The following morning, while I was taking a shower, there was a knock at the door. There stood Thulani, 15 minutes early. It was a good start to the day. He dropped me off on the Zimbabwean side of the border and I exited Zimbabwe without any hassles. I had to walk about two kilometres to the Zambian immigration office and, in the process, crossed over the steel bridge between the two countries, the famous 111-metre bungee-jumping site. The bridge, Rhodes’s brainchild, took 14 months to build when they linked Bulawayo to the Copperbelt towns of Kitwe and Ndola.
Midway over the bridge, knowing full well I had a Lusaka-bound bus to catch, I decided to stop and take off my backpack, lean over the handrail and enjoy the view. With the sound of the falls behind me, looking down at the Zambezi River as it meandered through the gorge, with the refreshing early-morning breeze tugging at my T-shirt, memories of my debut bungee jump from the bridge in 1999 (part of my 24th birthday celebration) came flooding back. It was as if I had jumped only the day before.
Your first bungee jump is both nerve-wracking and disorientating. And exhilarating. Once you jump off from the platform, heart pumping ferociously, and start heading down headfirst, there is nothing that goes through your mind except waiting for the bungee cord to pull you back. Although the actual falling takes only a few seconds, it feels much, much longer when your life is totally dependent on a bungee cord. Adrenalin sport, like drugs, is totally addictive. Two months after bungee jumping at Vic Falls, I jumped off at the world’s highest commercial bungee site: the 216-metre Bloukrans bridge on the Garden Route, between Plettenberg Bay and Port Elizabeth.
After ten minutes of enriching my soul and having the entire bridge to myself, I continued towards the Zambian immigration office and re-entered Zambia without difficulty. In fact, while I filled out the customs register the two officials were relaxing outside in the sun.
I took a typical Zambian blue cab back to Livingstone and kept asking myself why I had left Zambia in the first place.
On the recommendation of the cab driver – cab drivers are really treasures on travels like mine – I used a cheaper but more comfortable bus company (named Zoom) to take me from Livingstone to Lusaka than the one on which I had travelled to Livingstone three days earlier. The bus left from the market centre, which was buzzing with activity. I sat back. The cab driver was correct: it was a comfortable bus.
The man next to me must have been in his early sixties. When I told him that I was from South Africa, he became my tour guide. He told me the names of all the towns and townships we passed: Kalomo, Choma, Batoka, Chisekesi, Mazabuka, and pointed out one or two small rivers that we crossed. He also explained to me that the number of tourists visiting Zambia had increased ‘ever since Mugabe started doing his thing in Zimbabwe’.
Roughly halfway between Livingstone and Lusaka we had a 30-minute leg stretch. I struck up a conversation with a sister who, to my surprise, could speak a bit of Zulu. I felt ashamed. I did not even know what Zambia’s indigenous language or languages were, never mind putting together a string of words in one of them.
Six and a half hours after leaving Livingstone, we got to Lusaka, which, I soon discovered, was celebrating its centenary: it was founded in 1905 when Rhodes’s railway reached this small, sleepy village, named after Lusaaka, a headman and a skilled elephant hunter. I was certainly going in the same direction as Rhodes’s dream railway line – the main street was called Cairo Road.
Because of its central position, Lusaka replaced Livingstone as the capital of what was then Northern Rhodesia in 1935 and, in 1964, became the capital of newly independent Zambia. As a young boy growing up in South Africa I, along with other young stars, used to sing about Lusaka in freedom songs while toyi-toying.
Quite honestly, I toyi-toyied more because it was a way of life in the township than because I understood its significance in the context of the struggle against apartheid. Truth be told, I was a really naïve young boy; I used to think that the political and economic power white people were enjoying was God-given. That is what the system did to us, both black and white: it made us accept things as they were without questioning anything. I didn’t question white privilege, and how many young white boys questioned the reason for conscription? But along the way my eyes opened and now I question almost everything.
Anyway, it felt good to be in Lusaka, the very city we used to sing about in our freedom songs. There was a lot of activity along Cairo Road. I planned to spend one night in Lusaka and then to continue on my way east.
