Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

Leaving the Bangweulu Swamps was like passing back through Alice’s looking glass. Along the road we had taken two days earlier, we once more waved at dancing children. In one village, Willie Momba called to us from the side of the road. He produced a box tied up with string. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back. I wanted to give you these sweet potatoes.” He presented what must have been a third of his harvest. “I was so glad to meet you.” After some protest we accepted his gift. He stood in the road and waved at us until we were out of sight. We felt privileged to have visited this world. These people’s poignant generosity, the intense interest they showed in us, and their unaffected good humor were as fundamental to our experience of the country as the impeccable weather.

Farther from the swamps, the houses became bigger and were set back from the road, and the people seemed more prosperous. Perhaps they had seen more foreigners, because they waved more sedately from farther away. By midafternoon we came upon a sign, bright blue letters on white: TURN RIGHT TO THE PALACE OF CHIEF CHITAMBO. A hundred yards on was another sign pointing THIS WAY TO THE PALACE OF CHIEF CHITAMBO. We drove past a school and a dirt field with children bouncing balls. The largest sign yet announced YOU ARE APPROACHING THE PALACE OF CHIEF CHITAMBO. PLEASE REMOVE YOUR HAT AND GET OFF YOUR BICYCLE. Beyond low gates was a small square of well-kept English-looking grass, in the middle of which stood a tall flagpole. At the far side of the green were three identical low white buildings, and some scattered sheds.

Beneath a tree could be seen the legs of a deck chair, most of which was obscured by an enormous newspaper. The newspaper descended to reveal a spry man in camping shorts. “You are welcome to my palace,” said the chief in a plummy accent. He led us to his office, where he told us the history of the Chitambe tribe. He was committed to land conservation, he told us, and he rode around on his bicycle each year to visit every one of his ninety thousand subjects. Drinking the Coca-Cola he had given us, we told him how beautiful Zambia was, and how kind his tribesmen had been to us, and a little bit about America. The chief passed a guest book for us to sign. Outside, he showed us around the grounds. The three low buildings were for his three wives; he spends a week with one, a week with the next, and a week with the third. When we mentioned our practice of having only one wife and living with her full-time, he asked, “Don’t you end up arguing a lot?”

The chief had his picture taken with each of us under the flag. As we were leaving, he explained, sotto voce, that it was customary to leave some small trinket after such a meeting. We gave him a few dollars for his education fund. Then one of us offered a hat she had planned to give to a child, a sort of squashed tennis hat made of bright plaid with large figures of Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street sewn on the front. Chief Chitambo put on the hat, and when he had it adjusted perfectly, we took a group picture. We piled back into our vehicle, and the chief, like Willie Momba, stood in the road and waved until we turned a corner and were out of sight.

By the time we arrived at the small Kasanka National Park, the moon was full and the valley smelled of flowers. Gavin woke us the next morning before sunrise, and we climbed a tall, rickety ladder into the highest branches of a tree. As the sun lifted the steam, we saw herds of the rare sitatunga antelope. Gavin had brought a thermos; we drank tea and munched biscuits and heard the first birdsong. One of us had to fly out that day, so we headed to Lusaka. It was a sad day, and a long one, too.

Lusaka is an ugly city: dirty, crowded, and smelly. We stayed outside town at a plush lodge: our rooms had modern light fixtures, hot water came out of the tap whenever you turned it on, and there was even a swimming pool—all quite welcome after the swamps. When I headed to my rondavel after dinner, I found it surrounded by zebras, grazing on the verdant lawn. When I slowly approached, they stepped not more than three feet aside. I stopped at the door and looked at one, and she returned my gaze. If you have spent a week looking through binoculars and craning your neck to see animals properly, such sudden intimacy is heady. The zebra and I stared curiously like strangers on a train; then, as though she had found out all she needed, she turned and trotted off.