Zambia World Wide

Getting to know more of the African culture.

My interest in African Culture I do believe started when I saw their craftsmanship for the first time at Shasi Station in 1953. Then there was my interest as to why only one particular race was prepared to clean the African toilets. This particular race would file their teeth until they were shaped like pencil points. Some of the Africans believed they were cannibals. My enquiries revealed that a pecking order existed in the African Culture.

Working with the construction gang I became aware of their close association with nature. Picking mushrooms they knew which were edible and who can forget the size of some varieties. I ate flying ants and grasshoppers with them but I drew the line when it came to some worm that they roasted in the flame of a blowlamp. I doubt if it was the Mopani worm found in Botswana. If your mouth was dry they would remove a piece of bark from a certain tree. After chewing it for a few seconds your mouth was filled with saliva and you would then spit it out immediately. They made their own axes both with vertical and horizontal fitted blades, which was far more practical for their use. These axes were basically the only tools used with their wooden carvings. We would remove honey from beehives in trees and anthills. With my last bee sting my leg was so badly swollen that I could hardly get my shorts on. I was warned to be careful, as with the next bee sting it could be serious. The prediction was right and it will be revealed under the sub title “ Cheeseman’s Farm” in Episode four. They knew the name of every tree and I was told that all their tree names begin with an “ M.” On one occasion I was challenged to see who could chop down a tree the quickest. Normally I would not of accepted the challenge as they could wield their homemade axes with such accuracy which made tree felling look like child’s play. The difference here was that my tree was only about fifteen centimeters in diameter and my competitor’s was at least sixty centimeters in diameter. Within five minutes I knew I had been conned as I had only penetrated the bark. I later learnt that the contractor who cleared the bush for power lines would build a fire around this tree as chopping it down was out of the question. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of tree

They would always demonstrate their sense of direction after we had spent some time in the bush looking for mushrooms and pinpoint the direction to our vehicle. Without them I probably would still be walking in the Zambian forests. They would never enter the bush on their own. They believed that there were many Congolese citizens in the bush. According to them these Congolese would kidnap anyone found on his own and then sold as a slave.

I put their built in radar to test when I was required to construct a telephone line of approximately eight kilometers to a mission station on the Kafue River. The missionaries requested me to build the telephone line as straight as possible to the main road as they intended straightening out their present meandering bush track. The average speed on the existing track was approximately ten km/hr due to all the bends. They could then use the telephone line as a reference. Back on the main road the labourers indicated the direct line to the Mission Station. Placing survey rods in the indicated direction we started bush clearing and further surveying of the telephone line. It was only on the third day that we could see the mission station as we had a lot of bush, trees and grass to clear. To my amazement we were within the predefined position with our last pole.