Chipata and Katembwe
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2006
1
13
Trip End
Ongoing
Katembwe, Zambia
Thursday, May 3, 2007
The only other time I had been there was back in 1990 when we visited Zambia for the first time since leaving in '84. I was nine at the time and hence have very few concrete memories of the place! I seem to remember the walk to where the farm would have been but not the graves of my great grandparents and the sons and daughters buried there (my grandmother is the only daughter buried there but further down away from the main cemetery). This trip, at least, I have a greater appreciation for the place as well as the man that was responsible the dynasty he spawned; only I didn't count on the car trip itself being as memorable as the farm itself!
I travelled down from Lusaka with two uncles of mine (George and Jack) and we met up with an aunt (Aggie) in the provincial capital Chipata. Uncle George lives in the Isle of Man but had come for a visit and imported a Land Rover Discovery with him from the UK through Durban in South Africa. My uncle Jack still lives in Lusaka. I call them uncles and aunts as more of a respect issue as they are really my dad's cousins and not brother's or sister!
The car trip down to Chipata was rather uneventful and is the same distance roughly as driving from Ottawa to Hamilton, only the roads are worse! Although we arrived late we dropped in on Aggie to her great surprise and happiness, having not seen George, Jack or myself in many years! We ended up staying in a Lodge close by across from Chipata Airport (though it was more or less just a airstrip). It was a very nice place with the exception of the pillows that were so over stuffed that one's neck, while lying down, was held at a near 90 degree angle to one's body; we later joked about the steroid enhanced pillows following the first night's sleep!
From Chipata, it's only about an hour and some minutes south to Katembwe (there is no actual place called such but rather gets it name from the river that runs near the property). Going through the capital though was a trip down memory lane for my two uncle's who hadn't been back for close to two decades! Thus plenty of reminiscing occurred with aunt Aggie pointing out new developments and old landmarks, all of which were all new to me; frankly, I found Chipata to be a dirty, uninspiring city. Eastern province on the other hand has the most beautiful landscape. Numerous hills dot the landscape (as well as surrounding Chipata) and were either the typical tree covered hill or massive pieces of well worn rock, smoothed after eons of weathering! Best of all, after leaving Chipata, there seemed to be little to no western style development; instead just the usual mud huts with odd church or school building. The roads were dreadful of course but I didn't mind so much as there was plenty to look at!
The farm is located off the main road less than a kilometer into the bush. The is no road leading to it just a wide foot path; essentially wide enough for the Land Rover to pass. Thus we drove in and parked in the shade under some old mango trees that would have been part of a much larger mango orchard. Little did we think that this little drive would lead to our near stranding in the middle of nowhere!
The farm itself is just fields in which cotton and maize are now grown. All the old houses have since long fallen down and the area hasn't had any relative of ours living there since the mid 1950's. In the middle of the fields can be found the old bricks slowly breaking up to nothing themselves and I grabbed one for dad for nostalgia's sake! Set further down the property are the graves of my great grandparents and 3 of their sons. The whole cemetery has been neglected and as a result is quite overgrown. Apparently, the people that bought the farm (in somewhat of a shady deal) chased away the previous tenants who used to look after the grave site. Unfortunately, we didn't bring anything along that could clear the shrubs and weeds so that will have to wait for next time! From there, Aggie and I went to look for the other grave site which we finally found after traipsing through more bush and around another maize field. The second grave site is in much worse shape than the first; my grandmother's tombstone was nearly totally obscured by the weeds, which I cleaned to the best of my abilities given I had no tools before we returned to the car to leave.
Initially, George was a little hesitant to drive the Land Rover down the path; a hesitation that we maybe should of all heeded! However, that wasn't so and about 100 meters from the road we got a flat tire. At first, this wasn't any great cause for concern; I figured that in ten minutes we'd have the tire changed and be back on our way. Unfortunately, things didn't want to work out easily. Land Rover's have one special lock nut on each tire and the key needed to remove the lock nuts. Our problem was that the key was cracked the lock nut on the flat tire was beginning to strip; thus, we couldn't get the lock nut off! After trying for some ten or fifteen minutes, it was decided that George and I would walk up to the road to see if we could find anyone with a hammer and chisel to help as finding another person with a Land Rover Discovery in the area was next to nil. So we set off up to the road.