Although it’s possible to travel from Lusaka directly to Tanzania – by making a 36-hour train journey from Kapiri Moshi, less than 200 kilometres north of Lusaka, to Dar es Salaam – I thought I would travel via Malawi in order to see Africa’s third largest lake. This would be my second attempt at visiting Lake Malawi.
The first was in the year 2000. I had wanted to visit the lake, but I had not done my homework very well. My plan was to travel through Harare to Blantyre, before proceeding north to Cape Maclear on the southern shores of the lake. What I did not know was that the road between Harare and Blantyre went through Mozambique’s Tete Corridor and, as a South African citizen, I needed a transit visa.
At the Mozambican border, at Nyamapanda, I was unceremoniously taken off the bus and had to return to Harare – more than 200 kilometres away – to obtain one. In Harare, still thoroughly pissed off, I decided to head back home instead and run the Indian Ocean marathon from Ballito to Durban North, the final qualifier for the Comrades. Six weeks later, and three days short of my 25th birthday, I ran (and walked) my first Comrades marathon in 11 hours 40 minutes – with only 20 minutes to spare. Those were the days when I was riding the upper crest of my free-spirited, got-to-do-it-all, bachelorhood wave.
Back now in Lusaka, I found that all the backpackers and guest hotels in town were fully booked. A receptionist eventually explained to me why. It was a holiday – Farmers’ Day, always on the first Monday of August. As a result, all the bureaus de change along Cairo Road were closed and I had to exchange money at an international hotel, in the foyer of which were 12 to 15 of some of the most outstanding, beautiful, gorgeous women I had ever seen. When I enquired at reception I was told that they were the finalists in the upcoming Miss Zambia competition. Although my budget did not allow for it, I made up my mind to spend the night in that posh hotel. However, I decided it would be better to stick to my budget when the receptionist told me that the finalists were there for a photo shoot only.
I left the city centre in a cab and ended up spending the night in one of the guesthouses in the western (read ‘poor’) suburbs of the city. The place was basically a shebeen moonlighting as a guesthouse. The music coming from the bar, where the locals were playing pool while enjoying their beer, was very loud. Deafening, in fact. My bedroom was not much of a consolation. Although the mattress was big, it was limp and uncomfortable and the bedding old with a terrible smell of mould. The food was not great either: greasy chicken and chips. I ate only the lettuce and carrot.
That night on the television news it was reported that Sudan’s deputy president, John Garang, had died in an air crash the previous day, on his way back from Uganda. It was further reported that the news had sparked widespread violence, especially in Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum. This was really bad news for me because when doing the Cape to Cairo you simply have to go through Africa’s largest country, Sudan. It meant I would have to monitor the situation in Sudan very carefully the following few weeks.
Just before I fell asleep, I began to imagine what my life would have been like if my parents had gone to Lusaka (read ‘gone into exile’). I would, in all likelihood, have been the son of a cabinet minister and not, as I am, of retired schoolteachers who never lived together. If I were indeed the son of a minister in the government, I would not have been stuck in the corporate world for ten years. I would be the owner of an Investment Holding Company with stakes in the oil, resources, financial, manufacturing, retail, communications, hea
lth and tourism sectors. Owning my own company, I would, like a lot of successful black businessmen, have a white Personal Assistant (PA) whom I would spank constantly just for the fun of it. But alas, my parents had never gone to Lusaka …
In the early hours, at about 2 a.m., there was a knock at my door. From the giggling I could tell it was ladies – they must have spotted me when I went to the restaurant for dinner. I did not open the door. I went back to sleep and did not wake up until Phiri, the cab driver who had agreed to pick me up and take me to the bus station, turned up the next morning.
I had a ten-past-five appointment with Phiri, which he had confirmed in his parting words the previous day: ‘OK, I will see you at zerofive-ten.’ (In Zambia time is described differently.) Like his Vic Falls counterpart, Phiri was a few minutes early.
