Zambian Languages Publishing Challenges

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Author of “Sayings of my Mother”.

Introduction

After graduating from University of Zambia in 1976 with a double major in Sociology and Psychology, I was a Staff Lecturer and Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies of the University Zambia. The following year, I was very excited to fly to the State of Michigan to do my Master’s Degree in Sociology at Michigan State University in the United States of America in September 1977. After spending a long successful three years away from my beloved country of Zambia, I was ready to return home in January 1980.

Although I had spent the best of times while in the United States, there was nothing better than sweet home. I had a small contingent of Zambian and African student friends with whom I had a good time. But for all those years, I had been periodically home sick as letters from relatives and friends in Zambia took six weeks. International phone calls were expensive, cumbersome, rare and largely unknown. The inventions of emails and cell phones were still 28 years away.

One of the most important things I greatly missed when I was away from home for those three years was speaking my Tumbuka mother tongue language and the Lusaka Nyanja. As I boarded the plane in Detroit in the United States to return to Zambia, I was very happy and nervous. What would it feel like to speak Tumbuka again after speaking only English for those long 3 years? Will I have forgotten how to speak Tumbuka my mother tongue? How exciting was it going to be when I was back in the streets of Lusaka for the first time listening and talking to my fellow Zambians in Lusaka Nyanja? It was going to take me over 24 hours to fly to Lusaka. First, I had a layover of 12 hours at London Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom before flying to Lusaka later that evening.

I boarded the beautiful giant Zambia Airways DC 10 jet with Zambian flag colors painted on the outside. I sat down in my seat and was fastening my seat belt when the sweetest thing happened. One young Zambian man steward was near the front of the plane while gesturing and   communicating with another young woman stewardess who was toward the back.

Iwe, kabili uleteko pilo imozi when you are coming back,” (Bring one pillow when you are coming back this way) the woman said in a typical Lusaka City Zambian language.

Ningalete bwanji pilo kabili I have to bring drinks pa tray for abo ma passengers on the way apo pakati.” (How can I bring the pillow when I am carrying drinks on the tray for those passengers in the middle?) the man responded pointing to the passengers.

At that moment I was so happy, thrilled, and overjoyed. I was tempted to rise up and hug the stewards while jumping up and down and dancing repeatedly shouting: “I am back home! I am back home!” But I had to restrain myself. I was afraid I would be arrested as a deranged passenger and the Heathrow Airport police were going to escort me out of the plane and detain me as a mad man.

Forty-four years later I still get goosebumps when I remember that moment of great joy. This is the power and significance of language. Language evokes some of our deepest memories of moments of social intimacy in the society and the group to which we belong. When I arrived at Lusaka International Airport early the following morning, my uncle the late Mr. J. J Mayovu met me at the airport. He welcomed me as we hugged and spoke our deepest Tumbuka, my mother tongue. I spoke Tumbuka smoothly. We laughed as I was so happy to be back home on Zambian soil with my family and my beloved fellow citizens of Zambia.

Objectives

The objective of this article is to discuss the challenges or problems of publishing in Zambian native or indigenous languages. Before I discuss the significance of Zambian indigenous languages, I should discuss why perspectives on the subject of publishing in indigenous languages are uniquely important at this time in 2024. I am among the few Zambians today who are 69 years and older and have had experiences sixty years ago from the 1950s about indigenous Zambian languages that may benefit the 19 million Zambians today.

The population of Zambia in 2020 was estimated to be 19 million. The proportion of the population in the country that was under 14 years old was 45.74%, those between 15 and 24 years old were 20.03%, those between 25 to 54 years old were 28.96% and but those between 55 and 64 years old were only 3.01% and those above 65 years old were even smaller proportion of  2.27% or 431,300 of the population of 19 million. These few surviving about 5% of the population are the few people who were born before 1955. These are the few remaining people who are supposed to be both custodians and transmitters of the 72 Zambian indigenous or native languages.

The age statistics that are the most important for the crucial possible important role of older speakers of indigenous Zambian languages, like this author, are that Zambians that are younger than 30 years old may be about 70% of the population which is about 13.6 million young girls, boys, women and men. Therefore, there are fewer elders today in Zambia to teach younger people about our history, customs, native languages, and our traditional culture, perhaps due to the high death rate in the 1980s of older Zambians who are now over 55 years old because of the  HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. A large number of Zambians who would be about my age of older than 69 died in the late 1980s because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Urbanization also takes its toll in weakening the influence of indigenous languages in Zambia as the 45.15% of the urban population is rising. This means increasing numbers of Zambians leaving rural areas lose their connection to rural areas where the source, strength and origin of our traditions are the strongest especially including spoken indigenous languages.

Number of Indigenous Languages in Zambia

A discussion of Zambian languages would be incomplete without first determining how many indigenous languages exist in Zambia. According to the Wikipedia, there are 72 indigenous languages in Zambia with English being the official language. Some experts argue that these 72 are not all languages as some are dialects.

There are seven native or indigenous languages that are officially recognized by the Zambian government. According to Wikipedia,  these seven languages also represent major regions of the country. Bemba is spoken in the Northern Province, Luapula, Muchinga and the Copperbelt. Nyanja  is spoken in Lusaka and the Eastern Province, Lozi  is spoken in the Western Province, Tonga and Lozi are spoken in the Southern Province, and Kaonde, Luvale and Lunda are spoken in the Northwestern Province.

How many people of the 19 million Zambians speak these indigenous native languages. According to the 2000 Census  Bemba is spoken by 35% of the population, Nyanja 37%, Tonga 25%, and Lozi 18%. According to Gordon, data from the same 2000 Census shows some of the languages having very small numbers of the Zambian population speaking these languages as first, dominant or primary language in their lives; Bemba 30.1%, Nyanja 10,7%, Tonga 10.6%, Lozi 5.7%, Kaonde 2.0%, English 1.7%, Lenje 1.4%, Namwanga 1.3%, Senga 0.6% and Lamba 1.9%. What these numbers suggest is that the seven indigenous languages may represent certain regions and populations of the country. But do the people, most or some of them, speak only these languages in their everyday lives? These questions bring me to the problem of putting the cart in front of the horse or putting the cattle bulls in front of the cart or wagon. Both animals may never be able to pull the cart forward.

Putting Cart in Front of Horse

If you want a horse or 2 cattle bulls to pull a loaded cart or wagon, it makes sense to tie the animals in front of the cart. Then they will be able to pull and carry the loaded cart forward. But if you make the illogical mistake of putting the cart or wagon in front of the bulls or the horse, the cart will never be pulled forward. This is a cautionary tale on how to handle the issue of challenges and problems of publishing in Zambian indigenous or native languages for the speakers of the languages. Any new policy advocating change must be aware to avoid putting the cart in front of the horse.

Zambia has had a policy of communicating, broadcasting, publishing, and teaching in the seven official native languages since independence in 1964. The Ministry of Education officially approved the orthography of the 7 languages in 1977. There may be fewer Zambians today speaking and let alone reading and writing using the seven languages. If a new policy of publishing as rights to free expression is advocated, wouldn’t that be placing the cart before the horse since fewer Zambians may be reading and writing using these seven native languages? If, however, Zambians are speaking using some of these native languages in larger numbers, shouldn’t the new policy focus on the spoken language only? These are some of the ideas that will be discussed in this article. Next will be the description of the major objectives in discussing challenges and problems of publishing in Zambian languages.

Objectives

The article will next first explore how to help promote writing in languages that are not part of the 7 languages used in education and on national media. Second, discuss the assertion of the fact that the 7 languages used in education and national broadcasting were bestowed upon us Zambians by missionaries. Third, explore and show the value of linguistic diversity in national development. What can we gain as Zambians by having literature – folktales, poems, music, intangible cultural heritage expressed in all the languages in Zambia? Fourth, investigate what are the historical and current problems of producing literature and other art works in so-called minority languages? Fifth, examine what are some of the best practices around the world where artistic expression in all languages of a country is promoted?

Exploring how to help promote writing in languages that are not part of the 7 languages used in education and on national media should pose many hard questions rather than just provide easy policy answers. The answer to this question also answers the fourth objective of this article: investigating what are the historical and current problems of producing literature and other art works in so-called minority languages?  

These hard or difficult questions are justified if your serious aim is to avoid placing the cart in front of the horse as proposed earlier in the article. Before we even discuss how to promote writing in languages that are not part of the 7 languages used in education and national media, do we have a booming and thriving existing writing, reading, and publishing in the 7 languages among the vast majority of the 19 million Zambians? If the answer is likely no, what would be the justification for the Ministry of Education, policy makers, and Right to Write advocates for supporting expanding writing in languages that are characterized as minority languages because very tiny numbers of the 19 million Zambians speak those languages? For example the author’s Tumbuka language has 2.5% primary speakers, Lenje 1.4%, Bisa 1.0%, Lungu 0.6%, and Lala 2.0% just to mention a few of the 72 languages and dialects.

Another very important factor that must be considered is the distinction between primary and other speakers of a native or indigenous Zambian language and those who might be readers and writers of the languages. Speaking is the easiest, least costly, and most direct way to learn and enjoy directly communicating and creating immediate emotional connection and unity between the speakers. Audio books may be more accessible to most Zambians rather than books. However, becoming a reader and writer in the language is more demanding and more difficult to achieve and enjoy. Reading requires investment in both formal schooling and machinery for printing when publishing in the Zambian languages. The financial capital required and other resources may be in short supply in a Third World country like Zambia.

Discussing the assertion of the fact that the  7 languages used in education and national broadcasting were bestowed upon us Zambians by missionaries may be a legitimate observation. But should we throw out those missionary and colonial decisions? If we did this as Zambians, that would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Let’s keep some of what the missionaries established. 

I had bought a Tumbuka Bible at a Christian Bookstore that used to be located in Chamba Valley near Kaunda Square in Lusaka in the 1980s. I lost that bible and wanted to buy another one in 2022. The Christian store did not exist and I spent all day driving in Lusaka to many different places. I could not buy a Tumbuka Bible anywhere. Are any of the publications or books in the 7 official Zambian languages widely and easily available anywhere in Zambia? Occasionally I see that Maiden Publishing has some books in Zambian languages.

The only thing that might be true today is that the number of Zambians who speak exclusively just one of the 7 native languages chosen by missionaries may have shrunk. Multilingualism is much more common in Zambia than might have been 60 years ago in 1964 at Independence.

Dr. Sombo Muzata is a millennial who was born between 1981 and 1996. A brief conversation I had with her may illustrate some of the challenges or problems in publishing in Zambian languages. Dr. Muzata is Assistant professor or lecturer at James Madison University in the United States of America. Her father was Luvale. Her mother was Bemba and she was primarily raised in her mother’s Bemba family. Her native languages are Luvale and Bemba. She can speak Chewa/Nyanja. She can understand and can speak Tumbuka. She can understand other Zambian languages too, but can’t speak them fluently. Dr. Muzata may represent thousands if not millions of Zambians who are multilingual. How would publishing in Zambian languages be implemented when there is so much that has changed and is unknown?

Dr. Muzata concluded: “….our Zambian languages define us as a people. They are a core part of who we are. I look for any opportunity to speak my language and those that I know. I hope people are proud of their languages and can speak without shame.” 

The new multilingual population of 19 million Zambians may have a different language population distribution, needs for spoken languages, reading, writing, and publishing. Their media participation given the internet may be different from the Zambians who spoke the 7 original languages established or chosen by the missionaries from the early 1900s to 1964.

When I was researching and writing my book: “Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture” in 2012, I faced a difficult challenge. I was writing Chapters on “The role and influence of traditional dances among Zambians” when I could not find any research material on “YouTube” and other social media, and the internet about the dozens of traditional dances in rural provinces of Zambia. Today in the social media in 2024 I thoroughly enjoy spending hours watching video clips of dozens of Zambian traditional dances which Zambians from rural areas upload.

The significance, exploration and showing the value of linguistic diversity which is embedded in cultural diversity in national development, is evident in contemporary culture of Zambia. What we gain as Zambians by having literature – folktales, poems, music, intangible cultural heritage expressed in all the languages in Zambia is self-evident especially in the diversity of the music and dance today in Zambia. Comedy and other shows on television that include different Zambian languages speakers including English. The internet, social media, the variety of dances at Kitchen parties and wedding receptions demonstrate the multicultural and multilingual nature of Zambian society.

Fifth, examining what are some of the best practices around the world where artistic expression in all languages of a country is promoted can benefit us Zambians only if we have definitely found what works and does not work for us. Professor Muna Ndulo once warned that adopting new foreign cultural practices from different countries is not like buying a new refrigerator. If you buy a new fridge, if you have the right voltage, you can plug it in anywhere in the world, the fridge will work perfectly. But this is not the case with culture. You cannot export democracy or a religion, for example, and simply introduce it to a country and have it work. This may be the challenge for Zambia in the attempt to encourage publishing and promoting native or indigenous languages including the 7 languages that are officially recognized used in education and the media. It will not be easy to simply mimic or copy what other countries have done.

Recommendations

1.     The government, all political parties, and top experts in institutions of higher learning should conduct a massive survey covering the whole country. The survey will determine how many Zambians are speakers, readers, writers, radio and media viewers and listeners of particular specific Zambian languages. What proportion of the Zambian population are multilingual and in which Zambian languages? The 7 official Zambian languages should be included in the focus of the survey.

2.     The results or findings of the massive survey should be used to implement policies that will promote the use of Zambian languages through internet social media, publishing of books, and audio books. The results should be used to conduct all annual writing competitions with awards in all schools in designated Zambian languages. The competitions should be  in literature – folktales, poems, music, intangible cultural heritage expressed in all the languages in Zambia and especially Zambian traditional music.

3.     The Zambian government should establish a major publishing and printing, and media communication center for printing, publishing, and producing all creative material in Zambian languages. The printing and publishing should be heavily subsidized by the government so that the published material, especially books will be cheap and affordable by all citizens of Zambia from the rural to urban areas.

Conclusion

The significance of our 72 mother tongues, dialects, native or indigenous languages is that they represent some of our deepest expressions and connections to our families, relatives, friends and country. The history of our primary languages goes back to perhaps thousands of years living and migrating on the vast African continent. All  the Zambian 72 languages may have buried in them thousands of years of some of our Zambian/African history and deepest indigenous knowledge and influences on the world. For example, Dr. Chisanga Siame, using  historical linguistics, philology, the etiology, phonology, and morphology of Zambian and African languages discovered that the Bemba term uku tunkumana  about two thousand miles away South of Egypt may have descended from the name Tunka Men the name of the ancient kingdom of Sudan suggesting a connection between the Bemba of Zambia people and the ancient Egyptian civilization.

This article deliberately does not have definitive answers on policies for publishing in Zambian languages because answers are difficult to come by as the situation of languages has been very complex and changing since Zambia’s independence from British colonialism 60 years ago in 1964. The article asks more questions than provides answers because the article is meant to provoke thought, question some of the existing policies, and stimulate discussion. The future is unknown as our increasingly multilingual society of One Zambia One Nation is different from what it was 60 years ago at independence in 1964. This author is one of the very few Zambians who have lived through this long period and have lived through and witnessed the social change in language.

How do we as a nation effectively teach speaking, reading, and writing both English and our 72 native or indigenous languages, especially the official 7 languages of  Bemba, Nyanja, Lozi, Tonga, Luvale, Lunda, and Kaonde? The Zambian Education system has tried several different policies but none have been found to be very effective, or at best have mixed results, in achieving good standards of speaking, reading, and writing the English official national language and the 7 official Zambian languages.

Sources

1.     2010-Census-of-Population-National-Analytical-Report.pdf

2.     https://translatorswithoutborders.org/language-data-for-zambia#:~:text=Seven%20of%20these%20are%20officially,Kaonde%2C%20Luvale%2C%20and%20Lunda.

3.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Zambia#:~:text=Zambia%20has%2072%20languages%2C%20some,closely%20related%20to%20one%20another.

4.     https://www.discoverafrica.com/safaris/zambia/languages-in-zambia/#:~:text=Almost%20everyone%20will%20speak%20or,most%20widely%20spoken%20local%20languages.

5.     https://zamtransinternational.weebly.com/zambianlanguages.html

6.     https://www.britannica.com/place/Zambia/People

7.     https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-languages-are-spoken-in-zambia.html

8.     https://www.unicef.org/esa/sites/unicef.org.esa/files/2018-09/UNICEF-2017-Language-and-Learning-Zambia.pdf

9.     https://www.indexmundi.com/zambia/age_structure.html

10.  https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+Zambia+in+2020&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS984US984&oq=population+of+Zambia+in+2020&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCggCEAAYDxgWGB4yDQgDEAAYhgMYgAQYigXSAQkxMzE1MWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

11.  https://www.google.com/search?q=zambia+urban+population&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS984US984&oq=Zambia+Urb&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgAEEUYOxiABDIJCAAQRRg7GIAEMgYIARBFGEAyBggCEEUYOTIHCAMQABiABDIICAQQABgWGB4yCAgFEAAYFhgeMggIBhAAGBYYHjIGCAcQRRg80gEINzk5M2owajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

12.  Zambia Language Policy: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=stcloud_ling#:~:text=Following%20the%20belief%20that%20%E2%80%9Cone,recognized%20in%20the%201991%20Constitution.

13.  Mubanga Kashoki, “Rural and Urban Multilingualism in Zambia: Some Trends,” in International Journal of the Sociology of Language, March 1, 1982.

14.  https://pen.org/zambian-pen-center-promoting-literature-indigenous-languages/

15.  https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rrq.180

a.      Sylvia C. Kalindi, Catherine McBride, Lin Dan, “Early Literacy Among Zambian Second

b.     Graders: The Role of Adult Mediation of Word Writing in Bemba”,First published: 08

c.      March 2017

16.   https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021934713480801

        Chisanga Siame, “Katunkumene and Ancient Egypt in Africa”, Journal of Black   

        Studies, Volume 44, Issue 3, First published online March 20, 2013

Unveiling Greatness: Chronicles of Inspiring Lives: James Muma Mwape – A Zambian’s Global Odyssey

Isabella Mukanda, Unveiling Greatness: Chronicles of Inspiring Lives: James Muma Mwape – A Zambian’s Global Odyssey, Foreword by Dr. Mwizenge S. Tembo, 66 pages, Paperback, K168.00 ($7.99)

BOOK REVIEW

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

When any more of the 7 billion human beings or 19 million Zambians are born today, we belong to a specific gender, family, society, country, and numerous other circumstances that define our identity. But wherever we live, our life experiences are either long or sometimes short. What happened during the short or long-life span of one man is the subject of this book. It describes the life of a Zambian James Muma Mwape. Why is this book important? James Mwape was never a prominent famous politician, or someone who was the President of a country,  leader of a major organization like the United Nations, political party,  a major bank or a university, or a Minister in the Zambian government. But he overcame incredible challenges and obstacles in his 60 years of life and became successful. If his experiences are very common, what made him unique? What was compelling about his life?

James Muma Mwape was born in Luapula in the Northern Province of Zambia. A single mother struggled to raise him in Zambia while fighting poverty. He grew up in Mufulira. When James Mwape suddenly passed away peacefully in his  sleep in his New Jersey home in the United States on April 27 2023, this sent shock waves particularly in the Zambian African community. This man known for his humility had touched so many lives and played such a prominent role in the Zambian and other communities. Many people including Zambians, his acquaintances, including this book reviewer assumed they knew James Mwape. But this was not the case.

What happened is that author Isabella Mukanda had conducted a very candid personal interview with James Mwape ten years before his sudden and untimely death. Unbeknownst to Mukanda, that interview revealed so many personal deeper aspects of James Mwape’s life after his death; details that were not previously known. The details of his life make him an inspirational figure after his death. He lived in several countries including China and Poland during his hard and difficult quest for a better life. He overcame obstacle after obstacle such that the reader is left wondering how he survived to be such a strong kind person that was full of passion and kindness. Where did the motivation come from to do all the things he did in life?

He raised a family with his partner Ruth, worked as a science teacher, he helped so many people including creating and hosting the prominent annual Mwape Peer Awards. He always strove to gain a better education in spite of his difficult circumstances. He personally experienced so much suffering, struggle, pain, and anguish. He wanted to help people, humanity and especially his native country of Zambia so much. The reader might wonder where he drew his inspiration from.

Some would say the inspiration was from his deep religious faith in Christianity. His life was both a mystery and had uncomfortable complexity. The reader is left asking and wondering how James Mwape drew so much good from his pain and suffering? He was never a bitter person.

What makes the book a compelling read is that it is short and the interview was very short and as James gave to the point responses. The reader is left making their own conclusions about how he overcame so many challenging and difficult circumstances. Was it his mother, the country of Zambia he grew up in, the random people that he met and helped him in his life? To the author’s credit, Isabella Mukanda never editorialized James Mwape’s life. Mukanda has two other unrelated short stories at the end of the book: “Tabernacles of Evil,” and “Breaking the spell: A True story about one family’s struggle with mental illness”.

I would strongly recommend this inspirational short book, as I do in the foreword, to all readers from all backgrounds; circumstances, social classes, race, age, gender, history, and countries of origin.  This is not a book about the suffering and triumph of just a poor Zambian, or African. He could have been an Asian, European, or person from numerous origins and identities, It is a book of life and how one James Mwape overcame the existential problems of obstacles, pain, and suffering in life. One can see the suffering in the eyes and images of millions of migrants to day on the American Southern border with Mexico, poor migrants floating on rickety boats trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in North Africa, and migrants in many parts of Africa, South America, Europe, Australia and many parts of the world. This book will both expose you to suffering and how some humans overcome some of that suffering to achieve a form of triumph in life.

Ruminations: Politicians, Politicians, Everywhere; But Hardly a Statesman in Sight! A Brutally Frank Satirical Look at the African Society in the 21st Century

Book Review

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Chishimba M. Lumbwe, Ruminations: Politicians, Politicians, Everywhere; But Hardly a Statesman in Sight! A Brutally Frank Satirical Look at the African Society in the 21st Century, Lusaka, Pensulo Publishers,  2022, 266 pages, Paperback, $14.82 (K300.00)

Introduction

In the past fifty-nine years since 24th October 1964 when Zambia got its independence from British colonialism, we Zambians have had seven Presidents. We should not only be proud of this outstanding achievement against all the obstacles, but we have had peaceful transfers of power from one president to the next. The first President who is the founder of our peaceful nation was President Kaunda who had led the nation for the first 27 years of independence.

After yet another general election year in 2021, for the seventh time power was transferred from the outgoing President Lungu of the Patriotic Front (PF) political party to the incoming President Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND) at a public ceremony at Heroes Stadium. During these 59 years, there has been the rise and fall of political parties, candidates, and presidents. Millions of Zambians of several generations have participated in election campaigns and have voted. Presidents have proposed and implemented development plans, have made numerous cabinet appointments including ambassadors. The question which may be the biggest elephant in the room is “what is the uniquely Zambian or African political culture that has evolved in our country over the last 59 years?”

Ruminations

Dr. Chishimba Lumbwe is a medical doctor who was a State House physician for three presidents. He worked closely in the top corridors of Zambian political power for more than forty years. He has written a book titled: “Ruminations: Politicians, Politicians, Everywhere; But Hardly a Statesman in Sight! Satirical Look at the Zambian/African Society in the 21st Century.”

Ruminations are when a person has many deep thoughts about a specific problem. The problem might be their marriage, job, family, why a relative died in the family, why they did not get a particular job. Ruminations are associated with negative thoughts as the ruminator is trying to understand may be an existing or past problem. Dr. Chishimba Lumbwe in this book has been ruminating about Zambian and African politics since 2015 but with a twist; he is ruminating using satire or while being funny. He tries to make the reader laugh about our Zambian or African politicians and our political system since we inherited it from our British colonial Westminster parliamentary system in 1964.

Instead of using the conventional chapters in the book, Dr. Chishimba Lumbwe uses 12 Ruminations. The 12 ruminations include: Rumination 1 – Blood is Thicker Than Water, But Not Thicker Than Opaque Beer; Rumination 2 — Politicians, Politicians, Everywhere; But Hardly a Statesman in Sight! Rumination 6 — Why Politicians Always Think It’s Always Their Time to Eat; Rumination 8 — What Happens When A Political Party Tastes The Heady Pill of Power; Rumination 11 — Job Description for the President of Zambia.

In his book, Ruminations, Dr. Chishimba Lumbwe who was at one time a State House Physician, provides us Zambians and African citizens and readers a valuable gift. This is because if you are Zambian/African who has lived in Zambia for an extended period during the last 59 years, the book will make you smile, laugh, but also think about our past and future lives both as individuals and as a nation. He alludes to the role of cadres and cadrerism in Zambian political party politics and government. The book also provides some powerful creative expression including some poetry on pages 19, 20 and 152. The book also has many examples of providing wisdom, unique insights, and observations in virtually all the 12 ruminations.

For example, discussing how the President and other top political leaders fill job positions, Lumbwe says: “Let’s get a bit personal and put you, the reader, in the president’s shoes: Be honest. Who would you trust to keep your skeletons firmly locked inside a steel cupboard?……And in any case, if you do not fill up some of those posts with your relatives, someone else will fill them up with their relative…..That’s just the way the logic runs, unless you have a true statesman in the State House.” Rumination 1, page 21.

