I’m Lozi. “Technically” there is no such thing as ’Namibian Lozi’, Silozi is simply what could be called the lingua franca of the Zambezi, yet here I am, Lozi being the only ‘tribe’ I truly identify by, and for the most part, Namibia being the only home I’ve known.
My maternal grandmother was a Zambian Lozi woman who lived in a small Zambian village called Simungoma, which is West of Zambia, between the small towns of Sesheke and Mwandi. Until my grandmother passed on in 1999, my Christmas was spent in Simungoma. We border Zambia at the Wenela border post, which is barely five kilometres out of Katima Mulilo. What this means is, on any day, I could literally just decide to take a long walk, and I’d be in Zambia. Even Simungoma is, I think, about an hour’s drive, at most, from the border, so for these reasons, when I counted countries I’d been to, I wouldn’t count Zambia, just because it was so close to home, and in some ways, it was home, and I simply hadn’t ventured into it far enough. I’d been to the Victoria Falls, but as a teenager taken by my uncle and so I felt that also didn’t count. So because I have a travel repertoire to build, I needed to change that and 2012 found me planning a proper trip to Zambia.
My first stop was Lusaka. Since 2012, I’ve been to Lusaka at least three other times and I don’t think I’ve seen even a quarter of what’s there to see, that’s how big it is. The streets are busy and crowded, and traffic is heavy. Thanks to the heavy traffic and long distances, one minibus ride(they also have the minibus taxi system) from one location to another, had me thinking up an entire five-year plan, that’s how much time I had just to myself and my thoughts.
The reason I start this piece with my Lozi heritage is because Lusaka wasn’t my final destination for my first ‘proper’ Zambian trip, it was simply a pit stop, the final destination was the small town of Mongu, further in the Western Province of Zambia. Mongu is beautiful, the views of the Barotse plains are just breathtaking! As a town, I would call it quaint. It’s almost like a makeshift town, where anyone could just wake up with a business idea one day and set it up, that’s what I really loved most about it. The atmosphere there is one of endless promise, potential and possibility, only downside is that for years, potential is all it’s had and so there’s a small fear that it’s all it will ever have- untapped potential!
Mongu is also the capital of ‘Barotseland’, it is the home of the Silozi speaking people, and so I felt pretty at home, even though I still spoke more English than Silozi there, for two reasons:
- I really just express myself better in English
- Thinking you can speak Silozi in Mongu, is like (I imagine) going to England and thinking you can speak English.
In Namibia, I hardly ever introduce myself as Munukayumbwa, because a lot of people (even those from my region) have a hard time saying it right and I can be a bit fussy about how my names are said, even Mimi, you have to say it how I say it! I had no such problems in Mongu, not only did the people there possibly say ‘Munukayumbwa’ even more correctly than I say it, but whenever anyone doubted my ‘Loziness’ because of the “strange” way I speak both Silozi and English (I don’t have a Zambian accent, but I don’t have a Namibian or “Caprivian” one either, I just talk), I would only need to say “kina Munukayumbwa” (I’m Munukayumbwa) and all doubt would disappear, because as far as Lozi names go, Munukayumbwa is pretty legit… it became a confirmation of my identity. And since in Namibia the Lozi aren’t really considered a tribe, it was nice to be in a place where I could simply be a Lozi woman!
Mongu made such an impression on me, in 2014 I went back there to stay an entire year, there’s a certain simplicity to it that is incredibly charming. I would walk through the markets, buy a cob of maize straight from the fire or a pack of groundnuts and wish I had grown up there. I could see myself as a young girl there, holding hands with some young boy, walking home from school, having him buy me candy and maize. I realise now that it might be because it’s a lot like Katima in some ways and I never had the experience of growing up there and so I guess I liked that!
Zambia is beautiful, it is home to national treasures like the Kafue National Park and the Ngonye falls in Sioma (also in the Western Province), while the Ngonye falls are not nearly as celebrated as the Victoria falls, they are just as beautiful and I consider them one of Zambia’s best kept secrets.
Munukayumbwa Mwiya, commonly known as ‘Mimi’ does not quite consider herself a writer, but loves to write because writing is her escape and refuge, it’s where she runs to, to find herself, and it’s how she best expresses her innermost thoughts. Writing is very personal for her, which is why she journals a whole lot more than she writes on any other platform, including sharing a lot of her thoughts on Facebook, and she sometimes blogs at ramblingsofapotentialycrazyperson.blogspot.com. She also loves to travel and tries to do so whenever and wherever possible.