​On Saturday, 7 September 2024, we travelled to Kilifi County in the Coastal region of Kenya to complete our study on the Mijikenda Kayas. The Study was titled: ‘Traditional Decision-Making as Evaluation: Developing Indigenous Evaluation Methodologies with Kenyan Communities’ and was part of the second phase of the Ford Foundation funding for EvalIndigenous Global Network through the International Organization for Collaboration in Evaluation (IOCE).

​The Chenda Chenda 2024 Celebrations at Kaya Fungo Giriama represented a mix of cultural pride, environmental awareness, and community challenges, reflecting the multi-faceted nature of contemporary Mijikenda society, while still retaining the indigenous nature of the society. The celebrations were marked by several significant highlights. The Chenda Chenda festival is usually held annually on September 9 (Nine-Nine or Kenda Kenda in Kiswahili, Chenda Chenda in Mijikenda, representing the nine tribes oof the Mijikenda) is a crucial event for the Mijikenda community. It serves as a platform to celebrate and preserve the rich cultural heritage of the nine Mijikenda tribes. The nine Mijikenda tribes are: Chonyi, Duruma, Digo, Giriama, Jibana, Kambe, Kauma, Rabai and Ribe.

​The theme for the 2024 festival was "Our Culture is Our Pillar". This theme was chosen to emphasize the importance of cultural values and to address the concern that many youths are not familiar with their cultural roots. The festival aimed to educate younger generations about their heritage and traditions. A key highlight of the 2024 celebrations was the focus on environmental conservation. The Kaya elders had set a goal to plant 20 million trees, though they managed to plant 10 million. This initiative was part of their efforts to raise awareness about climate change and the importance of environmental preservation.

In the lead-up to the 2024 festival, there were strong calls for unity within the Mijikenda community. This emphasis on unity was particularly significant as there had been attempts by some leaders to organize parallel festivals, which the Kaya elders strongly discouraged. Unfortunately, the 2024 celebrations were not without controversy. Some chaos erupted during the festival, with political rifts overshadowing the cultural celebrations. This underscores the complex interplay between cultural events and political dynamics in the region.

​The Chenda Chenda celebrations demonstrated traditional decision-making as part of evaluation processes. The festival was spearheaded by the Coastal Kaya elders, who used the occasion to address crucial issues and outline plans for regional development. This reflects the traditional role of elders in community decision-making and planning.

​The celebrations aimed to bring together the nine Mijikenda sub-tribes, fostering unity. This reflects traditional methods of using cultural gatherings to evaluate inter-tribal relationships and make decisions about cooperation. Trees were planted as part of the festival, showing how traditional events are used to evaluate environmental needs and make decisions about conservation efforts.

​Many headpersons wallow in extreme poverty while they are by tradition the custodians of their ancestral land and its resources. Arguably headpersons are the clan leaders and custodians of Indigenous land. However, the government concentrates on maintaining good relationships with chiefs and offers them many gifts. The tradition of giving gifts to chiefs when one visits is abused. Kavula mu kamwa (a Nsenga adage for opening one’s mouth) is a tradition of giving gifts to traditional leaders as an inducement for them to speak to a visitor. Neither customary law or modern law is specific on what is a reasonable gift for the traditional leaders and that they should declare it or submit an annual declaration of assets as demanded from public servants. Chiefs are built palaces, paid allowances and entitlements to security by government. Clan heads don’t get the same treatment from government! Some have complained about this anomaly. They argue that their counterparts in Mozambique are on government’s payroll.

​The institution of chief was introduced in Nyalugwe chiefdom by British colonisers in the 1930s. It should be the clan heads who should have elected a chief among them. Like in many other tribes, the appointments by colonisers were meant to help them rule. A foreigner was appointed based on his hospitality to the British District Commissioner that visited the area. The colonisers appointed even the Swahili who were former slave traders (e.g. in Lamba speaking communities) and other prominent people in the villages. They made foreigners to be their allies. The foreigners were trusted to keep village registers accurately and assist in collecting the hated poll tax from Indigenous people.

​The Chewa and Bisa (now forming the Nsenga tribe) then came under the rule of the Tande-Shona from Zimbabwe. The hunter Tande group were allies of the Ngoni in the area. They purportedly helped the Ngoni to come into Zambia when Shaka the Zulu was pursuing them. The Tande used to live at the confluence of the Zambezi and Luangwa River before the Ngoni crossed the Zambezi. The village of Chisobe in Luangwa (formerly Feira) was their first settlement in the Luangwa basin. Most people mistakenly think Chisobe is a Chikunda village and falls under chief Mphuka. No, despite the residents mostly speaking Chikunda, it is a Tande village and marks the southern tip of the Nyalugwe chiefdom. The Chikunda was a group composed of runaway slaves from Portuguese plantations that got involved in the slave and gun trade. They raided nearby tribes in what seemed to be revenge attacks for being sold into slavery to the Portuguese by their folks and tribal leaders. They expanded through intermarriages with other tribes around the confluence and became a new tribe in Zambia.

