Won over by Zambia’s sweetness
A meander through the country leads to all kinds of finds: JK, Lusaka National Museum and Zamtel
Almost suddenly, the savannah landscape, with countless baobab trees, yields to the land of valleys. Three hours ago, a perfect orange sun emerged while our bus was somewhere on the A1 route, traversing Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe’s northwestern province.
Dry rivers, malnourished cows and goats, parched grass and yellow trees speak of woeful drought in these climes. It’s hardly 9.30am yet the mercury is already racing north. Thankfully, the aircon — despite the constant whine owing to an impaired cover — intervenes. By now the bus is almost crawling as it snakes through a forest, to head towards the mighty Lake Kariba.
Houses, big and small, pop up after kilometres of monotonous bush. It’s a sign of human life. Undeterred by the swelter this Sunday morning, members of a church, in white robes, congregate under a tree not too far from the road.
Only minutes after the scientist on my right, across the aisle, said something about cheeky apes that inhabit these forests, a troop of monkeys gingerly fills the frame as our Lusakabound bus continues its downward crawl.
To the far west, tourists picnic and gambol while others cruise on leisure boats. Elsewhere at Kariba Dam, construction workers slog in the blaze as our bus enters Zambia, where shortstaffed immigration officers serve with speed, courtesy and a smile. Just outside the customs office, a tall currency trader — who turns my R200 note into 140 kwacha — welcomes me to “Zambia, the sweetest country”.
The people are warm, alright. “We grow cane,” he says by way of a rejoinder that was must have been elicited by my probably confused smile. Indeed, Illovo Sugar is one of several JSE-listed firms that have struck it sweet in Zambia. Besides business travellers, Zambia scrapes the tourism market. It’s hard to dismiss Economist writer John Grimond’s observation that “God must have been working to a budget when he came to make Zambia”.
Beyond the aphorism lies the real problem: successive governments have done poorly in tourism, failing to convert the country’s charm. Not many foreign travellers come to see wildlife or visit other destinations mainly because Zambia, home to friendly and warm people, is not on their radar.
Its welcoming nature, political stability and physical (and cultural) proximity to South Africa, a market viewed as a gateway, count for little. All of this leaves the world-famous Mosi-oa-Tunya, on the Zambezi, to drive almost single-handedly all the tourist traffic here. That’s if you accept the business types.
But being on Zambian soil triggers something deeper than monetary or literal sweetness. It probably has to do with the selflessness this nation displayed in its support for the fight against colonialism and apartheid even though its economy paid a high price.
That Zambia had a minister dedicated to Southern Africa’s liberation project, as Hugh Macmillan reflects in The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia, 1963 to 1994, is an example. Freedom fighters stationed here hailed from five countries that were yet to shrug off oppression. Those included Mozambique’s Frelimo and Angola’s MPLA, now ruling parties.
Closer to home, the Pan Africanist Congress, the now-defunct Unity Movement and, for three decades until the demise of apartheid, the ANC had offices in Lusaka.
“The name of Zambia’s capital became a shorthand identifier for the ANC in exile, as the ‘pilgrimage’ to Lusaka became a feature of internal politics for supporters, critics and even opponents of the ANC in the late 1980s,” Macmillan notes. The pilgrimage has continued post-1994 but the players have changed.
Now, executives of South Africanbased blue chips — think Edgars, FNB, MTN, Pep, Pick n Pay, Shoprite and Woolworths — pursue fortunes.
Lusaka might lie 200km from the border post, but it takes us no less than four hours to get there owing to roadworks. Baobab trees, trucks, men cycling, livestock, Zamtel outlets painted all-green, pastures and other aspects of the countryside pass by. Along Kafue Road, or T2, to Lusaka, I’m taken aback to see a sprinkler showering Baobab College’s lawn in broad daylight.
T wo p o i n t s : e v a p o r a t i o n a n d drought (threatening power supply and water rationing). Emaciated livestock in the countryside bear testimony.
Despite drought, Lusaka is blanketed in green and purple jacaranda trees and its women add more colour with their multipurpose chitenges (cousins to the kangas, more common in South Africa).
Trucks, 4x4s (which stand out for their numeric significance), buses and other vehicles hurtle up and down the road. Lusaka is notorious for awful traffic jams on weekdays, from downtown to suburbs such as Manda Hill.
That’s home to the country’s largest mall and the well-heeled. Maybe heavy traffic has something to do with most motorists choosing R&B music. And you can’t miss the fourfour-style Toyota minibus taxis in which you can, surprisingly, negotiate the fare.
On a journey from a township named Chilenje, where some visit a house that used to be home to Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda, pre-independence, a taxi keeps veering off the road whenever the driver spots a gravel shoulder. Deborah Fraser, AKA and lots of JK, hitherto unknown to me, keep commuters company.
In July, at a hip-hop festival at Lusaka’s Woodlands Stadium, “all hell broke loose, but in a positive way” when Cassper Nyovest took to the stage after midnight, reported the Daily Mail. It was DJ Black Coffee’s turn in September. The music of local acts such as JK, of Dununa Reverse fame, and Slap D is as pervasive.
Obert, a local I meet through my hosts during my week-long visit to the city, returns me to the 1980s with his rendition of Juluka’s Woza Friday as he downs Mosi during a braai. Mosi is Zambia’s beer of choice.
Well-heeled locals and discerning expatriates prefer spots that include News Café and Rhapsody’s, both in Arcades Mall, on Thabo Mbeki Road. Both exude a different kind of energy. An odd giggle ripples from some table while not-too-loud music plays on. The staple is a predictable trio: drinks (and, sometimes, grub), politics and economics.
The economy, dominated by what economist types categorise as “$1 a day”, is doing poorly and the country has just been through a widely disputed election that claimed lives in its aftermath.
Chaos hasn’t dimmed the hospitality synonymous with Zambia. Ever-flowing invitations to tea and lunch hit me. An old colleague, Ken Bbandika, takes me to Kumushi. Located some distance from Arcades, this eatery serving soulful indigenous meals is a winner. Next up, with Bbandika somehow managing to dodge Lusaka’s traffic, Toya Delazy on the car stereo urges us to “pump it on” and we’re at the Lusaka National Museum.
It’s located inside a government complex, opposite a pink mosque and a beige church that define the skyline on this part of Independence Road.
For a country that has an unmistakable conservative streak, Charles Chambata’s Twin Peaks sculpture comes as a surprise for it depicts a half-naked woman. A life-sized buffalo, a miniature of the Freedom Statue and a 1931-model Fiat Topolino join a giant guitar on the lower level of this two-storey museum. Walls are lined with exceptional paintings. One, by Chasoba Chima, brings to life serenity and Eden.
Although tiny, at about 500m square, it has some gems on offer. The upper level has a section dedicated to evolution, the Stone Age, slavery and its often underplayed junction with capitalism.
When Britain abolished slavery, ship owners were livid. “[It would] put us out of work,” they objected. Among the images featured in the liberation project, including those of a fresh-faced and black-haired Kaunda, are pictures of barebreasted female marchers protesting for “one man, one vote”. It’s an ironic victim of patriarchy.
Alongside Kaunda and a list of Zambian politicians, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama find their place on the walls of this museum. B o b Ma r l e y i s a s u r p r i s e . Y o u wouldn’t expect to see images of Brenda Fassie and Lucky Dube adorning a national museum in Lusaka.
South Africa has, for decades, relished a certain Zambian art: footwork. Prolific goal-scorers such as Collins “Ntofontofo” Mbesuma, Kennedy Mweene and Mwape Musonda continue where Kaizer Chiefs’ legendary striker Albert Bwalya left off eons ago.