Nshima

I wrote this two evenings ago, but had to wait until now to post it. Much is new since I have written it, but I have left it intact. -- V

Riding on a luxury coach, six hours for what amounts to fifteen dollars, past fifteen foot ant hills and mud huts and open fires and forest that has the surreal property of being thick but letting you see for miles, flat russet save for the occasional mountain, and suddenly I am in Africa.  Butterflies that look like swallowtails, but they are electric blue; trees that look like locusts, but their flowers are red; birds the likes of which I have never seen; I recognize no species save for the cattails (which may, indeed, not be a species at all, but a genus or family; I have no idea).

We took the coach to Kitwe, stopping about half way for a snack (in my case, a Hunter’s cider.  The patron, however, did not take the lid off for me, so I had to jury-rig a bottle opener using one suitcase lock cantilevered off of another suitcase lock; I haven’t had beer on a bus since teachers’ college).  At Kitwe, Roger, an affable South African ex-pat, picked us up at the station, and brought us to the Mona Lisa.  He and his colleague, another South African named Leon, ate a last “city” dinner with us, which we tried to make involve meat and cheese.  Roger works for a successful company that supplies mines and oil operations with machinery; we stayed at his home which was luxurious, even by Canadian standards.

The next morning we purchased a few groceries — I had my first Zambian banana — and I tried to purchase a coffee at a café.

“Our coffee machine is broken,” the keeper offered a non-apology, “All we have is filtered coffee”.

Café filtre.  Right.  That’s not normal most places, I remind myself, even in Québec.  “Perfect.  Can I get that to take out please?”

“We are out of take-out cups”.

Something about this land makes sense to me; that a coffee shop could have neither its main product nor the vessels in which to put it, and no one is panicking.  No one is frantically calling this place or that place; no one is having a bad day at work.  The experience was worth the withdrawal headache.

Anton, a friend of Roger’s, dropped us at the West exit of town, on the road towards Chingola.  There I hitched my first ride (on my first attempt, and after Candace and Marissa had no luck... beginner’s luck, as they say).  Two business men in a pickup truck took us as far as Chingola, at the road that heads west towards Solwezi.  There, a husband-wife-child sedan gathered us and took us, quite crowded, the rest of the way.  Along the way there were sporadic vendors selling deep brown eggs, potatoes, and mushrooms the size of umbrellas.

The drop-off for the house is actually “Kibombomene 2”; the main village is another kilometre down the road.  We stopped off at a suburb of Kibo, about a dozen mud huts right on the highway.  From there, Sean and Keith, two local volunteers, helped us carry luggage for about a mile into the thick subtropical bush, towering trees on all sides, ant hills ranging in size from two to twenty feet, conical snails the size of your fist on the muddy path; I immediately noticed the lack of mosquitoes — apparently they only come out at night.

In the evening, I had my first truly Zambian meal: nshima, with two "relishes" (relish is anything that is not nshima or rice, basically).  The first relish was made with a cabbage that we grow here, eggplant, onions and garlic; the second was made with tofu, tomato, onion and salt.  Tomatoes and onions are two quintessential Zambian foods; they go in everything.  Nshima is a corn flour that is boiled until so thick that it forms a dough in your hands.  It is served in lumps the size of your fist, or, I suppose, the size of a Zambian snail.  One washes one’s hands in a bowl of water first.  Nshima is eaten by forming a small piece into your palm and concaving it, then using the thumb to scoop up relish into it; it is dipped in a sprinkle of salt on the plate and put into the mouth all at once.

Nshima is delicious and filling.  It seems to expand in the stomach; one does not need much of it.  I had two lumps two hours ago, and am full.

I am feeling deeply at peace.  To grow a garden and build a small house here is very cheap; it is possible to be completely self-sufficient.  I have seen the garden, and everything grows lush and green and very big.  I am also, conversely, feeling very anxious.  My internet is not working here (I am writing this on Word to transfer later); all indications are that internet will work soon, but it doesn’t work now.  I want to tell everyone that I’m OK.  I want to share this story.

But I am incomplete right now and feeling very lost.  In the future I will share all that is meant by that.  For now, suffice to say that there is a greater adventure that awaits me than coming to the wilds of Africa and beginning a new life.

Meantime, I have met one of the local teachers, who has already tried to teach me some Kaonde.  It hasn’t exactly taken; I look forward to everything about the challenge that is my very existence in this extraordinary land.