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Spiel
There has been no influence under the politics of the NEA, and not a hint of the heavy hand of an MFA, in the diverse writings of personal conflict and social consciousness by the poet Spiel. He is published frequently, internationally, online and in independent press journals. His latest books are: “she: insinuations of flesh brooding,” published by March Street Press and “once upon a farmboy,” published by MadmanInk . Learn more about Spiel at: www.thepoetspiel.name
Zambia. 1979. Excerpt from “The Zambia Papers”“Rhodesia”“Zambia National Tourist Bureau Brochure: DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH Bridges, Railways, Airports, Power Stations. Government Buildings should not be included in backgrounds.” 1979, Nov. 20. Of note: Today, President Kaunda announced the complete mobilization of the Zambian army after all 12 major bridges were blown up over the weekend. These, as far as I know, are the first outright attacks with Zambia rather than on the Freedom Fighter camps. It appears that our access to the city of Lusaka may be in question. We would keep our radio tuned into the BBC constantly but we have to limit our use of batteries. Roger sets them out in the sun every day; claims this lengthens their life. A friend returns from Monze with news that the Monze Morgue is overflowing with bodies. All army reserve members are meant to have reported for duty by 6:00 this eve. Our neighbor, Piri, is included. They say he’s told his wife goodbye “forever.” We’re all a bit wary of attempting travel from here. We hear that the whites in the city are taking the brunt for much of the present activities. The U.S./Iran thing sounds hellish. Nov. 22. Roger prepares spur-wing goose for Thanksgiving dinner. Dutch friends, Hendrik, Maartje and their two little kids, and a Canadian peace worker join us. I think I’m the only one of the bunch who actually has come to like nshima1, I mean really have a taste for it—never mind that most expatriates call it bland. Everyone else prefers the African sweet potatoes. I like them too. I’ve lost a lot of weight since I’ve lived in this country. We’ve spent so much time out in the bush where food is not plentiful, so most any food is appealing to me when I sit down at a table—especially with good company. Most of our conversation is about whether any of us will be able to travel out of here. Right now, I wish we could access someone from the U.S. embassy. Nov. 23. University of Zambia students are raising hell with the British High Commission. Musorewa claims Zambia has been on the brink of a military throw for the past three weeks. President Kaunda says Capitalism is the monster that has created this whole mess. Avocadoes are back in season and our summer squash is coming on strong. The baboons will become an even more formidable threat when it comes time to harvest them. They can be quite scary. Giant edible mushrooms are poking out of the ground; great for sautéing IF and when we’ve got the oil. Brilliant green grasses that carpet the woodlands toward Kabibwe Hill house ticks and soon will be too tall for wandering or collecting butterflies because of snakes and hidden beasties. Ludaka shows up at the front door looking forlorn. His one and only hen has been beaten to death by a woman in the compound. She’s been known for acts such as this in the past. Roger sets up a sort of trial to be held where she will appear. From what I’ve seen, the Africans are inclined to dole out “bad medsun” on one another after such an event. Final opinion is that since no one witnessed the event, it’s in everyone’s best interest to drop the matter. But Ludaka is one of my favorite Game Guards, such a gentle man, and I wish I had a hen of my own to give to him. I’ve completed 13 graphic wildlife illustrations for the Wildlife Conservation Society of Zambia—a distinctive new style, simplistic. I wonder how and when I’ll be able to deliver them to the city. As we enjoy our evening beer on the veranda, shotgun fire, just below the house. Roger hops on his Honda scooter to discover a dead male reedbuck, but no sign of the culprit who did it. We are livid! This is thought to be the only male reedbuck in the Park. I’d become quite attached to him on my walks to the Hot Springs. This stupid act may mean the end of this species in Lochinvar National Park. Of all the animals to be poached here, reedbuck is one of the most rare. We drag the carcass back to the house, surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes. He is a beautiful specimen, large, handsome horns, great clusters of ticks, which look like ladybugs, cling to the carcass. His front legs are broken and there is a shot through his heart. I’d like to string up the bastard who did this. November 27. White rain, black sky. Claustrophobic. I stare at my paintbrushes but they don’t want to move. Nov. 28. I don’t like the sound of the news last night but we’re going to attempt the trip to Lusaka. I plan to speak to someone