Northern Road Trip 5
Trip Start
Apr 26, 2005
1
16
42
Trip End
Nov 17, 2005
Samfya,
Copperbelt Province,
Zambia
Sunday, July 10, 2005
At the northern end of Luapula and in the floodplains of Northern Province the Zambian military keeps an eye out for illegal fishermen from Congo, some of them the remnants of guerrilla forces still in periodic struggle with the Congolese armed forces. We pass through three military checkpoints on the road to northern Luapula, the camouflaged posts brisling with machine guns and ribbons of ammunition.
Further south and closer to home, it's dark, windy and cold at night in Samfya, a small town at the southern end of Lake Bangweulu
Chilubi Boat
. The sky is dazzling with stars, the Milky Way so thick that the dark areas stand out, and I wonder why I seem to be the only one marvelling at it. We have only a few days left on our tour and tomorrow we exchange the truck for a boat as we head out onto the lake. In the dimly-lit restaurant bar of our guesthouse, we wait for diner--chicken and nshima--and watch the Zambian national news on television. After dinner the channel is changed to a South African broadcast of Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" on digital satellite. Every now and then the shadow of a rat running around the roof passes over the screen.
The two elderly night watchmen have settled in to watch the show, and as I'm the only person in the room who's seen the movie I spend much of the flick explaining what's going on and why. The ancient Scottish drive for independence from Britain scores some points from this crowd, while the older watchmen, Mr. N'celwa--Mr. Brick, in English--reminisces fondly about the white colonists he worked for decades ago.
The next morning we face an interminable wait for the boat's captain to get his act together. When we find him at his home he's just woken up, a blob of toothpaste drying on the front of his t-shirt
Chilubi Island
. While he gets ready we go off to find some black market petrol. Samfya has only one filling station, run by an eccentric old woman who opens for business whenever she feels like it. When we go to her house to plead for gas she claims there's none in the tanks and shuts the door. When we finally get going we're only a few minutes out of the harbour and I'm already getting soaked. The narrow fibreglass fishing boat we've hired is not designed for a big lake, and on this windy morning the waves are splashing over the keel and onto me. As my clothes begin to soak through I regret my seating choice, beside Bwalya and Brian just ahead of the captain at the back of the boat.
A couple of health officials, taking advantage of the ride we've paid for, are sitting dry and smug up front. An attractive young woman, the wife of a local police commander, sits on the floor of the boat covering her infant girl from the wind. I'm getting the worst of the waves though Bwalya's suffering as well beside me. Whoever sat in this spot would be getting wet, and I know that everyone else on board is happy it's not them. It's said that things get worse before they get better. This boat ride is two hours long.
Chilubi Striptease
We're heading to Chilubi Island, a tiny spit of land in the middle of Lake Bangweulu. As small and remote as Chilubi is, the island is home to 32,000 people with a local Health Management Board boasting one of our HIV/Aids billboards. I'm beginning to regret not just my seating choice but the whole trip in general, cursing whoever's decision it was to put up a billboard in such a wretched and far-out place.
When we stop half-way to refill the gas tank I find a moment of relief from the wind and waves and bask in the warming sunshine. My clothes are as wet as if I'd jumped into the lake, water seeping into my underwear and sloshing around in my shoes. Only my back is dry.
I remember an American Armed Forces Network public service ad I saw in Seoul about hypothermia: "Things to watch out for are falling temperature, wind, and being wet." I consider the irony of catching hypothermia in Sub-Saharan Africa. Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund-Fitsgerald" is running through my head.
When we finally reach Chilubi I barely see the billboard perched by the shore. I'm so numb and wracked by shivers that I can only slide off the boat into the water and onto dry land. As the other passengers bail out behind me I pace the sand shaking, listening half-heartedly to the obvious concern of a nearby elderly woman. The captain interprets, explaining the woman's warning that there's a lot of malaria on Chilubi. She thinks I should run around the shore to warm up.
It's rare enough for a muzungu to visit Chilubi and I'll be damned if I'm the one that runs up and down the beach convulsing like a madman. I am in pretty bad shape, though, and finally strip down to my t-shirt and boxers, leaving my clothes to dry in the sun. Shaking violently, I trudge up to the billboard where Bwalya and Brian are already at work, assisted by a mute, slightly-loopy local man wearing a St. Patrick's Day t-shirt and sporting a mouthful of missing teeth. I wobble off in my underwear to find the health director.
Mr. Chris, owner of one of the two guesthouses on Chilubi, takes me to the director and on a tour of the islands beachfront. When I ask him about the economy of the island he explains how things have always worked. Because the land on Chilubi isn't arable residents exchange their fish for vegetables and maize from the mainland. These days many of the island's fishermen come home from a day on the lake with nothing in their nets. The fish are almost gone, he says, and so is the life-blood of the island.
My own blood is finally beginning to warm, and after some hot sweet tea at Chris's guesthouse I'm dressed again, dry and ready to leave. Sitting up front, I watch the wake from our boat clashing with the white-capped waves as if giving each other high-fives. I'm warm and dry and figure I've given hypothermia a miss. Unfortunately I'm going home with something else.
