Panic arises moments after I arrive on Zambian soil. In the immigration line I reach into my large borrowed backpack for my passport and money to buy my visa and suddenly I can't find the smaller daypack stashed inside the larger one. I know it has to be there. I remember carefully tucking it inside the big pack when I boarded in London but the more frantically I search, the deeper the pit in my stomach becomes. What will I do with no money or passport having just traveled for two days to get here? I tell myself to calm down and look again. Where is it? The line to the immigration desk shortens. I drop to my knees and pull out my jacket and pillow, muttering a desperate intercessory prayer. My hand lands on the little green pack and deep in the front pocket I find the passport and packet of cash. Phew. Relief washes over me. I hear Julian of Norwich reassuring me “All shall be well.”
Thus begins a journey that will take me to savannas of hospitality I could not have imagined, to the inner recesses of intention and ritual deeply moving, on to the splendor of wildlife congregating amidst land cruisers zeroing in for a closer look, to expanses of paradox that dazzle —making it difficult if not impossible to tell which end is up.
I travel to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia to attend my first cousin Gabe's wedding to Tendayi, the daughter of a Zambian woman and Zimbabwean man. Wedding rituals follow the customs of the father’s tradition: in this case, Bemba. What constitutes entering into a state of matrimony here is not what westerners think of as the wedding ceremony itself: usually a brief service followed by a lengthy reception; rather the three elements that collectively form the entrance gate into marriage are 1) the negotiation between representatives of the groom’s family and the bride’s (usually carried out by uncles from both sides) of a payment from the groom to the bride’s family that represents commitment in a currency of value; 2) the kitchen party, typically attended by the bride-to-be and married female relatives, friends, and villagers, for the purpose of imparting counsel and initiating the new bride into the roles and responsibilities of marriage; and 3) the matebeto, wherein the preparation of certain customary dishes for the groom and his family function as further marital instruction for the bride, both culinary and sexual—and the presentation of dishes to the groom, which come with a set of instructions for him as well. Typically, the matebeto would occur in two stages: the first offering a few dishes to the groom and his family in appreciation shortly after the kitchen party and then a year or two later, after the husband has proven his worth and demonstrated the marriage to be on solid footing, a second round with several more dishes. But since Gabe and Tendayi live in Los Angeles where they both teach at UCLA, the two phases of matebeto get conflated into one big matebeto open to all Gabe's friends and family.
In Bemba culture, the negotiation, kitchen party and matebeto together constitute marriage. Each ritual deepens the bonds of commitment and explicitly expresses the responsibilities of husband and wife. Instructions given in Bemba by appointed guides get translated into English at various points, but usually directly into either Gabe or Tendayi's ears not ours. Fortunately though, a kind relative, or in the case of the metebeto, the host, takes the time to explain to me what unfolds.
As someone who writes and presides over weddings, I long for a way to bring the intentionality and clarity of responsibility articulated in these rituals into the ceremonies I officiate. While the postmodern westerner may reactively chafe at rituals wrapped tightly around the polarity of gender roles, a parity of care and responsibility exists: if not identical in their expression, similar in their heft. As clearly as a woman receives instruction to attend to her husband, to care for and respect him, the language suggests not subservience but joyful service—the way genuine devotion supples us. Each ritual dance concludes with the participants, male or female, lying on the ground, rolling from one side to the other as an act of humility. To be embodied is to be of the earth no matter our capacity to ponder the sky. We are creatures created not self-made. To have the opportunity to remember that is a gift.
As much as the bride’s knowing aunties teach the importance of attentiveness and respect, the groom receives similar instruction at the matebeto, when the leader of the ceremony lifts a bottle of Sprite to his face and says, “This is safe.” Then waving a beer she says, “Never more than two.” And to impart the responsibility he must shoulder, the leader, a stout woman probably 175 pounds, collapses at his feet and instructs him to lift her up. The purpose is clear as Gabe struggles to hoist her dead weight. Though done with levity and laughter, the gravity of the lesson is evident even without her explanation that there will times in a marriage when he will have to lift and even carry her weight, to care for her in sickness as well as health.
That marriage in this tradition, as in ours, signifies the willingness, the desire even to care for and serve one’s mate is not unusual; but the embodiment of ritual adds a visceral depth and spiritual dimension lacking in a wedding constructed solely of words and a quick exchange of rings. The physical actions of the rituals convey commitment literally felt even by an observer.