at the U.S. Embassy about my remaining in Zambia during such political unease. The Park Gate Keeper reveals that he has pinched 1400 kwacha in receipts, expecting a certain woman to buy goods with it, then re-sell the goods at a profit, keep the profit, then return his capital. But the woman has screwed him and split. This would be a common method around here. How else could a potential village businessperson obtain capital for a project? Pesky roadblocks along the way, the usual military and police. I’m always spooked by these guys but I feel more than the usual fear. A few upheaval stories from Brit friends Bruce and Katie when we arrive in Lusaka, but to the eye, things look uncommonly quiet and undisturbed. Amazing, after all the fear we’ve harbored in our remote location. Something creepy is brewing beneath this surface. What is it? I’ve never lived in a war-torn culture. Never served in the U.S. military. One of my publishers (a colonel in the Zambian Army) recently took me aside in deep privacy and advised that I might want to consider leaving this country. He said that Zambia might no longer be a safe place for an outsider white man like me. The implication was that something was stirring but he was not at liberty to tell me exactly what. His message seemed so mysterious at that time. Now, it’s all making sense. The U.S. Ambassador advises us that the decision to remain in Zambia is according to our own judgment. Not much help, really. Roger, an American who shares his home with me, has been employed by The Wildlife Department of Zambia for five years and has established residency. Though I’m building a solid name as a wildlife artist, I have yet to do so—a long and complicated process. But now, that decision hangs in the air. Incredible that I am able to complete my Tax Clearance in one day. I pay 350 kwacha2 on K3,000 net income. Pretty decent, given that I live, most of the time, out in the bush, and operate out of my briefcase, and sell every little painting I do, every time I travel into town. Dec. 3. Distribution of “food3” these days is a desperate problem. The U.S. and Iran continue their power play. Dec. 5. Britain announces a ceasefire agreement. I am pessimistic. About 8” of rain in November according to Hendrik’s records—twice the norm for here. The frogs love it! Dec. 6. The Patriotic Front appears to be stalling. Another local fisherman has been drowned by a hippo flipping his boat. This is not uncommon. Roger and Hendrik found him while doing their studies out on the floodplain. They believe the body has been rotting for days. The floodplain roads are slip-and-slide, wet most of the time. Odds of becoming bogged are tremendous. What a nightmare. I’ve been through it plenty of times. Rarely can two men get a rig un-bogged—best always to travel these soggy plains with a crew. Dec. 7. Letter, written Dec. 2, from our Irish friend who is a teacher at the University of Zambia: “Our students have been ‘called up’ as have UNZA’s now – there isn’t food or shelter for these kids so it’s a bloody rough deal for them and without training they will be ‘dead meat’ in any confrontation.” Dec. 9. “Rhodesian Air Force, today, dropped bombs on terrorist camps hiding out in Zambia.” How bizarre to listen to Radio Rhodesia, a general policy of side-stepping the fact that the entire country has been in a chaotic state for about seven years now. Its advertising is as insipid as the worst of American advertising, the telephone and talk-shows are brim full of petty junk and a lot of air time is filled with episodes of stupid soap operas. So odd to hear The Back Porch Majority’s music, recorded in the mid-60s when those musicians just happened to be my close friends after I’d moved from Colorado to Hollywood. I wonder what has happened to each of them. No way they could know that I’m in Africa. Oodles of flap neck chameleons showing up with the rains. Roger is studying these multi-faceted creatures so he offers the African kids 10 ngwee4 for each chameleon they deliver to him. Africans are typically terrified of them so it’s most amusing to see these kids at our door, holding a long stick with one of these critters dangling from the far end as they await their reward. We spend many night hours by the light of kerosene lamps, amusing ourselves, in observation of this fascinating reptile with the astonishing darting tongue. We’ve now got them in every window well of the house, Roger’s studies are progressing, and the kids in the compound have quit begging me for money every time I set foot out the door on a mission to photograph a bird that is new to me. Dec. 10. I’m glad for a lift into Lusaka with Muwenga in his Tourist Bureau Rover. The detour around the destroyed Kaleya Bridge is dreadful. Heavy rains have turned it into a river and nothing except four-wheel drives and a single farm tractor dragging a Peugeot vanette carrying two worried looking passengers is making it through. Once we’re past it, the usually frightening roadblocks seem uneventful. My purpose for