by Adeline Loh
The four-kilometre walk to the township of Maramba was alive with dust stirred up by massive drilling machines and large steel cranes performing gravel surgery. I pulled my T-shirt over my nose and slammed my eyelids shut every time a vehicle whizzed down the road to protect my eyes from being assailed by a fog of reddish brown sand. Meanwhile, Chan cleverly swathed her entire face with a headscarf, occasionally opening up just a little to see where she was going so as to avoid toppling into a ditch.
The only clue to our destination was a tiny vague map printed by the hostel, with which we promptly became frustrated. So I crumpled the map and Chan used her nose instead to trace the marketplace by following the funky aroma of compost, livestock, raw produce and perspiration. It worked like a charm. We soon found ourselves on the fringes of seemingly hundreds of open-air stalls selling everything from shaving cream to bicycle spares to okra. A curious assortment of services were on offer too, such as tyre repair by one Doctor of All Tyres and haircuts by The Barbing Centre: Hair Saloon & Plaiting, the latter with an advertising cardboard showing hairstyles inspired by American convicts on hand-drawn decapitated heads. The men had a wide range of styles to choose from, including flattop, curly bristles, a buzz cut with the Nike logo, a Mike Tyson, a Denzel Washington or a Will Smith. Ladies, on the other hand, could sport braids, cornrows, afro or the ever-popular unruly frizz.
We began our romp through a long narrow lane between rickety stalls that creaked under the strain of mountains of salaula (secondhand clothes) and seas of black leather shoes, before ducking under hanged tweed jackets, hip-hop sweatshirts, summery blouses, office trousers, and festive dresses in the style of curtains or upholstery. The phenomenon of cheap salaula (Bemba word meaning ‘to rummage through a pile’) – responsible for snuffing out the entire local textile manufacturing industry – is an astonishing one that is seldom entirely explained. If there is one thing that immediately disorientates first-time visitors to Zambia, especially those who have been weaned on stereotypical loinclothed bushmen on TV, is that the whole country is practically dressed in Western hand-me-downs.
The clothing saga begins pretty much somewhere in Europe or America, where a silly woman decides to buy a hideous blue butterfly-print dress with matching hibiscus-shaped belt out of impulse at a department store sale. After a second look at home in front of the mirror, she realizes that the fashion police would nuke her on the street if she ever wore that thing out. She then swiftly chucks it into a dark corner of her wardrobe, never to be seen again. A year later, whilst doing some major spring-cleaning, she unearths the tacky old garment from under her two-sizes-too-big grandma undies. Suddenly feeling the spirit of Mother Theresa within her, she donates that along with a number of other outdated clothes to a charitable entity. She thinks the threads will be packed in marked boxes and dropped from aid helicopters for the dirt-poor, who wait perennially for free clothes to fall from the sky.
Yeah, right. What in fact happens is these so-called ‘charities’ sell the sacks of clothes, sometimes sight unseen, to rag traders who sort them according to grade and ship them out to countries with high demand. On arrival, the clothes are resold to local market traders for about 40 English pounds per bale, depending on the quality of the goods. And that’s where these ‘donated clothes’ end up – at a small open-air stall in a raucous market like Maramba. Unbeknownst to many, the lucrative business of cast-offs is a multibillion one and by far America’s biggest export to Africa, according to the BBC.
Thus, rather than being passive recipients, Karen Tranberg Hansen, author of Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia writes that Zambians are in fact active consumers of used clothes – no different than what we do when we are out shopping. Whether it’s for a party or the office, wearing a sharp piece of affordable salaula was crucial to their pride and self-esteem. The message is loud and clear: just because Zambia is listed as one of the 12 poorest countries in the world does not mean they need to dress in dishrags. Of course, many in the most impoverished areas do, but the overall attitude is that if you cannot have a million bucks, at least you can look like a million bucks. Surely it takes some serious willpower even in these parts to resist a Calvin Klein original at US$2.50 a pop?
So there you have the unofficial Zambian dress code: the so-yesterday chic of salaula mixed in with the irrepressible African flair for all things colourful. Men like the formal English style of short-sleeved office shirts and long pants looped with ubiquitous leather belts while ladies tend to gravitate towards splendidly giddy chitenjes paired with a Western throwaway blouse. The marvellous multifunctional chitenje is usually wrapped around the waist, tied across one’s back as a baby sling or folded as a headdress to buffer those heavy head-loads. Many youngsters, hip to the latest fads, gear up in oversized football jerseys, baggy jeans and slick trainers, looking like extras from a gangsta rap music video. Only children and Western tourists wear shorts.