In Rumination 6 under Theorem 10: Lumbwe says there are more men who are psychopaths than women, this is why our politics are so terrible, page 115; If you are interested in understanding how charts, graphs and mathematics are related to human politics, Rumination 10 with thrill you. In Rumination 12 Lumbwe asks why there are so many political parties in Zambia; Lastly in the Postlude Lumbwe asks, “Should we constantly blame other people for our collective stupidity?” p. 176. In the Postlude, Lumbwe discusses “18 things that do not make sense about the Zambian society specifically and the African society in general.” Pp. 216-244.

I would highly recommend Ruminations not just for the ordinary Zambian/African reader, but also for politicians, scholars of political philosophy, social studies teachers, lecturers, Zambian/African English literature, mathematicians, and professors of political science and satire in colleges and 17 Zambian universities including UNZA and other universities in Africa and abroad.

There is the mistaken impression and reputation that one can only learn from books published about Zambia and Africa by political science experts in London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo. The perspective and epistemology Lumbwe expresses is always regarded as illegitimate. Ruminations is a legitimate social perspective and epistemology by a Zambian about the challenges of the Zambian/African political systems and experiences that may be different from politics particularly in Europe or Western societies to whom we always compare ourselves.

Good Vs Evil in Our Lives: Sunday Church Sermon

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

I delivered this sermon to the Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists Church located in Harrisonburg Virginia in the United States on October 23, 2022.

Let us pray: “We thank the redeemer for giving us life, beautiful sounds of music, physical strength, spiritual strength and this beautiful day for all of us to gather together to worship. We ask that you open our eyes and ears to the message that the congregation has asked to be delivered this morning. Give us the ability to look beyond our immediate narrow lives. We ask for all these blessings in the redeemer’s name. Amen.”

I hope you had an opportunity to watch this 2 minute video clip by Neil deGrasse Tyson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ-ZSgLadIk&t=8s&ab_channel=FOX5NewYork

Moonlight in Savannah Zambia/Africa

The title of my Sermon this morning is “The Significance or importance of Good and Evil in Our Lives: Examples from Personal Experiences and Cultural Faiths.”

The human struggle between good and evil is primordial; it has been there; it was there before you and I were born and will be there long after we are gone. I will draw examples from my personal life experiences and the expositions from selected religious or more accurately cultural faith leaders. This message will implore you to fill your lives like vessels that will be brimming full of goodness in spite all the challenges and struggles against evil that we face in our everyday lives.

According to the video, the Universe is so vast and deep that our human minds cannot possibly comprehend it. In the same way knowledge of ourselves and the world as we humans understand it is very deep. Our faith is very deep. But our human arrogance is so big that we as humans often lack humility.

What is the Universe of Good Vs. Evil? These ideas have been inspired by my life-long human struggle and contemplation of goodness and evil, human suffering and triumph, appreciation of both beauty and ugliness. Growing up as a child at Chipewa Village in Zambia, Africa, I remember my parents and grandparents pointing out to me what was cruelty and kindness, goodness and evil. Their teachings were mixed with personal example sprinkled with generous doses of laughter and a sense of appreciation of all that is good; the gift of life, good harvest and meals, dance and song, listening to folktales by the fire at night or under a bright moonlight, wearing good piece of clothing to go to church on Sunday, the goodness that comes from living a righteous and dignified life of hard work.

All of these created in me and my community a deep sense of appreciation of life and the power and magnificence that God created; God in my Tumbuka tribe was not the God of the major world religions; Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism; but the God we the Tumbuka called Chiuta which is the bow that you see in a beautiful rainbow. Uta is also the bow that the Tumbuka used for hunting. This is what I mean by “Cultural Faiths”.

Let me discuss both Evil and Goodness. I will be light on Evil because it creates darkness, shocks and depresses us. Goodness on the other hand is uplifting and fills us with joy. There are all types of Evil from mild to just simply unthinkable. Recently, I saw the three episodes of The U.S. and the Holocaust documentary by Kern Burns. This is the ultimate in human capacity to commit evil on an unthinkable scale. I don’t want to discuss the details. I am the man who for more than forty years has learned and taught sociology and the social sciences. I have taught about evil. But was always very considerate to my young students. I am not about to change that now before this congregation.

Evil has many degrees and types. Evil also has to do with bad things such as the holocaust and the Atlantic Slave Trade happening to some people and not to others. The big question in life is “Why do bad things happen to good people?” I would refer you to Harold Kushner’s book: “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People”. You may get some answers. The answer is not because God wants bad things to happen to good people.

What is intriguing about life, my life, your life, is that for the most part it is filled with goodness because people and nature are both good to us for the most part.

When God created Adam and Eve, the two were endowed with soul, spiritual passion, and were surrounded with physical beauty. One can see this beauty when you see the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia in the United States, the Muchinga Escarpment in the Eastern Province of Zambia, the gorgeous blue lagoons and magnificent blue waters and sand beaches of the world such as those on the Island of Jamaica, and the breath-taking green river valleys. The ability to engage in evil of varying degrees is present in all humans.

Parents and the community are the first line of defense against evil. God and all Cultural Faiths help as people raise and nurture children be these their own or those of others in the community. A bad, cruel, poor  or a lack of proper parental or extended family upbringing with little or no spiritual nurturing tremendously increases the chances that the child will not distinguish between good and evil. As I have contemplated and in my own way fought against evil, I am convinced that Christianity has a valid point; we humans seem to be born with sin.

All major faiths including Christianity and believing in God of all cultural faiths including faith in Christ are the most powerful spiritual forces when individuals open themselves and their hearts to the force. God or Chiuta works through parents and the community to teach children about kindness, sharing, treating all human beings with fairness and respect, and to revere life itself. When we are born then we have a tremendous gift for doing good through our families and communities.

When does evil begin to grow in humans? When human beings acquire power, material possessions and wealth for greedy ends, their powerful, true, compassionate and genuine Cultural Faith beliefs are threatened or begin to decline. Lack of or weak parental extended family upbringing and the desire to acquire material possessions and power  beyond our immediate needs is the beginnings, if not the foundation of evil and sin and sometimes misery. What does all this mean in everyday life and especially for all us gathered here now?

It means as humans, we all live the way God or our Cultural Faiths intended us to live until we begin to engage in limitless hedonism, or exercise the desire for more power and material possessions for greedy ends for both individuals and nations. (Prosperity Theology or Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) The foundation for all egregious evil is the desire for more power, and material possessions which is reflected in human greed of different degrees; greed for power and greed for sex. The root and beginning of the evil and atrocities humans commit on both a small and grand scale is always the desire for more power, and material possessions than God intended for our happy, compassionate, righteous, happy fulfilled lives.

I have been blessed to have been surrounded by goodness and kindness all my life. Some of the best representatives of this goodness were my mother, my father, amama a Nya Zgobvu, my wife, my late best college friend Dr. Vincent Musakanya. Examples from my aunt NyaZgovu: one time I asked the Pastor of the Church I attend; how can I repay my aunt’s goodness? Send her a card?

Goodness Vs. Evil play a tag of war in our lives. Goodness and Evil are related to love and pain and suffering. President Kennth Kaunda said:

“The very attempts of modern societies to insulate themselves from suffering have resulted in a refusal of love, for the willingness to love and be loved makes suffering inevitable. And in the refusal of love, modern man feels pain without the possibility of transforming it into suffering. In trying to shut out suffering, Man only turns it into something useless and degrading.” (Kaunda, 1966, p.40) 

Dealing with all kinds of evil is not easy. Since there is so much evil in this world, how can we live a life brimming and overflowing with goodness?

First, surround yourself and seek good, strong, and kind people. You may be lucky to be born into a good family in this sense. Not necessarily a family that is rich and well off.

Second, live a life of deep faith and humility.

Third, take care of your soul.  Moore, Thomas., Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, New York: HarperPerennial Publishers, 1994.

Kushner, Harold., When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: A Search for Life that Matters, New York: Pocket Books, 1986.

Fourth, learn how to both acquire and use the power you are granted judiciously. Do not let excessive desire for power and excessive material possession lead you to commit evil. Do not let hubris overcome you. Live a life of humility. You and me are really small in this vast universe we call life.

Avoid acquiring excessive material possessions. I have often wondered why people who joined or converted to some religions or communes got rid of virtually all of their material possessions. Excessive power, material possessions, often create greed and then evil. Having the appropriate power and enough possessions to meet our needs creates goodness, happiness and joy and so much joy in our lives.

Closing Prayer: “Let us pray. We thank the almighty for the message that has just been delivered. We pray and hope that this message will help to open our eyes, ears, and our hearts to be aware of evil and to help us embrace the possibilities of feeling our hearts with goodness and joy.  We ask for all these blessings and possibilities in the redeemer’s name. Amen.”

       READINGS

  1. The Holy Bible
  1. Kushner, Harold., When Bad Things Happen to Good People, New York: Avon Books, 1981.
  2. Kushner, Harold., Who Needs God, New York: Pocket Books 1989.
  3. Kushner, Harold., When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: A Search for Life that Matters, New York: Pocket Books, 1986.
  4. Moore, Thomas., Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, New York: Harper Perennial Publishers, 1994.
  5. Kaunda, Kenneth., A Humanist in Africa: Letters to Collin Morris, Lusaka and London: Veritas, 1966.
  6. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas., The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, New York: Random House, 2010.

Sustainability in a Model Village in Rural Zambia: Ethnography Project Report

by Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Bridgewater College

ABSTRACT: A study was conducted at the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village in rural Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, in southern Africa in the Chongwe area along the Great East Road. The model village was located on 50 hectares, or 123 acres, of Savannah Wilderness. The study used the ethnographic method with a limited survey. The two questions investigated were, first, whether the fifteen village residents could develop sustainable social bonds and networks in the context of the social ecology of the village; and second, whether the model village residents could successfully employ sustainable subsistence farming methods in the production of food. The findings answered both questions and the viability of creating a sustainable model village. The findings also exposed the challenges of developing social bonds within the social ecology of a newly created model village and the problems of using subsistence farming methods in implementing sustainable food production strategies in agricultural development in rural Zambia/Africa.

KEYWORDS: Sustainable; Sustainability; Model Village; Subsistence Farming; Rural Zambia; Rural Africa; Sustainable Food Production; Rural Agricultural Development; Ethnography; Social bonds, Social Ecology, Ethnography, Qualitative methods.

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 2

Challenges of Sustainable Subsistence Farming…………………………….. 3

Social Ecology…………………………………………………………………………………….4

Physical and Social Aspects of the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

Methodology of Ethnography………………………………………………………. 5

Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village Question 1: Social Bonds

     and Networks…………………………………………………………………………. 7

Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village Question 2: Food Production…………………………………………………………………………………… 9

Findings of the Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village

      Question 1: Social Bonds and Networks………………………………… 10

Findings of Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village

      Question 2: Food Production………………………………………………… 14

Discussion………………………………………………………………………………… 16

Table 1: Farm Field Inputs…………………………………………………………. 22

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………… 24

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………… 25

References………………………………………………………………………………… 26

Appendix A: Model Village Photographs……………………………………. 27

Introduction

Sustainable development has been advocated in international development policies since the late 1980s, when the global population reached five billion, creating unprecedent pressures on food production. In the two decades after 1970, world leaders realized through the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations in 1987 that the world could not continue to enable lifestyles that consumed large amounts of the world’s resources. There was a concern among development experts and environmental activists that the prevailing consumer habits would deplete the world’s resources, and, as such, they began to widely advocate for sustainable development policies. According to the Brundtland Commission U.N. Report of 1987, “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987a: 43).

The major objective of this research report is to present findings from a research project conducted at the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village located in rural Lusaka in Zambia in southern Africa from January to June 2021. First, the research project investigated whether subsistence sustainable agricultural development methods can be successfully used to grow food in a rural environment. Second, the project investigated whether a model village could be created to instigate enduring sustainable social bonds within the social ecology among rural model village residents. It was hoped that the findings of the model village study could be used as the basis for implementing successful sustainable development model village programs in many parts of rural Zambia and the global world.

The research report has seven major parts:

  1.  A discussion of the two major problems of subsistence sustainable farming and the social bonds of a model village social ecology that were investigated in this study and why the author set up the model village to solve these problems.
  2. A description of the physical location of the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village and its residents.
  3. A discussion of the ethnography primary major research method that was employed in the study.
  4. A discussion of the two major questions that were investigated.
  5. The findings of the sustainable social bonds among the village residents question.
  6. The findings of the sustainable food production question.
  7. Discussion of the findings and conclusions.

Challenges of Subsistence Sustainable Farming

There is a prevailing social crisis which is a paradox of globalization and massive industrial production of manufactured commodities, products, agroindustry, agribusiness, massive bureaucracies, conspicuous consumption, social class, urbanization, the Internet, and social media. Some of the paradoxes include: “Are low-carbon cultures that live with rather than seek to master nature backward?”; “Is frugality poverty?”; Are non-Western cultures rich in what Western cultures are now poor (no monetized items such as open space, leisure, solidarity, ecological knowledge)?”[1]

Because of these paradoxes of globalization, the challenges of maintaining and implementing sustainable lifestyles, including introducing sustainable, primarily organic subsistence food production in rural Zambia and Africa, have become increasingly urgent. This is because climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, rapid population growth, globalization accompanied by massive conspicuous consumption, and the effort to transform food production and farming into massive-scale commercial farming all threaten the future of humans and the planet earth.

The current looming crisis in the food production necessary to feed 7.7 billion people, including an estimated 17 million Zambians, lies in the threat of unsustainable food production practices. Current food production practices emphasize the use of cheap labor and excessive use of increasingly expensive fossil fuels, fertilizer, hybrid seeds, and other commercial farm inputs that raise the cost of growing food for small rural farmers in Zambia and the rest of the Third World. The wide and heavy use of herbicides and pesticides compromise the soil and the growing of genetically modified foods in order to produce food on massive commercial scales all threaten close-knit human social bonds and networks. The possible ecological destructive impacts on the land, the environment, and human beings of these food production practices are being investigated only in a very marginal way.

One of the three pillars of sustainable development is social sustainability, which advocates the strengthening of human bonds and developing cooperative social relationship networks while performing productive work, such as growing food or farming. Current commercial food production practices are not only ecologically unsafe, but they have also severely compromised meaningful and enduring human relationships.

Exploring some of the negative ecological challenges and impacts that commercial farming causes, McMichael (2017) criticizes “the conversion of farming into an industrial activity,” arguing that it

underscores a significant ecological blind spot in development theory…. These are the significant social and environmental impacts, such as disruption of agrarian cultures and ecosystems, the deepening of dependency on fossil fuel, and modern agriculture’s responsibility for up to a third of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Such consequences challenge the wisdom of replacing a long-standing knowledge-intensive culture/ecology (farming) with an increasingly unsustainable industrialized economic sector (agriculture)” (McMichael, 2017: p.9).

If sustainable organic rural subsistence farming is to be implemented to mitigate the impact of unsustainable development, two conditions and factors must be investigated: 1) How effective are organic rural village subsistence farming methods in the production, preservation, and storage of food?; and 2) What are the social bonds needed to successfully implement the sustainable organic rural subsistence farming, and could the social bonds in the social ecology of the traditional Zambian/African village be re-created to create sustainable social cohesion and therefore sustainable subsistence farming?

                             Social Ecology

                             Social ecology is a broad subject whose founder is Murray Bookchin. He argues that most

                             if not all of our contemporary problems may be attributed to serious social problems.

“What literally defines social ecology as “social” is its recognition of the often-overlooked fact that nearly all our present ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Conversely, present ecological problems cannot be clearly understood, much less resolved, without resolutely dealing with problems within society. To make this point more concrete: economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others, lie at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today—apart, to be sure, from those that are produced by natural catastrophes”. (Bookchin, 1993)[2].

In this study, a group of people who were random strangers volunteered to leave their villages and families of origin of familiar social systems and relationships. The people traveled distances to live with a group of strangers at a new model village to both create and participate in new social systems and relationships. “Social life revolves around people, social systems, and the relationships among them. But those are not the only relations that matter, for people and social systems exist in relation to physical environments. Human ecology is the study of those relationships, and it figures in social life at every level.” (Johnson, 2014, p. 93)

The model village was a system that had both many systems within and outside it. All the model village residents participated in so many of these systems which constituted its social ecology. The study attempts to capture some aspects and goals of these systems within the context of the social ecology.

There is no doubt that these broader Murray Bookchin’s social ecology problems may be related to the problem of achieving sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles in the global world today. However, this study is focused on the much narrower sociological definition of social ecology as used by Allan Johnson (2014) and other sociologists. This study will be exploring how the nature of the physical organization of the model village dwellings may have impacted how residents lived with and interacted with one another. This may be related to the nature of the social bonds that the residents developed. These identical social ecological principles exist in present day villages in rural Zambia.

The ethnographic study investigated these questions at the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village. Next is the description of the physical and social ecological environment in which these two questions were investigated.

Physical and Social Aspects of the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village

The research was conducted and based on 50 hectares, or 123 acres, of natural Savannah Wilderness land in Zambia that the author purchased in July 2018. The land is located 41 miles (67 kilometers), or a one-hour drive, from Zambia’s capital city of Lusaka along the Great East Road from Lusaka to Chipata in the Chongwe area. The preparation to create a typical model village and to be a venue for fieldwork for the ethnography research commenced immediately after it was purchased.

When the author first saw the Savannah Wilderness land, it was largely undisturbed with pristine bushes and trees. When you stood facing the property, there was a hill towards the back. The author created and drew a physical plan. There would be a three-room brick dwelling unit at the entrance to the land. This is where the caretaker would stay, though some of the rooms would be used as storage space. A borehole well with a hand-driven pump for drinking water was drilled and installed 45 meters, or 150 feet, from the brick dwelling unit. Ten hectares in front of the dwelling brick unit were set aside for all farming needs. The farming needs would be met by growing food using sustainable village traditional organic subsistence methods. These traditional foods include maize or corn, peanuts, beans, and other indigenous crops commonly grown in rural Zambia.

Beyond these 10 hectares, another 10 hectares of land was set aside as a nature reserve, conservation forest, or wilderness sanctuary on which tree chopping or any other land disturbance activities are prohibited.

The model village is located one mile, or 1.6 kilometers, to the left towards and near the top of the hill. Ten acres have been used for construction of dwellings for residents. The dwelling units include five Zambian/African village huts using a traditional village construction including toilets; replicas of traditional food storage structures; and chicken coops and other traditional livestock structures. The huts can accommodate about four people per hut, allowing for up to a total of eighteen to live in the village at any one time.

On July 8, 2019, the first group of men, women, and children began living at the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village. Prior to this, between July 2018 and July 2019, up to about thirty mostly young men commuted to the site from their temporary accommodations near the shops on the Great East Road. This first group of people lived at the site after one year of preparation and construction at the premises. This was the first night fifteen people spent the night as residents at the model village. The fifteen people constituted three women, nine men (including the author), and three children, all girls, ages eight months, five years, and eleven years. The residents primarily shared the three-room, red-brick designated caretaker dwelling. The caretaker and his wife and two children shared one room. The two women and the eleven-year-old girl shared one room. The author and model village manager, the research informant later to be named Chatonda, shared one room. The seven men shared one dwelling unit at a nearby neighbor’s farm, which was a five-minute walk from the model village.

The source of the village’s water came from a 50-meter-deep (or 164 feet) borehole and a hand-driven pump, which were both installed in June 2019. The borehole was 15 meters, or 50 feet, from the caretaker’s brick dwelling unit, which is located on the western edge of the 10 hectares, or 123 acres. The five huts of the village are located about a mile away, uphill, in the middle of the property. Hauling a 44-gallon drum of water up the hill to the village a couple of times a week was a challenging task.

One of the most significant social features or characteristics of the sustainable model village is that it has a very high frequency of mobility of residents moving to and from the surrounding area and from the villages of the Lundazi District, which is 439 miles (or 707 kilometers) away in the Eastern Province of Zambia. Brick molders, bricklayers, carpenters, and farm laborers were needed. Large numbers of residents temporarily lived in the model village, providing labor to perform ganyu, defined as piece work or contract work, during the period June 2020 to June 2021. This was when the five huts for the model village were built and crops were grown during the 2020/21 rainy or farming season.

Methodology of Ethnography

The researcher could have planned this project perhaps as an experiment in which he could have had some strict controlled variables of the participants for age, marital status, levels of education, place of origin, gender, and religion. The before and after the model village experience measurements in the study would have required a longer time and tremendous resources. The researcher did not have both time and the financial resources. The researcher did not use a formal survey as the principal method of study during the January to June 2021 because the model village sample would have been too small. Ethnography employing participant observation was the best methodology for the study.

Advocates of the positivist paradigm methodology, however, often challenge ethnography as a methodological paradigm as it generates subjective qualitative as contrasted to objective quantitative data. This study used ethnography in order to more effectively capture the process of establishing a model village. This approach is more consistent with the view that: “Quantitative approaches can sometimes, therefore, be rendered untenable, and so qualitative research approaches have to be drawn upon as a replacement for – or as supplementary to – quantitative approaches (Busetto et al., 2020). Consequently, qualitative research can be used as a way to empirically investigate experiences over the life course which would otherwise be hard to capture or document (Allmark et al., 2009Elmir et al., 2011Silverio et al., 2020),”[3]

These are some of the major reasons why the primary method of collecting data for the study was through ethnography employing participant observation. The author had already conducted a small survey of fifteen residents who lived in the model village in July 2019. The results of that small survey showed the broader demographics and characteristics of the village residents: age, gender, education, religious affiliation, and views of village and town life. What were the respondents’ evaluations of the model village? The findings suggested that the survey could not adequately reveal the crucial social bonds and face-to-face interactions that may be key to the operating social structures of the village men, women, and children. What were the social circumstances of the relationships and entertainment sources, as well as the nature of social conflict, conversation, and language? The ethnography methodology would provide a deeper and closer observation of the social factors that might build, strain, or collapse social bonds among the village residents through the author’s participant observation.

The researcher was aware from the beginning of the research that the circumstances and plan of the ethnographic study may be subjected to the unusual criticism of bias. This is the perennial central criticism and characteristic of all ethnography pedagogy as a methodological tool that produces and relies on qualitative data.

Some of the critical questions may be since the researcher was a participant and the village residents were aware of his higher social status, did this influence the village residents to alter their behavior? Did the researcher knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously have predetermined expectations and therefore may have steered the study toward a certain desired outcome? How objective was he?

 In order to minimize bias and enhance objectivity as much as possible, the researcher maintained a number of rules. These rules were applied to when he interacted with the village residents and the researcher also adhered to specific rules of behavior. These rules may have minimized bias in the study and as much as possible enhanced objectivity.

First, the model village administrator, Chatonda and NyaDindi were the authority figures that dealt directly with most if not all major logistic arrangements, administration, and most supervision of duties. These arrangements included planning, work schedules and goals for the day’s work, food processing, purchasing of food and cooking arrangements, assigning and division of labor in form of daily chores, mediating and resolving daily minor conflicts, arrangements for medical treatments in case of illness, and many other daily duties and spontaneous incidents. For example, when it came to being paid for their work, Chatonda is the one who negotiated verbally the work agreements with the village residents.  The researcher gave the money to Chatonda as the supervisor and he is the one who physically gave the residents the money or paid them.

Second, all the residents came to the village voluntarily in order to work and earn some money. There were no contractual obligations that compelled the village residents to stay or live at the village. They could leave at any time. Indeed, some of them left at any time if they had emergencies to attend to away from the model village or if they felt they were unhappy with the pay for their work.

The rules for the researcher were that first, he never managed any of the activities in which the village residents were involved. Chatonda was both the chief supervisor and informer of the research. Second, the researcher made sure he was never the central or compelling driving force of any social activity in which the village residents were involved. The researcher participated in many social activities, and in many of them he was an observer who sometimes listened while nearby or on the edge of the social activity. For example, during the evening around the fires, the researcher would sometimes join the residents and just sit and listen as much as possible.

The researcher did talk to and interact with all of the village residents in the course of regular numerous social interaction opportunities during the participant observation.  These rules may have helped to minimize bias on the part of the researcher and may also have minimized the extent that the model village residents were always conscious that the researcher was the overall boss.

In employing ethnography, the author observed and participated in most of the model village activities while keeping a diary of his observations. The participant observation was from January 5, 2021, when the author arrived at the model village to live in one of the five huts, to July 12, 2021, when the author flew out of Zambia to return to the United States. During the entire period when the author was conducting the ethnography research, the village residents knew that he was the owner of the model village and therefore regarded him as the overall elder and boss. This reality may have created some limitations on what he could and could not participate in during the observations[4].

Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village  Question 1: Social Bonds and Networks

Residents of the model village community grew food on 10 hectares, or 24 acres, employing mostly the traditional sustainable rural Zambian organic village methods with which the researcher is very familiar. These include no use or spotty use of fertilizer; no pesticides; and crops grown appropriately intermixed. The seeds were from traditional crops that were formally identified in the author’s study at the Mkanile and Gwazapasi Villages in 1982.[5] These include maize or corn, peanuts, peas, beans, pumpkin or squash, and tomatoes. These green leaf vegetable seeds were carefully planted. As I wrote in that study,

“There are more than 12 green leaf relishes (vegetables) in the Eastern Province of Zambia[i] and the Tumbuka that are cooked and eaten with nshima. Pumpkin leaves (nyungu), pea leaves (nkhunde or mtambe), sweet potato leaves (chimphorya), bean leaves, cassava leaves (chigwada), kakundekunde, luni, tomatoes, kabata (also called nyazongwe or bilizongwe), bondokotwe, mpapa dende, and kamganje. Although many of these are cooked with maybe a tablespoon of cooking oil, traditionally many of the best tasting are cooked with fresh raw peanut or groundnut powder (Tembo, 2012, p.128). There are vegetables that naturally grow in intermixed plantings in the same field, much like weeds do.