this trip to the city is to get my denture fixed. My plate is cracked and fragile from the Oct. 6 Land Rover crash. I guess I should not be surprised when I learn that I must purchase my own plaster for the casting—the lab has been without for months on end. Though I must try in and out of many shops, I finally manage to chase down a kilo of it on Chachacha Road, but it appears the next guy is going to end up wanting, because my kilo is the last one in stock. Once my impression is taken, I learn the technician is overloaded with work but he promises he’ll do his best. I’ll have to return next Wednesday for the next stage. Really a drag, given that I live so far away—plus all this unrest in the air. Brit friends who put me up during my city stay wonder why Californians elected a not-very-good movie star as Governor. I remind them that I’d been managing a beef ranch in the outback of northern California and I’d played no part in the election of Ronald Reagan. The Wildlife Conservation Society people are thrilled with my new paintings. Ian pays me K1,000 for them. They will be used to illustrate the 1981 WCSZ calendar, the most contemporary calendar they’ve done. I bemoan the fact that if I leave this country, money earned here cannot be exchanged for U.S. currency. Dec. 17. The U.K. and U.S. lift sanctions on Rhodesia5 and Lord Somes arrives to intervene as Governor until the intended election, planned for late February. There is meant to be a total ceasefire as of the 28th. Again this year, I find it weird that Christmas decorations and shoppers are aplenty in this starving nation. Any one of these people on Chachacha Road would be lucky to have a skinny chicken to eat for Christmas. As I shop in the main grocery market, I am eyed by dozens of hungry Zambians who watch me like eagles through the large windows to see exactly how and where I stuff my cash after I pay for a heavy glass ashtray. I’ve noticed this before and I keep both of my hands tight in my front jeans pockets, gripping my kwacha, as I pass through the front doors of the store. Still, I feel hands attempt to slide past my hands to my pockets, but this time, I outsmart them and move like a gazelle down the outer edge of the street toward the Conservation Society where I feel safe with Ian. While waiting at the dental lab and expressing my feelings about escaping Christmas, a South African tourist had told me her child lies awake for the tooth fairy. How naive I was when I first traveled to Africa. I’d thought I could escape all such garbage—most of all, I wanted nothing more to do with Christmas! I depart by train at 6:00 a.m. from Lusaka to Monze where markets are jam-packed with Christmas travelers. Mangoes and mealies6 for sale now. The mealies are thrown in a boiling pot, husk on, and sold for 10-20 ngwee—not bad at all. Sometimes they can taste like the worst of field corn in the States. Mangoes are the best of Zambia’s fruits, 2 for 15 ngwee. But we had them for free and by the bucket when we lived in Kafue National Park where Roger cooked them into chutney and jam and he made pies that reminded me of the peach pies I used to make on the California ranch. Of course the monkeys got their share as well. He meets me at the Monze post office where we collect our post, then, as we drive the 30 kilometres back home to Lochinvar, we pass the site where Hendrik crashed his Land Rover on October 6. I still bear shoulder pain and a major head scar from that wreck. And, the buggered denture, already twice repaired. That bloody morning of October 6, spent in shock in the Monze Mission Hospital with Hendrik and the Canadian girl, is one Zambian experience I’d like to wipe from my memory. Unfortunate that my concussion did not accomplish that. Roger has paid his house servant’s son, Maimbolwa, 50 ngwee per day, to guard his garden from the monkeys and baboons who love to steal his sweet corn and watermelons. By the look on the kid’s face, money in his pocket, I think he believes he has earned the right to hang around with the big guys in the compound. I hope they are not getting him drunk. Dec. 24. Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania announce mutual lifting of sanctions. Hopefully, some of the tremendous backlog of cargo can now come through to feed these people. Hendrik loans us his Renault so we can drive to Choma to visit our colonial farmer family friends for Christmas. I haven’t visited their farm since June—always such a treat. Now, with the rains, their gardens and crops are luscious and the pastures sparkle with graceful white cattle egrets against a brilliant green. Not only the hospitality, as usual, is especially abundant, but supplies and goodies of all sorts flow easily! A couple of turkeys and two geese for the center of a lovely dinner spread, wine by the crate and special liqueurs, chocolate, Yes CHOCOLATE! in Zambia, candies and cakes. But as I down my Christmas pudding, drenched in brandy butter, I am startled by a hard object in my mouth. I spit it onto the linen