Having lost my slippers at a hostel’s communal toilet, I hunted for a new pair and was blown away by the sight of dozens of kiosks selling all the brightly coloured flip-flops I could ever want. I went dizzy with indecisiveness until I realized that they were all selling an identical range. I picked up a pair of rainbow-coloured ones and wore them immediately to walk up and down past flecked beans, hills of kapenta (anchovies) and a whole host of other indescribable bric-a-brac. After getting too many weird stares from stall owners, we decided to head back. But instead of walking, we hailed a taxi as Chan had suffered dust trauma on the way here.
Riding through a particularly rough patch where potholes were strung together with strips of tar, the taxi driver masterfully avoided the road cavities while telling us an old local joke. He proclaimed that every good driver in Zambia had a PhD – Pot Hole Dodging. In most countries, if you’re not driving in a straight line, the traffic policeman will know you’re drunk,’ he mused. ‘But in Zambia, if you’re not zigzagging on the road from one side to the other, the police will immediately stop you because nobody who’s sober would drive straight into the potholes!’
Back at Jollyboys, I thumbed through the ring-bound folder of fate-tempting activities in front of the plunge pool. As Livingstone was Africa’s adrenaline mecca, I felt a duty to shortlist several heart-taxing stunts that the town was legendary for: a hair-whitening aerial trip on a microlight over Victoria Falls, a half-day walking safari at Mosi-Oa-Tunya Game Park to stalk white rhinoceroses, a cirrhosis-causing sunset booze cruise, a quad bike romp in the bush and a relaxing raft float on the Zambezi. Apart from seeing Victoria Falls and going on the walking safari, Chan was having none of the rest.
I attempted to talk her into joining me. ‘I’m going to fe-e-el the fre-e-e-dom on the breathtaking “Flight of Angels”,’ I babbled affectedly, waving the microlight operator’s brochure quite irritatingly in front of her. ‘Did you know the term “Flight of Angels” was inspired by David Livingstone’s famous description of Victoria Falls? It goes: “Scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight,” ’ I read out loud. ‘Isn’t that romantic?’
Chan snorted. She was obviously unmoved.
‘Oh, don’t be like that. Don’t you fancy flying over wonderful Victoria Falls and feeling the cool wind in your face?’ I said enticingly. ‘It’s the only way we can appreciate its full magnitude. You’ll be missing out if you don’t come with me.’
‘What am I missing out on, huh?’ she asked stubbornly with arms akimbo. ‘Spiralling headfirst into the gorge?’
‘You are so pessimistic – you haven’t even tried it!’
‘Well, I haven’t tried shooting myself in the head, either,’ she replied smugly.
13. NATURE BEHAVING BADLY
Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and acclaimed UNESCO World Heritage site just 11 kilometres from Livingstone, is a 1.7-kilometre wide rocky expanse that separates Zambia from Zimbabwe. The eye-popping spectacle is a result of the Zambezi’s prodigious waters, wh
ich, having flowed broad and placid after defining the natural boundaries of Zambia with Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe (at one point all four countries converge), suddenly encounter the edge of the breathtaking Batoka Gorge and crash-dive 108 metres into a frothy chasm below. As the river gets squeezed in the steep and narrow gorge, an overpowering spray is thrown up 500 metres high, becoming visible from as far as 30 kilometres away. Any upright coiffures found within spray range would be annihilated in seconds.
At the end of the dry season, ten to 15 million litres of badly behaved torrents hurtle down the gorge per minute. That’s enough to fill 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools every minute – making the falls the sixth largest in the world by water volume. At high water between February and May, the drop rate increases to a whopping 500 million litres per minute, meaning Victoria Falls dwarfs even Niagara Falls and reduces North America’s prized natural treasure to nothing more than an angry garden sprinkler.
A South African tribal group called the Kololos were the first natives to chance upon the waterfall, which they affectionately named Mosi-Oa-Tunya (‘The Smoke That Thunders’). It was only 25 years later, 1855 to be exact, that David Livingstone came dawdling by to have his knickers soaked by the falls. Like most first discoveries made by white land explorers, he promptly claimed the falls for his country and rechristened it after Victoria, the Queen of England back then.