“There are more than 16 delele green leaf relishes in the Eastern Province of Zambia and the Tumbuka that are cooked and eaten with nshima: chekwechekwe, zumba, katate, chilungunthanda (okra), lumanda, zobala, nyoronyoro, katambalala, chizwayo, kapuku, jandarara, thurura, chererwa, lundale, kazinda, and phuruphuru. Other vegetable relishes include chipokoro (fruit), chinaka (also chikanda among the Bemba), and wowa or bowa (mushrooms)” (Tembo, 2012, p. 129).[6]                                        

The first livestock were free-range chickens, both for food as well as ecological reasons, as village chickens eat all crawling and flying bugs and ants and help keep huts, homes, and people safe from insects (Tembo, 1991).[7]

Ten hectares, or 24 acres, of the land were de-stumped and the grass dug upside (kusinda) in March 2019, just after the rainy season had ended when the ground was still soft. The author was in Zambia from May to July 2019. Indigenous or traditional seeds for dozens of crops were collected. These seeds were planted on the farm field in December 2020. At the end of June 2021 after the harvest, all the types of food grown were to be carefully harvested and quantified.

 Question 1: Would the residents of men, women, and children, including the researcher, create deep networks of social bonds as they cooperated and worked together every day within the social ecology of the village from January to June 2021 and onwards? Employing the concept and philosophy of kufwasa,[8] would the residents work together in the field to grow food? Will they draw water, cook food, eat together, build village huts and other structures, pray, tend to the sick, create entertainment, and support one another, creating a sustainable holistic lifestyle that has interdependence with the natural environment?

The researcher kept a journal in order to document in meticulous detail his experiences with all of the thirty-one residents[9] who were invited to voluntarily live and participate in field work, village chores, and social and other activities in the model village from December 2020 to June 2021. What were the successes and challenges of creating deeper, enduring, stable, and dependable human social networks?

The expectations at the end of June 2021 after two cycles of growing and harvesting food were that the journal compilation would provide a comprehensive, systematic, clear, and compelling description of the process of establishing a model village. This might be a village that creates a sustainable rural lifestyle of deep social networks in Zambia or Africa that incorporate the traditional sustainable village customs and practices. The two most significant ethnographic descriptions will pertain to the nature of the social bonds and networks that will be created or fostered among the model village residents after being together every day for six months. This will, perhaps, bear parallels to Durkheim’s concept of anomie[10] that he used to characterize the drastic disruptive social changes that happened in Europe during the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the nineteenth century. Likewise, globalization and urbanization may have created conditions of anomie in the lives of village people in rural Zambia. The model sustainability village will perhaps create conditions of eliminating anomie, leading to the reestablishment of norms, which will once more be embedded in Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity as opposed to the organic solidarity of contemporary urban life in Zambia[11].

The second description will be how much food the traditional sustainable subsistence mixed-crop farming produced during the one growing cycle of seven months from November 2020 to May 2021.

Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village  Question 2: Food Production

 Question 2: Would the two staple foods of maize (or corn) and peanuts be grown and harvested in sufficient quantities? Would other supplementary crops, such as peas, beans, zghama, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and numerous vegetables, be harvested in sufficient quantities to both support sustainable food consumption and to exceed mere subsistence consumption? Will they produce enough food to feed the eighteen residents for at least one year? Would finding adequate stable labor among the Soli ethnic group be a constant challenge such that the model village may continue to draw members and labor from the Tumbuka of Lundazi District?

Findings of the Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village Question 1: Social Bonds and Networks

When the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village was first established in July 2019, the gender roles and the daily routines of the fifteen residents then living in the model village were as follows:

They woke up early before sunrise. The men and women took turns using the one toilet, though the women and men’s bathing shelters were in two separate locations. The women swept and cleared the ashes from the open cooking fireplace. They made the fire. Another woman and the eleven-year-old girl swept the yard. The men removed ashes from the men’s mphala, a traditional assembly place among Tumbuka men in the village. The men heated their own water, with which they washed their faces. The women heated water for washing their faces. The women prepared and cooked breakfast. The men collected their axes and left to work on the ongoing construction at the model village structures site deep in the 123 acres of the wilderness. There was a small path that led to the site.

When breakfast or lunch was ready, one of the children was sent to call the men to come and eat. Often, one woman and one man carried the food to the worksite where the men took a break to eat together.

The women did laundry, prepared lunch, and involved the two children, a five-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl, in some of the chores. Everyone helped with watching the children. The author observed the children play during the day, as well as when they performed some small chores, such as pouring more water into the boiling beans and playing with the baby. Since the borehole pump was about 50 feet, or 15 meters, from the dwelling house, the children spent much of their time both playing with the water while helping adults pump the water to fill containers.

In the afternoon at about 4 p.m., the men returned from their work. They drew their own bath water at the borehole pump and heated it on their own fire to take baths. After dinner in the evening, the women sat together at their fireplace, chatted, and laughed aloud in unison. The men sat at the mphala around the fire and chatted. After 9 p.m. everyone dispersed to go to bed.

The gender roles, chores, and the daily routines from July 2019 and those from January to June 2021,[12] when the author was formally conducting participant observation, were identical. In January 2021 there were seven residents at the model village. They were Chatonda, who was the overall manager and the main research informant; NyaDindi, who was the only female and wife to Chatonda, as well as the caretaker; Fwaka; Jombo; Tungwa; Goli; and the author.

Chatonda managed the planning and coordination of all the tasks of the model village. NyaDindi directly supervised all the daily work of the workers and looked after their personal well-being, including caring for them during illness and attending to funerals and other personal family affairs. The four male workers started work at 7 a.m. (700 hours) and continued until 4 p.m. (1600 hours), with lunch between 1 p.m. (1300 hours) and 2 p.m. (1400 hours), with NyaDindi’s supervision. During this period from January to June 2021, the responsibilities of the four workers were planting seeds on the 10-hectare farm; weeding; applying fertilizer; performing the gamphani tasks; and drawing water in the 44-gallon drum for the residents of the village, which was located up the hill from the borehole pump near the caretaker dwelling. Other tasks included building new structures, such as chicken coops at the model village, and fixing and repairing old broken structures, such as nkhokwe, which are traditional food storage structures.

The diary entries describe some of the more significant observations, thoughts, and social events through the author’s participant observation. Some of the social events included prayer services, entertainment, work habits, and how the number of village residents fluctuated from week to week, changing social relationships while increasing the labor for various tasks and chores.

Diary: February 5, 2021

Late one Saturday when the model village residents were finishing their work for the day, I casually asked them if they wanted to pray on Sunday, the next morning. They all gave an emphatic “yes” with surprising enthusiasm. When would they want the service? I was surprised when they said 8 a.m. I thought after a long week of hard physical work, they would want to sleep in a little. I told them we would assemble in the little mphungu hut structure for the prayer service. This all happened very spontaneously. It was dark. The last thing I ever expected is to conduct a prayer. It was already dark. The village has no lights. To cut a long story short, I woke up at 6 a.m. on Sunday and prepared for the program and the sermon for that morning’s prayer service.

I reached back to the time I spent at the Tamanda Boys Upper Primary School of the Dutch Reformed Church Mission Boarding School from 1964 to 1966. I have a hymnal which is in Nyanja. I only had an English Bible. The village residents have very little education. So, my service was in a mix of English, Nyanja, and Tumbuka languages. We sang hymns No. 2 and 40. The choices of what to read or use from the Bible was a no-brainer for me. I read Genesis 1, verses 1 to 31. Halfway up to verse 16, I stopped and translated into Nyanja and English languages. I gave a brief sermon which I was inspired about. This is how the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village, of all things, got a very unlikely prayer service in our own very modest prayer sanctuary. I cannot wait until this coming Sunday for our next prayer service. The model village currently has two women and seven men.

Diary: February 13, 2021

The model village has had workers with serious problems just performing routine work. Often, they cannot get up on time early to start work. According to Chatonda, Jombo and Tungwa went to drink during weeknights and could not work the next day. They just appear to have serious lack of good judgment and serious difficulties following formal instruction and routines about work. I saw NyaDindi come to the model village huts at 6:30 a.m. to wake up Fwaka and Goli so that they would be ready for work at 7 a.m. Both Goli and Fwaka were my neighbors in the village. Some of the residents’ own personal problems intruded into their work performance. This raises questions about the village and the nature of how humans lived in groups thousands of years before the seismic change of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. This issue has come to the forefront at the model village.

One of the most recent resident workers is Jombo. He seems to have particularly difficult problems. He complains all the time about work and pay and talks back to NyaDindi, who is the caretaker and his immediate supervisor. Some of this might be because NyaDindi is a woman. Jombo has problems with his physical health such that yesterday he had to go to the clinic because he had such serious back pains that he could not work in the field weeding grass using a hoe. He took a day off to go to the clinic. Before he left, he had gone to the neighbor where he apparently gets marijuana to smoke practically every day.

My initial reaction was that this is unacceptable as smoking marijuana to get high is bad according to some of the societal beliefs and negative reputation of the drug. I also found out that Fwaka also smokes marijuana because he has some physical and other undiagnosed problems. Marijuana apparently helps Fwaka and Jombo cope with their physical ailments and life. How bad is individual use of marijuana for people who live in these remote areas? Should the criminalization of marijuana apply to these people?

Diary: April 22, 2021

The day before Chatonda was to travel from Lundazi back to the model village in Chongwe after being away for about two months, NyaDindi suddenly asked if she could have her eighteen-year-old daughter, who had a two-year-old daughter, come over with NyaDindi’s three-year-old granddaughter (from NyaDindi’s married son). So it was that on Sunday, April 11, two young children and an eighteen-year-old young mother joined as new residents of the village. This changed everyone. I was suddenly agogo, or grandfather. Residents were suddenly looking after and taking care of two small children, who also followed NyaDindi around. NyaDindi welcomed taking care of grandchildren as she had been bored many times just doing work. Now she had the welcome responsibility of nurturing her daughter and two grandchildren. Relationships also suddenly changed as the young single male residents were making calculations about the young mother, who is unmarried. The father of her small daughter was shot and killed by the police about the time before the two-year-old daughter was born. The circumstances of his death are unclear. Speculation is that it was crime-related.

During the month of April, the labor demands and tasks increased at the model village. The harvesting of crops started. The three men, Goli, Tungwa, and Fwaka, were working on harvesting maize and digging peanuts every day. The model village needed the construction of three huts to be completed, building of mphungus for the huts, building of bathing shelters, and digging and constructing four toilets. Bricklayers, grass roofers, and carpenters were needed. Chatonda had traveled to the villages in Lundazi and urgently fetched two women and four men to perform all the construction jobs on a contract, or ganyu, basis.

This is why on April 12; the model village population grew to fourteen residents. Relationships developed as there were up to fourteen residents in the village, including three children under five years old.

These were the residents of the village (as of May 9):

  • NyaDindi – A woman, caretaker of the model village, 40 years old;
  • Ashiya – NyaDindi’s granddaughter, 2 years old;
  • Regina – 18-year-old daughter of NyaDindi;
  • Timeke – NyaDindi’s granddaughter from her married son, 3 years old;
  • Fwaka – a man, general worker and assistant caretaker, 27 years old;
  • Goli – a man, general worker, 28 years old;
  • NyaZiba – a woman, 35 years old, who provided kumata, or decoration and beautification of the huts;
  • NyaWachi – a woman, 42 years old, who provided kumata, or decoration and beautification of the huts;
  • Mzumi – a man, 36 years old, who performed grass roofing of the huts and other structures;
  • Ngo’ma – a man, 40 years old, who performed grass roofing of the huts and other structures;
  • Tungwa – a man, 29 years old and a general worker;
  • Mwizenge – owner and director of the model village, 66 years old;
  • Chatonda – a man, manager and supervisor of the model village, 58 years old; and
  • Ncherwa – a man, bricklayer, 35 years old.

Diary: May 5, 2021

On Sunday, May 2, at about 7 p.m. (1900 hours), NyaWachi showed up at the mphungu where Chatonda and I were chatting around the fire. Everyone else was gone for the day as we had been working all day on Sunday to try to complete the last part of the model village construction. There had been talk two days prior that I had drums and we could get together for a Vimbuza, or traditional dance session. I was surprised that they had showed up. We sat around the fire in the mphungu for a few minutes, then I went into my hut and got two of the three drums. I warmed one to the fire and began to play. Goli and Fwaka showed up. The sound of the drums also attracted Tungwa, and another NyaMwaza, who was a guest at the caretaker house, came as well. Soon the women were dancing to Vimbuza, slowly gyrating to the ground; another chioda[13] traditional dancing method was also performed. Last were chinamwali[14] traditional dances. Tungwa played mphininkhu, whose sound was familiar but I had never tried to play it before. Tungwa also played mapilimapili; the two are very closely related.[15] More wood was added to the fire. The women sung so many different current vimbuza and other traditional songs that it was synonymous with listening to beautiful poetry.

NyaWachi played the drums very well and had so much soul behind it. The passion and so much energy came out of NyaWachi’s drumming. I had so much to learn and enjoy. The two women, Gire and NyaMwanza, had children on their backs. They drummed and danced. At one point Gire’s two-year-old toddler swayed her body to the dance and the drums.

I played the drums and sweated. We stopped at 2200 hours. That’s when I ate my nshima[16] and well-cooked mbeba[17] or mouse, which I had not eaten since the 1960s. It was delicious. Goli had cooked it in an unusual way as he burned off the hair from the mbeba before cooking them. He loved to serve them, as I teased him about how he did not cook them the right way. I was told later that NyaWachi does not eat nshima at certain times because she has, or suffers from, the Vimbuza spiritual possession.

Diary: May 9, 2021

There is something I have observed every day for the last two months. Two months ago, Goli and Fwaka would not wake up early for work. NyaDindi had to wake everyone up before 6:30 a.m. so they could be at work at 7 a.m. They showed a very poor work ethic where they expected to be told to do everything. At the same time, on Saturday and Sunday, they could not wait to leave to go to the shops, especially to drink. However, now, I have noticed a change. Their pay has not increased, and it will not be increased for a long time, but their enthusiasm level for work has increased remarkably. I see Goli awake already at 6 a.m., brushing his teeth and waiting to go to work. They seem to want to work instead of going to the shops to drink. All the residents cook for themselves and share meals. They chat and joke a lot.

It appears the village residents informally created and employed various methods to socialize, including evening activities of storytelling, drumming, vimbuza and chioda traditional dances, communal singing of sing-along songs, reciting poems, and enjoying other social activities away from the cell phone. All of these activities were conducted around a fire.

The relationships and the conversations are creating strong social bonds, which diminish the desire of the residents to get away from the village and seek entertainment and a more exciting social life elsewhere. There is talk today that on Sunday some will go together to watch local football or soccer matches, which are very prominent social entertainment events in the area.

Findings of Sustainable Zambian/African Model Village Question 2: Food Production

Gamphani Method of Growing Maize

At the beginning of each new growing season during the dry month of October in rural Zambia, people use their hoes to remove bone-dry weeds and other dead growths in the farm fields. This was done this growing year in October 2021 at the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village. After this, they dug small rectangular holes in the ground three feet apart in many straight lines across the field. Each rectangular hole is about 2 feet long, 6 inches wide, and 6 inches deep. Each household in the village has a hole behind the house on the edge of the bush where they dig a hole in the ground which may be 3 feet long by 3 feet wide but 5 feet deep. This is what they call nkhando, into which they throw all the biodegradable trash, including ashes, fruit covers, soil swept from the yard, food waste, chicken or animal droppings, and wet trash from the bottom of cooking pots. This turns into compost after one year.

The family carries the compost and they pour some of it into each rectangular gamphani hole. They then plant three seeds of maize or corn and other crops and cover the hole with soil. The purpose of the gamphani hole is that it collects water when it rains. When there are poor rains or mild drought, enough water and moisture gather and is stored in the hole so that the maize or crop will continue to grow even when there is less than normal rain. This has been the case because of climate change due to global warming in Zambia and southern Africa.

A small portion of the farm field used the organic gamphani method and used the natural traditional maize seed. We intended to observe how the crops would grow on this field compared to the rest of the larger model village farm field in which the commercial fertilizer methods were applied and hybrid seed was used.

I asked NyaDindi how the planting of maize was done this year. On the eastern side of the 10-hectare farm field, holes were dug in the ground in straight lines. In each hole were dropped three commercial maize seeds and a palmful of D-compound fertilizer.

Diary: The Smell of Maize and Wevulira, February 14, 2021

The maize or corn had been fertilized a couple of times and was growing very well. We expected a good or bumper harvest this year. As a farmer you watch the crops every day, carefully inspecting each stage of the growth. In the case of our maize field, the maize was short and small in December 2020. At the beginning of January 2021, it was waist high. By the end of January, it was so tall, it had begun to flower and young maize, or corn, was emerging with wevulira or kacheche.[18] One morning in the first week of February, I walked to the cornfield and smelled something that evoked deep emotional memories. The flowering corn kukhung’uska[19] and wevulira produce a special smell. I realized there and then that I had not experienced that special smell since I was a child way back in 1962, when I was eight years old. That was the last time that I was present with my family to experience the entire growing season. Most of the years, I would come back home for Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Then I would go back to boarding school. I would come back home in April for four weeks of school holidays. By then, the farm fields had fresh sweet corn, fresh raw peanuts, and many different goodies in the farm fields. The flowering in the process fertilization of the corn was always in February when I was away at school.

The 2020/21 Harvest

The inputs for the 10 hectares of the farm field for the growing season at the model village from November 2020 to March 2021 were as follows:

  • Commercial seeds of 20 Kg maize or corn;
  • 10 Kg peanut seed;
  • 3 bags (50 Kg) of top-dressing D-Compound fertilizer;
  • 3 bags (50 Kg) of basal dressing fertilizer (basal dressing is solid fertilizer evenly spread over the entire field before or at sowing or planting);
  • 3 liters of pesticide;
  • Ox-driven plowing;
  • 10 Kg amount of compost and 0.5 Kg indigenous maize seeds for planting in the few gamphani maize rows; and
  • Labor for planting, weeding, and harvesting the maize and peanuts.

Once the mature maize dried and looked brown, it was ready for harvesting. Once the peanut plant looked dry and the leaves looked brown and were falling off, the crop was ready for harvesting. There were several concerns about harvesting early and quickly between April and June. If the dry maize was not harvested immediately, the dry maize stalks could collapse because of wind and the weak-bottom roots of the stalk. Once the maize stalks collapse to the ground, white ants can quickly devastate the maize, ruining the crop and losing the harvest. I saw the white ants’ damage that had already occurred to the few dry stalks of maize the wind had knocked down. The white ants devour both the stalks and the maize.

The harvesting also has to be done between April and the end of July because of the livestock rule or custom among the Soli headmen, villages, and chiefs in the area. During the rainy and growing season from November to July 31, all livestock have to be penned in. This is to protect growing crops within all farm fields in the area’s villages. On August 1 of every year, all livestock are let loose so that they are free to feed and wander around night and day. Cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs roam around freely from August 1 to November 1. If the farmer has not harvested their crop and livestock eat the unharvested crop, the livestock owner cannot be held responsible for the damage.

Since between April and July the rains have stopped and the ground gets hard and drier by the day, the peanuts have to be dug out early in April and May when the ground is still relatively soft from the just-ended rainy season. Large amounts of the crop can be lost in the hard ground if the farmer does not dig out the ripe peanut crop early using hoes.

The process of harvesting is very arduous for both maize and peanuts. There are some minor variations in how individual farmers harvest these two staple crops. For maize, the most common method is for individuals to go to the farm field with machetes. They line up and chop the maize stalks at the very bottom and then carefully place the chopped stalks in large vertical piles called mikukwe. After that, the corn or maize cobs are removed from the stalks and from the covers, carefully placed in large piles, and then collected in containers and moved to the village. In the case of the model village, a large, square, wooden, and grass-elevated structure had been built next to the caretaker yard. This is where all the maize cobs brought from the farm field were stored.

The next step is to remove all the maize from each cob and place it in large 50-kilogram grain bags. Removing the maize from the cobs is another demanding process requiring physical work. Once in the bags, the maize is ready for storage and sale.

When harvesting the peanut crop, individuals line up along one side of the field with hoes in their hands and dig very deep under each peanut plant to uproot all the peanuts. The peanut plants with peanuts on them are placed together tightly, facing up in groups of about thirty. They are placed this way so that the plants can face the sun and dry. Once all the peanuts have been dug up and dried, individuals will spend all day (for many days) removing the peanuts from their dry stalk and placing the unshelled peanuts in containers. This is known as kutondola skaba in Tumbuka. Once all the peanuts have been collected and taken to the village, they can be traditionally stored in a chilulu structure or, today, in large bags. When being prepared for sale, eating, or cooking, the peanuts are shelled by hand.

The labor of the four model village residents who had permanent employment was not going to be enough to provide all the crop harvesting. For this reason, during the months of April and June, over thirty additional men and women were hired on a ganyu, or contract, basis. They were assigned to one of the large mukukwe vertical piles of maize stalks, where they removed the corn or maize cob and schucked it. The other job they were assigned to perform was digging the peanuts. Once the peanuts were dry, they were also tasked with removing the peanuts from the plant and putting them in containers.

During the 2020 and 2021 growing season, the model village harvested a total of 41 bags of maize or corn, each weighing 50 kilograms. The model village harvested a total of 11 bags of unshelled peanuts, each weighing 25 kilograms. The maize or corn yield from the four rows of maize in which the gamphani organic method was employed was compared to the yield from four comparable rows where fertilizer was used. Each one of the four rows was 36 by 126 feet (or 10.91 by 38.40 meters). There were no significant differences in the yield, with an estimated 16.7 kilograms of maize brought in using the organic method and 17.8 kilograms of maize using the fertilizer method.

During the middle of the growing season in February and March, two vegetables were sun dried in traditional fashion. These were pumpkin leaves and kabata. The dried vegetables yielded a total of one bag weighing 9.8 kilograms.

Discussion

The discussion will focus on what proportions and aspects of the original two questions were confirmed. The discussion will then focus on some of the major challenges in social bonds, social ecology, and sustainable food production which the findings have exposed if the model village is to be recommended for adoption as the main tool for implementing sustainable development.

The research question asked whether the village residents of men, women, and children, as well as the researcher, would create deep networks of social bonds as they cooperated and worked together every day in the village from January to July 2021 and onwards. Employing the concept and philosophy of kufwasa, would the residents work together cooperatively in the field to grow food. Would they draw water, cook food, eat together, build village huts and other structures, pray, tend to the sick, manage conflict, create entertainment, and support one another, creating a sustainable holistic lifestyle that has interdependence with their social and natural environment? What were the successes and challenges, or obstacles, of creating deeper, enduring, stable, and dependable human social networks?

Before joining the village, thirteen of the fifteen permanent residents, or 86 percent, in the Mwizenge Sustainable Village did not know each other prior to moving in. The residents had to adjust and learn how to live together with total strangers. Virtually all of them had no formal education or an education that was below seventh grade. They had never been exposed to the daily routine that is required of formal activities such as employment, for example. Due to all these reasons, the residents faced difficulties during the first few weeks of living together. The author’s diary entry confirms this challenge.

Diary: February 13, 2021

The model village has had workers with serious problems just performing routine work. Often, they cannot get up on time early to start work. Some drink weeknights and cannot work the next day. They just appear to have serious lack of good judgement and serious difficulties following formal instruction about work. Some of their own personal problems intrude into their work performance. This raises questions about the village and the nature of how humans lived in groups for thousands of years. After observing these village resident workers now for a few weeks and especially their difficulties, I have come to the conclusion that the model village will continue to receive and cater to workers who cannot adjust easily to just modest demands that they follow routine activities, make good judgements, and be independent workers. They will always require close supervision.

After the fifteen residents had lived and worked together for another few weeks, there was a remarkable improvement in their work ethic, following work routines, creating, and strengthening of social bonds. These social bonds, however, were not without skirmishes and minor social conflicts and disagreements. The author’s diary entry confirms these observations.

Diary: April 22, 2021

The model village as of this moment is a center of tremendous social activity; so much so that there is no boring moment. There are numerous tasks that have to be done every single day such that there is constant movement and consultation, charging cell phones, calling people, arranging for and planning meals, harvesting maize or corn and peanuts, calling the carpenters and bricklayers. The Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation Television (ZNBC TV) and Radio planning to do recordings at the model village. Some of the residents attend community soccer or football games on Sunday. I have to plan for a Sunday sermon this week. There are some positive changes that are happening in some of the residents who arrived here with terrible drinking habits and poor work ethic. I am surprised now that all of them wake up early and seem keen to work all day. I am beginning to notice those small changes in human lives that suggest that individuals have made some small changes and may be learning in life that suddenly seem to turn their lives in a positive direction. This is very gratifying. This is something one cannot capture in a standard survey.

