Luangwa River to Nyimba

July 23rd, Day 42:

The sun came up and we got to see our surroundings for the first time. Unbeknownst to us, since we had arrived in the dark, was that we were situated directly on the banks of the Luanga river. The woman who lived there pointed across and told us that if we were brave enough to swim (there were many crocodiles and hippos) that we could hop over to Mozambique, as the river served as the border. I had been itching to get to Mozambique, just to add another country to my list, but was not quite in the mood to try to out swim some crocs. Had I been less fatigued from the previous day, however, I definitely would have done it.

We ate a quick breakfast while looking out at the beautiful view of the river and hills in the background, when one of the other guests, a woman who we had been talking to the night before, stopped by our table. She smiled and quickly told us that she was heading out but that she was proud of what we were doing and wished us the best, then handed us some money, "consider this my donation", she said, and walked away. We looked down on the table and saw two crisp $50 bills, and looked at each other excitedly. It was our first on the road cash donation, and it came completely unsolicited; very generous.

We then set out back down the horrible dirt/rock road that took us to the guesthouse the night before. However, this morning, in the early light it seemed quite different. The small bamboo shacks perched beside the river, the young children half naked running with us as we biked, all seemed particularly beautiful this morning. I couldn't help but think that the optimism was due to the fact that I had finally gotten a real night sleep, but then the children all gathered around us as we approached a large, steep hill that would finally connect us back to the paved road. Sensing the dread running through us as we eyed the looming challenge, the children all grabbed hold of the back of our bicycles and began pushing. I looked back and saw a crowd of children, probably 15, working together to push our bikes. It was an amazing feeling, and a very welcome relief.
When we reached the top of the hill and descended down the paved road towards our destination, Nyimba, we waved goodbye to the children while they chased after us. I was quite impressed with how fast they ran, but we inevitably outran them, and once again were on our own, left with the task of bicycling all day once again.

Once the tedium of the day began to sink in I could not help but think about how difficult our bicycle task was. We had done 8.5 hours of ride time the previous down, through winds and mountains. Today we expected to do about 7. This got me thinking, relative to our own bicycle fitness level, was our journey as difficult as the Tour De France? I thought about it for a while. To the best of my knowledge I believe that the riders in the Tour generally do 5-6 hours of riding per day; we had been doing more. It last for 23 days, including 2 rest days. We had done about 40 days, with 6 rest days. They had high speed ultralight bicycles, we had secondhand bikes with over 100 pounds of wait. I realized that any rider in the tour could most likely cover the distances we did each day with far less effort than they expended in a day of the tour, but I think it is possible that relative to our own fitness levels, we were going through our own little Tour. Eric disagreed. I told him not only did I think that what we were doing was as difficult, but that I plan on entering the Tour next year in the attempt of finishing. Just when the argument was heating up we suddenly came across something far more dramatic.

A car was on the side of the road, completely demolished, with a lone man crouched beside it over a small fire. Fish bones and small fruits were strewn about. We approached the man to ask what had happened. He explained that 2 nights before, his brother had been driving, had hit a pothole, and the car had swerved into a tree. His brother had been severely injured with a broken leg and rib and was sent to the nearest hospital (I shudder to think what that must be like). He had just returned from the market some 10k away with some scraps of food to survive off of, and had set up a temporary little camp while waiting for assistance from a friend he had called several days ago in Lusaka. Who knew when the help would arrive. Surprising, the man seemed to be in remarkably good spirits. His brother would definitely survive the injuries with no permanent damage, he explained, and he seemed to be enjoying the peace and tranquility of the Zambian bush. It was a strange feeling biking away from the man unable to assist in any way; but it sunk in another message- there is definitely no AAA in rural Africa (though there should be... it could even keep the same name. Any business entrepreneurs...?).

An hour or so later we came across a thinly built elderly man sitting on a small stump eating lunch. He beckoned to us, and we decided to join him for a quick bite to eat. He explains that we was the local schoolteacher, and there children were all home for their lunch break. Lunch was from 11:30am to 1:00pm. After some inquiry, he told us that the children all lived several kilometers away, and it took them roughly an hour walk each way. We did the math quickly and were a bit startled.

"You mean the children walk 2 hours in transit for 30 minutes to eat?"
He nodded, not seeming to understand why that seemed odd to us.
"Why don't they just pack a lunch...?"
He didn't seem to understand and nodded again.

However, before we had time to fully grasp the inefficiency of the lunch break, we were struck by an even more alarming fact. This tired, rather elderly man was apparently in charge of over 100 hundred students ranging in over 6 years of age. How could anyone child get a proper education under such circumstances?

When I asked why there were not more teachers, he explained that they all wanted to stay in the cities, nobody wanted to head into the rural region. There was almost a 5 times better ratio of teachers to students in Lusaka and Livingstone, for example. I couldn't blame the teachers for not wanting to live in the deep rural areas with no electricity or running water, surely someone who gets the education to become a proper teacher is trying to get a better life for themselves, but it was still a frightening fact that the children in the rural areas had so little hope.

I continued bicycling for the next few hours contemplating the education system. Why couldn't they just offer enough extra money for teachers in rural posts? Wasn't it just simple economics? Or was there simply not enough money? Or did the government just not care about the rural areas? This seemed the most likely answer after seeing the disparity between the rural life and the city life.

