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.