The Sunday Mail
Laiton Mkandawire in Kariba
No responsible person can keep this vital information to themselves, particularly in a country facing a worsening energy crisis. This could be the stitch in time that saves everything. This will sound old-fashioned, but don’t dismiss it off-hand. The initial constructors of the Kariba Dam wall ignored it and learnt the hard way. Where do I start? Well, l guess starting with Kariva makes sense.
Kariva refers to a rock which thrust out of the swirling water at the entrance to the gorge close to the dam wall site. This rock is normally buried more than a hundred feet below the water surface. In many legends, this rock was regarded as the home of the great River god spirit, the Nyaminyami. Today, this rock is exposed.
I will spare you most of the legend of the Nyaminyami, not only because this is well-documented, but mostly because in relating this old-fashioned view I have heard being shared amongst elders, I cannot afford the luxury of digressing. The story yearns for immediate telling.
Previously, I have also chronicled the fate that befell those who ventured near the Kariva or dared to belittle its prime resident, the Nyaminyami. The 1957 flooding which swept away the initial construction effort were followed immediately in 1958 by another more intense flooding, despite the most learned of scientists having measured the odd of that occurring at a thousand to one. That is the Nyaminyami for you, defying the best of human odds!When the Kariba South Power Station Extension Project was commissioned in September 2014 by the President, apparently no homage was paid to the Nyaminyami. If there is anything that angers any god or spirit medium, it is the disrespect of his or her people. The Nyaminyami decided to express his displeasure with such impertinence.
Fish catches, which were already falling, drastically dropped. However since this did not affect the whole nation in an open way, it did not get much attention.
It however did not escape the attention of the local traditional leadership. In an interview with Patsaka-Nyaminyami Community Radio, Chief Nyamhunga mentioned it. Although he fell short of pointing out individuals, the chief bemoaned the fact that the local political leadership in Kariba did not accord the traditional voice the audience it deserved when so required. He expressed concern at the drastically dropping fish catches and said that in the past, traditional interventions were necessary to arrest such situations, which are now being ignored.
Of course, the good chief was ignored and fish catches continued to drop, just as the lake level did. Fishermen lost jobs as the bigger commercial fishing operations folded. No one panicked until it affected the power generation capacity of the Kariba South Power Station. Then everyone cried, more so those faced with the dreaded nationwide load shedding.
With the chief’s well-intentioned advice ignored, this is the appropriate time to remind each other that a people that cast away their traditions in preference of fleeting modernity learn the hard way.
It doesn’t end there. The traditional chiefs bemoan the fact that they are being duped again, like their forefathers in the 1950s; by the government of the day. The colonial regime promised the BaTonga that the river would follow them to their new settlements. We all know that this promise was never kept.
In the modern day, the local chiefs were promised that their children would be employed to provide unskilled labour at the extension project. These rural BaTongas have to sell their valued livestock, mostly chickens and goats, to raise some bus fare for their children to get into town to look for employment.
Once they get there, the visible result is that there are less BaTongas or locals employed than promised. The local traditional chiefs are bitter. The spirits are displeased. But like Chief Nyamhunga bemoaned, no one cares to listen to them. The Nyaminyami is also angered. If not appeased, the Nyaminyami is ready to reduce the massive lake back to the river it was before.
The consequences of this are too ghastly to contemplate.
Dismiss this as far-fetched, wishful mumbo-jumbo at your own peril. The BaTongas, who in most cases can no longer access their river freely because it has been fenced off or they are required to pay some fees, will tell you there is nothing closer to the truth than this. They will also tell you that scientific interventions alone will not be enough.
It will not cost any political office any reputational damage to afford the local chiefs the right to hold their traditional rites. Not if this intercession will help the gods to relent and pardon our sins. I would gladly attend one of theses biras and record the changes in weather patterns thereafter.
Aldous Huxley told us that “men do not learn much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
Will we allow that to be our situation?
