Zambian Stories
The windows of the house falling out, and Artie Nel.
On arrival in Kitwe in July 1966, Arlene and I spent the first 10 days in the brand-new Edinburgh Hotel, while the company made a house ready for us. What luxury – Crayfish Meuniere at 15/- (about $US$2.00), and a good Tournedo for even less! Never had either of us had it so good.
But all good things must come to an end, and after 10 days we moved into a house in “The Gulch” – a crescent of semi-detached bungalows near the Convent in which Anglo American Corp put all of its new employees. The evening that we moved in, we realized that the place was literally seething with cockroaches, and so, after killing as many as we could and unpacking our suitcases (it would be a couple of months before any trunks arrived: they had been shipped to “Chartered Exploration – Lusaka. In bond via Beira”) we fell into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning I went to see Mr. Nel, over in the AAC offices opposite Coronation Square - the rumor was that the bigwigs over there refused to have the exploration offices in their building, because we geologists left big muddy bootprints all over their nice clean carpets. Mr. Nel obviously DID NOT like it that I was complaining, and immediately launched into an emphatic speech: “Look, Mr. Berry, we are not in London and we are not in New York, we are in the middle of Effrika, and there is nothing I can dew about a few cockroaches. You will just have to learn to live with them!” So I went over to Diamond’s Supermarket and bought a Communist Chinese stirrup pump and some really nasty bilious yellow poison to go in it.
That evening we sprayed in all the nooks and crannies in the kitchen, and at everything that moved. I was really angry at Artie Nel, so I gathered a couple of hundred dead or dying cockroaches into the pages of the day’s “Times of Zambia”, and went to bed.
The next morning I went over to his office again, newspaper in hand, to be greeted by the same tirade: “Look Mr. Berry, I have told you once and I will tell you again, you are not in London and you are not in New York….” I interrupted his speech by dumping the dead and sticky cockroaches all over his desk, and walked out. The next day the exterminators came around to the house.
About a week later, as I shut the door of the living room on the way to bed, the entire outside wall of the room fell out, with a mighty crash of breaking glass. The wall consisted of a wooden frame holding a row of louvered windows which ran the length of the room: the frame had been completely consumed by termites. Again, I went over to Artie Nel’s office, to be greeted by, “Gott, Mr. Berry, I hev told you before and I’ll tell you again, we are not in New …” This time, however, he was obviously fed up with my complaints and was not going to do anything about it, even if the sky had fallen in. I had no evidence to dump on him, so I had to get my boss, Pete Freeman, involved, and we got the maintenance crew out within a couple of days.
The fire at the petrol depot
One Sunday soon after we arrived we were awoken from a mid-afternoon nap by the shouts of children outside, and immediately realized from the low rumble, almost pressure waves rather than audible sound, that permeated the air, that something was badly wrong. Leaping up, we could see from the window a huge column of black smoke rising from the Light Industrial Area. We jumped into the car and drove out to the Chingola Road, from where we could soon see that one of the large tanks at the Petrol Depot, the only one in town, was ablaze. We drove down the London Road and joined a small knot of spectators watching workmen rolling 44-gallon drums of petrol away from the blazing tank, through thick smoke and enormous heat. The men were showing incredible courage, and managed to get most of the 44-gallon drums away from the fire.
However, we heard later and read in the morning papers that, on the other side of the fire, the side that adjoined an African township, UNIP Youth agitators had incited a small riot against whites. This had spilled over onto the main road, where rocks were thrown at the cars coming into town from Chingola. A lady was killed by a rock that came through her windscreen.
This incident caused a drop in the petrol ration from 10 imperial gallons per month to 8 gallons, which was a real hardship for anybody who did not live close to work.
Robson's Old Shoes
Our gardener was an older African, a Lunda by tribe, named Robson. Robson was a tiny person, hardly over 5 feet tall, with a shiny bald head.
One day while I was out supervising his work, I noticed as he knelt down to plant something that the upper of one of his boots had come completely adrift from the sole. I pointed this out to Robson, and asked him if he needed money to get repairs made, to which the answer was "Azikulo indaba, Bwana, ena fanikaso lo clocodile!" (No problem, Boss, the boot is just like a crocodile!).
When a Child is Ready for School.
After working for us for a while, Robson moved his much younger wife and small son into the khaiya, or servants' quarters, adjoining our garage. The little boy was soon helping Robson with various gardening tasks, although he was no more than just four years old. Pretty soon we noticed that, not only did he speak ChiLunda, Robson's language, but he was also learning a lot of ChiBemba, the dominant African language of the Copperbelt, as well as a little English.
