Dancing and fireballs
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2009
1
59
81
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Kafue National Park,
Zambia
Saturday, September 26, 2009
To begin our journey Heini gave a long-winded boring speech where he said "Happy Happy" about twenty times but failed to mention what each team’s responsibilities were so that the four of us had to quietly explain things as we went along. Awkward because we had to tell people to wash their own dishes for example, people we didn’t even know at that point.
After breakfast was cooked and packed away we began our journey; our destination, the Kafue River. When we arrived to the river’s dock we saw a paddle-type boat awaiting us. We grabbed our night bags, tents, and sleeping bags with mattress and lugged them on board, waving goodbye to Anthony who was staying behind to make sure the truck was still in good order.
We all clustered around a set of stools on the edge of the boat, the new girls asking a few questions about how things are done and about Heini in general. It was a strain not to give away our annoyances with him, but I didn’t feel like we should poison them with our point of view so I said little on my opinion of him. As we talked we gradually started noticing the beauty around us, it was breathtaking. The river was fairly narrow and the dry hills were golden then turning into lush forests of varying shades of green.
Upriver mountains began sprouting up in the horizon as we drew closer. We noticed Charli wasn’t around and Heini said she was upstairs dancing with the locals. They were playing African music and a few locals around us were also moving rhythmically to the beat. I love the way people dance and smile here. They smile with their whole face and it’s so genuine, so full of happiness, they dance with unabashed delight.
Soon it was dinner time and the captain came over with a special plate of vegetarian food. Lola had decided to try being vegetarian at the beginning of the trip yet Heini never acknowledged it, so now we had to explain to the captain that we needed another empty plate and that we could split the food on my plate. He refused saying he would make another vegetarian plate. The food was strange though and so Gabe helped me with my plate so I wouldn’t look rude not finishing it all. The captain kept coming over to see how I liked it and so I was really grateful to Gabe for his stealthy eating.
As dusk fell we arrived to our camp, a flat grassy plane with steps leading up to a set of bathrooms. Waiting for us on the shore was a dance troupe who began an exuberant performance as we sat spellbound and delighted on the boat. They were dressed in bright red clothing, from head to foot, their pants tapering in the bottom and held with elastic or else cut off around their shins, dancing and playing music. Soon one of the locals jumped off the boat, ran down and did a funny dance to the whoops and hollers of his friends on board.
So exuberant
Performance on the bank
After that we jumped off the boat with our belongings, the guys helping to grab all our tents and mattresses. We set up our tent as night fell and by the time we went down to the fire everyone was there, hot chocolate in hand, sitting on tight wooden benches. The performers waited for a dramatic lull and then began dancing and singing and beating their drums again. After close to forty five minutes they began pulling us up one by one and we danced in a circle trying to imitate their strange movements and rhythms. The funniest was Hilda who obviously loves to dance and whose hips were obviously used to salsa dancing and other Latin rhythms. She was beside herself and danced with abandon, tossing her head up into the air and clapping her hands over her head.
We laughed and clapped and got to know each other a little better as people did solo dances in the middle with one of the red-clad dancing guys. It was a funny dance and there was no way not to look goofy. Gabe and a few others had stayed aside and I shot him sidelong glances every once in a while.
Dancing
Singing around the fire
Look at those moves!
When they finally let us sit, panting, they continued on for a while, eventually a fire dancer performing. This part I really didn’t like. He would swallow and hold in his mouth what smelled like propane gas, the overflow dripping down his chest and sizzling as it met with fire on the way down. In his hand he had a torch which he had lighted. He would dance around and then every once in a while he would tip his head back and spurt the gas in the air putting the fire up to his mouth and sending fireballs up into the air. He seemed drunk or giddy with excitement and kept coming up really close to us, dancing and sort of gyrating. Lola and I both pulled away each time and shook our heads. It can’t have been good for him and I felt bad that he did this to himself for a tip or as a job and that it was tourists like us who were continuing it.
Fire guy
Gasoline
And then the fire
