Rural Zambian Hospitality

Some people go to amusement parks and pay hard-earned money for rides like this. Strapped securely into our pickup, we jarred and jostled along the cratered clay-dirt road. Literally miles before, we’d turned off the main (and only paved) road, at the sign for the two small schools.

No street signs or postings of any kind marked the way to the home of my colleague Richard’s sister, Miss Mumba, just occasional forks in the dusty path. (Even Richard has trouble with her first name!) At these decisive branches he’d query clusters of school children seen ambling along in the heat of the day. They chattered among themselves before deciding which way to point us. After stopping several times and veering to other bumpier and narrower, less traveled strips of scraped earth, we finally came to the place. People immediately sprung up to greet us. It was easier to imagine I was gripping the strong, sandpapery palm of a salty bosun than that of this slight woman in her sixties. Miss Mumba subsists by farming a small plot and keeping a couple pigs and a handful of chickens. The chickens bed in a laddered, elevated pen to keep them safe from hungry dogs and foxes.

Richard informed me later that he hadn’t seen Miss Mumba in five years, and that she wasn’t really his sister, but his cousin. That Richard would refer to and visit a cousin as one would a sister sheds some light on the place accorded relationships in Zambia.

As is customary, Miss Mumba asked Richard what I would like to eat. Earlier, when we were rocking and rolling along the pockmarked Italian- and Chinese-made macadam, I happened to casually mention to Richard how much I enjoy Zambian “ground nuts” (essentially peanuts). He divulged that a “sister” of his cultivates them; we would visit her and she would give me some. Back at Miss Mumba's, a few yards away a woman hovered over a smoky fire roasting ground nuts for me, stirring them with a naked corn cob.

As I sat with others in the shade of a thatch gazebo-like dome, Richard handed me a white bowl of the raw legumes. A cat and dog dozed lazily beside each other, not exactly a lion and a lamb, but that image crossed my mind. Less peaceful was the squawking “village chicken” I noticed struggling to escape the steely grip holding it by the neck and bottom; Miss Mumba’s.

Someone asked if I ate nshima, the porridge-like maize-based Zambian staple. It suddenly dawned on me that Miss Mumba was about to kill one of her few chickens to offer us some Zambian hospitality. Richard prevailed in his protest that we needed to get back on the road to arrive at our destination before dark. It is difficult to describe how humbling it is to receive such a genuine and selfless offer of hospitality. She and her small group of friends giggled giddily when the saw the digital image of themselves.

Compassion in Community

It was our last day in Senanga and my colleague Richard was teaching. Into the classroom burst Rev. Lydia Mwale with an unmistakable sense of urgency. Rev. Mwale is the pastor of the local congregation of the United Church of Zambia. Facing the class and peering out of her oval, black-rimmed glasses, she somberly announced, “We have a problem and I need your help. A man whom we don’t know died yesterday (most Zambians don’t embalm their dead; hence, some of the urgency), and his only living relatives are two women from out of town. They have no money, not even for a coffin, and they have come to us hoping for help providing a proper burial. What should we do?”

The class participants began peppering Rev. Mwale with questions and exchanging ideas. What would a new coffin cost? 190,000 kwacha. (~$55 [U.S.] – consider that ~70% of Zambians are unemployed and many of those employed earn < $1/day). Rev. Mwale suggested a more economical option, making a coffin from planks of wood they’d buy. (One elderly woman offered two planks she had at home. Moments later she was called away and informed that she herself had need of the planks. Her mother-in-law had just died. The good news is that the woman had celebrated 105 birthdays, about 2.75 times the thirty-eight of the average Zambian.)

Rev. Mwale led the class to consensus. A collection would be taken and the course of action determined by the amount received. Richard offered a brief prayer and the first contribution (a substantial one, I think). A man named Happy (Zambians have the coolest names), who had walked forty miles over two days to attend these classes, made his way to the front of the class. A female student handed him a white lace handkerchief in which to place the collection. The class began singing in Lozi. Happy cradled the handkerchief in his hands as one by one, randomly like corn popping, students rose and strode forward to release a cupped, kwacha-filled palm into the cloth. Later, I learned that enough had been collected to honor this man with a dignified burial. Is there not a profound contrast between this community-oriented society – sharing, giving, and yes, even asking and receiving when in need – and the one many of us know, a society oriented to being fiercely independent?

The Mighty Zambezi: Source of Life

Greetings friends, from beautiful Zambia! Believe it or not, for nearly half of the time since arriving in Zambia on Sept. 1, I have been on the road. Last week I just got back from two weeks and a journey of about 1,200 rugged miles to Zambia’s Western Province, to Mongu and Senanga. This is the region of the Barotse flood plain, where the mighty Zambezi River often overflows its banks from heavy rains in late February and March. This river, whose source is in the hills of northwestern Zambia, helps sustain life over a vast expanse of Zambia and Mozambique, on its way to the Indian Ocean. Seeing the Zambezi and its people took me back to grammar school studies of Zambia’s African cousins – the ancient Egyptians peopling the shores of the Nile. I recalled how central the river was and still is a source of life for the Egyptians. The same goes for the Zambezi, for Zambians.

In Senanga I saw cattle grazing on grass fed by streams diverting from the Zambezi’s western banks. A fishermen, sitting in his boat, tucked snuggly against the shore, dropped two thin bamboo poles into the shallows of the Zambezi, hopeful to feed his family tonight. Men and boys faintly resembling Venetian gondoliers stood in long, thin boats. In the blazing sun astride stilt-like wooden oars, they poled their way along the slack water at the river’s edge, transporting sagging sacks of mealie meal downriver.

Boys headed to market toting a stick from which they’d tethered a fresh catch of bottlefish and bream. A thirsty metal pipe sucked water from the river to quench the parched throats of Senangans, and to enable them to prepare their nshima, their porridge-like maize-based staple.



On the (one and only) road back to Mongu from Senanga, women crowded around our truck hawking the dried fish they’d encased in round straw bundles. The waters of the Zambezi surely are a source of life. I couldn’t help but think about what Jesus said about “Living Water” in John 4.