We thought he seemed pretty smart, so one day we asked Robson why he hadn't sent him to school. Robson called the child over and gave him what seemed to be an order. The boy reached over his head with his right arm and attempted to touch his left ear. Of course, he could not, as his head was still much too large in relation to the length of his arm. Whereupon Robson announced, "You see, Bwana, he can not bite him hear." "We said, "Robson, what has that got to do with school?" "Ah, Bwana, when he can bite him hear, then he is old enough to go for sukool! See?", and he reached over his own head and could easily grab hold of his ear on the other side.
The Biggest Snake in the World.
One day, I was trying, with Robson's assistance, to clear the drain of a little concrete pond in our back yard. The drain was a buried 1-inch I.D. iron pipe. Standing water was a problem in Zambia, as it quickly attracted mosquitoes and these brought malaria. I had a very long piece of wire, long enough to reach all the way from the outflow back to the pond, but for a long time I could not get it go far in, and had difficulty getting it back out of the pipe. Suddenly it came free, and with it not only a rush of putrid water but a 7-foot long, thin black snake which fortunately was very nearly asleep, since it matched exactly the description and picture of a Black Mamba (this was in the Zambian winter, when night-time temperatures regularly drop to around 40 degrees F.).
We quickly killed the snake with a hoe, and then got to talking about snakes in general. Robson: "Bwana, what is the biggest snake in the world?"
"I'm not sure Robson, but I think the South American Anaconda must be the biggest. It's a constrictor, like a python."
"How big is this Anaconda, Bwana?"
"Oh, I think it can reach 70 feet."
Robson looks appraisingly across the yard, which we both know is about 120 feet, and then
"Aikhona, Bwana! That is not a very big snake!"
"What do you mean Robson."
"Ah, Bwana, a long time ago, before the Mzungu (white man) came, my father was on the way going to Mwata Yamvo to see the King."
Mwata Yamvo, now in the Congo about 200 miles north of the northwesternmost corner of Zambia, was the capital of the western Lunda Empire. Before dividing into two halves in the nineteenth century, the Lunda Empire had controlled the entire south-central part of Africa, including parts of Angola, most of Zambia, all of southern Congo, and even parts of Tanzania and Malawi. The Lunda had for centuries been strong enough to prevent any over land contact between the Portuguese colonies of Angola on the west coast and Mozambique on the east coast. During the grab for Africa the western Lunda lands had been divided accidentally and almost equally between Zambia, the Congo, and Angola.
"Robson, that's a long way. Why did your father have to go to see Mwata Yamvo."
"Bwana, my father was a very important man, a councillor, that is why. It was eight days to Mwata Yamvo and eight days back again."
"And so, your father saw a big snake."
"Ah, Bwana: he is being for five days on the road, and he is coming to a mukulu kamuti (a big tree lying down across the way). This kamuti is so mukulu he is for cutting another chimuti (tree) to make a ladder. He is for leaning the ladder up against the kamuti, he is for climbing up the ladder, ten steps, eleven.....twelef...Ah! The kamuti is for moving! It is a snake! My father he is for jumping off and hiding behind a big tree. After a while no more movement, so my father he turns to the left and he goes half a day through the bhundu (bush). Always the snake on the right. So he is for turning around and going for a half day to the right. Still the snake. Then he goes another two hours and finally he is come to the tail of the snake, and he is for walking around it and carrying on to Mwata Yamvo."
"Bwana, THAT is a mukulu snake!!"
The Witch
The watchman in my camp on the Chibuluma Road was Samson, who was a wizened madala (old man) of 59. One day Samson was on the way to the neighboring village when he met Lashwell's 7-year-old daughter coming home to camp, crying bitterly. Samson, who was a kind man and a Christian, stopped and asked her what was the problem.
"Ai, maningi indaba, Bwana Samsoni, I have dropped the bottle of salad (cooking oil) that my mother sent me to get, and it is broken. I will be beaten at home."
Samson reached in his pocket and gave the girl a susu (sixpence, about a nickel in American money in those days), and told her to go and buy another bottle.
Several weeks later, the girl's little brother James, about four years old, became exceedingly sick. He already had a distended belly and was very weak, but he was now covered in sores and declining further. My head-man, Chileshe, asked me to talk to the parents, because he and the others in camp recognized the symptoms of kwashiorkor, and they knew that the family's diet consisted almost entirely of sudza (mealie or corn meal) and Fanta orange soda.