Pondering such issues was pointless, I did not have nearly the expertise or insight to come to any useful conclusions, but it passed the time. Anything to keep my mind occupied for the many hours of riding that too easily became a monotonous blur of hills, wind, yelling children and huts.
Finally we arrived at our destination, Nyimba, and just in time. Night was setting in and we quickly made it to the local motel. It had a small room with two little mattresses and a side washing area where you could get some hot water boiled over a fire to wash yourself with. They also offered to hand-wash our clothes, which we quickly accepted. After settling in we moved to the bar/reception area to ask the motel staff woman where we might find a bite to eat.

She led us down the main road, which was very dark and quite empty at this time of night towards what she referred to as the only "restaurant". Upon arriving we saw a small sign above a little wooden store-front reading "In God We Trust Restaurant". However, the peculiar sign was nothing compared to the peculiarity of the dining experience. The place did not resemble a restaurant in anyway, and instead we were immediately greeted by three plump, middle-aged women (surely our "guides" friends) who immediately offered us a seat with them to eat. There were no menus, but they quickly brought us some meat, nshima, and vegetables.

The food was decent, but the conversation quickly became very indecent. The women acted like 13 year old girls suddenly star-struck by the arrival of some celebrity. Not only had they probably never seen an American before, but they seemed to be completely infatuated of us. This was funny at first, until they started taking things a bit too far. After being proposed to by each of them women and very awkwardly declining they then resorted to more disturbing methods of persuasion. They began making extremely awkward comments to me and offering themselves in a variety of very inappropriate ways. When I tried to fend them off, they would laugh hysterically, sometimes even high-fiving one another. Just when I couldn't take the sexual harassment any longer, a man suddenly walked into the room- the older brother of one of these women. My saviour, I thought.

"How do do you feel about your sister saying such inappropriate things to an American she has only just met!?", I said triumphantly to the man, waiting to hear his scolding voice reprimand his younger sister for such shameful behavior.
His stern, strong face suddenly with a large grin, "Very good!", he said.

Confused and disturbed I made my way back to the motel, and Eric and I took a seat at the bar to get a few drinks and cool our heads. Seated beside us were two gentlemen dressed sharply in blazers and khakis. One of them, we discovered, was the owner of the motel and many other local businesses in the area, and the other was the local veterinarian. They spoke terrific English and bought us some drinks.

The conversation started normal enough. Small talk about what the pay was like for a local vet, discussion about what the local economy was like for the small-business owner. But once we started asking details about their personal lives things got a bit more interesting.

"So do you have any children?" I asked the vet.
"Yes," he said proudly "I have..." he paused as if thinking hard, "7 children I think."
"You think?"
"Yes...no wait...8!" He laughed.

This shattered my stereotypes about what I thought upper-class versus lower-class family life was like. I would have expected the local vet to have a more "Western" family life. It seemed very odd to me that he explained his situation with no sign of embarrassment.

He then explained that he had a wife, whom he loved very much, and had several children with her. Then there was the "Main Assistant Wife", with whom he had several other children. Finally, there was the "co-assistant" with whom there were other children. However, he took pride in being a great father (I couldn't help but laugh at this idea... but what do I know about their culture). I asked how his first wife felt about the others, and he explained that she was very upset at first, but now was fine with it.

I found out that this sort of polygamy was very common in rural African cultures. I also later found out, after more careful counting, that he actually had 9 kids. At this point the two men offered to take me to the local hang-out spot for some drinks. They had to stay up all night, they explained, because a friend of theirs from their village had just lost a son, and it was there custom to spend the night before the funeral with the bereaved. However, it was going to be very boring they said, so they would stay out drinking until 4am and then head over and could use my company.

I was a bit confused about this, and Eric had had enough and went to sleep, but I decided to tag along. The bar they took me too was teeming with activity, and for the first time since going to one of these rural African bars (I had only tried going out several times before) I was the guest of someone who was sincerely trying to show me around rather than use me for my money. However, after starting to sip on my first beer a man came up to me with a big smile, put his arm around my shoulder, and started chatting. After a few minutes he asked if I might buy him a drink. I was used to this, it seemed that the late-night drunk-male demographic very rarely was interested in actually getting to know the white-guy in the bar. However, suddenly my hosts saw what was going on and severely reprimanded the man who was bothering me.

"It is OK", I explained, "I am used to it." But they were very upset. Then other men in the bar began to overhear the commotion and came up to me and apologized, while scolding the man who had tried to take advantage of me. I was bewildered. I didn't mind so much, I understood where the man was coming from. Also, I was just used to having people always try to use me for money. But then my hosts explained that in every area there are the few people who try to take advantage of the "mzungu" (white man), but that it is wrong. Most people want to encourage understanding and communication between cultures. I was inspired by the experience and realized that perhaps I had been misjudging many of the places I had previously visited. There were most likely many very good people who were genuinely interested in cultural exchange, but unfortunately it was probably the scammers that usually got to me first.

However, it had been a long day and I was getting tired so the men that had taken me to the bar escorted me back to my room and said goodnight. They then set off to keep their grieving friend company; drunk.

-Aaron