To Find the Real Zambia, It Took a Village

We had headed to Zambia, a financially struggling former British colony of 11.5 million people that gained its independence in 1964, to gauge how the wildlife there compared to better-known safari destinations, such as Kenya and Tanzania. We were mightily impressed. We spent one night in Lusaka, Zambia's gritty capital, before taking a flight to Mfuwe, gateway to South Luangwa National Park.

The trip to Kawaza village was easy enough to arrange, thanks to culturally enlightened safari lodge operators in the region who recognize that an African safari need not be limited to viewing animals. We had learned of Kawaza several months before we arrived in Zambia, while perusing the Web site for Flatdogs Camp, the lodge where we ended up staying, just outside the national park.

"Unlike most 'Traditional Village' projects, this one really is a living, working, typical African village where the local people have decided to invite visitors into their lives with no tourism hype at all," the Web site told us. That sounded promising because some so-called native villages we have visited were little more than tourist traps.

At Kawaza, we learned that villagers had formed a tourism committee about 10 years ago, assisted by Robin Pope, a well-established Zambian safari guide and lodge operator. Some of the villagers already had a connection to tourism, working as guides, drivers, cooks and housekeepers at nearby lodges. But the project would give them a chance to run their own enterprise and earn some badly needed money.

"At first, it was hard. We had only 68 visitors the first year," Obby Banda, the Kawaza villager who heads the project, told us in the tidy thatched hut he uses to greet visitors. "But now we have many more. We have even built six huts where visitors can spend the night. No doubt, this tourism project has raised our standard of living."

The project isn't about squeezing every last dollar out of foreign tourists. Overnight visitors to the village each pay $40 a night, meals and activities included, Banda told us. Day trippers pay $20 for a village tour. Transportation to Kawaza is usually provided by the lodges. (We arrived from Flatdogs in the back of an open-air safari truck; yes, we were a bit conspicuous, if not comical.) Banda said he expects more than 800 visitors this year, contributing about $2,500 to the village economy -- a tidy sum in a country where the average annual per-capita income is $1,000. Money not used on community projects, such as upgrading the local school, is split among the villagers.

In the welcoming hut, Banda showed us a promotional flier he uses to entice prospective visitors. "We don't have electricity in our village," the flier reads in English. "But don't fear that the dark evenings will be boring." Among the activities offered are traditional dances and storytelling, bush walks and the chance to take part in daily-life activities such as sweeping, grinding grain, weeding and harvesting in the fields.

We passed on the weeding and grinding. But Banda arranged a dance performance in which we were expected to participate. (We did, and the villagers were laughing with us, not at us, I kept telling myself.)

Banda then took us to the aptly named Kawaza Basic School, which serves neighboring communities as well. "Before the tourism project, this school was almost falling down," Banda said, as head teacher David Mwewa nodded in agreement. "Pupils were sitting on the floors because there were no seats. There were not enough teachers. But, now, things are a lot better."

Mwewa told us that revenue from the tourism project also supports students whose parents have died of AIDS -- a horrifyingly common occurrence in this part of the world. About 16.5 percent of adults in Zambia have HIV/AIDS, and the life expectancy at birth is 40 years, according to the CIA's World Factbook.

From the school, we walked across the road to the traditional healer's hut, furnished with a small table, reed mat and eight simple wooden chairs -- one occupied by a hen guarding her eggs. After introductions and a reading from the New Testament, Fanny offered us a glimpse into how she works. I say a glimpse because she didn't seem keen on explaining how she and her patients get "possessed" -- a prerequisite, it seems, for treatment of a serious illness.

"I see patients here almost every day, just like a clinic does," Fanny said. "When the patient comes into the hut, there is usually somebody here who acts like a secretary, recording the name. The patient sings a hymn and says a verse from the Bible. The verse will guide me and I'll look at my cross" -- she pointed to a cross on her dress -- "and know what the patient is suffering from."