I tried to explain to the parents that they needed to eat some relish (the local word for any protein or vegetable that was eaten along with the mealie meal staple), and gave them some examples. However, the situation grew worse and I had to take little James to hospital.
In the midst of all this Samson told me that he had to go to the Local Court. There were two systems of justice in Zambia, the "European" system and the local system. Serious crimes and those involving expatriates were tried in the European Courts, which functioned basically under English Common Law. Minor offences were tried under the local system, in which the court consisted mainly of the village chief and his advisers.
I didn't think much about Samson's visit to court until Chileshe told me that Samson needed to borrow some money, because he had been fined. So I asked Samson what it was all about.
He told me the story of his encounter with Lashwell's daughter and his gift of sixpence to her. And then he told me that her parents therefore suspected that he had bewitched their son James and it was he, Samson, who was killing the boy. I couldn't believe this, so I asked Chileshe to explain it to me.
"Well, Bwana, Samson is not related to Lashwell or his family - in fact, he is from a different tribe. Therefore he has no reason to feel sorrow for the little girl or to help her. So the only reason he could have to help her is to gain occult power over her or one of her family members. So the parents believe that is why the boy is dying."
"But, Chileshe, why would Samson want to kill Lashwell's boy?"
"Aikona Bwana (I don't know), but Samson ena madala (is an old man). Maybe that is why."
"And the court believed Lashwell?"
"Ei, Mkwai (Yes, Sir), because Samson is very old, he should not be alive."
"And you believe this, too, Chileshe? How much was the fine?"
"I don't know if I believe it, Bwana, but Samson ena maningi madala (is VERY old). The fine was sine Kwacha, Bwana" (Four Kwacha (= six dollars)), Sir.)
This event gave me a completely different view of the New Testament stories of Jesus healing strangers and His parable of the Good Samaritan. From within the Christian tradition we have no difficulty in seeing a stranger in need as our brother, although we may have great difficulty in actually acting on the knowledge. But in Jesus' time, everybody would have had the attitude of the people in my camp: we see this even now in various parts of the world, including the Middle East. No-one would help a person who was not in some way bound to them, whether by kinship or other social bond. And we know from our own traditions and stories that most witches are old and wizened. So Samson's only crime was to have survived beyond the normal lifespan (about 50 in Zambia) and to have shown kindness.
On arrival in Kitwe in July 1966, Arlene and I spent the first 10 days in the brand-new Edinburgh Hotel, while the company made a house ready for us. What luxury – Crayfish Meuniere at 15/- (about $US$2.00), and a good Tournedo for even less! Never had either of us had it so good.
But all good things must come to an end, and after 10 days we moved into a house in “The Gulch” – a crescent of semi-detached bungalows near the Convent in which Anglo American Corp put all of its new employees. The evening that we moved in, we realized that the place was literally seething with cockroaches, and so, after killing as many as we could and unpacking our suitcases (it would be a couple of months before any trunks arrived: they had been shipped to “Chartered Exploration – Lusaka. In bond via Beira”) we fell into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning I went to see Mr. Nel, over in the AAC offices opposite Coronation Square - the rumor was that the bigwigs over there refused to have the exploration offices in their building, because we geologists left big muddy bootprints all over their nice clean carpets. Mr. Nel obviously DID NOT like it that I was complaining, and immediately launched into an emphatic speech: “Look, Mr. Berry, we are not in London and we are not in New York, we are in the middle of Effrika, and there is nothing I can dew about a few cockroaches. You will just have to learn to live with them!” So I went over to Diamond’s Supermarket and bought a Communist Chinese stirrup pump and some really nasty bilious yellow poison to go in it.
That evening we sprayed in all the nooks and crannies in the kitchen, and at everything that moved. I was really angry at Artie Nel, so I gathered a couple of hundred dead or dying cockroaches into the pages of the day’s “Times of Zambia”, and went to bed.
The next morning I went over to his office again, newspaper in hand, to be greeted by the same tirade: “Look Mr. Berry, I have told you once and I will tell you again, you are not in London and you are not in New York….” I interrupted his speech by dumping the dead and sticky cockroaches all over his desk, and walked out. The next day the exterminators came around to the house.
About a week later, as I shut the door of the living room on the way to bed, the entire outside wall of the room fell out, with a mighty crash of breaking glass. The wall consisted of a wooden frame holding a row of louvered windows which ran the length of the room: the frame had been completely consumed by termites. Again, I went over to Artie Nel’s office, to be greeted by, “Gott, Mr. Berry, I hev told you before and I’ll tell you again, we are not in New …” This time, however, he was obviously fed up with my complaints and was not going to do anything about it, even if the sky had fallen in. I had no evidence to dump on him, so I had to get my boss, Pete Freeman, involved, and we got the maintenance crew out within a couple of days.