Just as I experience the meaning of marriage in full relief, I experience the complete dimension of hospitality as well. From the moment Tendayi’s younger brother greets me at the airport to the flurry of relatives I meet throughout the week, literally dozens of aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins manifest a spirituality of welcome comparable to the Rule of St. Benedict. No two-cheek hug feels hollow, no inquiry of well-being perfunctory. Each encounter however brief bespeaks a genuine delight I have journeyed to be among the great extended family, who have traveled from Zimbabwe, South Africa and England to be there.
The western-style wedding ceremony at a swank hotel, in part a nod to the glamour of stylish nuptials and forerunner to an evening of dining, dancing, toasts and libations, conveys the overflowing measure of graciousness evident throughout the week. Though I opt to wear dress slacks and a clerical collar to signal the formality of the occasion without having to don the beautiful custom-made traditional dress Tendayi’s mother has given me for the kitchen party, (because wearing a dress once every thirty years is enough), I understand the generous and lovely gift has nothing to do with insisting that I match my environs; rather it invites me to belong. Even if I never slip it over my head again, it will always represent the graciousness of Zambia, from restaurants, homes and lodges, to my Zambian seatmate on the plane from Lusaka to London who digs in her purse to give me three pounds to supplement the two I have to buy a cup of Starbucks coffee at the airport between flights.
If the first week in Zambia instructs me in radical hospitality, the second week presents me with a crash course in paradox. We arrive at Flatdogs Camp, right outside the entrance of South Luangwa National Park, one of seventeen parks in Zambia. Flatdogs is slang for crocodiles but mercifully only the hippos creep up nightly from the river in front of my tent to munch on the grass. Admittedly, I am not much of a camper. Okay, I am not a camper at all, but the spacious screened-in tent on a poured concrete slab with twin beds, mosquito netting and bathroom facilities attached isn’t exactly roughing it. Still, the honk of hippos calling from the river and then grazing meters away is a stark reminder that wild animals do not distinguish between a game park and a camp adjacent to it, especially one without fences. Given that safaris are an expensive endeavor, lodges cater to the western palate; the restaurant boasts some of the best food I’ve ever eaten even with the vervet monkeys and occasional yellow baboon skittering about.
Every morning and afternoon, a professional guide with exhaustive knowledge of every plant and anmal specie and its behavior, loads up a land cruiser and off we go to spot game. Our guide, Yotam, has been in the employ of the lodge since its inception a dozen years ago, working his way up from the kitchen to a guide. The senior guides sit for six days of exams ranging from wildlife to manuevering the four-wheel drive jeeps through mud, sand, rain, and gulleys that feel more like ravines. Yotam cheerily provides names for groupings of animals, one more fun than the next: a sounder of warthogs, a tower of giraffes ( or a journey if they are moving), a raft of hippos, an obstinance of buffalo, a bask or crocs, a parade of elephants, a clan of hyenas, a pride of lions, and my favorite, a dazzle of zebras, to which I add an annoyance of tourists for surely the animals must feel that way as we lumber toward them in land cruisers angling to get a better view.
We love glimpsing a nursing mother though I can’t imagine a human mother delighting in the prospect of three or four large vehicles circling around. Indeed, a couple of times, mother elephants trumpet when we get too close though the only sign of irritation from the trio of nursing lions appears directed at the ten hungry cubs as if to say “aren’t you done yet?”
In between eight hours of game viewing a day, we lounge around the restaurnt patio or retreat to our tents while a legion of local workers tend the bar, prepare meals, clean, and escort us to our lodging after dark. The four white managers greet us before and after each game drive embodying the Zambian welcome.
After two days at Flatdogs, my aunt, uncle and I head to Chichele Presidential Lodge about an hour’s drive into the park up on a ridge overlooking the Luangwa Valley. Though the name indicates the lodge’s origin as a presidential retreat, I am unprepared for the opulence that greets me upon arrival. I should know by the lovely gentleman holding a silver tray with scented facecloths to refresh ourselves after the hot humid drive; but somehow even that does not prepare me for the grand entryway, the expansive lounge and the view from the veranda beyond the swimming pool to the elephants grazing in the distance. The manager, Obert, a Zimbabwean with a degree in wildlife management and an MBA who has lived in at least three countries including the US, introduces us to our room attendant Dickson whose smile lights the hall. Dickson opens the door to number six with a flourish. The entryway is 10x10. The en suite bathroom boasts a full-length clawfoot tub and enormous tiled shower, deliciously fragrant bath salts and all-natural herbal shampoo. I ask Dickson where he lives. In staff quarters, two to a room, twenty-four days on, six days off. He has a wife and young child at home.
