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dam-l Kariba Dam article/LS




>ELECTRONIC MAIL&GUARDIAN
>
>Johannesburg, South Africa. November 5, 1997
>
>Watery graveyard: The Tonga's ancesters lie under Kariba, and the lake
>separates them from family on the other side
>
>
>
>The waters that
>parted the Tonga
>
>LAKE KARIBA
>Spectacular Lake Kariba is a thing of beauty for tourists. But for the local
>Tonga, it is a curse that has buried their ancestors under water, separated
>their families -- and failed to bring irrigation to their arid farmlands.
>JONATHON TULLOCH reports
>
>
>THE night sky above Binga is dizzying. Here is power besides which the
>lights of even the great cities of the earth are eclipsed. Walking under it,
>the urban visitor takes a risk, for to look up is to encounter a profundity
>to which our street-lamps and ever-ready electrical switches have blinded
>us. It is to be confronted by the immensity of life while experiencing one's
>modest place in it. It is to be offered the lost heritages of awe and
>humility.
>
>Walking down through the hot springs of Binga which bubble deliciously from
>the rock, the eye is beguiled from the immensity of the stars above to the
>closer twinklings of the fire-flies. They merge and separate about you,
>forming shifting, head-height constellations, making it easy to give
>credence to the folk tales that lament lives lost in the intoxicated pursuit
>of these neon creatures - an occupation akin to chasing rainbows.
>
>After the springs the road climbs, peaking at the grand cairn of a baobab
>tree. This road will eventually take you from the Binga district, uncoiling
>you through the Kamativi hills and on to the mining badlands of Hwange. But
>if you wish to leave and forget Binga, then do not turn, even for a moment,
>to look over your shoulder past that baobab. For, if you do, you will see,
>spread out below you like a sleeping giant, the mighty Lake Kariba.
>
>It is spangled at this late hour with the lonely lights of the Kapenta
>fishing boats, which ply a nocturnal trade, and its tranquillity seems
>absolute. But the story of this view is one of such sadness that it will
>stop you in your tracks, and if not turn you to a pillar of salt, at least
>leaven your heart with aridity and fill your lungs with the dryness of the
>soil at your feet in which only baobabs can thrive.
>
>It is hard to imagine how something as fantastically beautiful as Lake
>Kariba can be the cause of such sorrow. But it is true. There is something
>deeply biblical about the brief history of Binga, yet it is a modern story
>too. One of massive but unshared technology. One of plentiful water but
>perpetual drought. One of oppressed and their oppressors.
>
>Until 1957 the river Tonga people lived on the banks of the swift-flowing
>Zambezi, which separated what was then the federation of Northern and
>Southern Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe). Their life there, if not
>idyllic given the utter absence of health care and education, was at least
>one of peace, food and, most importantly, water. The rich alluvial soils
>gave a varied and frequent crop. The river supplied drinking water,
>irrigation for vegetable gardens and much fish. The peace grew from a way of
>life left undisturbed for generations, one in which the past and future
>harmonised in the present. Words from the Tonga poet Fanual Cumanzala
>capture this time:
>
>CYBERSPACE
>From the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority: Lake Kariba
>Lake Kariba
>
>Down the mountains lay the mighty river
>The Zambezi of the Tonga
>Gift of God, river of life
>The banks which yielded food for all.
>
>But by 1958 this was merely memory, an Eden lost. The Rhodesian
>administration, under the auspices of the British Government, decided to dam
>the Zambezi at Kariba and build a hydro-electric installation. So that the
>growing cities and residences would have power, the realm of the Tonga was
>drowned beneath a huge lake, making it the Atlantis of an inland sea. Nearly
>60 000 people were moved, their resettlement programme merely transportation
>in the back of a lorry to higher, drier, far less fertile lands.
>
>Terrible hardship resulted from this lack of preparation, a disregard for
>humanity, particularly brutal when compared with the treatment of the
>Zambezi valley's more famous inhabitants. Film footage of the time shows the
>animals being coaxed to safety from the rising water in what became known as
>"Operation Noah".
>
>"We had helicopters and motor launches for the animals," recalls Peter
>Ndlovu, one of those involved in "Noah". "For the people we had a dug-out
>canoe. Although the flood was coming, many didn't believe us. They just
>drowned, although nobody will admit it." By the silence surrounding this
>suffering, the next 40 years would be characterised.
>
>Above all, the Tonga were promised that the water which they were being
>forced to leave would follow them. Without this pledge their compliance,
>although involuntary, would have been withheld. But their new lands are
>hopelessly arid. Boreholes have been sunk and some small dams made, but
>their supply is erratic and far from safe. In some places the water table is
>so low that the boreholes are drying up.
