything received there at Kiambi Camp could be printed and brought to the Kiubo camp before we left to fly to our last stop, Victoria Falls.

By the time I had finished and walked back to the fire, Carol and I were both ready to retire for the night. We excused ourselves and headed for our tent.