For the first time as a researcher, I feel alive as many of the relationships among residents are beginning to bear fruit of human fulfillment: trust, companionship, laughter, joking among residents about some previous earlier terrible behavior of conflict and disagreement, drinking as an example. NyaDindi is beginning to think loudly about if there is life in the future of the model village. She may be contemplating living here longer maybe to see her grandchildren grow.

One key factor that may have helped otherwise strangers to create remarkable social bonds after a few weeks of the new residents living together is what sociologist Allan G. Johnson describes as social ecology. In his book The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise, Johnson suggests that the structure of a social interaction such as a classroom may determine the nature and expectations of the social interaction.

Johnson said the structure of the typical college classroom has a small or large room which may have a few to many desks and chairs arranged in rows with fronts and backs. In the front of the many seats and desks is a single podium with a seat. This arrangement predetermines or defines the roles the social actors will occupy; in the case of the typical classroom, they are the roles of teacher or professor and students. The teaching and learning of social roles have happened under this social ecology or arrangement for centuries.

Although the model village is not necessarily a school classroom, a structure or social ecology exists at the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village. The structure and location of the various physical dwellings make it possible for residents to live and interact by the philosophy of kufwasa. Kufwasa is the philosophy that makes it possible for model village residents to have very close social interactions while they perform together selected tasks or even one task every day. The structure of the village dwellings makes the close and very intense social interactions possible.

The basic physical structures and their locations in the village are that all the huts are in straight lines and built 50 meters (164 feet) apart. The huts each have a mphungu structure in which the cooking is done. Each mphungu for each hut is also located in a straight line 50 meters (or 164 feet) apart and 16 meters (or 51 feet) from the huts. Any structures such as chicken coops, nkhokwe food storage structures, bathing shelters, and toilets are located behind the mphunugu structures.

The residents sleep in the huts, which, by design, are relatively small. There is enough room for approximately six people to sleep in it. A couple and two to four small children may sleep in it. It is generally dark inside in the huts even during the day. It will be very unusual for a resident to just sit inside the hut during the day as it is dark and not much can be done inside it besides sleep, rest, and convalesce during short periods of illness.

During most of the daylight hours residents spent their time outside the huts. There is a corridor known as chiwundo, which is built around the hut and used for residents to sit, chat, visit, and perform some small tasks. The mphungu (kitchen) is where all the cooking is done and the design is such that visitors and others can sit on the edges.

The most significant social aspects, or what can be characterized as the social ecology of these dwellings[20] are that residents can easily see and hold conversations with each other without yelling or shouting. The entire village was an open space with no wall between them. This happens 24 hours every day. Early in the morning residents can see each other, greet, wishing each other good morning as they wake up and come out of their huts. As they sit and cook in the mphungu kitchens, they can talk both within the mphungu and to residents in the next mphungus. It is the openness and proximity of these physical structures that makes social interaction so easy and almost inevitable.

This creates a very strong social cohesion, both in health and illness and in happy and sad moments. Residents literally see each other and share each other’s lives every moment of the day. If ever there was a social arrangement that made significant improvement in the kufwasa lifestyle it is the social ecology of the typical Zambian/African village and the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village. The author personally experienced this during the six months he lived with the model village residents. This was from waking up in the morning through rainfall, early mornings, and in the dark nights. The nature and significance of this life was highlighted on the very first page of my book: Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture (Tembo, 2012).[21]

Lack of formal education, poverty, conflicts, lack of entertainment, and lack of prior kinship relationships among village residents all create serious challenges to the development and creation of social bonds. In fact, they can threaten the social bonds that later emerged among total strangers at the model village after initially facing difficulties creating the social bonds. Weak or fraying social bonds may affect social cohesion, food production, productive work, and other activities.

The common impact of acquiring basic formal education is that the individuals acquire reading, writing, and other skills that can later help them gain employment and enable them to sustain their life. One of the skills learned from acquiring basic formal education includes learning how to plan and perform routine activities, including the ability to deal with formal authority required when an individual is employed. Besides the author, Chatonda, and Goli, twelve of the fifteen, or 80 percent, of the model village residents had no education or less than a fifth grade education. Lack of formal education was a major contributor to poverty as prior to coming to the model village, the residents were unable to find gainful employment[22]. Poverty was a serious condition for all of the residents as while they lived in their villages of origin, their main source of income was growing maize in subsistence farming. Their annual income ranged from $39 to $431.

Lack of entertainment at the model village created conflict among the model village residents. Once they had completed work for the day late in the afternoon or on weekends, the residents frequently expressed a desire to bathe, get dressed, and leave the village by walking five kilometers to the shopping center on the Great East Road. Many wanted to go and drink and dance at the three bars. Walking back to the model village late at night in the dark after drinking was a dangerous risk, especially for the women.

Establishing the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village has been a challenge in many ways, but the most difficult challenge is that of establishing strong and long-enduring bonds among strangers recruited from different environments and having different social histories. Typically, the Zambian or African village is comprised of clans of men, women, and children who share a bond of kinship that binds the many individuals and families through marriage and birth or blood. None of this has been the primary basis for creating the model village. The residents come with their own separate, unknown, individual social histories.

If the residents came as members of closely related clans and kinship groups, some of their social histories, particularly their histories of conflict and animosity between individuals emanating from their villages of origin, would have been known. Here’s an observation of one of the conflicts that resulted when non-relatives lived together.

Diary: Relationships Between Men and Women, June 23, 2021

The relationship between men and women residents brought with them whatever prior social networks and obligations they had with their families away from the model village. This was the case with residents and their families from villages in Lundazi, as well as the case of residents Goli and Fwaka from the model village area.

One relationship that stood out that had both joy and contentiousness and conflict was that of NyaZiba and NyaWachi. NyaZiba had been a resident and had worked at the model village in 2019. She asked her close friend in the village, NyamNyaWachi, to come along so that they could work together and make some money. Their principal job was the beautification of the village huts using traditional Tumbuka methods. NyaWachi had been married and divorced and apparently had four grown children, some of whom were even married and had their own children. NyaZiba had been married but was divorced. She had brought her eight-year-old daughter in 2019 who had debilitating sickle cell anemia. Her daughter had tragically passed away because of the disease. Both women appeared to get along really well and had a strong friendship.

As the days went by, Ncherwa the carpenter and NyaWachi developed a relationship and had such an attraction that they began to spend some nights together. Soon NyaWachi and Ncherwa were a couple. Ncherwa was married and had a wife in his village. NyaZiba did not make it a secret that she was looking for a man. She often openly remarked that she would go to the shops at the road and look for a man at the bar. She hated to sleep alone at night. This caused everyone to laugh including myself. Sometimes I would joke that I was in the same boat since my wife was away and not with me. Everyone laughed.

The reality that her close friend, NyaWachi, had a man may have troubled NyaZiba. NyaZiba’s hut was next to mine and NyaWachi’s hut was next to NyaZiba’s hut. One evening I was standing outside my hut in the dark when I heard a heated conversation. NyaZiba was addressing NyaWachi, who was with Ncherwa.

NyaZiba began to rant (kuteketela in Tumbuka): “Iwe NyaWachi tikiza kuno tabili kuzagwira nchito kuti tisange ndalama. Sono iwe ivi ukucita ni vya uhula. Kuhula nkhuheni. Ungagonanga uli na Ncherwa mwanalume wotola kukaya? Ici nchiheni. Kugona na Ncherwa lino yayi. Ufumemo munyumba. Ivi ukucita ni viheni.”

Translation: “You NyaWachi we came together two of us as friends to come and work to earn some money. Now what you are doing is prostituting. Prostituting yourself is wrong. How come you can sleep with Ncherwa, who is married and has a woman back in his village? This is wrong. Do not sleep with Ncherwa tonight. Leave the house. What you are doing is bad.”

When Ncherwa tried to defend his girlfriend, who was not saying anything to rebut the accusations, he was met with threats from NyaZiba,

Iwe Ncherwa ine nkhuyowoya na NyaWachi. Kunjililapo yayi. Ningakuchaya ine!! Iwe ungagona uli na uyu mwanakazi? Ndiwe wotola kukaya.”

Translation: “You, Ncherwa, I am talking to NyaWachi. Do not join. I can beat you up!! How can you sleep with this woman? You are married at your home in the village.”

All the parties in this conflict did not know that I was standing only 50 meters (164 feet) away listening, as it was dark and besides there was no moonlight. When I heard NyaZiba invoke or threaten that she could beat up Ncherwa, I was tempted to intervene in the still-verbal altercation. But I also knew that my showing up might truly escalate the fight as Ncherwa would be forced to defend his manhood and bruised ego. I stayed quiet. NyaZiba continued to rant, which sounded more and more like she was bullying NyaWachi. All of them had been sitting together around the fire. Eventually Ncherwa and NyaWachi left and went to their hut. NyaZiba also went to her hut.

When the verbal altercation had died out, I recalled that NyaZiba always had a volatile personality, as she easily gets angry and begins to rant and issue threats of physical altercation. Only two weeks earlier, she had learned that NyaDindi had slaughtered and cooked a chicken. Chatonda and I and, of course, NyaDindi had eaten the chicken with nshima. NyaZiba said loudly in the morning before the group of residents that NyaDindi had denied them chicken with nshima. NyaZiba said that was unfair as all the residents deserved to eat the chicken. She ranted that we shouldn’t have to eat vegetables all the time.

The social bonds and cohesion the model village residents created may have contributed to the effective subsistence production, processing, and storage of food. This contribution was in the form of cooperation in the labor required for planting, tilling, harvesting, and storage of food.

The two staple foods of maize or corn and peanuts were grown and harvested in sufficient quantities. Other supplementary crops such as peas, beans, zghama, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and numerous vegetables were harvested in sufficient quantities to both support the sustainable food consumption of residents and would exceed mere subsistence consumption. They produced enough food to feed the eighteen residents for at least one year. Finding adequate stable labor among the Soli ethnic group was a constant challenge such that the model village continued to draw most members and labor from the Tumbuka of Lundazi District, located 707 kilometers, or 439 miles, away in the Eastern Province.

During the 2020 and 2021 growing season, the model village harvested a total of 41 bags of maize or corn, each weighing 50 kilograms per bag. The model village harvested a total of 11 bags of unshelled peanuts, with each bag weighing 25 kilograms. The maize or corn yield from the four rows of maize in which the new gamphani organic subsistence farming method was employed was compared to the yield from four comparable rows where conventional fertilizer was used. The size of the two farm fields whose yields were compared were each 10.91 by 38.40 meters, or 36 by 126 feet. There was no significant difference in the yield, which was estimated at 16.7 kilograms for the gamphani organic and 17.8 kilograms for the fertilizer yield.

Farm Field Inputs

These were the inputs for the 10 hectares of the farm field during the growing season at the model village from November 2020 to March 2021.

TABLE 1

Commercial seed 30 Kg maize or corn @K304.9

      or $16.94 per Kg = K9,147.00 or                                                                                      $525.67

Commercial seed 20 Kg peanuts @K417.60 or

      @ $24.00 per Kg = K8,352.00 or                                                                                        479.37

Two 50 Kg bags of D-Compound fertilizer (K550.00×2), K1,100.00                                      63.15 

Two 50 Kg basal dressing fertilizer (K620.00×2), K1,240.00 =                                               71.22

3 liters of pesticide, K3,000.00 =                                                                                              172.35

Ox-driven plowing, K4,000.00 =                                                                                              229.80

10 Kg amount of village compost, K0.00 =                                                                                  0.00

0.5 Kg indigenous maize seeds for planting in the few gamphani

      maize rows, K0.00 =                                                                                                                 0.00

Labor for planting, weeding, and harvesting the maize and 

      peanuts, K12,200.00 =                                                                                                         700.14

TOTAL                       K39,069.00                                                                                     $2,241.77                                                                    

The harvest of 41 bags of maize, each weighing 50 kilograms, may have been adequate for consumption among model village residents for the 2021-22 growing year. The 41 bags at the sale price of K150.00 per 50 Kg bag had a total market value of K6.150.00, or $361.72. This harvest may have been unsustainable. The factors for being unsustainable may include the cost of inputs contrasted with the recommendations of the agricultural extension department regarding sustainable yield for subsistence farming of the maize staple crop. Another factor is the paradox of mechanization of farming and some of the unrecognized significance of subsistence farming among the rural people.

Subsistence farming food production and harvest has its own challenges and calculations. During the long history of subsistence farming in Zambia among the Tumbuka and perhaps the entirety of rural Zambia and Savannah Africa, the objectives of farming production were very simple. The family tilled the land and planted crops during the first rains in November. In April the following year, the family would harvest all their crops of maize or corn and peanuts and store them away in the nkhokwe traditional food storage structure for the family’s consumption. The challenge was to eat that food and stretch it out until March the next year during the first harvest of the new crop. Many families easily achieved these objectives and avoided starvation. This was the process before the introduction of European colonialism. In the 1950s and 1960s, the sale of some of the crop harvest began to be encouraged. This was called chalelela in Lundazi. By the 1960s, my grandmother would get cobs of dry maize from the nkhokwe storage. She would sell it to the local commercial market. The income was used to buy clothes, pay for children’s school uniform and fees, and occasionally buy buns, sugar, and tea.

In the 2020s, the situation is different. The agricultural extension officers have been teaching subsistence farmers the new gamphani program since 2000. This is to increase output but is also meant to help subsistence farmers make calculations about their farming input and output expectations, taking into consideration the family’s need for food, especially the maize staple food, for the whole year.

The calculations are that if you apply 6 bags (50 Kg) of fertilizer (3 basal and 3 D-compound) you receive a total of K3,510, or $200.80. Each of the 6 bags of fertilizer should yield 10 bags (50 Kg) of maize, which would be worth K9,000, or $514.88, in the 2021 market price of maize. In this case, that would be for 60 bags of maize. Assuming that the harvest is higher, a total of 95 bags (50 Kg) may be harvested. If you have a family of six members, each is calculated to eat a total of 3 bags (50 Kg) of maize per year, which is worth K450, or $30.89. This family would need 18 bags worth K2,700, or $154.46, to be put aside for consumption. You would also need to keep 60 bags (50 Kg) of maize for K9,000, or $514.88, in order to sell to reserve enough fertilizer for the next growing season. The 95 hypothetical 50 Kg bags of maize would earn K14,250, or $815.23.

All this has to take into account that a percentage of the maize is lost before the harvest. White ants eat some of the maize; domestic livestock like chickens raid some of the maize; and the family begins to use some of the maize from the field for food before the harvest. Climate change also affects the yield. All these factors reduce the surplus, or the maximization of the harvest, making it hard to reach the goal of achieving the highest yield from subsistence farming.

Some of the income from the limited surplus from selling maize has to be used to pay for school fees and uniforms for the children and clothing for adults; paying back fertilizer loans; paying for medical expenses; and purchasing basic consumer goods, such as bathing soap and cooking oil. These expectations are very high and the margin of error between the farm inputs and outputs is very narrow. Would an average subsistence family be able to achieve these goals and objectives? Probably not, especially when considering that the residents of the model village reported that their range of annual income from subsistence farming was $39 to $431.

Another factor is the paradox of farming mechanization and some of the unrecognized but significant aspects of subsistence farming among the rural people. Large commercial famers can have very high yields because they optimize the growing of a monocrop such as maize. They can use a tractor and mechanization to plant the one crop of maize seed; apply fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides; and harvest the crop. This not only minimizes the cost of labor but maximizes the yield of the maize per hectare and maximizes the profit margins. The subsistence and other small farmers in rural areas cannot afford mechanization. But the other, more compelling factor is that they cannot afford the more productive and efficient monocrop farm field. Out of necessity of survival, subsistence farmers have to plant numerous crops in one field: maize, groundnuts, peas, pumpkins, majungu, beans, and many others. They also get natural vegetables that grow within the farm weeds such as kabata, chererwa, and bondokotwe. The subsistence farmers have to feed from the same farm field from very early on during the growing season. If they didn’t, they would starve because they cannot afford to buy some of their food, such as vegetables, from a supermarket. They are heavily dependent on the farm field as a source of sustenance throughout the year. The author’s diary offers some testimony.

Diary: The Significance of Subsistence Farming, February 27, 2021

Most descriptions of growing of food in developing or Third World countries including rural Zambia or Africa is that people engage in subsistence farming. The explanation is that they grow just enough food primarily to feed their families. If there is a little surplus, it may be sold for cash to meet some of the modern needs, such as, for example, buying soap, paying for school fees, or purchasing clothes. Subsistence farming is said to be less efficient with low-production levels of food. Commercial farming is praised, promoted, and advocated as it produces larger amounts of food to feed a growing, especially urban population.

The model village farming model may be used to advocate both commercial farming methods but also subsistence farming styles that may support sustainable agricultural methods. The model village farm this year embraced both methods. It used fertilizer to grow the corn and used some pesticide. But within the corn were planted pumpkins and majungu. But within and between the growing corn or maize were the naturally growing vegetables such as chererwa, bondokotwe, and pumpkin leaves, which are vegetables that are routinely collected, cooked, and eaten with the nshima meal.

Between the corn or maize are also growing weeds. If herbicides are used such as in commercial agriculture, all these natural vegetables are destroyed with the weeds. These natural vegetables are a significant source of food for large populations that practice subsistence farming. The author ate some of the vegetables during his stay while conducting this research. Because of the use of fertilizer and some traditional gamphani methods, the maize looks as healthy as the ones that used primarily commercial methods. But the subsistence farming method has the obvious advantage that it provides more food that is planted with the maize.

Although these were not all planted in the model village farm, some of the crops that can be planted with the maize include peas, beans, pumpkins, watermelons, chilungu nthanda (okra), cimphwete, chipokoro, njivo sugar cane, mapira (sorghum), sweet potatoes, najungu or maungu, and peanuts. Use of herbicides and pesticide in the subsistence farming would be very hazardous to all these foods, which rural subsistence farmers rely on for their livelihoods.

This morning I spent more than an hour walking through the large, thick, green, tall maize and looked at what is growing between the maize. The village residents had weeded a few weeks ago, but the growth of all these other sources of food is thick. The experience this morning has struck me that this should act as evidence for the advocating of sustainable agriculture, which may only be possible using subsistence agricultural methods. It will certainly involve less mechanization and will require more manual labor. This will not be possible with commercial agriculture. Subsistence farming may require more labor, which would reduce both surplus and profits.

The paradox is that mechanization in the commercial agricultural method employing monocrop, such as the maize staple crop in Zambia, gets the highest harvest yields. But this same commercial agricultural method may hurt subsistence farmers if the subsistence farmers widely adopted it. Contrary to popular belief, the prohibitive cost of inputs in commercial farming should not be the only factor preventing rural subsistence farmers from adopting the method. Subsistence farmers in villages should use some of the commercial agriculture methods, such as the use of fertilizer and commercial seed, but the use of mechanization and monocrop farm fields would be detrimental to subsistence farmers as these farmers would not be able to plant other crops that are crucial for their survival. Getting rid of all the weeds using herbicides, for example, would also get rid of all the wild naturally growing vegetables that grow with the weeds. The rural residents heavily depend on these foods for their survival during the entire growing season from December to May.

Conclusion

This research report presented findings in a research project which was conducted at the 123-acre, or 50-hectare, Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village located in rural Lusaka in Zambia in southern Africa from January to June 2021. The project used the ethnographic method and a limited survey. First, the project investigated whether a model village could be created to instigate enduring sustainable social bonds within the context of the social ecology within which the rural model village residents live. Initially, the residents experienced difficulties in settling in the village. But after a few weeks, they were able to create somewhat strong social bonds after overcoming some of the initial challenges.

Secondly, the research project investigated whether subsistence sustainable agricultural development methods can be successfully used to grow food in a rural environment. The model village residents achieved some remarkable farm outputs while employing primarily sustainable agricultural methods. The nature and amount of farm inputs and outputs created serious questions as to the viability of the model village for achieving sustainable rural subsistence farming. It was hoped that the findings of the model village study could be used as the basis for implementing successful sustainable development model village programs in many parts of rural Zambia and the global world.

Every research has limitations. One advantage that both the experiment and the survey as research methods have is that the studies have a definite end; the experiment ends and the survey ends when the survey sample number is reached. This ethnographic study did not have a definitive end. The six months may not have been enough for the study. As a researcher, I have since realized that this is the reason why good ethnographic studies may take many years of participant observation.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Bridgewater College for awarding me research sabbatical leave from January to June 2021 at the end of which I would retire after teaching at Bridgewater College for 31 years. It was the best retirement gift and something I did not expect. I wish to thank the Mednick Foundation for the grant they awarded me, which partially funded my research project.

I would like to thank all of my colleagues within the Sociology Department at Bridgewater College for all the support they gave me during my teaching but also especially during all the phases of my sabbatical research: Dr. Benjamin Albers, the Chair of the Department, and colleagues Dr. Tim Brazil, Professor Skip Burzumato, and Dr. David Reznic, as well as Dr. Betsy Hayes, the former Chair of the Sociology Department and the Division Head of Humanities and Social Sciences. I would also like to thank the Information Technology Center at Bridgewater College for their help when I was conducting data analysis of the limited survey from my research. I would  like to thank Jada Blinn, theDirector ofStrategic Analysis and Reporting Bridgewater College, for her help when I was writing the research project proposal.

I would like to thank the following colleagues for their help when I was writing the sabbatical research proposal: Dr. Kimberly Bolyard of the Department of Biology, Dr. Timothy Kreps of the Department of Biology, and Teshome Molalenge, Director of Sustainability at the Center for Engaged Learning.

I would like to thank Mr. Vincent Tembo for his unwavering support of the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village, as well as his dedication to and sacrifice for the project prior to the research field work and especially during my participant observation or ethnography field work. The entire construction of the model village would not have been possible without Mr. Vincent Tembo. I would also like to thank all the residents of the model village from different backgrounds for their enthusiasm and cooperation as we participated in this experiment together. I would like to thank Heather Hayes of Charlottesville in Virginia for editing the report.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support: Beth, my wife of 41 years; my adult children, Temwanani, Kamwendo, and Sekani; my daughter-in-law Hannah Tembo; and all the members of my two large extended families on the Tembo and Zerweck sides. Your support always means so much to me.

The six months of research field work during which I lived in my own hut at the model village was the most exciting research in my life. It was not without risk as towards the end in June, I came down with malaria fever and COVID-19 and had to be hospitalized. I was admitted at South Point Hospital in Chelstone in Lusaka. I would like to thank the staff of the hospital for their professionalism and kind treatment.

Conflict of interest

The Mednick Foundation awarded me a small grant which partially funded my research project. The grant was awarded through my employers; Bridgewater College. Both institutions had no expectations about what the results or findings of the research project should be. The author owned the 123 acres or 50 hectares of the model village. There were no pressures or investment on the part of the author to achieve certain results or to confirm certain hypotheses. There were no expectations on the part of the author to recoup expenses for farm inputs from the village farm yields or harvests. All the 41 bags of maize harvest were left to the model village residents to sell and reserve some of the maize for personal consumption. Although the author is aware that the ethnographic method is inherently biased, the author declares no conflict of interest.

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[1] McMichael, Philip, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, 6th Edition, Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2017, p.11

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ecology_(Bookchin) Murray Bookchin.

  1. [3] Silverio, Sergio A., Sheen, Kayleigh S., and Sandall, Jane, “Sensitive, Challenging, and Difficult Topics: Experiences and Practical Considerations for Qualitative Researchers,” Sensitive, Challenging, and Difficult Topics: Experiences and Practical Considerations for Qualitative Researchers – Sergio A. Silverio, Kayleigh S. Sheen, Alessandra Bramante, Katherine Knighting, Thula U. Koops, Elsa Montgomery, Lucy November, Laura K. Soulsby, Jasmin H. Stevenson, Megan Watkins, Abigail Easter, Jane Sandall, 2022 (sagepub.com) in  International Journal of Qualitative Methods: SAGE Journals (sagepub.com)

[4] Since I am Zambian who grew up and whose life is deeply embedded in both Tumbuka and Zambian traditional culture, there are certain activities I knew were taboo for me to participate in as a man. For example, men and women ate separately according to indigenous customs. While I could observe the women eating together, I never joined them to eat for purposes of the study. Doing so would have broken one of the fundamental aspects of the traditional culture and customs. The women and men would have thought of me as being rude, disrespectful, and even contemptuous of them.

[5] The information was collected during research the author conducted at two villages: Mkanile and Gwazapazi Villages in the Lundazi District while he was a Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies during field trips in 1981 and 1982. Tembo, Mwizenge S., Hayward, Peter, and Mwila, Chungu, As Assessment of Technological Needs in Three Rural Districts of Zambia, Report No. 1, Lusaka: Technology and Industry Research Unit, Institute for African Studies, February 1982.

Also: Tembo, Mwizenge S., “An Assessment of Appropriate Technology Needs of Gwazapasi and Mkanile Villages of Lundazi District of Rural Zambia,” Eastern Africa Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 14, No. 1 and 2, 1981.

