Mosi-oa-Tunya

Il post precedente è tratto da "Tropico del Cancro" di Henry Miller ed è dedicato al fiume Zambesi e a Mosi-oa-Tunya, la nebbia che tuona, al secolo Cascate Vittoria.
Uno spettacolo maestoso che interrompe le migliaia di km di bush che ricoprono lo Zambia, solo quanto basta per attirare lo sguardo sul baratro che per pochi ed eterni momenti interrompe il fluire dello Zambesi il quale, placido, si ricompone subito dopo e, appena turbato, procede il suo cammino verso l'oceano.

Amo tutto ciò che scorre

Voglio un mondo di uomini e di donne, di alberi che non parlano (perchè si parla già troppo nel mondo com'è), di fiumi che ti portino in qualche luogo, non fiumi che sian leggenda, ma fiumi che ti mettano in contatto con altri uomini e donne, con l'architettura, la religione, le piante, gli animali -fiumi che abbiano barche e in cui affoghino gli uomini, affoghino non nel mito e nella leggenda e nei libri e nella polvere del passato, ma nel tempo e nello spazio e nella storia.
Voglio fiumi che facciano oceani, [...] fiumi che non si secchino nel vuoto del passato.
[...] Forse siamo condannati, non c'è speranza per nessuno di noi, ma se è così lanciamo un ultimo grido d'agonia e di sangue aggrumato, uno strillo di sfida, un grido di guerra! Basta coi lamenti! Basta con le elegie e le trenodie! Basta con le biografie e le storie e le biblioteche e i musei! Che il morto mangi il morto!
E noi vividanziamo sull'orlo del cratere, un'ultima danza di morte.
Ma che sia una danza!

Henry miller

Dinner with the Jesuit Fathers

Chikuni, 10 July.

Dinner with the Jesuit Fathers.. Yes, it’s always me!

I even appreciated them, maybe I could change my mind about religion.

Here everyone is a believer, and they do really believe in something, not just to let their consciousness standing still..

The way I approach Faith has changed a lot during these years, sometimes I think about, but it’s always standing at the bottom of my mind.

You need a lot of courage to live in a place like Chikuni (which is the best place to live in a 200 Km range) and sacrifice all of yourself to these people and to your faith.

Father Andrew and Father Tadeus are living in Chikuni since 15 years and they are the moving spirit of the social experiences of these community.

Here you can find 2 High School (one for the boy, and the other for the girls), two basic schools (see above), a College ( a step under our Universities) and the Home Based care Center which looks after HIV infected people and orphans, in Chikuni and in the neighborhoods.

Moreover there are 3 Churches (one of them belongs to the Sisters) which, by their activities, play an essential social role and last but not least a Radio.

Chikuni Radio is the most listened radio both in Gwembe and Monze districts

Disbursement Day

Chikuni, 9 July.

It’s Monday, so it’s time to work.

Today we have the disbursement of the new loans and so we’ll be receiving all the micro credit groups. All of them have completed the first stage in which they received a loan of about 60 Euros each, now they’ll receive 100 Euros. They have to pay a 5% interest monthly and the whole loan will be paid back in 4 months.

Before receiving their loans, each client has to attend 3 different trainings on: micro credit, household approach and business management.

Well, each group received its own loans and every client was happy about this first experience, someone was even embarrassingly thankful.. A loan like that would sound like a joke in Italy, here it truly important.

I ended my day riding a Celim motorbike on the way home, while Chikuni’s tenants were walking their way back home for 15 kilometers after a day of hard work. Do we deserve all that we have got? We’ll never be able to care enough.

The second day

Chikuni, 8 July.

Early morning, I wake up.

I can’t believe I slept so deeply tonight!

I have been dreaming of motorbike races with my friend in Sansepolcro, and it looks so strange, maybe I feel an unconscious melancholy deep inside.

After a fast breakfast I sit outside my house to write something and feel the morning’s cool breeze, when I see two guys walking on the road next to me.

Hi, how are you? Fine thanks, they say.

Do you have a laptop there? says one of them.

He is interested in my computer and starts asking me questions.