It was still dark when we arrived at the bus station, but the place was already abuzz with activity: hawkers selling fruit, people buying tickets, passengers struggling with luggage, bus drivers hooting and revving engines. Phiri explained to me that, for safety reasons, buses are not allowed to travel at night in Zambia. He helped me to buy a ticket to the eastern town of Chipata, the capital of Zambia’s Eastern Province. I found it quite tricky to use Zambian currency because some notes were so old that I could not read the figures. I had to rely on Phiri. Just by looking at the faint colours of the various notes, he could determine the correct amount.
We left the bus rank just after sunrise. Outside Lusaka the driver pulled off the road and, while the engine of the bus was idling, his assistant addressed the passengers. He started by thanking everybody on board for choosing CR Carriers bus company and explained our route, including the stops along the way and the expected time of arrival in Chipata. I was really impressed.
Before he concluded, the driver’s assistant asked for a volunteer to lead us in prayer. A man seated somewhere at the back spoke up. The way that man prayed reminded me of my mother: it was a long, highly charged and emotional prayer. I was deeply moved. When eventually the man said ‘Amen’ the driver’s assistant proclaimed, ‘Now God is in charge!’ Most passengers agreed with a loud ‘Amen’.
The bus on the Great East Road to Chipata, once known as Fort Jameson, was even more comfortable than the one on which I had ridden to Lusaka from Livingstone the previous day. It was also very fast. Given the condition of the roads and the speed of the driving, it was little wonder the Zambian government did not allow buses to travel at night. I tried to draw comfort from the assistant driver’s concluding words.
We passengers were treated to a film, a Nigerian comedy called Mr Ibu, which would have put Mr Bean to shame. Mr Ibu reminded me of the American comedian Martin Lawrence: both are always in trouble, either with their loved ones or the law, and both have their own way of solving their problems, which mostly leads to undesired consequences.
I noticed that some passengers were looking at me askance, seemingly finding it very strange that I should laugh so loudly at Mr Ibu’s antics. Zambians, especially the women, laugh softly, as if they are shy or unwilling, perhaps because they are such laid-back and easygoing people. This has nothing to do with their sense of humour – they seem to laugh at almost anything. If they cannot understand something, they laugh. If they see something unusual, they laugh, too.
Speaking of an African sense of humour, if there is such a thing, of all the people I met on this trip the Egyptians must be blessed with the driest sense of humour. So dry in fact that it doesn’t exist. Give me a Zambian any time of the year.
About an hour and a half after leaving Lusaka, the bus suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere. Some passengers, both men and women, got out and started relieving the pressure on their bladders on the long grass at the side of the road. Everything worked in a very well-rehearsed and synchronised manner: men on one side, women on the other, all going about their business as if no one were watching. Within a few minutes, with everybody back on board, we continued on our way to Chipata, stopping at Nyimba, a small dusty town dominated by a relatively big market. Despite its size, Nyimba is one of only eight ‘district towns’ in Zambia’s Eastern Province.
As on the previous day’s journey from Livingstone to Lusaka, I observed that for most Zambians the preferred mode of transport was a bicycle. In Livingstone and Lusaka poverty was less apparent than in the small towns on the road to Chipata. Notwithstanding its copper mines, which were privatised in 2002, Zambia is rated one of the world’s poorest nations, where more than 70 per cent of the population live on less than US$1 a day. Watching from the window of the bus, I could not help but feel that, although we had our own problems in South Africa, our African brothers and sisters seemed to have it even tougher. What was most discouraging was that young kids, instead of being at school, were selling fruit at the market.
After Katete, the condition of the road deteriorated significantly, but the big potholes did not deter the driver from maintaining his high speed. In the record time of seven and a half hours, including brief stops, we covered 515 kilometres and reached the small and seedy town of Chipata. I could have used the opportunity to visit South Luangwa National Park, which is said to offer one of the best animal-viewing experiences in southern Africa. Not, however, for shoe-stringers like myself. Visitors, apparently, had to spend a minimum of US$80 per day – four times my daily budget.