[6] The information was collected during research the author conducted at two villages: Mkanile and Gwazapazi Villages in the Lundazi District while he was a Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies during field trips in 1981 and 1982. Tembo, Mwizenge S., Hayward, Peter, and Mwila, Chungu, As Assessment of Technological Needs in Three Rural Districts of Zambia, Report No. 1, Lusaka: Technology and Industry Research Unit, Institute for African Studies, February 1982; and Tembo, Mwizenge S., Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture: Social Change in the Global World, Xlibris Corporation, 2012, p.129.

[7] Tembo, Mwizenge S., “Where Chickens Sleep in Trees: The Importance of Chickens in Rural Zambia, The World & I, September 1991.

[8] Life in the village can be best summarized as influenced by the experience of the Tumbuka term “kufwasa.” Fwasa is a verb that can be translated as to be calm, patient, quiet; to focus or concentrate one hundred percent; to be serene; to take your time. Kufwasa is the state of being or experiencing this condition. Some words and their deeper philosophical meanings in one culture are rarely easily or accurately translatable into, say, English or another language. Kufwasa is such a term in Tumbuka. Tembo, Mwizenge S., “Kufwasa and Serenity,” November 13, 2016, https://wp.bridgewater.edu/mtembo/articles/kufwasa.

[9] During the period of the study from January to June 2021, none of the residents lived in the model village for all of the six months. Residents moved in and out of the village. Some came to the village as visitors or guests for a few days, maybe up to a week. Most came to earn an income through ganyu, or piece or contract work. Six were permanent workers who earned a monthly wage.

[10] Macionis, John, Sociology, 17th Edition, New York: Pearson, 2019.

[11] Macionis, John, Sociology, 17th Edition, New York: Pearson, 2019.

[12] The author first lived at the model village for three weeks in July 2019. He later lived in the model village from January to June 2021.

[13] Chioda is a women’s traditional dance among the Tumbuka people in Eastern Zambia and the dance is also popular in Malawi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxBXl0c2Aj0&ab_channel=MwizengeTembo

[14] Chinamwali is the traditional puberty ceremony for girls in the Eastern Province of Zambia.

[15] The drumming for the Vimbuka spiritual traditional possession dance has three drumming sounds: mboza, mapilimapili, and dancer or master drummer. Mphininkhu is the variation or reverse of the mapilimapili sound. All the drum sounds are represented with oral notations. There are no written notes like in the Western written music notations. There is the Vimbuza dance when an individual is experiencing spiritual possession and the Vimbuza dance for entertainment. The village residents were doing the latter.

[16] Nshima is a food cooked from plain maize or corn meal or maize flour known as mealie-meal among Zambians. Nshima is the staple food for 17 million Zambians. It is eaten at least twice per day: for lunch and dinner. Another second dish, known as ndiwo, umunani, dende, or relish, must always accompany nshima. The relish is always a deliciously cooked vegetable, meat, fish, or poultry dish. By comparison to other cultures, Zambian recipes tend to be bland and hardly use any hot spices at all. However, they use other traditional ingredients and spices that give Zambian foods that distinctive unique taste and flavor. https://wp.bridgewater.edu/mtembo/zambian-foods/nshima-and-ndiwo/  https://www.thefreelibrary.com/COMING+FROM+THE+EARTH.-a058371694

[17] Mbeba, or mice, is a popular food among the Tumbuka people. It is also a popular food in rural Lusaka, Eastern Province of Zambia, and in Malawi. https://wp.bridgewater.edu/mtembo/zambian-foods/mbeba-mice-delicacy/#:~:text=The%20mice%20legend%20plays%20many,husbands%20physically%20abusing%20their%20wives.

[18] Wevulira and kacece are the traditional Tumbuka terms for the stages of fertilization of corn or maize. Both wevulira or kacece refer to the silk-like flowering of the young baby corn or maize. This is the female part of the process of flowering in the fertilization of the corn. https://www.evergreenseeds.com/baby-corn/

[19] Khung’uska is the flowering that takes place at the top of the growing maize. This is the male part of the flowering of the maize or corn in the process of fertilization. The author is both wondering and unsure whether the farmers are conscious of the smell that is apparently present during the process of farming maize or corn. https://www.evergreenseeds.com/baby-corn/

[20] Johnson, Allan G., The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014.

[21] Describing kufwasa and serenity in my home village, I state: “During the early evening night, I sit on the front of my small round hut along the narrow edge known as chiwundo by the thin closed wooden door. The yellow glow of the candlelight is visible along the edge of the rectangular doorframe…..Thisis the place where my mom and dad’s house is literally less than eighty yards or seventy-five meters away from my house. My two brothers and their wives’ houses and their children are less than sixty yards or fifty-four meters away…..When I wake up and open my front door, I can see all these people I love at once at a glance”. Tembo, Mwizenge S., Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture: Social Change in the Global World, Xlibris Corporation, 2012, p.21-22.

[22] The common assumptions of the benefits of schooling and attaining formal education are that the individual will learn how to read and write. The individual will gain employment, and also learn the positive benefits of punctuality, planning, interpersonal behavior, hygiene, following routine, dealing with authority and social change. In the “Significance of  Schooling: Life Journeys in an African Society”, Robert Serpell discusses the results of a twenty year longitudinal study that investigated the impact of school on children in a rural area in Eastern Zambia in Southern Africa. His findings suggest that schooling may have some paradoxical impacts among the rural people in the Third World. Some of these weaknesses, problems, contradictions, and paradoxes of schooling among the rural people in Africa were apparent among the model village residents.

https://doi.org/10.2307/1161332

Robert Serpell, The Significance of Schooling: Life-Journeys in an African Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Search (cambridge.org)


 

Appendix A

Select Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village Photographs

NyaWachi: One of the two women model village residents whose task was to artistically beautify the village huts according to the Tumbuka village traditional methods. This is called kukuluba and kuhutya.

NyaMwendo: One of the two women responsible for the traditional artistic beautification of the village hut walls and other structures. She is applying the vivid colors wet-soil mud to the hut’s walls known as kuhutya.
Right – NyaDindi the caretaker with a visiting guest standing in the village maize field.

 

Ketchup on the White House Wall

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

I was at a burial at the Leopards Hill cemetery in Lusaka the Capital City of Zambia in Southern Africa. It was somewhat quiet, tense and very sad as people were mourning as the dirt or soil was being poured into the grave of our beloved departed relative. In Zambian society, the Ngoni from the Eastern Province and the Bembas from the Northern Province has a chimbuya or grandfather and grandmother ship. The two groups tease and joke about each other a lot in public, at weddings, and at funerals. This goes back to incidents between the two tribes or ethnic groups going back to the 1850s.

The deceased man we were burying was a very close Bemba man whom we can call Mulenga. The men who had an obligation to bury and pour soil or dirt into Mulenga’s grave were Ngoni Easterners. As they were piling the soil on the grave using shovels, there was a small dead mouse. Easterners eat mice. Suddenly the Ngoni man grabbed the mouse and tossed it on top of the grave mound saying: “Since Mulenga will be hungry in the grave, he will eat this mouse.” The mourners momentarily laughed right in the middle of a somber very tense serious moment.

I was watching the very serious January 6 Congressional Hearings because our nation’s democracy here in the United States is in danger whether you are aware of it or not. During the hearings, the witness Cassidy Hutchinson was creating a very convincing narrative of what happened in the White House during the January 6 riot, insurrection or should we call it an uprising now in the light of the new devastating information?

Cassidy Hutchinson described an incident in early December 2020 when the former President was apparently very angry at Attorney General Bill Barr when he said  there was no wide spread fraud or any credible irregularities in the 2020 elections. The President allegedly smashed his lunch hamburger and french fries plate against the wall splattering the ketchup all over the White House dining room wall. Hutchinson found herself helping picking up the broken China pieces and helping the White House valet wipe the ketchup off the wall. I laughed very hard.

Cassidy Hutchinson said the former President expected to be driven to the Capital from his rally he had just addressed at the Ellipse. When the secret agent driver repeatedly told the President No! “We are going back to the White House”, the President was so angry he allegedly lunged at the secret service driver grabbing the steering wheel or chidraivilo. When he was rebuffed, the President reached for the driver’s clavicle. At this point I just lost it, not in anger, but in serious belly rocking laughter. I found myself suddenly laughing very hard.  I have not found anything to laugh at in the news these days about the country and the world. But why was I laughing?

First and foremost, we laugh during tense moments when something unexpected happens. Afterall, that is the secret behind all humor and comedy. But I began to ask myself how did we elect the leader of the most powerful country in the world who does these things in anger? We ordinary citizens who are mere mortals may express our temper that way. But it is not right. None of us ever condone this behavior. But then I began to ask myself whether the other 45 American Presidents could have done this in the White House? Would Presidents Biden, Obama, both Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and JF Kennedy have engaged in this behavior? What about the Great President Lincoln from the 1860s?

My conclusion to all of this is that our character, integrity, and dignity is often reflected not in public big earth-shaking pronouncements and decisions, but rather if in anger we can lunge at a driver in the automobile if we don’t get our way; or if in anger we hurl our dinner plate against the wall splattering ketchup on it. One million Americans died of the Corona Virus pandemic when the former President was in charge. Let’s count our blessings that we did not have the Cuban Nuclear Missile crisis when the former President was in charge of the nuclear bombs code.

Philipp Dettmer, Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive, New York, Random House,  2021, 341 pages, Hardcover, $21.99 (K372.70)

Philipp Dettmer, Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive, New York, Random House,  2021, 341 pages, Hardcover, $21.99 (K372.70)

BOOK REVIEW

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Introduction

You own a large three-bedroom house. In the kitchen you have mealie-meal, cooking oil, bananas, oranges, onion, bread, biscuits, and tomato to last the whole month. You have a fridge full of raw and cooked food, all kinds of soft drinks including a crate of beer. You have a large screen cable TV  with over two hundred stations in your very comfortable living room with thick sofas. Your bedrooms have good beds with thick comfortable mattresses with good blankets. The closets are full of the latest new clothes and shoes. The shower has good soap and your flash toilet is clean. The house has two doors, ten windows, a ceiling and a roof.

As you are sitting in the living room flipping channels watching TV, you look out of the window. There are hundreds of robbers all around your house every night and day who want to find ways to break into your house, kill you and your family so that they can settle in, eat, enjoy themselves, steal, occupy, live in and take over your house. The house is your body, you, and your family and relatives living happily inside it. The fierce armed robbers who are all around outside the house walls, doors, windows, and roof banging and trying to  invade and get into your body are the numerous germs or enemies outside your body, that create havoc through disease, illness, and death trying to get into your body to kill you. How does all of this relate to your life and 7.7 billion other human beings in the world which include 17 million Zambians?

Immune: the Book.

Immune

Philipp Dettmer has published a book “Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive” in which he describes in the most understandable way how the immune system operates to defend your body and mine in 45 short chapters. The chapters include: The Empires and Kingdoms of the immune system; Naked, Blind, and Afraid: How Do Cells Know Where to Go?; Weapon Factories and Sniper Rifles: B Cells and Antibodies; How a Viral Infection is Eradicated; When Your Immune System is Too Weak: HIV and AIDS; The Hygiene Hypothesis and Old Friends.

We can walk, laugh, work, eat, play, read, have sex, go to school to earn certificates, diplomas, degrees, and do many things that make us happy because the immune system keeps us safe from germs. But what is surprising is that the body and the immune defensive system are both very complex and complicated. This is why despite advances in science, some of the activities of the body and the germs are still not well understood.

Dettmer first describes the physiology of the body, who are the soldiers that defend our bodies against our enemies both inside and outside our bodies, how do the soldiers defend our bodies, and what happens when our valiant soldiers lose the war to the invading enemies in form of germs?

Our bodies are very big. They range for an adult in height from 5ft or 1.52 meters to 7ft or 2.13 meters. Our adult bodies can weigh ranging from 130lbs or 58.9kg to 300lbs or 136.07kg. The body is composed of flesh and muscles, 60% water, and fluids such as blood that the heart pumps through veins making the fluids flow throughout our body. The body is protected from enemies outside our bodies with a thick skin that has a surface area of 2 square yards or 1.67square meters. According to Dettmer, the skin “luckily is not that hard to defend, since most of it is made out of a hard and thick barrier covered with its own defense system. It feels soft, but is pretty hard to breach if it is intact.” (p.11)

In the house example that was used earlier, robbers,  burglars, and enemies are likely to pry doors and windows to try to enter your house to attack you.  Similarly, the weakest points that germs are likely to enter to attack your body are the openings in your body which are your mucous membranes. According to Dettmer, these are “the surface that lines your windpipe and lungs, eyelids, mouth, and nose, your stomach and intestines, your reproductive tracts and bladder….on average there are about 200 square yards or 167.22 sq. meters of mucous membrane….the size of tennis court.” (p.11)

What is the unit that defends our body in the immune system? The smallest unit that the immune system is built around is the cell.  The cell is a very tiny microscopic unit compared to our huge body. But the cell does numerous things for our body. The tiny cell has so many things in it and performs so many functions. According to Dettmer, inside the cell there is a nucleus, “….the information center of your cell – pretty large structure with its own protective border wall that houses your DNA, your genetic code.” (p. 17)  The cell’s insides has millions of molecules and proteins. Proteins are the most important building blocks and tools for not only our bodies but all living things.

The body has forty trillion cells including red blood cells, muscle cells, fat cells, epithelial cells, and immune cells, just to mention a few (p.13). The numerous immune cells include the Dendric Cell, Natural Killer Cell, T-Cell. B Cell. Mast Cell, Macrophage, Antibodies, Basophil, and Eosinophil (p.28).  You name anything in the human body there is a cell for it. How does the immune system operate to defend the body using the Innate Immune System and the Adaptive Immune System? Who are the sworn enemies of the body that if they manage to get into our bodies, we may become very sick or even die?

The three major microorganisms that are enemies that are always threatening our bodies are parasites such as bacteria, viruses, and others. The total number of bacteria in the whole world is estimated to be 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is five million trillion trillion or 5 x 10 to the 30th power. Because they are so ubiquitous, they are everywhere and we can never get rid of them. However not all bacteria are enemies to the human body. Since about 3.5 billion years ago (p.3) when the human immune system began to evolve, some bacteria are hostile but others are friendly and actually live inside our bodies and help us to live a healthy life. For example, according to Dettmer, around your intestines, “ ……on your gut mucosa, around thirty to forty trillion individual bacteria from around 1,000 different species and tens of thousands of species of viruses make up your gut microbiota” (p.162). There are one million bacteria on a square centimeter of your skin alone (p.45). The difficult job of the immune system is to keep the friendly bacteria but kill the dangerous bacteria. There are also an estimated ten thousand billion, billion, billion viruses. (p.168)

This information about your immune system should not scare you. Instead, it should create a better understanding of what it takes for us to live healthy lives every day. Often, we are not even aware of the internal battles our immune system fights every single day. But even more important, this information should help us understand how and why we get sick and sometimes die. Why do we have malaria fever, influenza epidemics during the cold or winter months, cholera, childhood diarrhea kills millions of children, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and now the Corona Virus or Corvid 19? Instead of paying attention to conspiracy theories, what do vaccines do? How can we help our bodies strengthen our immune system beyond taking drugs?

I highly recommend this book for the ordinary reader, teachers of introduction to biology and the immune system, nurses, students in all medical fields, and students of the relationship between evolutionary biology, diseases, and pandemics.

Tashupika: We are Suffering in America

By

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

I had been watching news all week about the early voting for the crucial American Presidential elections on November 3rd. I saw TV images of long lines of voters standing six feet apart going sometimes miles or kilometers around street blocks in many cities and towns. Some people were reporting standing in line for eight hours to cast their vote.

About thirty million Americans of the possible total of about 134 million voters had already voted in the early voting by last week. Some had voted by mailing or posting their ballots. But the President and Republicans are so desperate to win re-election that the Post Office was messed up in June this year. Some Post Office boxes were removed, large mail automatic processing machines were removed from Post offices, and the Post Office mail or letter carriers were ordered to slow down mail delivery. Since many people especially Democrats were going to vote by mail because of the Corona Virus pandemic, these measures were going to severely delay or disrupt the delivery of the filled election ballots causing Trump and the Republicans to win re-election. The President has been making wild false statements that voting by mail was going to cause wide spread fraud in the elections. There is no proof of voter fraud as many States like California have safely conducted mail voting for decades. The bad news made me panic. I did not want my vote not to count on Election Day if I was unable to vote that day due to overcrowding. So I decided to go and vote last Saturday on a non-work day.

Mwizenge S. Tembo Voting in Harrisonburg, USA

The previous evening, I went to the park and exercised since all the gyms are Covert-19 super spreaders and have been closed. In the morning, I packed lunch, took two spare masks, charged my cell phone lining up my favorite music. I drove 23 Kms to the closest town of Harrisonburg population of 54,000. I arrived ready to face voting obstacles at the Rockingham Country early voting   precinct. There was no line. I went inside and voted in less than ten minutes.

But much as I feel good that I voted, I and millions of other Americans have this very deep fear. The country is very divided and we fear there might be violence on election day next Tuesday November 3rd. I have witnessed many elections for the last 40 years in this country. I have never seen this much tension over elections with actual threats of violence breaking out on election day and the days that follow. There have been fears that after being defeated in the elections, the President might refuse to leave office or the White House as he has already broken most of the rules of his office over the last 4 years.

The tensions, divisions, and now more than 225 thousand Americans dead from Corona virus started on July 16 2015. This is the day when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President of the United States as a member of the Republican Party. He started by saying Mexican immigrants were criminals, rapists and drug dealers. He bullied over 17 other Republican candidates and won the nomination. For months, he falsely claimed President Obama was born in Kenya and was not an American. There were so many terrible things he said as a candidate that I,  and most Americans believed he would never win the General Election. Once he won in November 2016, the nation was stunned. We knew we were in for the next 4 years of hell as a nation. I remember the following week being at a meeting in November 2016 of over 200 people in room as a member of the newly created Indivisible Movement that was going to resist Trump for the next four years. These 4 years have been dark days in America.

George Washington is the founding father and the first President. Since 1797, there have been 45 Presidents. Trump is among the worst. He won his election very narrowly in 2016 engaging in political chicanery as Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million. Press reports today say he has told more than twenty thousand lies.

The entire Congress and Senate are so corrupted that when the President was impeached last year, the Senate refused to remove him from office. The  entire federal bureaucracy is headed by his inept political sycophants as most experts have been side lined or forced out of government. The President demands that all his government appointees have personal loyalty to him and not the Constitution of the United States. The President has fomented disunity among the 28 European countries who are members of NATO. These are not just my words or views, as there are now over a dozen books and too many former patriotic government employees disclosing how corruption, criminality, and immorality are so rampart. This great American nation has been lucky many times during it’s over 200 years since the first President George Washington in 1797. Tashupika; we are suffering here in America. We are all just praying we will be lucky during next Tuesday Presidential elections.

Making Breakfast Msele with Tendela Peanut Powder by Mwizenge S. Tembo

Maize or corn is the staple food for Zambians. As a result, there are over a dozen different types of food you can cook from maize. Nshima is the main staple food cooked from maize mealie-meal. One food that is cooked is breakfast from maize msele wotendela with fresh raw peanuts or groundnuts powder. Tendela is a unique or special Zambian traditional cuisine in which while cooking raw freshly pounded peanuts or groundnuts powder is added to any food.

In rural areas and even some areas in urban Zambia, a woman will start the process of making breakfast early in the morning. She will start pounding the maize with thuli (mortar) and musi (pestle). She will pepeta (winnow) the pounded maize using chihengo container and make msele or what Americans call hominy. She will also pound fresh raw dry peanuts pepeta or winnowing or seaving it using chihengo. This makes nthendelo or raw peanut powder. This the recipe:

Msele wo Tendela

For a family of 5

2 Cups Msele maize

3 Cups of Fresh Peanut Powder

Half a teaspoon salt

6 Cups of water

Pour the 6 cups of water in a medium size thick pot. Heat the water on high until it comes to a boil. Lower heat to medium and pour the 2 cups of msele maize into the pot. Let the msele maize boil for 45 minutes adding more water if necessary as it boils. Taste the msele maize to make sure it is soft. Add the 3 cups of freshly made raw peanut powder into the pot. Add the half teaspoon of salt. Use a mthiko cooking stick to stir the msele to mix it thoroughly with the peanut powder. Cover the pot and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes stirring the msele every 5 minutes to prevent burning at the bottom. Add more water as needed as the msele simmers. Serve and eat with a spoon. Some people will add a little sugar.

Cooked Msele wo Tendela

Recommended: Msele wo Tendela is best eaten without adding anything else to it as the flavor and aroma of the cooked peanut powder is the most delicious taste of eating msele.

Journey to Chasela by Mwizenge S. Tembo

After my father completed his teacher training at Katete Teacher Training College, his first school assignment was at Chasela Primary School in the Luangwa Valley among the Bisa people. At the time the valley had numerous wild animals roaming like Africa had been probably for thousands of years. Lions, buffaloes, impalas, hyenas, monkeys, leopards, and elephants were everywhere night and day. Humans and deadly encounters with wild animals were common.

The Cape Buffalo; one of the meanest and most dangerous wild animals

Sometime in late 1959, my mother arrived back at our village. I had lived with my grandparents for two years; first herding goats and later doing Sub A at Boyole School. My mother had come to get me to join the family  at Chasela Primary School.

We caught the colonial Northern Rhodesia Central African Road Services (CARS) bus at Hoya along Chama-Lundazi Road. My mother and I spent a night at the rest house in Lundazi. It was a huge building with tiles for a roof. It had upstairs and downstairs. It cost you six pence for upstairs and 3 pence per night for downstairs. The following day at noon, we boarded the bus for Chief Mwanya. The road was narrow and bumpy at first. Later on the bus picked up speed. It was going so fast and trees were zooming by so close to the road I wondered how the driver missed crushing into them. The repeated bumps, swerves, up and downs were so violent and nerve jarring that adults, including my mother, were vomiting out of the bus windows. I stood all the way and was enjoying the experience. At 3:00 pm that afternoon, we arrived at Lumimba Catholic Mission station. We all came out for refreshments. There were streaks of vomit all along the bus outside. None of the adults could eat because their stomachs were so upset. My mother bought me nshima with chicken and I ate it all cleaning the plate. At 6:00 pm that evening we arrived at Chief Mwanya. My mother and I spent a night at one of the chief’s guest houses since the Chief knew my father as the Head Teacher  at Chasela Primary School.

Early the following morning, my mother and I set off on foot for Chasela Primary School. But first she went into the bush and broke a small branch of the mnyongoroka tree. She stripped the fiber and broke the stick into 4 pieces which she threw in all four directions; North, South, West, and East. My mother was carrying a bundle on her head of our clothes and blankets. I was small so my mother had to walk at my slow small boy’s pace.

By 9:00 am, the searing valley heat was on and we were walking bare feet. By noon, our drinking water was gone, I was trotting as the ground was scalding my feet and I was crying and asking my mother to carry me. You could smell and see the seething heat. The earth, dust and dirt were sizzling hot. My feet and legs were aching and threatening to turn into jelly every step I took. My mother kept saying we were almost there and “your dad has nshima with chicken ready and plenty of drinking water”. At one point my mother pointed to a distance where we could see some baboons and herd of buffalo.

I was by now bawling with both my hands behind my head and pleading with my mother for us to stop so I could rest. She said we could not afford to stop, as there were too many lions, leopards, and hyenas that came out at night. We could be meat. This was true. We had to get home before dark.

She kept encouraging me to walk a few more yards with: “The house is just beyond those bushes”. At 3:00 pm, we finally arrived at the house. I had walked ten miles in seething heat and bare foot. I collapsed, did not eat dinner and slept all night. The following day I could hardly walk as my feet and legs were swollen. This is where I was to live for the next 2 years; a place among the Bisa people in the Luangwa Valley with incredible wild life everywhere everyday. Incidentally when my boys were small they used to like the “bus ride to Chasela” with daddy. I would put them on my knee, bump them violently up and down, half tip them over on sharp bends, and they would pretend to throw up like grandma did. They all loved the ride and begged me to give them the ride to Chasela any spare moment.

HIV/AIDS to Corona Virus: Historical Perspective by a Zambian by Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D. Professor of Sociology

Introduction

I was doing my Ph. D. in Sociology in the United States under the sponsored scholarship of the famous University of Zambia Staff Development Fellowship. The year was 1983. The news was buzzing and spreading like wild fire. A new killer disease that was sexually transmitted, attacked the immune system. It was killing mostly gay or homosexual men in the United States. I bought the Newsweek Magazine and read the whole story. When I read the New African magazine, the report said this new Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was affecting mainly heterosexual men and women in Africa. In sensational reports, the Western media identified Uganda as the AIDS ground zero in Africa. I was alarmed. I knew that if this new disease reached Zambia, it was going to be a disaster. Many Zambians would die including my relatives.

Mwizenge S.Tembo with Corona Virus mask

I went to work. I bought a few copies of the Newsweek magazine with the article and mailed it to as many relatives as possible. As a patriotic Zambian, I sent a copy to my fellow Zambian lecturers at University of Zambia and even Ministry of Health. Given the havoc that the Corona Virus pandemic is playing in the world today, this is a story of how this author alone in his own way tried to help to fight the HIV/AIDS in Zambia over a period 15 years from 1983 to 1998.