The fire at the petrol depot
One Sunday soon after we arrived we were awoken from a mid-afternoon nap by the shouts of children outside, and immediately realized from the low rumble, almost pressure waves rather than audible sound, that permeated the air, that something was badly wrong. Leaping up, we could see from the window a huge column of black smoke rising from the Light Industrial Area. We jumped into the car and drove out to the Chingola Road, from where we could soon see that one of the large tanks at the Petrol Depot, the only one in town, was ablaze. We drove down the London Road and joined a small knot of spectators watching workmen rolling 44-gallon drums of petrol away from the blazing tank, through thick smoke and enormous heat. The men were showing incredible courage, and managed to get most of the 44-gallon drums away from the fire.
However, we heard later and read in the morning papers that, on the other side of the fire, the side that adjoined an African township, UNIP Youth agitators had incited a small riot against whites. This had spilled over onto the main road, where rocks were thrown at the cars coming into town from Chingola. A lady was killed by a rock that came through her windscreen.
This incident caused a drop in the petrol ration from 10 imperial gallons per month to 8 gallons, which was a real hardship for anybody who did not live close to work.
Robson's Old Shoes
Our gardener was an older African, a Lunda by tribe, named Robson. Robson was a tiny person, hardly over 5 feet tall, with a shiny bald head.
One day while I was out supervising his work, I noticed as he knelt down to plant something that the upper of one of his boots had come completely adrift from the sole. I pointed this out to Robson, and asked him if he needed money to get repairs made, to which the answer was "Azikulo indaba, Bwana, ena fanikaso lo clocodile!" (No problem, Boss, the boot is just like a crocodile!).
When a Child is Ready for School.
After working for us for a while, Robson moved his much younger wife and small son into the khaiya, or servants' quarters, adjoining our garage. The little boy was soon helping Robson with various gardening tasks, although he was no more than just four years old. Pretty soon we noticed that, not only did he speak ChiLunda, Robson's language, but he was also learning a lot of ChiBemba, the dominant African language of the Copperbelt, as well as a little English.
We thought he seemed pretty smart, so one day we asked Robson why he hadn't sent him to school. Robson called the child over and gave him what seemed to be an order. The boy reached over his head with his right arm and attempted to touch his left ear. Of course, he could not, as his head was still much too large in relation to the length of his arm. Whereupon Robson announced, "You see, Bwana, he can not bite him hear." "We said, "Robson, what has that got to do with school?" "Ah, Bwana, when he can bite him hear, then he is old enough to go for sukool! See?", and he reached over his own head and could easily grab hold of his ear on the other side.
The Biggest Snake in the World.
One day, I was trying, with Robson's assistance, to clear the drain of a little concrete pond in our back yard. The drain was a buried 1-inch I.D. iron pipe. Standing water was a problem in Zambia, as it quickly attracted mosquitoes and these brought malaria. I had a very long piece of wire, long enough to reach all the way from the outflow back to the pond, but for a long time I could not get it go far in, and had difficulty getting it back out of the pipe. Suddenly it came free, and with it not only a rush of putrid water but a 7-foot long, thin black snake which fortunately was very nearly asleep, since it matched exactly the description and picture of a Black Mamba (this was in the Zambian winter, when night-time temperatures regularly drop to around 40 degrees F.).
We quickly killed the snake with a hoe, and then got to talking about snakes in general. Robson: "Bwana, what is the biggest snake in the world?"
"I'm not sure Robson, but I think the South American Anaconda must be the biggest. It's a constrictor, like a python."
"How big is this Anaconda, Bwana?"
"Oh, I think it can reach 70 feet."
Robson looks appraisingly across the yard, which we both know is about 120 feet, and then
"Aikhona, Bwana! That is not a very big snake!"
"What do you mean Robson."
"Ah, Bwana, a long time ago, before the Mzungu (white man) came, my father was on the way going to Mwata Yamvo to see the King."
Mwata Yamvo, now in the Congo about 200 miles north of the northwesternmost corner of Zambia, was the capital of the western Lunda Empire. Before dividing into two halves in the nineteenth century, the Lunda Empire had controlled the entire south-central part of Africa, including parts of Angola, most of Zambia, all of southern Congo, and even parts of Tanzania and Malawi. The Lunda had for centuries been strong enough to prevent any over land contact between the Portuguese colonies of Angola on the west coast and Mozambique on the east coast. During the grab for Africa the western Lunda lands had been divided accidentally and almost equally between Zambia, the Congo, and Angola.