We stood just outside the entrance to the Victoria Falls World Heritage National Monument Site, after Sue from Jollyboys dropped us off. She issued what I presumed to be her gazillionth pre-falls briefing about each of the four trails and surrounding facilities. ‘Remember – certain areas are not fenced and have no guardrails so there’s nothing to stop you from ending your life, save a strong sense of self-preservation,’ she said with a half-smirk, and left us to our own devices.
Before soaking in the majesty of the falls, I and Chan made like cultured, informed visitors and went to the Victoria Falls Field Museum to read about its earth-shattering genesis. According to geologists, Victoria Falls was formed by the persistent Zambezi River eroding stuff in its path for a really long time. When the earth’s crust began cracking about 150 million years ago, an abundance of molten lava oozed out of the fissures and flowed towards the surface. As the lava cooled and hardened, it became loose-jointed basalt filled with soft limestone deposits. The weak limestone was then pounded by the Zambezi, a process that hewed the Batoka Gorge. Slowly but surely, a broad waterfall was shaped across the river in the zigzag pattern we see today. The fall line is still undergoing cosmetic surgery as we speak; meaning, a thousand years from now, we will see quite a different Victoria Falls from today.
The Field Museum was conveniently erected on an actual excavation site that uncovered evidence of early ape men living in the area 2.5 million years ago. Coincidentally, the area we were tramping on lay at the butt-end of Africa’s Great Rift Valley, a 6,000-mile crack in the earth famously known as the cradle of mankind. Early Stone Age findings such as simple cleavers, axes and spearheads had been uncovered in many parts of Zambia, especially Kalambo Falls in the north and here at Victoria Falls in the south.
In fact, one of these sites was right in the middle of this complex. We peered down the archaeological dig behind a railed enclosure: a couple of hirsute prehistoric humans made of wax were shown playing in a sandbox with primitive tools used for bashing things. There was also a picture of the skull of Broken Hill Man – Zambia’s most celebrated early inhabitant – who was named after the mine near Kabwe town located in the north of Lusaka. Discovered in 1921, the Homo rhodesiensis cranium of Broken Hill Man was 100,000 years old, giving us some idea of what people of that period looked like – that is to say, not very pretty.
So off we went to see Victoria Falls, where four trails led to splendidly varied viewpoints, but we were clear about which animal we wanted to tackle first: the not-too-encouragingly named Knife Edge Bridge perched above the steamrolling rapids of the Zambezi River. As we tottered on said slippery footbridge overlooking the gorge, the furious spray from the Eastern Cataract (one of six separate falls along the entire length) beaded on our raincoats even as the constant bedlam of thrashing water drowned out our squeals of delight. A few absurd tourists were holding umbrellas in the cloud of mist, which kept them about as dry as a fishnet would.
Fearless in our plastic shields, we lingered frequently on the edge of lookout points. We were facing the falls at eye level on the rim of a basalt lip, directly across the other rim where the sheets of cascading waters were rolling over. Peering over the platform and into the jaws of the smoking abyss, we felt like we were being showered upon by a permanently depressed giant aerosol can. I was positively euphoric; it was the most mind-blowing sight I had ever witnessed in my life. Maybe I was delirious from being engulfed in a few hundred thousand negative ions, but the sensation of just being there was equivalent to seven orgasms. Even Chan seemed energized and partially recovered from the flu. It was clear all she really needed was a good drenching.
Since we were now in the middle of the dry season and viewing conditions were ideal, we had a chance to fully admire the wonderful cliffs. The waters were just nice – more than the low-water dribble we would see in scorching November and less than the thick spray in wet March. At peak flood time, the spray is apparently so intense that the entire length and breadth of the falls would be obscured and you yourself would require a flare gun to be rescued out of the mist.
Just behind the main footpath opposite the waterfall were the jaw-dropping sheer cliffs of Palm Grove Gorge, where I was entranced stupid by a rainbow arcing over the thriving rainforest. The trees were fed constantly by the abundant moisture, and as the sun impregnated the mist at the right angle, a more amazing spectacle appeared above the Zambezi River: twin rainbows levitating side by side, forming translucent slides across the gorge. If conditions were conducive on a full moon night, one could even see ethereal lunar rainbows.