First, I will explain why I am writing this article. Second, I will describe what I did on my personal level to help fight HIV/AIDS and what I witnessed about HIV/AIDS in Zambia from 1987 to 1989. Third, I will describe how I used my scientific knowledge and skills to investigate HIV/AIDS. Lastly, what I think today about the Corona Virus in Zambia and the global world.

Why Write this Article?

When the news about the Corona Virus spread in January 2020, the first questions I asked myself are: “How many Zambians lived through and experienced the terrible  HIV?AIDS pandemic in the 1980s?” “How many 18.3 million Zambians beside myself, are alive today who may have lived through the HIV/AIDS pandemic?” 

According to the Zambia Population Census of 2010, the country ten years ago had a population of 13 million. The proportion of the country that was under 15 years old was 45.4%, those between 15 and 24 years old was 20.8%, those between 25 to 54 years old was 27.04% and those from 55 to 64  years were only 2.8% and those above 65 years old are even smaller at 2.6%. Zambians who were born before 1965 or are 55 years or older today in 2020, constitute an estimate of 5.4%  which is about 972,000 Zambians. Those who were born before 1955 or are 65 years and older are only 2.6% or 468,000 Zambians.

These are the few of the 18.3 million Zambians who experienced the crisis of the wide spread illnesses and deaths of too many close relatives, friends, schoolmates, and workmates from HIV/AIDS crisis. If these people are alive, they may provide advice to younger Zambians and even government on how to respond to the Corona virus. A large population of Zambians, who were born after 1990 or are 30 years old, constitute 66.2% or 11.9 million Zambians who never lived through the HIV/AIDS crisis. I hope this article can provide a perspective about the past of HIV/AIDS and the present Corona Virus crisis although the 2 pandemics are not the same.

HIV/AIDS Fight 1987-1989

As I was pursuing my Ph. D., I began to read as much information as I could about the epidemic. I mailed a lot of the information to relatives, friends, in Lusaka as well as in the rural area to my home villages in Lundazi and the Ministry of Health. I arrived back in Zambia after my Ph. D in 1987 to resume my work as Research Fellow at the then Institute of African Studies of the University of Zambia. People were dying. I lost count how many times I went to the Leopards Hill cemetery in Lusaka to bury relatives, friends, and workmates. Those were very sad years in Zambia.

HIV/AIDS Prevention message near present Manda Hill Mall along the Great East Road in Lusaka in 1993.

Of the numerous deaths I witnessed, one shocked me for its sudden swiftness. This death was to be one amongst the numerous that was to anger and infuriate me about some of the tragic and unfortunate panic, hysteria and myths that surrounded HIV/AIDS pandemic at the time.

Virtually anybody in Zambia at the time who died after two days, six months, three months, or one week of illness was assumed to have died of HIV-AIDS disease. There were no reliable widespread HIV tests yet. The disgracing and shameful assumption was that the person or their spouse was sexually promiscuous. Some of the deaths of friends and relatives stood out.

This friend was at his prime. I will call him George. He was married and had four children. He drank. George looked healthy and was not the sickly type. He fell ill on Monday. We, his close friends and fellow employees, visited him on Wednesday morning at his house. George was sitting up in his living room and in a surprisingly lively cheerful way, described his symptoms as fever. He had opted to go to a traditional healer in one of the nearby compounds. He explained that he was given an herb that made him purge to cleanse his stomach. He said he thought he was going to be all right. By Friday that week though, George was so sick that he was admitted at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH). I visited him in the hospital ward on that April sunny Saturday afternoon.

HIV/AIDS Prevention message near the North-End of Cairo along the Great North Road in Lusaka in 1993.

The hospital ward was relatively quiet,  bright, and immaculately clean. I was shocked that this man who had looked very healthy only Wednesday that week was suddenly fighting for his life. George’s throat was almost swollen shut. He was making loud, hissing, desperate breathing noises. Something was swollen on his neck the size of a golf ball. Later I was to find out from his official death certificate that this was a swollen lymph node. I stood there by his hospital bed, stunned at the sudden turn of events. After a while, he opened his eyes and saw me. He hissed when he tried to mouth something but nothing came out. I gestured a finger to my lips that he shouldn’t say anything. George continued to breathe struggling at every breath making a loud crooking sound. I will remember that awful sound for the rest of my life. After a while, I took two steps back to leave. George desperately stretched and reached his hand out to me. I held his hand instinctively.

“D-o-n’t ….go……” he hoarsely hissed after breathing in very deeply making a big effort. I felt guilty for wanting to leave. He looked scared of being left alone. I stood there until his wife came back from an errand. She and I exchanged some brief words and I left.

The next day on Sunday at noon, as my family and I were eating lunch, word came that my friend had died the previous night. If there was anything for me that was later to epitomize the painful tragedy of some of the hysteria that might have been the botched HIV-AIDS “diagnosis” or some of the erroneous beliefs, it was this death.

Later, a clinic attendant who knew George the deceased friend said the friend may have had a normal bacteria infection. But George may have panicked fearing he had HIV-AIDS and delayed getting immediate and standard antibiotic treatment. He may have sought herbal treatment from a traditional healer (there is nothing wrong with this) out of desperation fearing and believing he had HIV-AIDS which had no cure in the modern hospital at the time.

My HIV/AIDS Scientific Paper

In December 1989, I sadly left Zambia to work in the United States. I began to read more deeply and widely about the scientific controversy about  HIV/AIDS. The more I read the history of pandemics, human anthropological biological evolutionary aspects of viruses and bacteria, about some of the myths and hysteria around HIV/AIDS, the more I got infuriated. What made me angry is not so much that many Zambians were dying of this new disease, but that too many might have been dying because of anxiety, possible misdiagnosis, and misinformation. I knew that if some of the information I knew was spread widely among Zambians, many lives would have been saved.

Since there was no modern drug yet that could cure the  HIV  virus that caused AIDS, I spent some time investigating and researching for some herbal possible treatment. It was very difficult at the time because the internet did not exist. I wrote a 30 page scientific paper that I thought could be published in African journals. The paper is titled: The Deadly Fallacy of the HIV-AIDS-Death Hypothesis: Exposing the Epidemic that Is Not.   The journals rejected the well-written scientific paper that would have helped us educated elite Africans understand the HIV/AIDS controversy better at the time. I sent this paper to so many friends. Twenty-four years later, I now understand very clearly why the paper was rejected for publication. Academic journals are very conservative. No editor or reviewers will endorse or publish something that is new and controversial that even they themselves do not understand. It is a huge risk that even probably I, if I had been as a reviewer and editor, would not have taken.

The Corona Virus in Zambia and the Global World.

After having lived through the HIV/AIDS pandemic that still exists in Zambia to day and Global World, my advice to my fellow Zambians is to take the Corona Virus seriously. The 1908s did not have the internet, but myths, misinformation, and racist views about HIV/AIDS toward Africans from the Western world were still spread through the Western media at that time. This infuriated me but I was powerless to do anything. Today the internet is spreading myths and conspiracy theories about the Corona Virus. Some African leaders are already saying it is a hoax and a joke since there are very few cases so far in Zambia and elsewhere in Africa. This misinformation is dangerous. HIV/AIDS was and is spread primarily through sex. The Corona Virus is spread primarily  from droplets from breathing. So all it takes is for one infected person to infect dozens of people in a crowded bus, restaurant, bar, train, nigh club, family dwelling, especially singing in a packed church, wedding, shopping Mall, and packed market. Hundreds of people can be infected this way. Wear a mask, wash your hands, use sanitizer, wipe surfaces with bleach, wear gloves, and avoid crowded places.  This is not a hoax. The Corona Virus is real.

A Letter From Dr. Tembo

I am thrilled to be in touch with you. I feel blessed to have had numerous opportunities over the last 30 years to do work that helps people in communities here in the United States but more especially in Zambia in Southern Africa. Since 1969 when I was in 9th Grade or Form 3 at Chizongwe Secondary School in Chipata in the Eastern Province of Zambia, I have been involved in numerous volunteer and philanthropic non-profit organizations and projects.

I have been involved in faithfully spending or executing more than $157,000 of publicly donated funds for the the Nkhanga Village Library Project and the installation of 52 borehole pumps for providing clean drinking water to 52 villages in Lundazi, Zambia. All of it has been so gratifying that you will never know how good and proud I have felt about your support and contribution to this work over the last 5 decades.

Now, I need your help in this latest project: the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village.

In 2016, I bought 123 acres, or 50 hectares, of land with my own limited funds to create a sustainable model village on a piece of Savannah Wilderness in Chongwe, about an hour’s drive East of Lusaka, Zambia. The college where I’m a professor has just awarded me a precious sabbatical research leave for 6 months starting in December 2020; the rainy season in Zambia. In order to conduct this research, I need $10,000.00 and would appreciate any contribution. The funds will be used to build 6 huts and conduct valuable ethnographic research at the model village.

The goal of the village and upcoming research is to create a community where residents live a life in line with the traditional Zambian/African/Tumbuka philosophy and principles known as Kufwasa, which translates to human social closeness and serenity. Additionally, one of the sustainability goals is to have residents grow their own organic foods. This includes a wide variety of the same foods grown by my grandparents and parents when I lived in the village in the 1950s as a child. Some of the foods include corn or maize, peanuts, red kidney beans, peas, cassava, and up to 30 indigenous greens from the delele group of vegetables, just to mention a few of the dozens of food varieties.

The current challenge I have is to build 6 huts on the land between May and July of 2020. The 6 huts will provide accommodation for the 6 to 10 people who will be carefully selected or volunteer to live at the village from December 2020 to June 2021 during the entire growing season of crops. This is perhaps the most exciting and promising project I will ever be involved in. The successful completion of the research will provide a model or blueprint for how people can live a sustainable and gratifying lifestyle of Kufwasa, full of serenity and connection to other people, while also contributing to the exploration and documentation of sustainable agricultural practices, providing a resource for current and future generations to thrive rather than just survive or grow crops for profit.

Attached, I have given you the budget for the construction of the 6 huts and other research expenses, my sabbatical leave research proposal, my resumé, and my CV. Kindly forward these to anyone who you think may be able to help us with the $10,000. There is also a possibility of YOU visiting me and the village residents when I will be living there with as many as 10 other residents from December 2020 to June 2021. The model village is also available for tours at any time, as well as additional research projects.

Thank you for your time and support,

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Attached Documents:

KAM – You were born on this day at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. This is a HAPPY BIRTHDAY Pictorial Present; January 21 2020

Birthday cake in Lusaka in Zambia 1988
Your big brother and your mom in 1985.
Withe Ben and Margaret in 1985
With Uncle Dave and Aunt Marie at your baptism
When you as a big baby were place in the tiny tub on the right during baptism, there was a wave of a tsunami that spilled over on to the priest’s robe. This caused laughter.
Participating in a Christmas play at your preschool in Lusaka in Zambia; December 1988.
On the way just before going to preschool early in the morning in Lusaka in Zambia
On the way just before being dropped off at school early in the morning.
With grandpa Sani Zibalwe Tembo at Zibalwe Village in 1988. Grandpa made bows and arrows for you and your brother. He also gave you small bags of peanuts to carry with you. This was in 1988.
You standing by the white cupboard getting ready to walk for the first time. November 1985.
This is one of my most favorite picture of you with the exciting look and effort of the first walk; you had held on to a spoon. You don’t seem to have it in your right hand. By the time your mom came back home probably from an errand, you had been walking around our little apartment living room for may be an hour.
You drew this birthday poster of yourself in Zambia in 1988.
With Uncle John and Gandma Sue at Earhart in Ann Arbor; the most memorable house.
With your baby brother and big brother in November 1989.
With Santa Clause in 1986 in East Lansing
With Aunt Sara.
Happy times with Uncle Dave.
At the best summer swimming pond in the world at Earhart in Ann Arbor. Even your little brother on the left was dipping his toes in there.
With your little brother and big brother at our apartment in Ypsilanti in Michigan in April 1990.
With your block playmates in front of our house in Lusaka November 1989. Where are all these playmates now? May be you can track them down.
With some of your cousins in Michigan or was it here in Virginia?
Another birthday cake with friends.
With President Geisert of Bridgewater College during May Day Parade Court during which you carried the ceremonial May Day Court Ring to crown the winner.
With the family at the Farm House in 1991
As a member of the Wilber Pence Middle School basketball team.
As a member of the Lawn Party Marching Band in Keezletown in August 1994.
With your older brother on his birthday with many of his friends from many countries at the Chuck EE Cheese play center at Meridian Mall in East Lansing in Michigan December 1986. One of the pictures that says children would be so much better if they play with children from many different countries.

TEMWA – You were born on this day at UTH. This is a HAPPY BIRTHDAY Pictorial Present; December 27 2019

Grandma NyaKabinda and Grandpa Sani Holding you January 1982
You with Grandpa Zerweck Christmas 1982
You with Grandma Z, Uncle Steve, your Mom Christmas 1983
Your with Aunt Sara July 1982
You and your Mom in front of the Castle Hotel in Lundazi in January 1982
You, Your Mom, Aunt Jean and Aunt Sara July 1982
You and your Dad in front of the Castle Hotel January 1982
You and Aunt Marie 1983
You and Uncle Craig Aug 1982 at Earhart in Ann Arbor Michigan
You with your Mom, Aunt Sara, and Aunt Anne August 1982
You and Me saw Nelson Mandela at the Detroit Tigers Stadium April 1990
Your first time to be outside in the snow Michigan on our apartment porch 1983
You going to school early in the morning in Lusaka in Zambia in 1989
You and your little brother in April 1985
You, your little brother, your cousins Lizzy, Sinele with your Grndma NyaKabinda at Zibalwe Village in Zambia in July 1988.
Perhaps my most favorite picture of you at the apartment at MSU. You were joyfully excited skipping to go outside down stairs to play in the sandbox. 1983
You, your Mom, your Dad, Grandma Z, Grandma Sue, Grandpa Zerweck Christmas 1982
You play horse with Uncle Bob at Earhart in Ann Arbor
You and Grandma Z laughing
You and your birthday party in Zambia in 1988
You blowing out your birthday candles in Zambia in 1988
You fishing with your little brother and friends at the dock at a lake in Michigan August 1987.
You in the Country marching band at the Keezletown Lawn Party parade in 1994.
You, your mom, Uncle Graig, and Aunt Sara at a picnic at Natural Chimneys in Bridgewater VA
You and your other little brother
You and Uncle Steve playing baseball during the summer in Ann Arbor
You and many friends from different countries at MSU. The kid on your right was from Kenya and one on your left was from South Africa. Do you remember the Chiago the Brazilian kid? This was after your birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese in 1986. I used to love the place too at Meridian Mall.

Book Review – The Zwangendaba Mpezeni Ngoni: History and Migrations, Settlements and Culture.

Yizenge Chondoka, The Zwangendaba Mpezeni Ngoni: History and Migrations, Settlements and Culture, Lusaka, Academic Press, 2017, 148 pages, Hardcover, $32.00 (K411.00)

BOOK REVIEW – in Memory of Dr Yizenge Chondoka

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Professor of Sociology

Introduction

At dawn on June 23rd 2019, I boarded a bus in Lusaka. My destination was  Lundazi in the rural remote Eastern Province of Zambia. I was anxious and excited to arrive at the bus station at 15hours or 3:00pm Zambian time. Before my final leg of the journey of a 45-minute minibus ride to visit my relatives to eat nshima with chicken, in my home village near Boyole in the North-Western part of the Lundazi District, I was to meet a man who was going to hand me a special gift.

Book Cover

As soon as I stepped out of the bus, the short man stepped forward. He was grinning ear to ear, had bright eyes with some grey hair. I finally met Mr. Frackson Bota. We shook and pumped hands as we excitedly greeted each other and talked with a mix or English and Tumbuka as we multilingual Zambians do.

“Here is Dr. Chodoka’s book,” Mr. Bota said amid our laughter and excitement.

This is how I finally got possession of a precious gift from the late Dr. Yizenge A. Chondoka’s book: The Zwangendaba Mpezeni Ngoni. He passed awayin May 2017 leaving instructions to Mr. Bota to hand me a copy of the book because of my dedication to and passion for Zambian and African culture. I was flattered to see the message Mr. Bota inscribed in the book.

Whenever I have a book that I know I will enjoy, I don’t read it all at once. I could have read the 13 Chapters and  148 pages in one evening. But like a delicious meal of nshima with best ndiyo, umunani, dende or relish, I wanted to eat it slowly over a few days enjoying a few pages each day while I was in the village sitting under my favorite shady Msoro tree. It is tempting to tell the reader everything that is in the book. But then what are you going to be left to read when you buy the book? There are so many things I found good about the book. I will summarize four of them; who was Nsingo? The Great Shaka King; Mfecane Wars and the debunking of the white or European bogus Hamitic hypothesis, the Bemba-Ngoni Wars, and the significance of Zwangendaba-Ngoni.

Nshima with Chicken

Who was Nsingo?

When I attended Chizongwe Secondary School in Chipata from 1967 to 1971, there were four Halls of Residence; Aggrey, Muleya, Skeva Soko, and Nsingo House. I had heard that Nsingo was a hero in the then Fort Jameson in the late 1800s and now Chipata area. To my great joy, Chapter 12 of the book says Nsingo was a great hero and a martyr in the 1897-8 Anglo-Ngoni War in the Mpezeni Kingdom. You can learn the details of that war in the book.

Shaka Zulu and the Bogus Hamitic Hypothesis

Shaka Zulu and how he ruthlessly ruled and expanded the Zulu Empire is one of the most influential leaders of all time in history. He instigated the Mfecane Wars or wars of chaos and disorder from 1818 to 1828 which affected the entire Southern Africa; Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi up to Southern Tanzania. To understand the falsehood or bogusness that is the European or white Hamitic Hypothesis, you have to understand its origins. In 1758 a Swedish biologist came up with biological classifications of humans. Europeans eventually came up with racial classifications in the 1890s that classified humans into Caucasians, Mongloid and Negroid wrongly creating racism; with Negroid (blacks;Africans)  being the most inferior and Caucasians (Whites) being most superior. The Hamitic Hypothesis is the popular idea which Europeans spread all over the world that Africans could not come up with anything useful or intelligent on their own; there had always somehow had to be a European or White influence.

Yizenge Chondoka Biography

Europeans used the Hamitic Hypothesis in history books to claim that Shaka Zulu was influenced by the Dutch, the British, or the Portuguese because Shaka Zulu could not have created such a powerful empire on his own being of course black and an African. Yizenge Chondoka thoroughly debunks the Hamitic Hypothesis.

“However, recent historical researchers in South Africa have proved beyond doubt that the theory of White Inspiration is false. There was no outside influence to the rise of the Zulu state…..Finally using the available evidence, it is safe to conclude that this theory is indeed false. It was coined to match its counterpart: Hermitic hypothesis, which  basically states that anything good on the Continent of Africa was brought by outsiders, the white people.”(Chondoka, 2017: 8-9)

The Ngoni-Bemba Wars

The Ngoni and Bemba peoples fought many wars when they encountered each other in the Northern province of Zambia. Historians on both sides have tried to determine who won the wars. About this dispute, Chondoka says: “The book is dedicated to the Bemba who have reluctantly ‘agreed’ with the Ngoni that in the Bemba-Ngoni war none of the two was ‘defeated’.  On this point, it is better to agree to disagree to avoid unnecessary arguments that can lead to High Blood Pressure for one group.”(Dedication, p. ii)

Read the book in the village under the shady Msoro tree

Zwangendaba 1815-1848

Another looming and towering figure was the influential Ngoni leader Zwangendaba. He led the Ngoni for 30 years as they moved in the Southern African region conquering many other peoples along the way and incorporating them into the Ngoni Kingdom. Some of his decisions, his death and succession were controversial. This is often the case with larger than life leaders. My father is Ngoni and my late mother was Tumbuka. That intertribal marriage was a Ngoni influence among the Tumbuka in Eastern Zambia and Northern Malawi.

Conclusion

I highly recommend this book if you are among the 17 million Zambians at home and abroad. If you come from the Southern Africa region, there is a chance that Shaka Zulu and the Ngoni influenced your ancestors, language, and culture. I took history in Secondary School and in Universities. That history is heavily Eurocentric some of which Chondoka debunks. The book both taught me and confirmed that as Zambians we created our own history, which we never read, in the Eurocentric history which is often wrongly projected as the only and most accurate history.

My Take on the Warriors NBA Dynasty

by Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

When the Toronto Raptors won the first game in the NBA finals, all hell broke loose with wild predictions; “the Warriors are dead” and I am sure the Toronto players were feeling we could beat this team. But fortunately or unfortunately, it is a 7 game series. So you can’t just win one game. Raptors would have been the NBA Champions 2 days ago. The Houston Rockets felt the same way when they pushed the Warriors to game 7 last year; they said: “We were close to beating them. We could have beaten the Warriors if only Chris Paul had not been injured.” That’s what great teams do. This is what good teams who are on a winning streak do; they make the opponents feel: “If only the ref had not made that one call against us, we could have beaten this team.” Good and great teams are simply juggernauts. That’s why you just have to learn to enjoy the moment as a fan.

I have been fortunate and blessed over so many decades to see so many great and good teams on a winning streak. The legendary players on the teams or in the sport have their own larger than life stories that send shivers through your back when you remember their performance if  you are a true fan of any sport.

Sometimes over the years, I have slept at 2:30am on a week work night watching the Warriors in the play offs. I have then had to get up early to go to work. They have not only  figured how to win and know what it takes, but they make it look easy. Steph Curry sometimes makes me think I could shoot 3s from my neighbor Mr. Johnson’s house across the street opposite my house; and I am not even a basketball player.

Legendary Teams

Tops has to be the Brazilian World Cup teams from 1958 to 1970. Those teams were loaded with Pele greatest soccer player ever. With the whole world and all the opposing teams knowing Pele and guarding him, he still at his peak scored one or 2 goals every game. The legendary 1970 Brazilian team had such strikers like Pele, Tostao, and Jazghigno. I saw the film “The World on its Feet” of the 1970 world cup when Temwa found it on Netflix. I had last watched that film in 1972 in Lecture Theater One at University of Zambia. There is a video tape on YouTube of a man whose team played against Pele somewhere in Europe in the late 1960s. This man said at half time, his team decided they were not going to have Pele score. What they agreed to do was that 8 players were going to create a cordon at midfield to corale him. That player said they saw Pele approach them; before they knew it he was behind them scoring a goal. Scoring goals in soccer is difficult I think because there are so many bodies and legs packed in front of the goal area.

 I personally saw the great Ucar Godffey Chitalu of the Zambian soccer teams of the 1970s. To think that I saw him play in so many games. This was at Lusaka Independence stadium and also at City of Lusaka Woodlands stadium when he played  with great Kabwe Warriors Soccer club team of the 1970s. Chitalu scored 107 goals that one year I believe in  the 1971 season. The 1974 Zambia’s soccer team that played in the Africa Cup Finals was the best ever. It was loaded with such legendary names as Godfreey Ucar Chitalu, Dick Chama, Dickson Makwaza, Boniface Simutowe, Brighton Sinyangwe.

The NFL Chicago Bears of 1985 scared  even me when I was watching the game at home on my couch. Imagine the fear the opposing players felt. The team had coaches who were maniacs who invented the 46 defence. They had a line backer who had fierce eyes. The entire team was just ferocious. But the legend of the “Fridge” created such excitement. The Bears only lost one game in the regular season and easily won the Superbowl against the lowly New England Patriots at the time.

The Detroit Tigers of 1984 are easily the most memorable. I followed all the games on TV and on radio with the legendary broadcaster Earnie Harwel. We even went to see one of the games at the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit. But they just won that year starting 35 – 5.Kirk Gibson, Alan Tramell, Lou Whitaker, Larry Herndon caught the last fly ball to win the World Series. Lance Parish, Willie Hernandez  the pitcher as the great saver and  closer with his screw ball pitch.

The Bridgewater College Division 3 Football Team that played in the National  Championship in 2001 was a great team. Their teams went on to dominate ODAC along the East Coast for 5 years. I was lucky enough to be on the sidelines to watch those great teams up close taking photos. This is the great privilege the college and athletic director have given me. They used to make it look so easy to beat other teams. They would simply steam roll them. I once saw our running back simply run over the defender to score a touch down. The most memorable is when BC beat Rowan on their way to the National Championship game. It was cloudy, rainy, and the field was muddy. When BC scored a touch down with no time left, I was in the stands. I saw one female student cry as I run on to the field and pandemonium broke loose. The crowd took down the goal posts as is tradition.

Kam’s high school started with his young group in Middle school in basketball. When that class became Juniors and Seniors in High School they dominated both in Basketball and soccer. The soccer game I will never forget is when  Kam’s TA soccer team played Harrisonburg. It was a rivalry game.

That  soccer game was perhaps the best Kam’s team had played over the 2 years. Their passes were so crisp that no one on the team had to chase the ball because of a bad pass. Steve Wallace was a great goalee. Kam, Tim Glick, Jose were on the team. The team won 3 – 0. When I asked Kam when the game was over if he was tired. He said no because they played so well they didn’t break a sweat. That’s what great teams do. They make it look effortless especially when they are all focused and intense.