"Robson, that's a long way. Why did your father have to go to see Mwata Yamvo."
"Bwana, my father was a very important man, a councillor, that is why. It was eight days to Mwata Yamvo and eight days back again."
"And so, your father saw a big snake."
"Ah, Bwana: he is being for five days on the road, and he is coming to a mukulu kamuti (a big tree lying down across the way). This kamuti is so mukulu he is for cutting another chimuti (tree) to make a ladder. He is for leaning the ladder up against the kamuti, he is for climbing up the ladder, ten steps, eleven.....twelef...Ah! The kamuti is for moving! It is a snake! My father he is for jumping off and hiding behind a big tree. After a while no more movement, so my father he turns to the left and he goes half a day through the bhundu (bush). Always the snake on the right. So he is for turning around and going for a half day to the right. Still the snake. Then he goes another two hours and finally he is come to the tail of the snake, and he is for walking around it and carrying on to Mwata Yamvo."
"Bwana, THAT is a mukulu snake!!"
The Witch
The watchman in my camp on the Chibuluma Road was Samson, who was a wizened madala (old man) of 59. One day Samson was on the way to the neighboring village when he met Lashwell's 7-year-old daughter coming home to camp, crying bitterly. Samson, who was a kind man and a Christian, stopped and asked her what was the problem.
"Ai, maningi indaba, Bwana Samsoni, I have dropped the bottle of salad (cooking oil) that my mother sent me to get, and it is broken. I will be beaten at home."
Samson reached in his pocket and gave the girl a susu (sixpence, about a nickel in American money in those days), and told her to go and buy another bottle.
Several weeks later, the girl's little brother James, about four years old, became exceedingly sick. He already had a distended belly and was very weak, but he was now covered in sores and declining further. My head-man, Chileshe, asked me to talk to the parents, because he and the others in camp recognized the symptoms of kwashiorkor, and they knew that the family's diet consisted almost entirely of sudza (mealie or corn meal) and Fanta orange soda.
I tried to explain to the parents that they needed to eat some relish (the local word for any protein or vegetable that was eaten along with the mealie meal staple), and gave them some examples. However, the situation grew worse and I had to take little James to hospital.
In the midst of all this Samson told me that he had to go to the Local Court. There were two systems of justice in Zambia, the "European" system and the local system. Serious crimes and those involving expatriates were tried in the European Courts, which functioned basically under English Common Law. Minor offences were tried under the local system, in which the court consisted mainly of the village chief and his advisers.
I didn't think much about Samson's visit to court until Chileshe told me that Samson needed to borrow some money, because he had been fined. So I asked Samson what it was all about.
He told me the story of his encounter with Lashwell's daughter and his gift of sixpence to her. And then he told me that her parents therefore suspected that he had bewitched their son James and it was he, Samson, who was killing the boy. I couldn't believe this, so I asked Chileshe to explain it to me.
"Well, Bwana, Samson is not related to Lashwell or his family - in fact, he is from a different tribe. Therefore he has no reason to feel sorrow for the little girl or to help her. So the only reason he could have to help her is to gain occult power over her or one of her family members. So the parents believe that is why the boy is dying."
"But, Chileshe, why would Samson want to kill Lashwell's boy?"
"Aikona Bwana (I don't know), but Samson ena madala (is an old man). Maybe that is why."
"And the court believed Lashwell?"
"Ei, Mkwai (Yes, Sir), because Samson is very old, he should not be alive."
"And you believe this, too, Chileshe? How much was the fine?"
"I don't know if I believe it, Bwana, but Samson ena maningi madala (is VERY old). The fine was sine Kwacha, Bwana" (Four Kwacha (= six dollars)), Sir.)
This event gave me a completely different view of the New Testament stories of Jesus healing strangers and His parable of the Good Samaritan. From within the Christian tradition we have no difficulty in seeing a stranger in need as our brother, although we may have great difficulty in actually acting on the knowledge. But in Jesus' time, everybody would have had the attitude of the people in my camp: we see this even now in various parts of the world, including the Middle East. No-one would help a person who was not in some way bound to them, whether by kinship or other social bond. And we know from our own traditions and stories that most witches are old and wizened. So Samson's only crime was to have survived beyond the normal lifespan (about 50 in Zambia) and to have shown kindness.
posted by John Berry at 5:45 PM
0 comments
