Mosi-oa-Tunya

We snaked our way to the outskirts of Livingstone, along the reasonably good paved road carved through tall, wispy grass, brush, and trees. The town is named for the Scot Dr. David Livingstone, the great medical doctor, explorer, and Christian missionary, for whom Zambians seem to have great respect and affection. There was a steady rumbling sound in the distance. Finally, through a clearing at an elbow in the road, one could glimpse the sparkling, royal blue waters of the Zambezi River that we had been shadowing. The sun was shining brightly overhead, tucked into a crystal clear blue sky. Another blue-sky day in Zambia, sort of. “Sort of”—because several hundred yards down river we could see some apparently very low-lying clouds hovering like smoke over the water. Courtesy of five months of persistent rain – virtually daily, intermittent but often seemingly of Noahic proportions –the water volume and rush of the Zambezi are greatest at this time of year. The fluid border between Zim and Zam is exactly that—fluid—indiscriminately encroaching onto (and later receding from) Zim and Zam soil.

This is where the bottom falls out of the mile wide Zambezi, for 350 feet. Thus, the rumbling sound we’d heard. Dr. Livingstone proclaimed in 1855 that his were the first European eyes to witness what the local Makololo inhabitants called Mosi-oa-Tunya, “the smoke that thunders.” Victoria Falls, the good doctor’s name for the place, doesn’t seem as respectful of this sight, one of the seven wonders of the natural world, or as imaginative. The clouds we’d seen were actually mist rising from below, generated by the indescribable force of the massive volume of water cascading over the boulders and crashing on rocks below. It is beyond my ken to convey the sheer power of this sight with words or pictures.




I’d been warned that I’d get wet viewing the falls—that it was useless to bring an umbrella or raincoat. Besides, on this cloudless blue-sky day, wearing a tee shirt, running shorts, and flip flops, I’d be dry in ten minutes anyway. So out I stepped, onto the footbridge connecting Zam and Zim. Because of the heavy mist, I could not see the falls to my right. At that moment, for all I knew, I had become part of them. I’ve had only a handful of showers since I’ve been in Zambia. The one I had on that misty footbridge was c-o-l-d, but with the most phenomenal water pressure! Once on the Zim side I glanced back at the biggest and most vivid rainbow I’d ever seen.

If the rainbow is a symbol of hope for humanity, of God’s covenant of faithfulness with us, so too perhaps, may this rainbow over the Zambezi be a symbol of hope for Zambia (Gen 9:12-17). With issues related to food production, clean sources of power generation, and water availability and distribution increasingly becoming problems in many parts of the world (South Africa and elsewhere in Africa, Middle East, western U.S., etc.), does not Zambia have an opportunity to use its abundant and water resources to diversify its copper-dependent economy? Let’s hope so, and pray that Zam’s government, business leaders, and neighbors will handle these resources as respectfully as their Makololo ancestors treated the smoke that thunders.