>
>The elderly, the disabled and the sick, unable to manage the daily hike for
>water through the often crippling heat, drink surface water with the
>animals. Unable to grow their traditional crops in the parched places of
>their exile, nor easily able to use the distant fishing grounds allocated
>them, the river Tonga have become a malnourished people. Blighted by
>constant drought, the consequent relief aid is another burden on their
>independent spirit.
>
>In such a desiccated exodus it is no wonder that the old fondly recall their
>lost existence, and that the young are unaware of the fine heritage of their
>name. For Tonga means "the people of the great river".
>
>It perhaps would have been some consolation if resettlement had been allowed
>on the banks of the new lake, but in the minds of the Rhodesian regime and
>the Zimbabwean government that followed, the area around Lake Kariba is one
>of prime tourist potential. In the pursuit of this end, people are clearly
>inconvenient. The area's physical attractions, indeed, are manifest. At
>present most visitors come to fish, but there is also a growing hunting
>safari industry. In the Binga district alone it is estimated that there are
>3 750 elephants, 4 000 buffalo, 500 leopards, 110 lions and 12 000 impala.
>
>These animals are a constant menace to the people who have been placed in
>their domain. Elephants destroy crops, risky attempts at dissuasion proving
>fruitless. Also, since the buses reach the more remote areas after dark,
>passengers must chance the stealth of nocturnal predators. The Tonga are not
>allowed to adequately defend themselves, the limited quota of permitted
>kills going largely to hunting safari operators.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Smaller creatures are a fatal pest too. Mosquitoes infest their new lands,
>making malaria, despite attempts to eradicate it, an annual reality.
>Fatalities normally occur around Christmas.
>But it is not the physical privations which are the cruellest, nor the
>hardest to bear. The Tonga had lived on both sides of the Zambezi and
>families are divided by the lake. After a few years, a ferry service began
>to operate, linking the separated, but, with the independence of Zambia in
>1964, such traffic stopped. After Zimbabwean independence in 1980, a border
>was reopened, but with customs only at the distant Victoria Falls and
>Chirundu, actual access remained closed.
>
>Largely a people without passports, visits between Tonga living on opposite
>sides of the lake have always been fraught with danger. For 40 years the
>only method of communication across one of the twentieth century's great
>engineering feats has been by dug-out canoe, a precarious exercise given the
>habits of crocodiles and border officials, who often shoot on sight.
>
>Inevitably, relationships between bululus (the Tonga term for relatives
>which does not discriminate between immediate or more extended ties) have
>languished, and this has taken its wear on the social fabric. Some parents
>have not seen their children since 1957. The extended family as an
>institution has been decimated. In the days when two brothers might have
>casually decided to build their homes on opposite sides of the river, they
>could not have known that they were parting for life. Shout as loud as they
>like, family news can no longer cross the water. With the sundering of
>families came another devastating blow. Ancestors are an integral part of
>Tonga society, but their graves now lie beneath deep water. Without their
>help and intercession, life becomes even more baffling.
>
>As in any community, it is the older ones that bear the brunt of such
>upheaval. The young are putting down new roots, but the delicate flower of
>continuity has been uprooted. A way of life is all but destroyed.
>
>None of this is to imply that the river Tonga are hopeless victims. Through
>co-operatives and church groups they have done much to help themselves.
>Their resourcefulness is well illustrated in their husbandry of the baobab,
>a tree prized both physically and spiritually for its hardiness. A valuable
>source of vitamin C, the chalk like fruit is sucked as a sweet. And in harsh
>drought when there are no mealies available for the staple of sadza, it is
>mashed into a life-sustaining porridge. From its tough fibre, blankets and
>rope are obtained.
>
>Also, despite their situation, the generosity of spirit among the river
>Tonga is legendary. On our recent return trip to Binga, Elliot Mudenda
>cycled for over three hours to welcome us. He wanted especially to see my
>wife who had been his teacher, but he also welcomed me and Valentine, our
>travelling companion who is a Zambian Tonga, as brothers - an offer of
>kinship which is no mere gesture.
>
>Elliot tells a story one often hears from his people - one of aridity and
>perseverence. His voice also has the familiar gentleness which haunts the
>listener long after it has fallen silent. Now a teacher himself, Elliot does
>think that education for the Tonga is improving with primary schools having
>recently won the right to instruct in the mother tongue. But opportunities
>beyond basic literacy, especially for girls, remain as scarce as the rain.
>
>After mass we went with Elliot to visit an old friend Juliet Mungombe. Our
>visit became a celebration. During it, I listened to Juliet. Her story is
>typical. Although Tonga society is matriarchal, with property passing from
>mother to daughter, most of the work still falls, literally, on female heads
>and backs.