He explains me that he is from Livingstone, a city that borders with Zimbabwe where the Zambesi river falls down from a cliff for hundred meters creating the Victoria falls.

He tells me he has studied informatics at his university and I tell him what I’m doing here.

We speak together for an hour, until radio Chikuni opens and he decides to take a look there.

He rode his bike for 15 Km appositely..

You have to know that Radio Chikuni is one of Zambia’s most famous radio and offers many students the opportunity to take part to stages or working experience, so that they can build a network of contacts and, maybe, find their way.

I greet Ngenda and head to Marco’s home to reach Gwembe where we’ll prepare some documents.

Tomorrow there’ll be a new disbursement for some of the groups taking part to the micro credit project that have completed the first level loan: the period is of 4 months for an amount of 300.000 Zambian Kwacha (about 60 Euros).

They can now receive a larger loan of 500.000 K that they’ll use to improve their activities.

The most popular are fish and goat trading, gardening, salaula (second hand clothes sale), carpentry, poultry , transports and hair saloons.

Most of them can give back money in time even if they have to face different troubles and some of them have been able to return the money before the fixed time showing their abilities and willing and their pride.

So many things happened in just 3 days.. I need to write everything and I promise to do it everyday for I can’t lose none of these precious experiences.

The day is almost gone but for the sunset.

Me, Marco and Zaskia (his German girlfriend) decide to go to the Yellow House, the local pub, to take a beer and see the African Sunset.

Along the way we meet Matongo, one of the DJ’s of Radio Chikuni, and invite him to come with us.

He has dread locks and looks like a Jamaican thought he swears not to smoke marijuana and to hate Rastafarian beliefs, anyway he is really a cool one.

We sit down and enjoy a never ending yellow-orange-red-violet-blue sunset at the bottom of a sea of large Seghese trees..

Quite a nice day, don’t you think?

Zambia!

Chikuni, 7 July.

Finally In Chikuni!
Well I’m in Zambia since yesterday evening and I can finally say I’m home again, another house maybe, anyway, it shall be a new home.
Since now I have decided not to forget anything, any more.
Well, that happened right after forgetting my camera for the third time today..
What were we talking about? Right, my memory, my memories
I’m talking about my arrive here in Chikuni, but I want to start from the real beginning, in Rome, two days ago.
Many of you and, of course, me know how I fear to fly.. well in just a few hours I had to take part to four take off and four landings!
I can tell for sure I’m not scared anymore and I must thank Mr. Jameson for keeping me still during my flight, even when two Ethiopians Muslims were looking badly at us: Don’t Mind Ste, Mr. Jameson said, they don’t know I am your doctor and you need that medicine! When he finishes talking we were almost in Addis Ababa, the city of King Selassie, the green capital of Ethiopia, Give Thanks!
I had to take another plane that would have stopped in Entebe (Uganda), Lilongo (Malawi) before reaching Lusaka.
It was not a good perspective, luckily I met Zagaye and Catherine and we started to talk as we were good friends, so that we let time fly together with us.
Zagaye works for the Wildlife Authority of Malawi, while Catherine was coming back from Toronto after an holiday.
After 14 hours I finally reached Lusaka and after some misunderstandings with two attendants I got my business visa for Zambia.
Marco, my project coordinator, was waiting for me right after the frontier to reach the diocese of Lusaka were some Celim volunteers live; we would have slept there and in the morning, soon after some little shopping for food and little things I needed for my accommodation we took part to a little barbecue that Monia, one of the volunteers, prepared to do some fund raising with the help of the people that are attending at her project in Lusaka.
Then we left heading to Chikuni soon after taking on a man that lives actually in Chikuni to get retroviral cures.
Just a few months ago he could barely stand by his feet, now he is getting better and he just got a diploma attending an on line course with the Cambridge University.
That shows his great will to go on and to keep smiling anyway.
He was always smiling and helping us to choose fruit and vegetables on our trip to Chikuni, in the countless little “markets” we met beside the road.
Well, I will continue tomorrow morning for I want to listen to the sound of African natural music.. the animals. See you!