It must have been quite the funny site as the two of us walked out of the bush to find a villager just further down from our position. I'm not sure what he was doing but he had both an axe and knife with him (the two weapons giving him reassurance he later recalled while laughing with the other villagers when asked what thought when these two white men appeared out of the bush talking about coming from the graves). With his direction and help, we made our way up to a nearby village where several men were fixing bikes and soon were on our way again back to the car with tools we hoped would loosen the nut. Thankfully it did and the nut was soon off and the car jacked up to replace it with the spare (the whole area is very sandy and at first the jack kept sinking as the weight bore down on it but this was overcome by placing the brick I took under the jack to increase the surface area of the pressure). So within fifteen minutes of getting back to the car, everything had been put right and we were back on the road after saying our thank you's and giving our assistant's some gratuity. It was only after being on the road for some kilometers that I realized we had neglected to collect the brick and thus it's still lying on the path where we stopped.
Having seen the farm, we made our way back to Chipata although along a different route; one that is much more direct and comfortable if coming from Lusaka! Fixing the flat was now a priority as the drive back was just as likely to cause another flat. So the next morning we got it repaired and made our way to another distant cousins (Collin Osbourne and his wife Jane) for lunch before leaving to head back home. As we were leaving just after lunch, Collin heard a noise under the hood that we all agreed should be checked out upon arriving back to Lusaka. Thus we left without giving it a second thought and headed for home not thinking much of the noise. Roughly two hours later, just as we passed Petauke, the noise got much louder and we then pulled over. Apparently, the noise that we were hearing was a bearing in the water pump that had collapsed causing the fan belt to start fraying, the source of the louder noise. So we headed back into Petauke to look for the parts we needed to fix the problem but predictably the parts were nowhere to be found at any parts dealer. By this time night was approaching and our staying overnight was fast becoming a reality. George had managed to get a hold of Collin's brother, also named George, back in Lusaka who had both parts we needed and would ship them in the morning.
With the parts situation figured out, we set about looking for a lodge for the night. We tried the same lodge I had stayed in during my previous visit to Petauke but it was full. From there we tried several other lodges which were also full; a surprising situation for Petauke. Eventually we arrived at a real dive called Willy's Motel. At that point in time it was our only option aside from sleeping in the car until a local businessman called inquiring how we were making out. We had been referred to Imran Musa earlier by Collin as Imran had a garage at his place but he didn't have the parts we needed. After explaining the situation to him, he quickly advised us not to stay at Willy's and volunteered to help us find something better for the night. He came by and we parked the Land Rover in his yard and hopped into his truck and headed off to a Motel we had already tried. There he ran into an American friend of his named Eric from the PeaceCorps working in the Petauke Boma doing education. We all then drove down to another lodge (called Casa Romanov and run by their friend Sami) on the Great East Rd. that thankfully had space. So while George sorted out the rooms, I stood by Imran's truck talking to him and Eric explaining what we were doing and filling Eric in on our situation since arriving in Petauke. We stood there talking for quite some time about our experiences only to discover that we would be flying out of Zambia on the same flight some three weeks later. Quite the interesting coincidence. From there, Imran and Eric had to head out to deal with other responsibilities and I joined George and Jack. They had gotten a 12oz bottle of brandy and some cokes and we all settled in thankful our situation had improved. That first bottle was followed by a second and then a third and finally a fourth, after which we all retired quite drunk (Jack needing to be helped to his room).
The following day was mostly spent waiting for the spare parts to arrive with George Osbourne's mechanic! Finally, around 2:30 pm he pulled in on the bus and set to work replacing the parts with the help of Imran's mechanic's! With that finished, we went off to thank Imran for all his help and to say our goodbye's. So it was that nearly 24 hours after having the initial problems while passing Petauke, we left confident that our trip back would be event free. The drive back seemed very long. I sat in the back with the mechanic sharing my iPod as we each listened to one earpiece oblivious to the concerns of George and Jack that we were going to run out of fuel before reaching a gas station just outside of Chongwe. Luckily, our car troubles seemed to be over and we made it to the gas station, filled up and made it home late that night, my bed had never been so comfortable up to that point!