>
>Juliet was writing her O levels in Binga secondary school when her mother
>died giving birth to her sister Maurine. Leaving school, Juliet, along with
>her other female bululus and friends, provided for Maurine. It is perhaps a
>good omen that Maurine is now at school herself. Despite her lost
>opportunities, Juliet is far from bitter. "A painful struggle," she
>recounted as she respectfully offered me the water bowl in which to wash my
>hands. "But one of joy, since we were many mothers for Maurine."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Her saddest memory is of Maurine searching her breasts for the milk that was
>puzzlingly not there, but even this is not enough to cloud her smile at the
>thought of the child. "Ndakulumba Leza," Juliet says over again. "Thank you,
>God."
>After visiting Juliet and her bululus, we took Elliot home. He lives in
>Bulawayo Kraal, a village deep in the bush. His home is a room the size of a
>wardrobe. Here he prepares his lessons and marks his endless books through
>the long nights by the light of a paraffin lantern. He has more than 60
>children in a classroom that often doubles as living accommodation for new
>teachers, but it is not these testing conditions which worry him. His whole
>family rely on his income and having already lost a brother in the drought
>of 1992, he is anxious about their future.
>
>An intelligent and devoted individual, Elliot has met with the prejudice
>that frequently impedes the progress of the Tonga in Zimbabwe, where
>stereotypes of cannibalism and three-toedness are common. With a name like
>Mudenda (as Tonga as O'Donnell is Irish), he is finding it hard to gain
>entry to a teaching degree. As an unqualified teacher his income is
>unassured, apart from any notions of career development.
>
>The river Tonga are a resourceful people, thriving where others wilt, but
>there is a limit to what they can do with the resources available. They
>themselves have become like the baobab they revere, and although the kernel
>of their culture may still be sturdy as a trunk, their needs, physical and
>spiritual, have been forced to taper to a thin canopy, bearing fruits which,
>although incredible - given the conditions - are only a famine relish.
>
>Binga - the place where the goats are brought home - was created as a growth
>point for the new, riverless lands of the river Tonga. This year is its 40th
>birthday, but no one is brewing beer for the party. Binga's is a tale of
>cruel dispossession, and, despite the pain of exile, of fidelity to a
>spiritual generosity born of better times. With the elements of plentiful
>water lying alongside thirsty lands, abundant electricity sitting by an
>education prepared by lanterns, and great technology cohabiting with utter
>lack of development, this is a story which could easily be read as the
>scripture of our own era: the diaspora of a lake in the decades of
>telephones and the Internet.
>
>The gentle and forgiving nature of the Tonga can be no reason for inactivity
>in remedying their situation. At the very least, water must be made
>available to them as it was before. This is not a gift to endow, but a right
>to be restored. The birthday of this injustice is the perfect time to act.
>
>The British government too must be called on to make reparation for the
>past. The Zambian and Zimbabwean administrations must also realise the high
>rhetoric of their respective religious professions and independence slogans.
>The blatant oppression of indigenous peoples by damming their lands in the
>name of progress should be shown up for what it is. For the Tonga and those
>relocated by the Volta dam in Ghana, the Kainji dam in Nigeria, the Aswan
>dam in Egypt and Sudan and innumerable victims the rural world over, the
>hope is only for meaningful compensation. But for the Himba of Namibia, can
>the sword of Damocles suspended above their Epupa falls still be parried?
>Can such suffering be justified? This is the question that we must ask,
>until it is answered.
>
>"The eyes that meet will meet again," Elliot told us as we unwillingly
>parted, and I know this proverb is true, because already my heart longs to
>return to the people of the great river.
>
>On my last night in Binga I stood by that baobab with the night sky an
>infinity of wonder above and the lake a troubled sky of wonder below. Unable
>to sleep, I stayed there until the sun began to rise, extinguishing the
>Kapenta boat stars one by one, gradually revealing the full territory of the
>lake, and so I saw something of the dimensions of hope and despair.
>
>The despair was immediate, a way of life lost, recalled only in the stories
>of the old, and in the branches of the submerged trees which materialise
>from the mist in the dawn, puncturing the smooth skin of the lake like the
>despondent arms of drowning people. The hope, though, was also clear,
>demonstrated in the tenacity to which the river Tonga cling to the barren
>breast of their new land even if that tenacity too is tinged with sadness.
>Only by action can the hope be maintained. Only by action can we hope one
>day for a true celebration on this the occasion of Binga's birthday.
>
>It is the words of a young Tonga poet Tom Chuma that call us like that night
>sky:
>
>When I see the blood red sun set
>In the waters of the lake
>I hear the voice of the people
>Beckoning me.
>To know what they want
>Must we ask the stars?
>-- Mail&Guardian, November 5, 1997.
>
>
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>*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
>Liane Greeff, Project Manager: NGO Liaison with, and Monitoring of the WCD
>Environmental Monitoring Group, PO Box 18977, Wynberg, South Africa, 7824
>E-mail: liane@kingsley.co.za Tel: +27 +21 7610549/788 2473 Fax: 762 2238
>*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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