Day 17 – Lusaka: A Guest in the City

Our taxi driver would not go to the market on his own. The reception had told us not to go alone either, so Bwembya drove us and came with us, and somewhere in the first ten minutes he admitted that he himself rarely comes here, because he finds it dangerous. We had hired a guide to the market who was as wary of it as we were.

Soweto Market is one of the biggest in the country, a city inside the city, an endless maze of lanes and sheds and stalls: mountains of tomatoes and greens, sacks of maize for nsima, big baskets of tiny dried fish, bolts of bright chitenje cloth, second-hand clothes, hand-woven baskets, metal pots beaten out on the spot. It is enormous and loud and packed, and we moved through it feeling exactly as conspicuous as we were.

Lorena fell into conversation with a woman selling little fish out of large wicker baskets. I photographed the baskets, after asking, and the woman told us that she too finds the market chaotic, that a nephew of hers once got lost among the lanes and the great sheds and could not be found for a while. It rearranged my thinking a little. We had come in braced, as visitors, for a place we had been warned about, and here was a woman who had worked it for years telling us she also found it overwhelming. The market was not a test set for tourists. It was just a very big, very busy market that even the people in it can lose a nephew in.

Bwembya, meanwhile, was shopping. He asked us for an advance of 200 kwacha on the fare and spent it on a pair of used shoes from a woman sitting behind a black drift of them in a corner, and kept us waiting ten minutes while he tried them on. He was delighted: nearly new, next to nothing, and worth the trip to a market he otherwise avoids. It was, in its way, the most honest transaction of the day. Everyone at this market was getting something out of it, including our nervous guide.

From there, Bwembya drove us out to the elephant nursery, the Lilayi orphanage run by Game Rangers International, about fifty minutes from the centre, its visitor centre now inside Lusaka National Park, where you could not possibly find a taxi back, so you keep your driver with you. It takes in elephant calves orphaned by poaching or conflict with people, raises them, and eventually releases them back into the wild. You watch from a raised platform at a distance; there is no touching, no riding, nothing that would tame them. Two calves were being fed while we were there, running for the milk. The place is well kept and thoughtful, with a good little exhibition and a bar where we drank baobab juice.

Lorena asked about the volunteering programme. She is a secondary-school teacher back in Ireland, with a lot of holiday, and stood there working out whether she might come back and stay a few weeks. She falls in love with places and people easily, and then, just as easily, lets the idea go. By the bar it was already half fading. But for a moment she was not a visitor passing through; she was someone imagining staying, which is a different way to stand in a place.

Lunch was at Mpoto Yathu, a lunch-only spot on Omelo Mumba Road, and this is where I did my proper tourist eating. I had the chikanda, which they describe as Zambia’s meatless polony, a savoury thing with the texture of sausage made from orchid roots and groundnuts, earthy and strange and good. I tried the ifinkubala too, crunchy fried caterpillars. And goat stew with nsima, while Lorena had turmeric fish with nsima and ifisashi, greens cooked down in a thick groundnut sauce.

The chikanda stayed with me, and not only for the taste. I found out afterwards that the wild orchids it is made from are being over-harvested in places, dug up faster than they regrow to meet the demand for the delicacy. It was the second time on this trip that something I was enjoying at the table carried that shadow, after the chambo we could not find at Nkhata Bay. You eat these things as discoveries, without always seeing the pressure behind them.

After lunch we walked it off along Independence Avenue and came to the Freedom Statue, a bronze man straining to break the chains at his wrists. Zambia had been independent for more than sixty years, but there was nothing abstract about the gesture: freedom here had been given a body, muscles, effort. The monument marks the struggle that ended British colonial rule in 1964, and the figure has become one of the country’s national symbols, familiar from the kwacha itself. After the markets, the food, and the morning conversations, it was a reminder that the Zambia we were wandering through had not simply appeared. Someone had had to break something to make it.

In the afternoon we went on to the Kabwata Cultural Village for crafts straight from the artisans, and it was a let-down. The huts are pretty, but the things on sale are all more or less the same from stall to stall, and we knew it, and bought some anyway. We are the walking equivalent of sitting ducks. Among what we carried away were the little wooden hippos you find absolutely everywhere in this part of Africa, and there is no defending it. Sometimes you know exactly what you are, a tourist buying the standard souvenir, and you hand over the money regardless.

Dinner was light, back at the mall, a last comfortable night before the road south to the falls.

Practical Notes

Where I stayed

Second night at StayEasy Lusaka, EastPark Mall (details in Day 16).

Where I ate

Mpoto Yathu, 21 Omelo Mumba Road, Rhodespark, Lusaka. +260 77 6466545. Open lunchtimes only. Traditional Zambian food.
What I ate: chikanda (orchid-root and groundnut “polony”, K120), ifinkubala (fried caterpillars, K120), goat stew with nsima (K250); Lorena had turmeric fish (K300) with nsima and ifisashi (greens in groundnut sauce). Most mains come with a side, a sauce and a small house salad.
Worth knowing: the chikanda is worth trying; be aware the wild orchids used for it are over-harvested in some areas. The nsima kitchen runs limited hours (roughly 12:30 to 15:30), and dishes take 30 to 45 minutes, so it is not a quick lunch.

What I visited

Soweto Market, near the centre, one of the largest in Zambia. Vast, crowded, un-touristy. We were advised not to go alone, so we went with our taxi driver; go in daylight, keep valuables secure, and ask before photographing anyone.
Lilayi Elephant Nursery (Game Rangers International), visitor centre inside Lusaka National Park, about 50 minutes from the centre. Orphaned elephant calves raised for eventual release; viewing from a distance at feeding time, no contact. Entry around $15; a good exhibition and a café on site.
Getting there: no taxis for the return, so agree an hourly or round-trip rate with your driver to wait (roughly 400–600 ZMW round trip with waiting).
Freedom Statue, Independence Avenue. Free, in the open. A bronze figure breaking its chains, commemorating the struggle that led to independence in 1964; a national symbol, and on the Zambian kwacha. A short, worthwhile stop, walkable after lunch in the centre.
Kabwata Cultural Village, crafts from artisans. Pleasant huts, but the stock is repetitive from stall to stall. Fine if your expectations are modest.