I can’t remember how it was that my great friend Diz and I departed from Lusaka in search of Shoebills, bats and Lake Bangweulu, however we did. Lake Bangweulu is situated in North East Zambia and that is divided by what they call a pedicle that belongs to the DRC.
With the unsettlement there we had to go south before turning north and travel back up the other side of the pedicle. Diz and I have quite a history. It almost prompts me to say Once Upon a Time!
I was living in Atlantis – no not the Atlantis – but a crazy idea by the then Nationalist Apartheid Government to create an industrial and residential site for the coloured population of the Cape well away from Cape Town. It never really worked and still does not. However it was there on our doorstep. We technically lived in Philadelphia (not the one in the States) the actual village of which was quite a way away.
I was on the edge of very real poverty and had some copies of July Fever my novel that was first published in Durban in 1980 to wonderful reviews by the newspaper critics at that time. Flat broke I had the idea of selling copies. I called on this woman that I had heard about that prepared thoroughbred yearlings for the racing stable of a leading owner.
I arrived to find Diz, a large woman, trying to teach a very confused yearling how to go around the lunch ring in a circle without cutting corners, trotting on command, stopping on command. The yearling was not co-operating and Diz who I later discovered was an ardent Christian was swearing like a navy when the yearling did not understand and would then apologize to the Lord above and swear never to swear again until the yearling became yet again confused!
Seeing me she gave up the task and we retired to her little black wooden cottage. I explained what I had to sell and Diz took the monumental decision to buy the book instead of a packet of cigarettes! The only cash she had at the time. Our meeting forged a friendship that took us on many an adventure during which I learnt something of Diz’s life.
Diz was living on the copperbelt in Zambia when the country gained its independence. Her two daughters were still young and she deemed it better for them to move to South Africa. Diz had always been a horse lover and while in Ndola took part in the local show jumping circuit, her eldest daughter Sue doing well in the sport. Arriving in South Africa and settling on a small holding in Philadelphia she progressed to schooling thoroughbred yearling horses for their entrance into the racing stables.
This trip was embarked upon when Diz had returned to Zambia and was living in Kitwe. I was in the country compiling my guide to the country called Inside Zambia and had driven up to visit her. Diz was keen to go exploring and we took the Great North Road to the Chinese highway and across the large bridge spanning the Luapula River.
We stopped and bought chitenges; lengths of cotton cloth that the women use for skirts or to carry babies on their side like slings at the little shops surrounding the bridge. We could see people walking through the river apparently unafraid of crocodiles. The guard at the bridge told me that the crocs there did not attack here only further north.
The local people of the Luapula region refer to the grinding grooves to be found here as footprints of men who lived here when the rocks were still soft. The first reference was made by David Livingstone in 1874 who recorded that the people of the north shore of Lake Bangweulu identified them as footsteps of God but had no knowledge of their origin.
The best site of these grooves is in Kasamba stream at Kasoma Bangweulu village on the Lake 2 km south of Samfya. The site is a National Monument.
Onward ever onward in all some 260 kilometers and we left the highway turning onto a sandy track with cassava fields and mango trees. Finally we spotted a sign offering accommodation and although this lodge that I had heard about in Livingstone had not yet opened we were made welcome and settled into our little chalet.
So there we were on the shores of Lake Bangweulu! We sat beneath a thatched shelter and watched a lake steamer on its way to the islands when the nodding black heads of bathers in the shallow waters caught our eyes.
Like some distant dream a bevy of beautiful nymphs emerged from the azure lake and made their way to us, sporting only brief panties. They danced for us before dropping down to lie on their tummies giggling and chatting. A couple of them went off to get their craft ware and I bought the embroidered apron that you can see below.
We were reluctant to begin the return journey but wanted to visit the village where David Livingstone died some 10 kms from Kasanka National Park and 65 kms from the Great North Road.
We stopped at Kasanka first, famous for the hoards of large fruit bats that fly in each November and December. Nobody knows from whence they come. They arrive in their thousands at the start of the rainy season and their weight as they perch on the branches of the trees causes the branches to break! As the sun begins to set they take to the air and block out the sunset, such are their numbers! We were too early in the year but Susan and I and Shaun saw them a few years later.
The next day we set off to find the village where David Livingstone died. The turnoff was 10 kms north so we had to backtrack but found the track although at a fork we took the wrong turn and arrived at the Chief’s palace that was a brightly painted house. Backtrack again and we were on the right track. Some 25 kms further passing villagers about their day to day business of pounding maize in huge pestles in front of their gaily painted houses.
We arrived at Chipundu School where there was a signpost and we parked the vehicle. An old gentleman approached us to guide us to the monument that was no more than a dozen yards away.
This old man told us that his great great grandfather remembered Livingstone and in fact his heart is not buried beneath the monument but slightly apart where a mupundu tree used to stand and is marked by a simple cross.
The heart was buried here in 1873 by his loyal bearers Susi and Chuma who salted and dried his body and carried it over 1000 miles across incredible terrain through Tanzania to Bagamoyo from whence it was shipped to Zanzibar and then to England where it was buried in Westminster Abbey with full military honours on 18th April 1874.
The tree, feared to be diseased was cut down and transported to the Royal Geographical Society in London. There is however a cross in the Anglican Cathedral in Zanzibar that is said to have been made from the tree. I visited Zanzibar and saw the cross but there is no certainty about that legend.
What a wonderful trip with history every mile of the way!
Molly's Musings On Life And Travel 