tablecloth. Everyone but me has a good laugh. It’s a five ngwee coin—a good luck tradition for the season. The workers in the compound have been given supplies for brewing 100 gallons of “Seven Days,” the potent, fermented, sugar and maize beer that sets them on a drunk. They too are having a good old time. We’re told a neighboring farmer has been “charged” with “hosting” two Rhodesian spies. And it turns out that the “two” were Roger and I when we’d recently visited that farm family— highlighting the instability of our presence as Americans in Zambia. In the past two weeks, it’s said, several people have been detained and jailed for questioning. Suspicion is a monster that snowballs. No one seems particularly optimistic about the outcome of this current political scene, although there is some talk here today of the “supposed” new access to Rhodesia, but somehow, the talk lacks conviction. Landmines near the borders are of great concern and the road bridge at Livingston is in bad repair. Dec. 28. The ceasefire is meant to be formally in force at midnight. Troops are returning to Rhodesia. We’ve heard on the news that gold has soared to over $500 and U.S. gas price average is $1.04. Though an astronomical price to an American (if I recall correctly, it was .38 when I left), it does not begin to compare with the price in the rest of the world. Dec. 30. Roger has arranged for an outboard motor and a boat for a day across the flood plain. Waters are a steely grey, the wind is constant and the clouds turbulent. We hold back for an hour waiting for waves to calm. Oh how I do enjoy watching the antics of marabous as they covet the fried chicken Roger prepared for lunch. Finally, with Hobito Kamfwa as boatman, we set out for the 10-mile trip down river. I’m happily allowing myself the luxury of one whole roll of film today. I try, but fail, to get a shot of a fish eagle that has just snagged a duck. A tight cluster of hippos bob up and down near us, darters fan and dry their oil-less “waterlogged” feathers, 1000’s of zebras and Kafue lechwe7 nonchalantly watch us; goliath herons, wattled cranes, white-faced tree ducks, pink-back pelicans and spur-wing geese line this shoreline. Then, one of the most picturesque African villages I’ve seen. As several dozen fishermen lay out their nets, they show little interest in our presence, but they are glad to sell us a few fish. This reminds me, pleasantly, of my earlier days in the primitive areas of Western Province, when I’d first arrived in Zambia. It’s difficult to believe these people spend their entire lives in what seems to be such an unconnected place. These fishermen complain to us of “no fish because of too much water” (released from the relatively new Heshteshi Dam). They inquire about work on the “outside.” One of them asks for a “New Year’s Gift.” Hobito moves us slowly past a row of about 10 villages, along the edge of the Kafue River, where people bathe, cook nshima, repair their fishing nets, get drunk, nurse babies and plait their hair. One woman jiggles a little dance, especially for us, and all seem enthusiastic in waving as we pass. Now, as we turn the boat for home, a horizontal bank of dark blue clouds drop multiple storms across this plain; above it, great puffs of cumulus clouds twist and turn in the wind and a brilliant blue sunny sky reaches to eternity above it all. We are continuously enmeshed in the peculiar phenomena of hundreds of glistening white spider webs floating across the waters. As we approach our dock, Game Guards, who have been scouting for the past two days, also return from a trip, fishing for relish8. And within their catch is the biggest lindombe any of them has ever seen—surely about forty pounds and four-and-a-half feet long! I’ve got a shocking flamingo-pink wind-sun-burn, the price of one of my most peaceful days in Zambia. Dec. 31. News there has already been a ceasefire violation at the border with a clash between the “guerillas” and the Rhodesian soldiers. Mugabe has had an impressive turnout for a rally on Sunday. I believe there is more trouble in store. I am antsy about remaining in Zambia—at least for now. 1 nshima. Ground maize or corn meal, cooked to thick paste, eaten with the fingers, the most fundamental and affordable diet of the Zambians. It is so basic that is also known as "food." 2 kwacha. Zambian dollar 3 food. Often refers to the most common of Zambian’s diet, nshima. 4 ngwee. Zambian cent. 5 Rhodesia. Use of the nation name, “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia,” after June of 1979, was short-lived. I persisted in the use of “Rhodesia” and “Rhodesians” which seemed more stable among my colleagues 6 mealies. Corn on the cob. 7 lechwe. Rare African antelope which prospers in herds of many of many thousands on the floodplains of Lochinvar National Park. 8 relish. Anything edible, such as meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, fruits, leaves, caterpillars, termites, ground nuts, etc., except for the basic subsistence diet of nshima. |