The Sunday Mail
Cutty Sark Hotel, one of the two remaining hotels in Kariba, has bounced back since Chas Hotels took over management of the place early this year. The new management has breathed life into the hotel, which boasts the biggest conferencing facilities in Kariba. Refurbishments, which started months ago, are still ongoing as the place regains its past glory. The hotel is situated in a wildlife area on the shores of Lake Kariba overlooking Antelope and Zebra Islands. The hotel offers spectacular views of the lake, islands and Matusadona Mountains. The Cutty Sark Hotel is set on 72 acres of private gardens surrounded by wildlife. It is a place to get away from it all — join a land or water safari, visit Kariba Dam, only 10 minutes away, or just relax buy the pool and enjoy peace.
The swimming pool, playground and lake view engender an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity to make one’s stay pleasant and memorable.
Laiton Mkandawire
HAS Kariba been overwhelmed by the new found fortune? It has happened in other communities before and examples are plenty.
A little, sleepy community with waning fortunes suddenly finds itself awash with money, glitz and glamour and a foreign influence. Care and caution are cast to the winds.
With her fishing and tourism industries, the mainstay of the town, in doldrums, Kariba appeared doomed. Stakeholders’ meetings to arrest the rot have been called time and again, with a solution proving to be elusive. No-one has a clue as to what has to be done to provide the panacea or has the audacity to stand up and make a difference.
Then, suddenly, Sino Hydro, the Chinese sub-contractor on the Kariba South Power Station Extension Project arrives in town, full of promises, hope and money. All seemed well as locals were assured of employment and business opportunities. Only a year earlier, ZPC Kariba Football Club, had been promoted into the country’s Premier Soccer League, and made an immediate impact by challenging for the top honours, only to miss out on the last day of the Premiership season.
Three players and their coach won individual awards. Here is a town living in a new-found hope on two totally unexpected fronts. Worryingly, signs of laxity and moral decadence have started to show. On July 6 2015 the Project recorded its first fatality with the electrocution of one Onisimo Mushure in Adit One. The death is being investigated by the relevant authorities and little will be said about it here.
A day later, on the night of July 7, a Chinese employee of the same company (name not supplied) was hit by a boulder in Adit Two, resulting in his immediate medical evacuation to Harare and later to South Africa, where it is reported that he has had one leg amputated. Two road traffic accidents involving the company’s vehicles and another man who fell from a distance of about five metres on scaffolding on the night of July 8 sent shivers through the working crew. The victim was rushed to Kariba District Hospital and is recovering.
Insider information points to workers who are compromising their own safety due to drunkenness and a general disregard of laid down procedures, rules and regulations. The workers barely sleep; opting to spend their free time and new-found fortune with ladies of easy virtue who have descended on the town. This takes its toll on the community’s health through lack of sleep and the spread of communicable venereal diseases. The town may yet count its losses after the project is completed.
Family stability and the institution of marriage have been affected, with men in new jobs preferring “new” ladies and changing their tastes. Add to this the volume of human traffic provided by the soccer season and you can see that success can overwhelm a community such as this, with no mechanisms in place to handle the new social pressures.
Will the extension project cost more in human lives than the original project? With the changed social circumstances outside the workplace, it could well do. The original project cost 84 recorded human lives with Franscisco perishing first on December 12 1956 and the last, simply listed as Felikisi, perishing on February 15 1961.
This 900 horsepower boat, previously owned by former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, is in the process of being rehabilitated. Named after Ian Smith’s wife, Janet, the boat is said to be the equivalent of two haulage trucks and is set to be used to ferry sand from a river near Gache lodge meant for the repair of the Kariba Dam Wall, which has developed cracks. Because of its power, the boat will draw trailers to enable it to transport the sand in bulk. The new owners of the boat say it was one of the first vessels to sail in Kariba waters in the 1960s.
The Nyamhunga Fishing Camp near Gache lodge in Kariba is one remote place. Navigating your way down there is risky business as the roads are a death trap. If one’s car were to develop problems there is a risk of being attacked by wild animals. The roads are curvy, narrow and littered with sharp stones. However, in the midst of all the danger and the smell of fish — there is some kind of economic activity. At the centre of the action is a bus, ME Transport, which services the route three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. On these days, from 5pm to 10pm, fishmongers, sex workers, electrical gadgets dealers from Karoi and second hand clothes traders converge at the bus for five hours of business and fun. The bus has a powerful enough stereo to silence the solar powered radios in nearby tuck shops.
Magnificence in the middle of the wilderness — that best describes Gache Gache lodge situated across Lake Kariba, which can be accessed by boat, road, all terrain vehicle or by a private charter aeroplane as it boasts a small airstrip located two kilometres from the lodge. The lodge, which is located right in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by a game park with all sorts of wild animals comprises of several chalets and a camp-site for those who prefer tents. It also offers fully catered facilities, game viewing, bird watching by boat or vehicle, stunning sun downer cruises and hippo hunting, among many other activities. Winter in Gache Gache is non-existent — one can get away from the chill of winter in other parts of the country by visiting the area, especially during this time of the year. To complete the ambience of nature, the area, despite being a stone’s throw away from the turbines that generate electricity for Zimbabwe and Zambia, is not powered by Zesa. Solar power, coal powered boilers and generators provide power.
The writer is an area-based Kariba Destination Planner who can be reached by e-mail on [email protected]