I watched Breakfast at Wimbledon Tennis in the 1980s in our little apartment in Spartan Village. It was at 9:00am in the Tennis Wimbledon Finals and I was watching John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Christ Every Loyd, Martina Navratilova, Jimmy Connors. And then there were those great Mohammed Ali boxing fights against Joe Frazier and the big Ramble in the Jungle \against George Foreman. Ali made heavy weight boxing look easy. He would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”. How about Ali as s sports figure also creating some poetry. All the great teams create their  own poetry.

The Warriors will likely win the NBA championship. This might be their last one. Their legs and their bodies are giving up after a 5 year run. Apart from Leonard, the rest of the Raptors team have no clue what it takes to win an NBA championship. Isiah Thomas is the one who put it best. He said in his autobiography, that you don’t know what it takes to win it all until you play in the 7 game series in the finals; it is long, hard,  tiring, painful; 80 regular games and 16 in the playoffs. This is why dynasties and three peats are rare. So just enjoy Warriors Vs Raptors. You may never see this again.

Wode Maya: the Great Advocate for Africa Nearly Killed

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

I have avoided terrible addictions since 1960. I have never been addicted to beer, work, smoking, girls and women, food, politics, cell phones, the internet and many other things on this earth. Some of my minor addictions are to books, ideas, history, writing, listening to the  radio, good human beings, relatives, and I have some cravings for nshima and some Zambian traditional dende, ndiyo, umunani (relishes) which I can’t have here abroad.

Wode Maya: the Ghanaian Vlogger of YouTuber

As one of my temporary minor addictions over the last month, I have found myself every evening after work and supper checking on the internet what latest video this African Ghanaian character has posted. The internet and YouTube has millions of videos; some of them utter rubbish time wasters, are boring, some are dangerous and many are very educational and entertaining videos. This African character calls himself “Mr Ghana Baby” and I was getting impatiently irritated because he had posted only a second video in 2 days from Tanzania. I was also sad because that morning on Sunday March 10, an Ethiopian Airlines jet had crashed killing all 157 people from 35 countries.

He Could Have Been Dead

Miss Trudy- the Kenyan Vlogger or YouTuber

I clicked on his YouTube video channel and he was skyping live to the thousands of his worldwide followers. He was communicating saying that had he not been deported from Uganda Entebbe Airport ten days earlier, he was would have been among the 157 dead. Wode Maya’s original plan was to fly from Uganda to Tanzania, then to Ethiopia, then fly from Addis-a-Abba  to Nairobi to meet a famous Kenyan woman vlogger Miss Trudy. He was saying live on Skype that we his viewers would have been reading that he had died in the plane crash had he not been deported from Uganda to Rwanda. He was thanking God and the Ugandan Airport officials for deporting him, which disrupted his original plan. After being deported from Uganda, Wode Maya had made a video from Rwanda saying although he was angry and disappointed, his deportation may have happened for a reason.

The African mud hut which the Western Media is obsessed with.

I was stunned. How many people at Addis-a-Ababa Airport in Ethiopia had missed that flight that morning and escaped death? Who controls our lives and our destiny? Who is this Wode Maya character and why am I temporarily addicted to his YouTube Channel, which had over 300 videos? Wode Maya is a Ghanaian young man who went to school in China and obtained an engineering degree. He speaks fluent Chinese. Although he has no money and no budget, he decided to become a vlogger or YouTuber and make videos using his cell phone that show only the exciting and positive aspects of our African countries that the Western and international media will not show you or the rest of the world. And I love it.

Inside my comfortable Zambian/African mud hut in the village.

Western Media Negative Promotion of Africa

His point is that the Western media devotes most of its news and international aid fundraising focuses on Africans living with diseases, poverty, famine, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Cholera, corruption, wars, wild animals, malnourished children with flies in their eyes, and worst of all that all Africans live in mud huts. There are never any positive images about Africans. This is the key reason why most people in the African diaspora never want to visit Africa for vacation or holidays because they have only negative images about our mother Zambia and Africa.

I Became Emotional

The gorgeous Mosio-o-Tunya Fall in Zambia which was a scene in the “Black Panther” block buster movie.

What make me cry when I first watched some of Wode Maya’s travel videos from African countries is that this is what my friends and I were dreaming of doing in 1974. My friends Charles Kateketa, Michael Ngulube, and I were sitting in Kateketa’s room in International Hall at University of Zambia one Saturday evening chatting as we were students, poor and broke. We said although we had no money, how it would be exciting to just hitch hike through Zimbabwe, Mozambique and may be board a cargo ship at Maputo in Mozambique to Australia and hitchhike in that country and see some Kangaroos. It was such a memorable night of being young and full of dreams for a group of young Zambian African people. I had no money. But because of the inspiration from my 2 friends, that next Saturday I tried alone to hitch hike just to the Chirundu border just out of curiosity and adventure. I made it as far as the Kafue Bridge. I waited there all day but could not hitch a ride. I returned to Lusaka to my dormitory room that evening.

Why am I Excited?

Matebeto Restaurant in Lusaka that serves delicious Zambia traditional foods.

What excites me about Wode Maya was that he is doing what my friends and I could not do in 1974; 45 years ago. He is traveling through Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and now he is in Tanzania. I am so jealous but very excited for him. He wants to travel to all 55 African countries. What is striking about Wode Maya is that he is a very ordinary looking African. He wears shorts, sandals and sometimes pata-pata even through airports. This is perhaps why he was deported from Uganda at Entebbe Airport because the Ugandan officials must have thought he looked like a poor useless African. Wode Maya exudes freedom of the mind, soul and joy that many of us Africans only dream of. Whenever he goes into an African country he shows only all the positive sides and people of the countries; in Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania. I wish he would come to Zambia because we have so many positive things he could show about the beauty of Zambia and the warmth and friendliness of my fellow citizens.

Echoes of the Goma Lakes: “Why they behave as UNZA students”

BOOK REVIEW

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Professor of Sociology

Joseph Mwenge Katapa, Echoes of the Goma Lakes: “Why they behave as UNZA students”, Lusaka, DNK publishers Zambia, 62 pages, Paperback, K100.00

Introduction

One chilly morning class period at 12 years old in Grade 7 at Tamanda Upper primary School in 1966 in a remote rural part of the Eastern Province, Mr. Phiri digressed from teaching us English, and asked the class what we wanted to be after completing school. We looked at each other blankly in stunned silence. What could kids in a rural village school dream about just 2 years after Zambia’s independence? Then Mr. Phiri gave us his memorable talk.

Students Studying at the Goma Lakes of the University of Zambia

“What’s the matter with you!” he raised his voice. Then he said almost whispering and sweeping the class with his gaze: “You are young. The future for all of you is wide open. Our young independent country of Zambia will need doctors to cure disease, pilots to fly planes, agricultural experts to grow more food, locomotive drivers to run trains, bankers, teachers, surveyors, newspaper reporters, architects to design homes, engineers. Any of you could even go to the new University of Zambia, get one or two degrees and become college or university lecturers. You need to know not just about our school, our chief, your village, or our country, but about the whole world. Did you know that as we speak in this classroom now at 9 hours, on the other side of the world in Japan its dark at midnight and people are asleep?”

Students Studying in the beautiful sunset of the Goma Lakes of the University of Zambua

 I smiled and looked around to my 34 classmates with a look of amazement, excitement, and befuddlement. That was it! I didn’t know about what my classmates thought but Mr. Phiri’s passionate message was too fascinating for me; a kid who had only known about herding goats in the village up to this point. My imagination was  ignited and a seed of curiosity was planted. I went on to go to Chizongwe Secondary School in 1967, and the University of  Zambia  in 1972 and later went to do my Masters and Ph. D. in the United States.

Poetry of Life

When  the author Mr. Joseph Katapa asked me to review his book “Echoes of the Goma Lakes: “Why they behave as UNZA students”, it was both an honor and a challenge. It was an honor because unfortunately for reasons that I have been trying to think of the last 40 years, UNZA graduates never write personal memoirs of what they experienced during their four years at UNZA. This is the first book that I have ever read that dwells on the personal lives and glimpses of the experiences we went through for thousands of us as graduates of University of Zambia since 1969. This is a good time for all UNZA graduates to begin writing our personal experiences about the transformative experiences while students at University of Zambia. No one else will write our personal history. How will our children and grandchildren know how our lives were like as young people growing up at UNZA?

School of Humanities and School of Natural Sciences of the University of Zambia

 Writing the review was a challenge because I have numerous deep memories of UNZA as the vast majority of us lived through this unique institution during our formative years of what was to be the poetry of our lives. We experienced academic challenges although we were the cream of our nation. I still remember getting the first and only worst humiliating grade of D in my whole academic career on a paper during the very first week as a fresher in 1972. The list of “UNZA Terminologies” in the book reflects that “Mojos” and “Mommas” have remained the same. But there are some new terminologies that reflect change as every UNZA student goes through being a “fresher” to graduation 4 years later.

Africa Hall of the University of Zambia.

The four chapters in the book “The Uno Of Uni’s”  “Becoming”  “Uproars” and “The Contribution” describe when the UNZA student is a “fresher” and the challenges of adjustment. The love lives of the campus mojos and mommas is a staple of the book. One chapter addresses the tumultuous years of student campus politics, unrest, and demonstrations. The central role of UNZASU students union is mentioned which may be the most powerful students union of all the higher institutions in Zambia including the 17 universities in Zambia today. The book also does address the reality that many prominent leaders in Zambia went through UNZA including President Mwanawasa and President Lungu.

Narrow window

This book is a brief narrow window that invokes nostalgia about the good old days at UNZA but also describes the contemporary challenges that the UNZA students might be facing when UNZA had an enrollment of only 1500 (Fifteen Hundred) in 1972 to (Thirty Thousand) 30,000 today in 2019. It is a book of tribute to bittersweet memories from the soul that I hope both UNZA graduates, non-UNZA graduates, and others in the Zambian public will enjoy.  

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

University of Zambia 1972-1976.

Obstacles to Zambian African Indigenous Epistemology by Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D. Professor of Sociology

I have a confession as well as frustration. I wonder if I am the only Zambian intellectual today my age (in the 60s) who has this perspective. When I went to UNZA in my first year in 1972, when I was learning everything in my courses and classes which was a Eurocentric epistemology  masquerading as pure objective scientific knowledge, I always had a parallel perspective which I felt at the time and still today as an equally  valid and legitimate perspective. For example, when I was introduced to Freudian Psychology that makes sweeping assumptions about monogamous marriage or true loving marriage as only between one man and one woman, I was asking questions in my mind during the lecture about how I could understand and analyze my grandfather who had 3 wives in my village while I was growing up. My experience was that many other male and females relatives were happy in polygamous or polygynous unions. Why was their epistemology invalid?  I would ask.

Professor Tembo

Perspectives about the nature of our intellectual and scholarly pursuits are troubling to day for these same reasons.

What troubles me is that many of us Zambian intellectuals still are convinced that our scholarly research and agenda is objective and we are contributing to and advancing objective universal knowledge so long as we apply the scientific method. But most of this knowledge is economic, financially, and politically driven that both drives and reinforces Eurocentric epistemology that started in the 1600s when Europeans began to dominate and colonize the world. This domination continues to this day. The outcome is what is called white privilege today. We can’t seem to realize that  there is a whole lot of indigenous valid and legitimate Zambian and African epistemology that might predate Jesus, Mohammed, the Greek Civilization (which was for only 300 years) and especially European influence which may have reached its peak from the 1700s to about 1950.

The irony of all this is that the knowledge that we as Zambians can use to uncover  new epistemologies is embedded in our indigenous languages and history in the deepest sense; Chewa, Bemba, Lozi, Tonga, Zulu, Shona. It appears we will never recover this epistemology because many of us who have Ph. Ds. today may believe that English and many of the foreign languages we may have gotten our Ph. Ds. in are superior to our indigenous languages. I have witnessed the power of our indigenous languages in epistemology with some of the work I have done including my article “Beautiful Women in African Societies”. This crucial role of the Zambian thinker being embedded in indigenous culture and language is dramatically illustrated in Dr. Chisanga Nebat Siame’s work including especially “Katunkumene and Ancient Egypt in Africa”. He was able to do his work effectively because his knowledge is embedded in the deepest aspect of Bemba culture and at the same time deep knowledge of English.

My dream is that may be one day soon 10 Zambians including myself will have spent a whole year reading and  immersing ourselves in everything we could get our hands on about Zambian and African indigenous knowledge and philosophy. Then we would all meet in Zambia at a remote location like the new Mwizenge Village. We then would  have  real or genuine philosophical discourses for one week undisturbed addressing; philosophy, astronomy, physics, math, healing and medicine, political science, history, culture, music, dance. We may even create some new disciplines. I am not sure this can even happen in my lifetime. This is the dream I have had since 1972.

One last and frustrating thing I have discovered: there are African Americans who have done tremendous research and are highly acclaimed in Black, African or Afrocentric scholarship. But I feel a certain sadness because they will never be able to comprehend and be in a position to defend the deeper aspects of African epistemology until they become truly embedded in Zambian or African culture. This creates tremendous challenges in their effort to debunk the hegemonic Eurocentric myths that masquerade as the only real and objective knowledge.

The double-edged paradoxical sword Eurocentric epistemology wields is that it claims to advance neutral and objective knowledge and scholarship while it simultaneously denigrates, apartheidizes, divides, continues to racialize, denies, minimizes, trivializes, shames, and demonizes indigenous African culture and its people. The same challenges also apply to the contemporary Zambian or African intellectual who has a Ph. D.

In other words, you cannot seriously conduct meaningful Zambian scholarship when the hegemonic  Eurocentrism dominates. Eurocentrists  continue to breathe down your neck while always demonizing Africans in the name of the seductive objective critical analysis, so-called scholarship,  speaking to power, fighting rampant disease, patriarchal oppression of women, poverty reduction, and Zambian society that is consistently and wrongly always portrayed as never being fully democratic. The list of failures of Zambia since 1964 is often endless in much of this Eurocentric scholarship.

UNZA Student Tragic Death Should not be in Vain

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

  • *In Memory of Vespers Shimuzhila*

It was dark and I was asleep in my room in Africa 5 Room 26. An irritating smell woke me up from my deep sleep. I looked at the clock. It was 4 hours. My roommate also woke up. The pungent smell got stronger. My nose, lungs and my eyes were irritated. I opened the balcony door to find out the source of the pungent smell. Other students were also on their balconies of the 4 floors of  Kwacha Hall next to Africa Hall. They were shouting asking what was happening.

“It’s tear gas!!” someone yelled.

“The mobile police guards just outside the wall must have tossed tear gas over the wall!!!” another student shouted. “Bafi……….“ the student shouted to the mobile police an insult in Bemba.

Remembering scenes from TV when crowds riot in streets and police toss tear gas, I immediately told my roommate to close all windows and the balcony door. I have mild asthma. I rushed to the bathroom. I run some cold water from the tap. I rinsed my irritated eyes, face and my nose. I went back to my room and sealed the bottom of the front door with a wet bathing towel in case heavier and more tear gas was going to seep into the room. After a while, we could not see any more plumes of tear gas

African Hall of the University of Zambia

over the balcony.

This was at University of Zambia in February 1976. We had been demonstrating on campus and holding sporadic boycotting of classes for a week. The previous afternoon, the mobile police were deployed to campus to quell some physical altercations and incidents between demonstrating students. At one point the platoon of mobile police with their guns were advancing toward International and President Halls of residence in coordinated military advance attack formation. We students recognized the formation because we had all been to National Service training. Suddenly the platoon was given orders to back off.

That night armed mobile police guards surrounded the entire campus. No student or anyone could enter or leave campus. The government announced early the next morning that the University of Zambia was closed due to student unrest. We later concluded that the tear gas incident must have been a rogue act of a bored lone mobile police guard who wanted to punish we comfortably sleeping students by throwing probably one tear gas canister over the wall behind Africa Hall. No other students on campus had such a tear gas experience that night.

When Two UNZA Students Died.

One Sunday morning at the University of Zambia campus in 1975, news spread like wild fire that a female student in Zambezi Hall had suddenly died in her sleep. The cause of her death was not known. The University administration and UNZASU organized for her body to be driven to her Luanshya hometown for the funeral and burial. About 50 students  including myself volunteered to go to the funeral in the large UNZA bus.

About 20 kms from Luanshya the bus pulled over to the side of the road. We all went into the bush to collect firewood which would be part of our contribution to the funeral wake. We hoisted the firewood on top of the bus.

When we arrived and pulled to the house of the deceased student’s parents, the modest small house yard was full of mourners; many already cooking and setting up fires. I will never forget the haggard look of the student’s mother. She was wailing in a voiceless hoarse  voice once she saw us walking out of the UNZA bus one by one. She was wearing a black duku around her head, a black dress, and a chitenje.

“Abanankwe nabesa!!! (Her friends have come!!) she wailed flaying and throwing up her arms helplessly. The sad image of her desperate grief stricken mother with a hoarse voice has been seared in my memory. The following day at the burial, Chitundu Soko, UNZASU President delivered a moving eulogy on behalf of the student body.

A few months before a 4th year student was to graduate in 1976, news spread on Sunday morning on campus that the male student had been killed in a car accident in Chelston township. I had seen and said hello to that same student in the lower campus Dining Hall during supper that previous Thursday. The UNZA community was plunged in sorrow. About 40 students volunteered to go to the funeral and burial in a remote village 770 Kms from Lusaka. This was in the South Eastern part of Lundazi district in the Eastern Province toward Chief Mwase. In those days communication of urgent news about deaths was either by ZNBC radio or by telegram. There were not cell phones. We didn’t know if the relatives in the village in this remote part of Zambia would receive the tragic news before we got there with the student’s body.

We travelled all night. We arrived at the village at sunrise about seven hours. A young ten years old boy took the tragic news particularly bad. He was hyperventilating as mourning descended on the entire village. The burial was at 4:00 pm. Immediately after burial, we drove all night back to Lusaka.

The death of any UNZA student is a tragic loss for the student who suddenly will miss all of life’s future possibilities. It is a huge loss to the family that invests so much hope in their daughter or son. This is why I would like to express my deep condolences to the Vespers Shimuzhila  family,  the UNZA community, and Zambia as a nation. This is why I pray that her death will not have been in vain. UNZA students, the community, the government, and all of us as a nation should come together. We should agree to take measures that will ensure that a tragedy like this death never ever happens at University of Zambia again.

 

 

 

The Last Hunt – Chisokole Part 2

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

Late in the afternoon as the sun was about to set, two exhausted dogs with small bloody scratches all over their faces, and still breathing very rapidly with their tongues hanging out emerged out of the bush into the village. They immediately propped down in the shade. More dogs came emerging out of the bush. The men’s voices could be barely be heard at first. Then their deep loud voices got louder as they came closer to the village. The men each slowly emerged from the bush into the village.

Each of all the men was carrying one animal or more on their shoulders; cousin Kanthaulo was carrying 2 kalulu (hares or rabbits), cousin Njenje was carrying 2 sezi, my grandfather Mchawa was carrying nyiska or insa or a duiker on his shoulder. Men were carrying 5 tungwa, 3 insa, many sezi, many tondo (big mouse), ngulube (wild pig), gazelle, mnjiri (warthog), some birds including a nkhanga (guinea fowl), and many small animals I did not recognize.

An Impala

The men assembled at the mphala or insaka lifting off their shoulders their kills.

We the boys including my cousins excitedly followed the men to the mphala. As they put down their kills, they told us to get many broad masuku leaves from the bush nearby. These were laid down covering the ground on which the animals were going be skinned. The men made 6 fires. Our biggest job as young boys was to help the men skin the animals. We were asked to hold the leg here, pull the leg away or closer as the me sliced their skins away using sharpened knives. Axes were used to break the bones.

“Mwizenge!” Asibweni (uncle) Gowokani said. “Hold the leg over here”. He

The men made 6 fires at the Mphala

continued to slice some pieces of meat.

“Put these 2 pieces of meat on the fire. This one is yours and this one is mine. Keep an eye on them as they cook so they don’t burn. Once they are done, we will eat them.” The men tossed some of the meats and bones to the dogs that were attracted to the smell of the meats as the dogs were lurking and waiting on the edge the mphala as they sniffed around.

Before sunset the men returned

Once I finished helping Uncle Gowokani, Agogo (grandfather) Mchawa called me for help. He also put 2 pieces of meat on his fire; one for me and one for him. The men were talking and laughing about the hunt and teasing each other about the various incidents and adventures during the long day hunt. They said that was a long trip deep into the utter remote wilderness down in Chizingizi area. They said there were so many animals there since virtually no humans lived there all the way down to the Luangwa River.

“Mwizenge,” Uncle Mzimphu called. “Take this plate of meat to your Apongozi (aunt) aNyaMchulu. Tell her to cook this ndiyo (relish) for nshima tonight. Wendeske!! (hurry up).”

Holding and carrying the plate of meat carefully, I hurried to aunt NyamMchulu. Like all the women had done that day, she was ready. The fire was burning, the pot was clean and ready to cook the special meal. I run back while taking small bites an savoring the roasted meat I had skillfully carried with me in the corner of my hand from the mphala.

That evening, my cousins and all the young boys were running, hurrying excitedly, crisscrossing the village in the evening

Mnjiri or warthog

darkness delivering fresh meat to all the women of the village who cooked the meat immediately. They young girls were also learning from their mothers, grandmothers, and other adult women how to prepare and cook the meats depending on the type of animal.

Later that evening over 20 nshimas arrived at the mphala with different types of delicious ndiyo (relishes) of different types of wild animal meats. The men gave us 5 nshimas with relishes or ndiyos for us 10 boys to eat. Some of the meats were fresh roasted from our own fires from the mphala. Everyone in the whole village that night, men, women and children ate nshima with delicious meats. It was a memorable feast that I have never forgotten and will never forget for the rest of my life.

Women cooked nshima

Since all the fresh meats and food get bad in two days if they are not eaten in the village, the following day the men did something special. They built small raised racks from small branches from trees. They sliced the rest of the wild meats. They built fires under the small racks. They salted and dried the meats over the fire for 2 days. Once they were dried the meats were stored away to be cooked in the months to follow.

Post Script

The last chisokole hunt has been memorable for me and I remember it with great nostalgia as if it happened yesterday. The following year, I couldn’t go as my grandmother NyaMwaza had promised because I went to school for Sub A or Grade one at Boyole Primary School. School was the beginning of Westernization or Europeanization that took me away and forbade me from participating in my precious African culture. Today I ask why is that type of hunting being regarded as primitive? Why was Western culture imposed at the expense of or obliterating my Zambian or African culture? Some will argue that Western technology and education taught me how to read and write, speak English, to be civilized, saved me from dying from malaria, whooping cough, typhoid fever, small pox, and other deadly childhood diseases. Should really the price of this have been obliterating my or our Zambian and African culture?

__________________________________

**If you loved this story, this author published “The Bridge” a highly acclaimed romantic thriller novel in 2005 that reflects deep aspects of our Zambian culture. The Ministry of Education Curriculum Development CDC) in April 2015 approved or accepted the book to be used as a supplementary reader for grades 10 – 12 in the Zambian Secondary School Literature syllabus. An application was filed with the Zambia Examinations Council for the book to be adopted by Secondary School in June 2016. Please kindly contact Zambia Examinations Council to urge them to adopt the book.

 

 

The Last Hunt – Chisokole Part One

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

I woke up from my grandmother and grandfather’s house  rubbing my eyes and emerged out of the door. The October early morning long bright sunrays were shining between the village thatched houses hitting the bare brown ground, dry grass and the naked trees against a clear blue sky. Suddenly two dogs chasing each other zipped past me. Another dog was chasing chickens that scattered away. Two other dogs were chasing goats. I heard the deep loud raised voices, noises, and commotion of many men from the direction of the village mphala or insaka shouting calling the dogs “to stop!!!”

An Impala

My heart was suddenly beating fast with excitement when I realized what was happening. I ran to Grandmother NyaMwaza who was already up and sitting with her legs stretched out by the small thatched kitchen hut with her bare back basking toward the early morning soft sun rays.

“Agogo! Agogo! (Grandma, Grandma) I want to go to chisokole – hunt with the men!!”

“Yayi (No)” grandma replied.

“But I can walk long distances in the hot sun without drinking water, carry an axe or spear for grandfather. I will listen. I will obey the adults!! Agogo nabeya (please) can I go?”

“No, you cannot go. Ndiwe mdoko kuchisokole (you are too young to go on the hunt)’ my grandmother NyaMwanza replied emphatically.

Dogs were chasing goats in the village.

I collapsed to the ground wailing. I rolled on the ground many times kicking the sand with my legs raising dust while crying as loud as I could: “Agogo!! I want to go to chisokole w-e-e-e!!!!” I cried as I hyperventilated laying on the sand. This was in 1960 at Chipewa Village in Lundazi district of the Eastern Province of Zambia in Southern Africa and I was 6 years old.

Grandmother NyaMwaza gently picked me up by my arm as I stood up still crying and sobbing.

“Mwizenge, mwana wane (my child)” my grandmother said softly. “Chetama, chetama (stop crying)”

“You are too young to go to chisokole hunt,” she said as she wiped my tears and the sand from my face.

“What about cousin Kathaulo and Njenje, they are going!”

“They are older than you. They are not nthanga yako (your age mates).  “In fact your cousins Jemusi and Sokoyala who are your age mates are not going either.”