As he shows me how to operate the remote control for the air conditioner I try to hustle him out knowing I cannot hold back the lurching sob in my throat. It is all too much: the neo-colonialism so flagrantly expressed in the cadre of young black men assembled to wait on us hand and foot; the artificial coolness of the room; the one-sided luxuriousness of guests seated around tables formally laid for breakfast, lunch and dinner— with four o’clock tea and drinks before dinner served to us on silver trays in the marble floored lounge.
As a child of the sixties raised in the South I feel transported to the set of “Gone With the Wind.” All the guests are white though Obert assures me when I ask, that they get black guests from time to time.
The first two days I ask a lot of questions. When I inquire of the manager why the workers, who toil in the oppressive heat from four each morning until at ten at night have no fans, the answer is simple: they have no fans in their villages. Many have no electricity so they are accustomed to the heat. I press the matter: but surely the room attendants notice the coolness of our rooms when they slip in to turn down the bed or make it, or retrieve our laundry for complimentary washing, A female manager from the camping lodge owned by the resort, herself a black woman married to a white South African man, tells me she knows how I feel as tears stream down my cheeks. “But you must understand how grateful the men are to have such good jobs that afford them status in their villages. With their wages they support many family members.”
At this point, I remind myself around the globe people leave home to find work and at least the men at Chichele labor in a clean safe environment with a pleasant view. Next, I fixate on the glut of gourmet meals. Why, I ask, can’t the staff ever enjoy the food the talented chef prepares for the guests? The reply of course: the men prefer their native dishes. Only Obert and the guides eat with us and they are required to do so, to mingle at tea and meals, available to answer quesions. I ask the two guides, John and Prince, dining with us if they prefer local dishes to European cuisine. They enjoy both. Prince, who like Yotam at Flatdogs has worked his way up from kitchen staff to guide tells me the non-professional staff would like to sample the food prepared for guests but they would get in trouble if caught tasting it, which foils my plan to pass along a plate of hors d’oeuvres.
I knit myself into a knot of angst over the contrast in conditions, refusing to cool my room in solidarity with the workers. I decide not to drop my filthy safari togs into the hamper. I wash my own clothes at home so why would I let these overworked men do it for me on vacation? When I blurt that out to Suku, the female manager of the camping lodge, she looks at me bemused. “But they use machines,” she says, as if to reassure me no one will be down at the river beating out sweat stains against the rocks. By day three I acknowledge the temperature in my room has no impact on any of the men; nor will it matter whether I add my two shirts and pair of pants to the pile laundry amassed by the other guests.
My last night at dinner, when Obert with all his education, worldliness and privelege tells me he works for sixty, even ninety days at a stretch before going home to his two young children in South Africa, I realize nothing is as simple as it seems. He wife died two years ago after surgery for a brain tumor. Being away from his children pains him. He has his own air-conditioned quarters but labors more than twice as long away from his family as the men who sleep two to a small room without fans to stir the muggy heat.
By day our vehicles carve deeper ruts in sanctioned routes, evidence of our environmental impact. The animals carry on, but I remain unconvinced the leopard cub sleeping high on a branch with five spotlights aimed at his head on a night drive feels unencumbered, any more than the nursing mothers protective of their young. Managers at both lodges remind me without tourism scores of people in villages with extended families dependent upon them would be without jobs. And sadly, without game drives and park fees to give human value to the land, agribusinesses from China and elsewhere would gobble up the hectares so fast the animals would cease to roam as if by fiat. The habitat compromised by human presence is also sustained by it. And that paradox dazzles as much as a zigzag of zebras in their dizzying jumble of black and white.
By week’s end I accept I cannot change the system any more than I can reverse the zebra’s stripes. All I can do is tip well and meet the graciousness offered throughout Zambia with my own. On my last day in the South Luangwa Valley, back at Flatdogs, after an ugraded night in a chalet which I justify because it’s my birthday (and for all my railing against the opulence of Chichele, I like the comfort of a walled room), I am strumming my travel banjo on the porch when I hear a noise and pop my head out to see two elephants munching leaves at close range. Camera in hand, I am transfixed by their proximity, by the graciousness of a world that brings elephants near the door, under a sky no less colored by inequity or paradox than the striations of sunset or the jeweled necklace of stars.
Closing words: The poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes of her father: “The world frustrated him endlessly but he loved it and hoped for it too.” Amen.
