![]() Given Kwapu, Siavonga City Council Chairman, sits in his office that overlooks the valley where his mother was evicted from when she was eight years old. He recounts that “the leaves of the chibase plant fall right before the rains arrive…so the Tonga only plant seeds after the tree has lost all signs of life.” Certain plants responded to shifts in rainfall, including the musiika, or tamarind tree, which would “produce more fruit right before a drought…as a gift from God or the ancestors.” While describing these traditions, Kwapu takes out his phone to enthusiastically show images of these native plants. She told him that “ paid attention to the signs nature provided to prepare for the changing seasons,” like the movements of birds and the calls of insects. Zambia, 2022.Īlthough Kwapu never lived along the Zambezi, his mother often shared stories about what it was like to grow up with the river. Gully erosion from the most recent rainy season exposes sandy layers of subsoil, contributing to desertification in Lusitu. “The Tonga in the valley had many animals because grazing areas were abundant,” Kwapu explains, while leaning back on a leather chair in his sunlit office that overlooks Lake Kariba, “Even today people remember that place because it was so bountiful.” According to Given Kwapu, the Council Chairman for the nearby city of Siavonga and a member of the Tonga tribe, life along the Zambezi River was idyllic. Since that time, average temperatures in the region have increased about 1☌, and now range from 92☏ (33☌) to 95° F (35☌) from September to November, sometimes even reaching 110☏ (43☌).ĭespite the challenging climate, people once thrived in the Gwembwe River Valley by relying on traditional ecological knowledge accumulated over generations. Torrend in a letter sent to his monastery in November 1931. This area, known locally as the Gwembwe River Valley, remained relatively isolated from the British colonial forces until the mid-1900s, due to its allegedly “harsh and inhospitable climate,” as described by Jesuit missionary J. Their ancestors lived along the middle portion of the Zambezi River for centuries. They run to her garden, shimmying through the fence as they giggle and fall to the ground to catch their breath.Ĭhipenzi and her family are members of the Tonga tribe. “I am blessed with grandchildren who help me with my garden,” she says as she gestures to a small band of boys and girls playing on the other side of the fence in the next field, “ even if it does not look like it!” She says this last line just loud enough to jolt the children out of their game. ![]() “I am getting too old to carry much water from the pit to my garden,” she explains, while smiling and gently shaking her head. When the river is not here, we must dig pits, sometimes 7-8 steps deep, to find water underground,” she says, pointing to the tomb-like well carved from dirt and stone at the end of her garden plot, which is demarcated with acacia branches and topped with inch-long white thorns to discourage scavengers. “The two biggest challenges here are soil and water,” she says. These small pools are a refuge for both humans and their livestock, which travel there daily in search for water, leaving footprints behind in the soft clay.Įneless Chipenzi, a 62-year-old farmer and lifelong resident of Lusitu, is concerned with the climatic changes she has witnessed throughout her life. The only evidence of its presence are a few isolated, algae-filled puddles that dot the bottom of the river basin. The river no longer flows from August to November. In the fields that overlook the Lusitu River, wispy stalks of maize from the last growing season rattle in the unseasonably warm breezes that now arrive in late July. Cacti and other succulents are replacing the shrubby woodlands, many of which were cut down to meet the growing demand for charcoal in nearby urban areas. Now, Lusitu is transforming into a desert. The Lusitu River flowed year-round and served as a lifeline for agriculturalists and pastoralists alike. ![]() It baked in the bright, cloudless skies that dominate the dry summer months from August to October and found relief in the rains that consistently fell between late November and early April. Twenty years ago, the village of Lusitu was much like other towns in southern Zambia. Now, the residents of Lusitu, Zambia, rely on traditional knowledge to grow food in the face of climate change. ![]() Their parents were forcibly displaced by a colonial dam project in 1958. Read "When the River Runs Dry in Lusitu, Zambia" in the January, 2023 edition of The Commons, published by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A woman gathers water from isolated pools within the dried basin of the Lusitu River. ![]()
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