We got permission from the head man's wife to go into his compound. It was enclosed by a fence of upright logs, and consisted of 3 or 4 small buildings. There was a smoky fire in the open kitchen in the middle of the compound, and a rack nearby for pots and pans.
There were other huts outside the head man's compound, a pen full of goats, a squash patch and a corn (or sugar cane, or both) patch. One woman outside a hut was preparing some sort of herb and putting it out to dry. A teenager was stretched out on a blanket in the shade listening to an Ipod connected by cables to a pair of little solar panels. As we were heading back out of the village, we found that a display of crafts - jewelry, woven baskets and wooden bowls - had been laid out for us under the baobab tree, attended by 3 women. We saw no men during our visit.
We walked back to the river, stopping at Immigration on the way. Then back across the river to Botswana immigration and on to the hotel. The next day, we all got on a tour boat and headed upriver for a view of the wildlife from the river.
One night after dinner a group of young people entertained with dancing and singing. They were very good, but I never heard just who they were and where they came from. It was too dark for a good video, but the singing can be heard in this video taken by fellow traveler Pat Quiring, Our next destination was the Great Zimbabwe, the site of a ruined city in the southeastern hills of Zimbabwe, but it would be a long trip. We travelled in our two buses, each with a trailer for the luggage. We passed through the town of Kasane, just outside Chobe National Park. Homes there were surrounded by either fences or walls to keep out the elephants. We travelled a short distance to the bank of the Zambezi River, right where the Chobe flows into it. The buses left us there to be ferried across the river and picked up by another pair of buses on the Zambia side. First we had to go through Botswana immigration, of course. There wasn't much of a dock there, and the first few of us were ferried across in a rather small boat. The rest went on a larger one. We were told that Zambia and Botswana had been trying to get a bridge built there for years, but it hasn't happened because Zimbabwe refused to contribute its share. Still, this was a major crossing for trucks, and they crossed one at a time on a fleet of 2 or 3 barges. Trucks were backed up for miles on each side. Our new bus had a guide in addition to the driver, and he was great, giving us a huge amount of information on our one hour ride to the Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport in Livingstone, Zambia. He said the backup at the Zambezi crossing had been going on for years. Due to high water and barge problems, the wait currently was 10 days. Many truck drivers moved their families to the area because they knew they would be spending days there and it enabled them to spend time with them. The backup created an industry of services to the idled drivers, such as bringing them food and providing movers who were paid to move the trucks up when the line moved, allowing the driver to get away to visit family or whatever. Some movers were in charge of multiple trucks. Trucks moved about 20 meters per day.
The airport is in the city of Livingstone, Zambia. Livingstone seemed in much better shape than any cities we'd seen in Zimbabwe or Botswana. Our guide said that Zambia won its independence in 1974 and is relatively stable. The president and vice-president of Zambia had been childhood friends. The black president's father was the cook for the white vice-president's father, who was a doctor. 73 languages are spoken. Due to the AIDS epidemic, 75% of the population is under age 39. The airport was modern, clean and apparently brand new, as suggested by a couple of small glitches yet to be corrected: the clocks high on the walls didn't seem to be working and the hand dryers in the restrooms didn't blow hard enough to have any effect. Also, several spaces for shops had no tenants yet and there was no place to eat. Our South African Airlines plane was the only one on the tarmac.
Our destination was the Great Zimbabwe, but we first flew to Johannesburg, waited around the airport for a few hours, then flew to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, where we were bused to the Bronte Hotel. We stayed the night in this beautiful old hotel, an oasis in a city that appears to have been going down hill for the last 20 years.
Signs of deterioration and poverty were everywhere. Several buildings in mid-construction seemed to have been abandoned years ago. The country has been under control of president Robert Mugabe and his followers since the 1980 revolution that ended white rule. Mugabe turned one of the most prosperous countries in Africa into a land of terror and poverty, encouraging his followers - mostly veterans of the revolution - to take over the prosperous farms and businesses of the whites and to terrorize, beat or kill any blacks who politically opposed him. Life expectancy went from a high of 61.37 in 1985 to a low of 42.87 in 2003. What wasn't stolen outright was taken by the government through hyperinflation. In the town of Victoria Falls, a guy pestered us to buy - for a few American dollars - Zimbabwean currency. Cindy bought bills that had face values of five thousand, ten hundred thousand and five billion. Before the currency was abandoned all together, people hauled wheelbarrows full of money to the store to buy a loaf of bread.
|