“They are not going?” I said looking at my grandmother with both surprise and relief.

The dogs were chasing chickens in the village

“Mwizenge, may be next year when you are older you will be able to go. Chisokole is dangerous for younger boys.”

I was dejected and disappointed but felt better. At least I was not the only one of the boys not going on the exciting chisokole.

Early that morning the men had cooked some porridge with herbs from secret special tree roots. Once the dogs had eaten the munkhwala (medicine) porridge, they were so excited and ready for the hunt. That’s why the dogs were excited and chasing chickens and goats because they were ready for the hunt. The men had delayed leaving for chisokole hunt.

My Grandfather Mchawa and all the men of the village assembled at the mphala or insaka. They had their sharpened spears, axes, knives, and arrow heads. They carried their bows, arrows and nthonga (knobkerries).

I had heard from the men growing up that the way they hunted is the men lined up abreast in a long line. They shouted, yelled, and beat the bushes as they all advanced forward through the bushes at an equal pace within sight of each other. No one was to lag behind and go too far forward. The noises spooked animals that would bound out running away from their hiding places. The hunters would then carefully use their weapons in front or behind them to kill the animals. This is why it was prohibited to go too far forward or lag far behind. Because either way you could be speared accidentally during the intense swift chaotic noisy split second decisions.

Dogs were chasing goats

The men all took long last big swigs of fresh drinking water in case they were not going to find any drinking water during the long all day hunt in seething October heat. The men whistled and shouted for the more than 15 dogs which were frantically still running around chasing goats with their tongues hanging out. The men lined up abreast in a long line along the western side of the village. They were shouting, laughing, and yelling as some were whistling while calling the names of the many dogs. The dogs disappeared first into the bush ahead of the men. Then the men followed and disappeared into the bush. The chisokole hunt had started.

My grandmother NyaMwaza, all the women of the village, and my cousins were all day anxiously preparing waiting for the men’s return from the chisokole.

________________________

***If you loved this story, this author published “The Bridge” a highly acclaimed romantic thriller novel in 2005 that reflects deep aspects of our Zambian culture. The Ministry of Education Curriculum Development CDC) in April 2015 approved or accepted the book to be used as a supplementary reader for grades 10 – 12 in the Zambian Secondary School Literature syllabus. An application was filed with the Zambia Examinations Council for the book to be adopted by Secondary School in June 2016. Please kindly contact Zambia Examinations Council to urge them to adopt the book.

 

 

UNZA Student Papers Very Important

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Professor of Sociology

Introduction

One chilly June morning when I was in Grade 7 at Tamanda Boys Boarding Upper Primary School in 1966 in rural Chipata in the Eastern Province of Zambia, the Headmaster Mr. Phiri digressed from teaching English, and asked the class  of 30 students what we wanted to be after completing Grade 7. My classmates and I looked at each other blankly in stunned silence. What could kids in a rural African village school dream about after finishing only Grade Seven? Then Mr. Phiri gave us this spontaneous talk that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

“What’s the matter with you!” he raised his voice his eyes slowly surveying the classroom and then he said almost whispering:

UZ Spokeman – the first University of Zambia student newspaper.

“You are young. The future for all of you is wide open. Our country just got its independence 2 years ago. We will need doctors to cure disease, pilots to fly planes, locomotive drivers to run trains, bankers, teachers, surveyors, architects to design homes, engineers. Any of you could even go to college and even to the new University of Zambia! You could get one or two degrees and become professors. You need to know not just about our school, our chief, your village, or our country, but about the world. Did you know that as we speak in the classroom now, on the other side of the world in Japan its midnight and people are asleep?”

I smiled and looked around at my classmates. That was it! That was fascinating and very inspiring for me as a kid who had only known about herding goats in the village at this point. My imagination was ignited and a seed was planted. I began to dream night and day about may be being a bus driver, doctor, policeman, or train driver.  May be even going to University of Zambia if I worked hard. The previous year in 1965, our imagination as students had been instigated when our Headmaster announced that our government of Zambia was raising funds all over the country to build the first national University of Zambia. This would be the highest educational institution in the land where students would obtain degrees. Every child in our

The author at 15 years old stood in awe at Africa Hall at the University of Zambia then under construction.

school donated ten ngwee or ten cents toward the national project.

School Holidays in Lusaka

My uncle and aunt invited me while I was attending Chizongwe Secondary School to spend the August 1969 school holidays at their home. I was a curious rural boy thrilled with Lusaka City life staying ku Mayadi or middle class neighborhood in Northmead. One morning I got on a sports bike and wanted to see the University of Zambia. I rode the bike to near the

Members of Aggrey House at Chizongwe Secondary School in 1967.

Zambian National Assembly building.

Lusaka then was known as the Garden City because of its bungalows and marvelous wide front yards and lawns. There were no walls surrounding houses. So you could see the beautiful front yards of all homes with flower gardens, their broad living room glass windows and colorful curtains. Then I rode my bicycle on a bush path through what is now Arcade Mall or East Park Mall to UNZA. I emerged from the bush path to see Africa Hall and Kwacha Hall but President and International Halls were still incomplete. There were cranes and loud construction sounds everywhere. I stood by my bike and stared in wonderment at the new University of Zambia being built with the administration building and the Library in the far distance. I was in Form three or Grade 9. I was in awe to be and see the University of Zambia; the seat of knowledge. I wondered what it would take for anyone to be at University of Zambia. I retreated and returned to Northmead.

Form V and Chizongwe Secondary school

One day while I was in Form V or Grade 12 at Chizongwe Secondary School in 1971 when we heard news that UNZA students had marched and demonstrated against apartheid along Freedom Way down town Lusaka. Something went wrong as police threw teargas, there was pandemonium, and students scattered as they run through Cairo Road through plumes of tear gas as police chased them. One former Chizongwe Secondary School graduate who was a student at University of Zambia sent a copy of the UNZA student newspaper the UZ Spokesman to a friend in Aggrey House Senior section.  We all congregated to read and have a glimpse of the students’ views of what had happened in the student protest. The UZ Spokesman made a tremendous

In-a-Hurry UNZA student newspaper the author co-founded with Dr. Vincent Musakanya in 1974.

impression on me; the notion that students could publish a paper that was right in the middle of national politics.

I had no idea that six months later in May of 1972 I would be a freshman or first year student at the University of Zambia. It was a thrill of my life and that of my whole family. Beyond the best University education I obtained at University of Zambia, I have made one conclusion after 46 years of observations of many University college newspapers both at UNZA and especially abroad in western universities: the UNZA student papers represented the best and purest form of freedom of expression because of three reasons.

Freedom of Expression

First, the student newspapers UZ Spokesman, later TRUNZA, and In-a-Hurry (which I had co-founded with Dr. Vincent Musakanya) reflected the free, direct, true and unvarnished student expression. This expression was unrestrained by censorship, libel or sedition laws where students could be sued and jailed because of what they had published offended someone. Once four TRUNZA editorial board members were tried in court for sedition and acquitted.

Second, the capital for publishing the student papers was so low that it enhanced student expression. The papers were sold at 3ngwee each. Students used cheap stencils and duplicated the newspapers on regular cheap print paper. The UNZA student papers were not imitating the Times of Zambia or the Zambia Daily Mail which were very expensive or costly to publish.

Thirdly, the total freedom of expression meant that vulgarity and insults were sometimes common. However, in the early years of UZ Spokesman vulgarity did not exist. But vulgarity and fierce extreme political opinions became the staple of TRUNZA. Other student papers including our own In-a-Hurry were conservative. Censorship was very limited as both men (mojo) and women (momma) students were often given equal opportunities to insult each other. But one of the best and perhaps tragically ignored aspects about the UNZA student papers is that they reflected some of the best writing in Humanities and the Social Sciences. We were the cream of the nation assembled in one institution. Some of the most creative, humorous, unique intellectual expression, analysis and political commentary were in those student papers including very inspiring poetry. I have never encountered such freedom of expression and creativity in student newspapers in the few Western Universities I have observed over the last 46 years.

Archive all UNZA Student Papers

There is often a misguided notion even among some UNZA former students and may be even the Zambian political leadership and the public that those papers were childish, rubbish or the useless product of children playing in the sandbox. I strongly disagree. What I urge is for the University of Zambia to immediately collect, bind, scan, and digitize all those UNZA student papers starting from 1969. These student papers include UZ Spokesman, In-a-Hurry, TRUNZA, IN and OUT and others. I know where these student newspapers are located in the basement of the University of Zambia Library when I was last in the basement in the 1980s. Deeply buried in those publications are a treasure trove of very significant history of unique knowledge and human creativity that you will not find from students from other Universities in the world.

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions: Book Review

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Professor of Sociology

Johann Hari, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, New York: Bloomsbury, 2018, 321 pp. K280.00 ($28.00), Hardcover.

Introduction

In 2008 I got a frantic call from a close Zambian friend who lives in Chicago with his wife and two children in a typical middle class neighborhood. His 19 year old son was attending college and went to a party near campus with a group of friends. During a race-related fracas at the party, his son was severely beaten and had to be taken to hospital. Once out of the hospital, the son was back home and deeply depressed. His depression was so severe that he would be in bed all day and not come out of his bedroom. He would not eat much.

The Traditional Healer in Lusaka who treated the author’s son for depression

Taking anti-depressants was not helping. Did I have any suggestions?

I advised my friend that they should immediately fly back home to Zambia in Africa. I gave them the name and cell phone number of the reputable traditional healer who lives in the Chawama compound South of Zambia’s  Capital City of Lusaka. The wife boarded the plane for Zambia with their son. As soon as they landed at the Lusaka Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, they booked a taxi and headed straight to the traditional healers’ house. This was an urgent matter and there was no time to waste.

The traditional healer prescribed several types of treatment for the depression which included a pile of roots. These were to be soaked in water. The mother was to use the herb from the soaked roots to boil a thin maize or corn meal porridge. Her son had to drink this porridge 3 times a day for 3 months. She and her son soon after travelled north of the country to the Copper belt where they stayed with close relatives and other extended family members as he underwent treatment. During the process her son was able to eat delicious nshima meals with good ndiyo, umunani or relishes which the whole family ate together three times per day as is the traditional Zambian meal eating custom. Her son laughed, joked, played, and talked every day in the Zambian language with his aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, and many  others. He shared bedrooms with his cousins. After a month, they returned to Illinois where her son continued to cook and drink the herbal porridge for another month.

How did I know this traditional healer might be able to treat the son’s deep depression? It is because my own son eight years earlier had dropped out of college as a sophomore because of depression. Counselling and other therapy did not work. The antidepressants had such horrendous so-called side effects that my son exhibited suicidal thoughts. That’s when I urgently had also flown to Zambia to the same traditional healer in Lusaka. I went beyond that to the village where my son consulted another traditional healer.  Is my argument that Western doctors and the powerful pharmaceutical antidepressant drugs don’t work for treating depression? Am I advocating that every reader who has depression board a plane and head to Lusaka Zambia or to any African country from Cairo to Cape Town? How is this related to the book “Lost Connections”?

Lost Connections

I have personally experienced some depression. I have seen it in close family members the last 58 years since I was a child growing up in Zambia in the 1950s. I saw and have seen how depression was treated in traditional Zambia. I am keenly aware that depression is a rampart and destructive of lives both young and old in contemporary America and in societies in general. After reading all the 321 pages in Johann Hari, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, I was able to more explicitly realize the connections between the dots about depression that I could see in both my personal and academic life that I was suddenly able to see and make the connections.

Three ways to Read

There are three possible ways to read and look at the proposed approach to causes and solutions to curing depression proposed in this book. First, you could entirely avoid reading the book because you might think it is too long. Instead you could read small tidbits of reviews, a few hundred-word short critical commentaries that either praise or

Meaningful work may help prevent or reduce depression. Women drawing water during the construction of the Nkhanga Village Library in Lundazi in Eastern Zambia.

criticize the ideas in the book. Second, you could read it for theoretical knowledge so you can use it as ammunition in academic discourse which often mimics combat. Third, you could read it with serious urgency because depression and anxiety are so wide spread in our society you may be trying to be part of the search for serious solutions. I decided I want to read both for knowledge but also to determine if I might be able to draw from my traditional Zambian and African experiences in order to be part of finding some long term real treatment and solutions. What Western societies are doing right now in their approach to causes and treatment of depression may not be working.

Summary of Lost Connections

The American author of the book Lost Connections battled depression from a very young age when he was a teenager using antidepressants which never worked. But he endured horrendous side effects from the antidepressants while being convinced they were beneficial in curing his depression. He did not know it at the time that the antidepressants were not working. The 22 chapters of the book of 321 pages are divided into 3 distinctive parts. Part I is “The Crack of the Old Story” which are very significant first 55 pages of the book. He exposes and debunks the myth that has been very deeply embedded in us that science and drugs that are promoted and believed to fix our brains when we have depression have not only all been mistaken but may be lies to put it plainly. Drug companies may be very complicit in continuing to perpetuate this lie.

“People are told that drugs like antidepressants restore a natural balance to your brain, she said, but it’s not true – they create an artificial state. The whole idea of mental distress being caused simply by a chemical imbalance in “a myth” she has come to believe, sold to us by the drug companies.” (p.30)

Part II of the book addresses in detail the “Nine Causes of Depression and Anxiety” which are said to have caused serious and harmful disconnection among humans in contemporary society. The causes include: Meaningful Work, Disconnection from other

Deep meaningful relationships may help eliminate of reduce depression. Family members doing their hair in the village.

people, lack of Meaningful Values, Childhood Trauma, Disconnection from the Natural World, the Role of Genes and Brain Changes.

Part III of the book explores “Reconnection. Or, a Different Kind of Antidepressant” which includes such topics as Reconnection to Meaningful Work, Meaningful Values, and Reconnecting to Other People.

Significance of Lost Connections

Each reader will encounter perhaps many significant ideas about depression in “Lost Connections” that they may agree or disagree with. But what I found most gratifying was Hari’s statement which reaffirms my own preexisting beliefs and convictions all along which I first expressed in my opposition to some of the earlier methods of research and controversy about the HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. A man is walking long a dark street and loses his keys and begins to look for them. Another person notices that the man was looking for his keys not in the part of the street where he might have lost the keys. When the man who lost the keys was asked why he was looking for his keys not where he might have lost them fifty yards away, the man replied: “Because this is where there is a street light”. That man was never going to find his lost keys.

Reaffirming the validity of the lost key analogy, about depression Hari says: “Because we have been framing the problem incorrectly, we have been finding flawed solutions. If this is primarily a brain problem, it makes sense to look for answers primarily in the brain. But if this is to a more significant degree a problem with how we live, we need to look primarily for answers out here in our lives……It seemed clear that if disconnection is the main driver for our depression and anxiety, we need to find ways to reconnect.” (p.161)

Savanna Zambia and Africa

This author realized that Hari’s advocating reconnections brings contemporary modern society full circle to the significance of life in the African Savannah village from where all humans evolved and migrated perhaps forty thousand years ago. I characterized the deep human connections reflected in the traditional Zambian and African village as: “Heaven on Earth” in my book Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture.(p. 21-23). In order to find lasting cure to depression employing the holistic approach may require humans to adopt the African Savannah lifestyle we may have abandoned perhaps about ten thousand years ago.

Discussing why loneliness may cause depression and anxiety, Hari says: “Human beings first evolved on the savannas of Africa, where we lived in small hunter-gatherer tribes of a few hundred people or less. You and I exist for one reason- because those humans figured out how to cooperate.”(p.77)

Conclusion

What is most appealing and meaningful about the ideas in this book are its holistic and historical approach. Several times in the book he mentions that all of us 7.7 billion people came from the open Savanna in Africa. Could rampant depression be related to virtually everyone reading this evolving from the open Savanna may be forty thousand years ago but now living in what might be cages in isolated houses, offices, factories, hostile and alienating work places, the internet virtual world, tiny apartments or flats while being

Nega Nega Hills overlooking the Kafue River. Open spaces in nature like those in the Savanna may help eliminate of reduce depression.

increasingly disconnected from other humans?

Some social scientists conducted research all over the world to find out what physical environment people have a liking for. “What they found is that everywhere, no matter how different their culture, people had a preference for landscapes that look like the Savannas in Africa. There is something about it, they conclude, that seems to be innate.” (p.129) The premises and references to the Savannas in Africa in the book validated why I have a deep love, fondness, and even a spiritual connection to the Savanna wilderness I am fortunate and blessed to have grown up in 58 years ago. This book provides credible causes and possible solutions to depression but the challenges of adopting those solutions are daunting. But he provides some optimistic recommendations and encouragement at the end.

The Thrill of the Black Panther – Why I Cried.

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

Introduction

President Kaunda should see the Black Panther. All the founders of Zambia whether they have passed away or are still living should watch the Black Panther; Simon Kapwepwe, Reuben Kamanga, Peter Matoka, Grey Zulu, Munukayumbwa Sipalo, Julia Chikamoneka, Chibesa Kankasa, Madeline Robertson, Chieftainess Mulenje Nkomeshya; just to mention a few of our founding ancestral fathers and mothers.

Sir Abubaka Tafawa Balewa, the first Prime Minister of Independent Nigeria in 1960 should see Black Panther. Namdi Azikiwe the first President of independent Nigeria should watch the movie.

First Zambia’s First President Kaunda

Nelson Mandela the first President of independent South Africa, Jomo Kenyatta first Prime Mister of independent Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah the first Prime Minister of Ghana, Chief Albert Luthuli,  the Rev. martin Luther King, Malcolm X,  should see the Black Panther.

My Grade 7 teacher Mr. Elisa Phiri at Tamanda Mission Boys Boarding School in 1966 should watch the movie. Every Friday afternoon he gave the whole remote rural school the weekly current affairs lecture about the new Independent African countries and their new Prime Ministers. Every Zambian, African, the whole world should watch the Black Panther for the African cultural unity the movie finally unveils is what everyone has been yearning and longing for. I will try my best not to have any spoilers in case you have not watched the movie. If you have not watched the movie yet, stop reading right now. I have watched the movie a gazillion times including 3 D version.

First Reason I Cried

The first reason why I cried when I watch the Black Panther is when the characters say: “We are home!” “It never gets old.” I have lived on and off in the diaspora for more than 40 years. Flying back home to Zambia has always been my going back to my Wakanda. It will never get old. I had been away from Zambia for 3 years studying for my Masters degree when I first flew back to Zambia in 1980. I flew on the TWA 747 jumbo jet from New York to London Heathrow. I had not

Zambia Airways DC 10

spoken my Tumbuka mother tongue, Lusaka Nyanja, or heard Bemba, Lozi, Tonga, or seen other ordinary Zambians for 3 years. I didn’t realize my soul was starved for home until I boarded at London-Heathrow the massive Zambia Airways DC 10 plane with its beautiful Zambian flag colors on the outside. When I entered the cabin, the latest Zambia music was playing on the intercom. I saw Zambian young men and women pilots, and especially stewardesses who were going about the cabin speaking in sweet Lusaka Nyanja dialect mixed with English and Bemba. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. At that moment I felt like screaming and jumping up and down and hugging them: “I am hoooooome!!! Nafika Mu Lusakaaaa!!!(I am in Lusaka!!!)” I had to retrain myself because I knew I would have been ejected off the plane for being mentally unstable or for gross public misconduct. My ecstatic warm feelings happened again when ten hours later the massive DC 10 jumbo’s wheels  kissed the tarmac at the then Lusaka International Airport during early March morning. “I was home!!!”

Second Reason I Cried

The second reason I cried is when what I have known intuitively having grown up in the village and through reading that we as Africans were never inferior as portrayed by Europeans since the Industrial Revolution and colonization of the entire continent from 1600 to 1960. The unity of the African peoples of the continent and those of the African diaspora powerfully reflected in the Black Power movie triggered in me about our proud majestic history of Africa and Africans as the origin of the entire human civilization.

If your understanding of our African history is from the Eurocentric history that starts from the 1600s with Europeans sailing and exploring the coastal areas of West Africa, you have the wrong history. If you believe that the Atlantic Slave Trade in which 11 million Africans were taken in chains between 1600 and 18000 and Europeans colonization of Africa from 1880 to 1960 was because Africans have always been an inferior people, you have the wrong history.

The more accurate history is that many groups of Africans called homo sapiens evolved from Savannah East Africa about two hundred thousand years ago. They migrated through present day Saudi Arabia through India, Andaman Islands, to the Far East including Islands in the South Pacific, Australia,  and New Guinea. The same Africans may have lived in North Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East and some may have migrated by canoe from West Africa and settled in North and Southern America. This may have been thousands of years before what are known as the Dark Ages in European History (500-1500 AD), Spanish exploration (1492 – 1892), Portuguese exploration (1500-1600), and European voyages of exploration and colonialism around the world.

I discuss some of this information which is at the center of human evolution in Chapter 17 of my book: “Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture”. In other words all the 7 billion people today all over the world may be biologically descendants of Zambians and Africans starting  from about two hundred thousand years ago. If this is the broad accurate history, why is it today that the history of Zambians and Africans is so distorted that nearly everyone generally denies, including Zambians and Africans ourselves, that Africans had any significant influence in history? That somehow Zambians and Africans are a black race that have always been colonized, inferior or were slaves? The Black Panther movie may help to reignite the tracing back of our proper and accurate history and reuniting of African people from North Africa in Libya and Cairo in Egypt to the Southern tip in Cape Town in South Africa; from the Horn of Africa in Djibouti to the Gambia and Cape Verde Islands in West Africa.

Third Reason I Cried was Kukaya

The villain dies grieving that his parents abandoned him and never took him back to Wakanda where the sunsets are beautiful. Many Zambians have enjoyed the beautiful sunsets in Zambia all their lives while experiencing genuine freedom. The freedom to walk anywhere with your chest high and an elegant spring in your step knowing that the ground you are walking on is yours and that of family and ancestors. I felt sorry for 40 million African Americans who are 12% of the United States population of 325 million people will never see and experience Africa like the fictitious Wakanda in its true beauty, of being Kukaya and enjoy true liberty and freedom. It is always painful to grow up to be told you’re a minority and to be forever in Ghetto stockades of the mind even if you are rich. There are other millions of Africans descendants in Brazil, the Caribbean, in Asia and Europe for whom the Black Panther will for the first time give them a glimpse of just the tip of the iceberg of the diversity of the beauty of what Wakanda and Africa can provide them. This is one of the reasons why I always take photographs of the beautiful sunsets whenever I am in Zambia. The beauty of the African sunsets is why the British Colonizer Cecil Rhodes from the 1800s is buried on Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe.

Fourth Reason I Cried – the Women

After Zambia’s independence from British colonialism in 1964, there was a serious cultural conflict among Zambians. Some young women began to adopt some Western cultural practices. Women began to use skin lighting creams on their faces such that their faces looked orange and the rest of their body was blue black. The men youth leaders from the United National Independence Party (UNIP) by 1965 roamed public places including markets identifying young women who were using skin lighting on their faces and publicly rebuked them. Zambians derisively called these women coca-cola and fanta as a way of critiquing their orange faces and while the rest of their bodied had dark skin.

Lupita Nyango (Nokiya in Black Panther) has fought a valiant battle. A British magazine had used her on their magazine cover. They lightened her dark skin and make her African kinky hair smooth to meet the European conceptions, standards, and stereotype of women’s beauty. Lupita protested and criticized them that they shouldn’t have altered her African looks. This was very courageous of her. The magazine apologized. I am so proud of her for standing for millions of black dark skinned women in Africa and the rest of the world who have been made to feel inferior and ashamed of how they look because of the Eurocentric wrong belief that white European features and skin are superior and African, ebony, and blue black skin are inferior.

In the Black Panther it was heartwarming to see on the big screen the full diversity of the beauty of our women and men that I was able to experience since I was a child in the village in Zambia. I have six beautiful sisters of various skin shades from brown to blue black skin tone. The full range of beauty from the women with the darkest blue black skin color to the chocolate brown.

None of these tones were in our African cultures were ever associated with inferiority and superiority of certain skin tones as being “white” or “light”. In fact in our African culture we refer to kufiyira (Chewa) uswesi (Tumbuka) or usweshi (Bemba) which have absolutely nothing to do with inferiority and superiority of while skin color as Europeans have erroneously made us to all believe. The Black Panther ought to liberate not just all African women but all blue black dark skinned lovely beautiful women who are Dalits and are the despised untouchables regarded by

Andaman people in Eastern India Islands

society as the most vile people in the Caste system in India, Bangladesh, Andaman Islands, and elsewhere.

The  Black Panther has given you permission to enjoy and walk with joy in the bright sunshine with elegance, dignity, and pride. You are beautiful. You are women who may have broad flat noses, full lips, kinky hair, sparkling smiles, and choose a bald head; you are beautifully elegant. Most of all, the Black Panther will liberate all men, and especially black heterosexual men, that if you are attracted to, loved and cherished any of the women who have dark blue-black skin, that it is alright for you to admire, cherish, and love them. We can finally breakthrough the racist and mental bondage of the myth of the racial superiority of the white European skin especially in women and dispel forever the myth of the inferiority of the blue black dark skin.

References

  1. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_16_5YR_DP05&src=pt
  2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260163395_Eurocentric_Destruction_of_Indigenous_Conceptions_the_Secret_Rediscovery_of_the_Beautiful_Woman_in_African_Societies