HomeOld_PostsThe history of Kariba Dam: Part Six.....mystery, excitement part of Zambezi River

The history of Kariba Dam: Part Six…..mystery, excitement part of Zambezi River

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By Dr Michelina Andreucci

THE lives of BaTonga people (BaSiliwisi) flowed and agitated like the Mulonga River.
In its wake Mulonga — the Zambezi — has witnessed it all; from the slave trade along the East coast of Africa to its hinterland, to its occupation by King Lobengula and the Ndebele.
It was the gateway for explorers in the fanciful tales of the legendary land of Ophir (Zimbabwe) and the first colonial missionaries.
The Zambezi River has evoked mystery and excitement for thousands of years.
After the Nile, Congo and Niger Rivers, the Zambezi River is the fourth longest river in Africa.
Its tributaries along both banks drain into portions of eastern and south-eastern Angola as well as Northern Zambia, flowing slowly onto a low-gradient area to form the Barotse Floodplain.
Its catchment area covering 1 352 000 square km is shared by eight countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Zambezi River is divided into four sections: the Upper-Zambezi, Middle-Zambezi, Lower-Zambezi and the Zambezi-Delta.
It acts as a frontier; from its source 1 585m above sea level, it flows for almost 3 000km through eight of the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.
It courses through the eastern end of Angola.
It forms the border between Zambia and Namibia, before forming a brief border with Botswana, then back to Zambia across Zimbabwe forming the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia; across to Mozambique where it expels into the Indian Ocean.
The Zambezi River and its environment had remained untouched since the time of the Stone-Age and Iron-Age predecessors.
Archaeological sites have yielded stone artefacts from three million years ago, 50 000-year-old Middle Stone-Age tools and Late Stone-Age (10 000 and 2 000 years ago) weapons, adornments and digging tools.
The Zambezi River basin, with its plentiful water and diverse habitats, is home to large populations of wildlife.
Its good fertile soils for agriculture were for long coveted by the colonial Land Settlement Department for agricultural possibilities.
The surrounding Miombo woodlands which cover much of the area of Central and Southern Africa were habitat to about 8 500 plant species as well as 300 tree species.
Variations in rainfall patterns in the Zambezi catchment over the Millennia caused the river’s discharge to vary throughout the year.
Drought in the upper reaches occasionally reduces the river to a trickle.
The placid upper river becomes the tumbling river of falls and gorges, before swelling into Lake Kariba then widens again at Chirundu in Zambia.
Where the gorges are steep and hard to climb, the land beyond is rugged and wild, with the great river running out into the long, wide Zambezi Basin.
Here, the BaSiliwisi (River people) lived in settlements that were not marked on any map.
No roads, no white churches, no schools betrayed their existence; fishing on their flotillas of dugout canoes, unrestricted by colonial boundaries, pristine and untainted by colonial footprints.
The people lived all along the remote lush, green banks.
Here youngsters would go into seclusion as elders prepared them for manhood and a life of fishing and farming.
It was here that our freedom fighters would cross, albeit with difficulty, during the 1970s liberation war to and from Zambia where they had received training. Concealed under a canopy of trees, on these banks freedom fighters planned their incursions, hankering for the liberty that was soon to come.
For more than three decades, the Zambezi River’s environs in Southern Africa witnessed three guerilla wars.
Millions of people were killed or displaced.
Communications were shattered, bridges blown up, roads closed, towns and villages depopulated by massacres for the liberation of Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe from the ruthless bondage of British and Portuguese colonialism.
After the wars, lives returned to normal and followed the traditional patterns.
Men fished with nets from dugout canoes, women worked in their small fields and children hauled water in various containers from the mighty river to water the crops.
No doubt, Scottish missionary-explorer, David Livingstone would be amazed by the hydro-power schemes and the growth at the Victoria Falls; although much of ‘God’s Highway’ would be immediately familiar to him, for so little has changed since the paddle-wheeler first carried him along Mulonga’s current.
Its natural capital still defines the Basin’s economic activities which now include agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, mining, conservation and tourism as well as a centre for scientific monitoring and research.
Since the dam was constructed, however, the complex balance of the ecosystem has been swung.
It no longer floods to renew the soil.
The land is less fertile and it supports fewer animals as a result from the loss of habitat.
The Lake has also increased the already high seismic instability around Kariba, rendering it a volatile basin.
While Africa still counts as one of the most biologically diverse eco-systems in the world; its wealth nonetheless, is being mindlessly and carelessly fritted away.
All the careless constructs of human imagination are laced with defects and dishonesty turning the tide of the mighty river with growing new evidence of catastrophic changes and consequences.
With the current severe shortages of hydro-electric power, against the rising tide of agricultural and industrial expansion together with growing domestic demands from the increasing populations, new possibilities are being explored.
How far into the future can we give a prognosis of the effects on constructing another dam?
Is another dam the answer?
The water crisis in Zimbabwe is not a new story.
From as early as the Stone-Age, the San people of Southern Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, held rain ceremonies to intercede to the Supreme Being for rain and water.
These age-old ceremonies have continued into our times where most of the indigenous people of Central and Southern Africa conduct ‘rain-praying’ ceremonies for the fertility of the land and the survival of the species.
In Shona traditions, the ceremony is known as ‘Mukwerera’; with the Ndebele equivalent ‘Ukuphehla Izulu’.
These belief systems clearly came from the land, hard experiences and age-old living traditions.
Can we afford to ignore them?
Lake Kariba’s paradoxical legacy of poverty and prosperity still haunts the resort town.
Will man ever truly tame the Mulonga?
Only Nyaminyami, providence and time will tell!
Dr Michelina Rudo Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian Researcher, Industrial Design Consultant and Specialist Interior Decorator. She is a published author in her field.

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