Venturing off Zambia's beaten path
Share with others:
LUSAKA, Zambia -- It's a breezy Friday morning in this capital city, and I'm getting a tour of it all from the back seat of a worn 18-seat bus that rumbles through this congested metropolis belching black smoke.
I have been riding on this bus every day for more than a week.
But today, while my colleagues slip off to go shopping, I stay on and ramble around the arid avenues with our driver, Wilson Zulu, a charismatic entrepreneur who greets us every morning with a springy "Hello."
The main roads in Lusaka, once the center of a farming community, are wide and paved. They are brightened by a palette of men and women moving about in sun-colored traditional clothing and in crisp Western suits. Off the main road, red clay pathways are bumpy and swirl with dust. Muscled, dark-skinned men clean their cars and taxis at the car bath, and poised young women carry baskets on their heads and babies on their backs.
Lusaka, with its 3 million people, is the gritty core of this nation, a place a little larger than Texas. A former British protectorate -- a land where copper was once king -- Zambia gained its freedom in 1964. Now in recovery from an economic downturn, the drumbeat of life here remains a lively mix of Bantu tradition, hospitality and a swell of urbanization. Strip malls share space with craft markets.
For the almost two weeks I've been in Zambia, I've traversed the exotic and ordinary, thanks to the bustle of rickety-crickety buses, jeeps and mini-vans. Though traveling with dozens, I imagine it my own personal road trip.
City sights
I'm in Lusaka for church meetings on HIV, and Mr. Zulu has provided the group's transportation. Mostly, he's carried us the few blocks from our comfortable hotel to the grounds of the theological seminary where we gather.
But he's also the go-to man to get us to the bank, the airport, the crafts market.
Our hotel, the Kingfisher, a former elementary school, is a bit off the main road, so getting out on one's own is not easily done.
However, I do some walking around. It's safe, considering that a decade ago, Lusaka was despondent and had a reputation for violent crime. The city has worked hard to clean up its act. Today, as with travel to most big cities, tourists are advised to stay in pairs.
Still, I'm eager to shed the group and venture solo into the soul of the city. After all, one reason to come to Africa is to meet the Africans.
So one day, when the others get off the bus, I stay on.
In a flash, Mr. Zulu transforms God's Ambassador -- the name of the bus he rents -- into a jitney service. Off go the Christian hymns. On comes Lusaka radio, pulsating with the R&B of Beyonce and African hip-hoppers.
"Ready to go?" says Mr. Zulu as he joins the hundreds of other private buses that fill the roads. They all beep their horns to attract riders and then bump and grind their way through traffic.
In his dress shirt and pleasant voice, he pulls up to the bus stops and announces where he's headed. "Kaunda Square," he calls.
Quickly, a gaggle of young people scrunch on board. In their modest skirts and neckties, they are coming from a Seventh-day Adventist conference. They pay about 2,000 kwacha, roughly the equivalent of 50 cents, to ride.
One little girl looks up at me and in a friendly tone asks, "You're not from Zambia?" I tell her I'm a visitor from America.
"What do you think of Lusaka?" she says.
"So far, so good."
Off we ride.
Past the sprawling shanty ghettoes teeming with the urban poor. Past the gleaming red-tile manses of the professional class, who tuck their homes behind walls.
As we cruise into the night, a setting sun bathes the city in orange. The evening pulses with vendors pushing bootleg CDs and grass baskets. Men and women and gazillions of teens gather in the open-air malls or just hang on the corners.
On the bus, Mr. Zulu gives me a quick lesson in Nyanja, the main indigenous language in Zambia, and then laughs as I try,
Bwanji: Hello
Muyende Bwino: Goodbye.
In the market, I try out my language on the sellers, who hawk everything from live chickens to batteries to clothing to condoms. Most of them smile and laugh. I'm sure they would prefer my money rather than my broken tongue.
Bad tire, good fortune
Another bus takes me into the heart of Zambia's natural wonders, rumbling down a long and winding highway to Victoria Falls -- the largest falls in the world -- and to a chance encounter at a tiny village. We whisk down the bumpy road past small golf courses and copper-colored savannahs at what feels like 80 mph.
I'm squeezed into the back row and had my legs stretch out into a center aisle. A prayer was on my lips.
At each crossroads, I ached for the driver to stop so I could get something more than a fleeting view of Zambia life. A blown front tire comes to the rescue. The driver pulls up to the opening of a small village that has no name.
The cameras of tourists, fascinated by the quiet charm, begin to click.
It is not long before a small man with gray hair and intense eyes comes to the American visitors and asks us not to take pictures. He speaks his native tongue, but we get the message: Do not take my people for granted.
For a price, he says, he can arrange a tour.
I imagine he must be the village elder, a sort of mayor of the 200 people who live here.
He collects our funds -- together we pay what must be about $100 U.S. dollars -- and he opens the door to his world. The smiling children crowd around and want their photos taken. The men want to know about the riches of America. The mothers appear, showing off their homes and the brightly colored flowers that grow in plastic jugs outside their doors.
In the past decade, I've been blessed to travel around Africa. I have never been dissatisfied with the openness and simplicity of a village. Most of the people there are delighted to tell their stories. This encounter was no different.
One of the men I meet is Charles.
Wearing blue overalls, he is a health care worker or the village medic. I imagine that he receives a government stipend, because he trains at the hospital about a mile or two away. His home, where he lives with his wife and four children, is made of bricks while most others in the village are made of mud.
It is his job, he says, to learn the latest medical practices and bring them to the village. If someone is sick, he takes them to the hospital. In a village as small as this, everyone is family.
In Zambia, HIV has a terrifying presence. As many as 16 percent of the adults here live with the virus.
In this village, there is no HIV stigma. If someone is sick, the village will care for the person and the family -- cooking meals, looking after the children and getting people to the hospital.
"There is no place else for them to go," he says. "We take care of them here."
After 40 minutes, we leave. The villagers have helped change our tire and have given us a glimpse of their hearts.
We enter the bus and the children smile, wave and shout good-bye.
Elephants in the road
My road trip continues to Chobe National Park in Botswana.
To get there means coming to the edge of the Zambezi River. It's one of the longest waterways in Africa. Corners of Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia all dip a toe into this river. At the entrance to Chobe, the guide tells us to make no sudden movements, to keep our hands and feet inside of the jeep and to speak softly. You do not want to do anything that the animals could mistake as a threat.
"Do you have a gun?" one of the riders asks our driver, Leonard. "No, just do as I tell you, and you'll be safe."
So begins the safari.
Soon, there is an elephant in the road. Quickly, a herd of them boom past, kicking up dust. I am seeing, but I am not believing. More than 12,000 elephants call this park home.
The jeep meanders down the sandy paths. There are elephants in the bush, at the watering hole and in the distance. Beautiful, majestic, they watch me watch them.
Located in the northeast corner of Botswana and only a short 90-minute drive from Victoria Falls, Chobe is an Eden of crystal blue lagoons, green grasslands and golden meadows. Visitors can view the game by land and water. I do both.
On land, we pull up on a pride of sleeping lions. There are seven -- two mothers and their cubs. Having had their meal for the day, the guide tells us, they will laze about for the next 17 hours until they are hungry again. So, we sit and watch them sleep. For 20 minutes we gaze at the lions, both afraid and exhilarated.
By the time I get back to my hotel, I've crossed river and dale. I'm exhausted, but Zambia is a road trip I've dreamed of.
First Published October 7, 2007 12:00 am