The second trail we hiked led us across to the lip of the falls where we could see Zimbabwe beyond the onslaught of water droplets. Upstream, jutting rocks were scattered sporadically amid a gently pulsating flow of water. It looked so deceptively peaceful – providing absolutely no warning of the fatal drop to come. Several smartly dressed waiters with bow ties were setting up a nice dinner table with shiny cutlery and elaborately folded napkins just four metres away from the edge, no doubt preparing for a small group of tourists. Nothing like having a sunset dinner close to a 100-metre free fall to Hell to make a holiday memorable.
After taking lots of majestic-looking shots from the appropriately named ‘Most Photographic’ trail, we embarked on a tedious trek to the last viewpoint at the foot of the falls. The trail took us on a steep and sweaty downhill romp where we slid on unstable scree, stumbled on uneven steps and clambered clumsily over jagged boulders. Finally we made it to the bottom without breaking anything useful, stopping sheer metres from the all-sucking Boiling Pot – a monster whirlpool of death and destruction that is the put-in or starting point for white-water rafting psychos.
To be honest, I had initially intended to be one of them crazies. A few months before arriving, I had warmed up for the Zambezi by rafting the fast-flowing, tea-coloured Kampar River in Perak. But the violent rapids that consumed me, spat me out and made me scream blue murder were probably no more than Grade Four. It only took one glance at the Zambezi – arguably the world’s wildest Grade Five rapids (Grade Six is suicide) – for me to quickly cluck out. And this was just the beginning of the rafting season – the rapids I was nervously looking at were baby ones compared to those in November and December when they matured to full-blown irrepressible maneaters. If one wished to be rocked senseless – if there was any sense to begin with – she could have herself jolted to kingdom come by 23 rapids with such ill-omened names as ‘Devil’s Toilet Bowl’, ‘The Muncher’, ‘Three Ugly Sisters’, ‘Overland Truck Eater’, ‘The Mother’ and ‘Gnashing Jaws of Death’. Lovely.
The two of us soon settled down on large smoke-coloured rocks and forgot our post-hike bitching session. We were too mesmerized by the awesome sight of the world’s largest curtain of falling water. This was most certainly no location for a shampoo commercial. Why? Because if you ever tried to stand under the biggest showerhead on the planet, you’d probably be pounded to a pulp, that’s why. We watched the untameable torrents pour down into the vast gap before cutting their way to an unseen place past the first corner of the zigzagging gorge. It was like the meanest flash flood happening before our eyes – minus the screaming people getting swept away and clinging onto floating furniture, that is.
Rather, the screaming people here were above our heads, dangling by their ankles from the iconic Victoria Falls Bridge. Built in 1905 to link the railway track from South Africa’s Cape Town to Egypt’s Cairo, the steel-arched bridge now functions more popularly as the suicide precipice for bungee jumpers. It was designed by Sir Ralph Freeman – the same engineer who conjured the awesome Sydney Harbour Bridge – and commissioned by Cecil John Rhodes, the over-enthusiastic British colonialist and founder of the De Beers diamond mining company. Alas, Rhodes passed away before witnessing the completion of his brainchild and its subsequent cockamamie use as the preferred point for modern tourists to throw themselves into oblivion. If bungee jumping doesn’t churn your insides adequately then try the gorge cable swing, where you leap from an overhanging rock and get flung through the air like Tarzan high above the gorge in a pendulum motion of nausea and vertigo back and forth, over and over. Who said you can’t have fun and puke your lungs out at the same time?
We began the trudge back out of the gorge with jaws aching from being slack too long. Pleased to be on level ground once more, we headed for the exit. Suddenly a few gangster Chacma baboons emerged from the forest with the sole intention of scaring the hell out of foreigners. We watched as one large aggressive male snatched a bag of crisps from the hands of a stunned Indian boy. Remorseless, it slapped open the packet with ease and enjoyed its ill-gotten meal contentedly while glaring at the boy’s parents. Another equally evil baboon scrambled down the path towards an unsuspecting Japanese tourist and contemptuously pawed at his expensive SLR digital camera. The primates did not spare us – despite having shown our support by applauding their wicked deeds – and soon found ourselves cornered by two thuggish baboons strutting towards us. We resorted to stumbling through a prickly bush to escape.