As I got off the bus I was surrounded by bus touts and INformal CUrrency TRaders – incutras for short, my name for an African profession that should be included in every dictionary on the planet. Somehow, without my saying a word, the locals knew that I was not from their area, regardless of how hard I tried to fit in. I noticed that people in Chipata were much darker than those in Livingstone and Lusaka. One guy, while I was waiting for my backpack to be offloaded from the bus, kept saying to me, ‘Come on, big man. Taxi for you. Good price for you. You have Zambia’s kwacha, rands or dollars? We give you good price.’ Since Chipata is the last town before Malawi, he knew that I would soon be needing Malawian money.
Eventually, I succumbed to the pressure and got 1 200 Malawian kwachas for my 15 000 Zambian kwachas. Malawia’s currency was clearly far stronger than Zambia’s.
Along with a couple of passengers from the bus, I waited while the sedan (taxi) that was going to take us to the border filled up. A defence-force truck drove down the main street. A soldier, seated with two other soldiers in the back, fired his rifle into the air, seemingly for the fun of it. Everybody continued with what they were doing as if nothing had happened. Gunfire, I concluded, was not unusual for the residents of Chipata, but it was the first such incident on my trip and it made me feel very uneasy.
Another surprise was the number of passengers that were loaded into the unroadworthy sedans that took people to the border: four on the back seat, two in front, excluding the driver. As we left Chipata I read the sign on a big billboard: Aids is a highway to the grave. Earlier I had read that life expectancy in Zambia had fallen to below 40 years; AIDS was reported to have killed almost 100 000 Zambians in 2004 alone.
The 20-something kilometres between Chipata and the border flew by; the youngster in the driver’s seat drove like a maniac despite the large number of bicycles transporting people and luggage across the border, as well as the foot traffic on the road.
It was easy to get stamped out of Zambia, but getting stamped into Malawi was not so simple – the Malawian immigration offices were nowhere to be seen.
I have learned that fantasies must sometimes remain just that. Therefore, I have no intention of fulfilling that threesome fantasy with two nuns in this lifetime. Maybe in the next.
Banda’s Malawi
Father of the Nation
Once known as Nyasaland, the independent Commonwealth of Malawi came into existence on 6 July 1964, bringing to an end the Central African Federation comprised of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the protectorate of Nyasaland which had been established by Britain in 1907. When Nyasaland was gr
anted self-governing status in 1963, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda became the first prime minister.
Kamuzu Banda was born in British Central Africa in 1896 (or, officially, in 1906). He was given the name Hastings when he was baptised into the Church of Scotland, established in the country by missionaries such as David Livingstone, the first European to set eyes on Lake Malawi (in 1859). At the age of 19, Hastings Banda left home on foot for Southern Rhodesia and, two years later, for the gold mines of Johannesburg. Sponsored by the African Methodist Church, he qualified as a medical doctor in New York and, in 1937, enrolled for a second medical degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to enable him to practise in any country in the British Empire. He subsequently spent seven years in West Africa, working as a doctor.
When he returned home, after 42 years abroad, Dr Banda could no longer speak his home language, Chichewa. After five years in office, he declared himself president-for-life (a position he held for 27 years), with the official title His Excellency, Life President of the Republic of Malawi. Also, Ngwazi, which means ‘great lion’ in Chichewa. During his reign almost all Malawi’s landmarks were renamed after him: Kamuzo Highway, Kamuzo Bridge, Kamuzo Dam …
Banda’s life presidency finally succumbed to uprisings in 1994. After the reintroduction of a multiparty political system, he was succeeded by Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front who, after ten years as president, was succeeded, in 2004, by President Bingu wa Mutharika.
I had heard that in some African countries you travel in what is referred to as ‘no man’s land’ when you are stamped out of one country but have to cover a certain distance before being legally allowed into the neighbouring one. That is exactly what happens between Chipata in Zambia and Mchinji in Malawi. After I had left Zambian territory, I had to catch a taxi to cover the ten kilometres or so to the Malawian immigration office.
Dark Continent my Black Arse Page 6