​A lot of smaller tribes like the Tande had claimed to be Ngoni before the British defeated the Ngoni. After the defeat, the name no longer evoked fear and warriorlike ruthlessness. So, they reclaimed their ethnic identity.

​The current laws on traditional governance and land are inherited from the colonial system. The laws give a lot of power to traditional chiefs on villagers and land. Thus, seeds of conflicts were sown by the colonisers and have been propped up by post-independence governments between Indigenous people and foreigners amidst them. They usually flare up during times of succession when a chief passes on. The many wrangles on the post of chief is due to the perception that the position gives one easy access to riches, government gifts and security and royalties from businesspeople. There also many wrangles on the extent of the territories of chiefdoms. The colonial 1958 map of tribal territories in Zambia has been a cause of numerous tribal disputes. The colonisers purportedly did not consult local people when drawing the map. There are, therefore, attempts by the government to remap tribal chiefdoms. However, some chiefs have opposed the move.

​Politicians vying to become councilors and Members of Parliament for the area have been campaigning to get the road graded and bring modern developments to the area once they are voted in. However, none has ever done so or returned to the area to explain why political campaign pledges are not fulfilled. They usually reach remote villages that have no good roads with their 4x4 vehicles and helicopters when campaigning for seats into parliament.

​The elected and traditional leaders are currently able to get away with bad governance and representation. Traditional leaders were made to adhere to good governance practices in the pre-colonial era as they were evaluated by their subjects using traditional evaluation systems. For example, the annual tribal thanks giving ceremonies of the tribes to their ancestors served as evaluation space for ordinary subjects. Some chiefs had court jesters, poets, singers and dancers to remind them to adhere to good governance. Through poetry, singing and dances they were able to inform their leaders how the tribe rated their leadership and management of the tribe. The chiefs had to be good leaders for their subjects to be able to respect them and gift them with the first fruits of their harvests. They were tokens of appreciation for good leadership of the tribe and stewardship of the tribe’s ancestral land. During the time of abundant virgin land, tribal members fled bad leadership and management. They could choose a new leader who would lead them to go and settle elsewhere. Now traditional leaders do not depend on royalties from their subjects but investors in the chiefdoms and from government. The focus on individual interests has led to the death of the Ubuntu spirit. Chiefs are no longer dependent on rating of their performance by the tribe and on their subjects’ good will, but that of politicians and businesspeople. Therefore, the plight of most of their subjects is of no concern to them as they are sustained by high net-worth individuals and organisations. Their subjects, in turn, are unable to hold them accountable on stewardship of ancestral lands and chiefdoms. Bad tribal leadership is even being perpetuated by the government, church, businesses and external donors.

​Equally, the modern elected leaders in local and national governance are alienated from their constituents. The constituents only chance to evaluate their performance on public service delivery is during local and national elections. Due to lack of civic awareness among most citizens and the predominant tendency of voting on tribal lines, many politicians have gotten away with poor performance. Aided by evaluators who have not been helpful to constituents to raise civic awareness and evaluation skill of most citizens, the nation continues to have social and economic challenges. Adherence to the rigours of the western evaluation methodologies have perpetuated bad governance in Zambia and other poorly governed nations. The call by the UN of not leaving anyone behind and that of EvalIndigenous to decolonise evaluation, recognises the factors hindering good national and institutional governance.

​The failure of African democratic governments to be financially independent and provide good governance has left many citizens disillusioned and mistrustful of their leaders. Many African nations lack of progress in social and economic development has led to a return of military coups on the continent. Seven west African nations have had their civilian governments overthrown. Ordinary citizens have flooded streets in jubilation to greet the soldiers. Doesn’t this make one think of the fatigue in voters hoping for good change in governance?

​There is need to go behind the donors’ and politicians’ rhetoric to enhance civic awareness and participation of citizens and especially Indigenous peoples. The government, evaluation community and community-based organisations should enhance the participation of most citizens in governance and especially evaluation. For example, they can teach score carding of the performance of local and national leaders to citizens on a grass root level. The current trend of chiefs and national leaders surrounding themselves with relatives and cronies as advisors, ministers and public assets managers is proving unhelpful to national development. The compromised national governance institutions and civil society do not provide the needed checks and balance. The political parties are legal gangs. The African elites have become the fronts for the perpetuation of colonialism or keys for the entrance of neo-colonialists. The current democratic systems and remnants of colonial governance systems have not served the majority of the people of Africa. They replaced colonisers with the elite of Indigenous communities that are controlled by former colonial masters. They prop up the colonial inequality and white supremacy.

​It is time for citizens to get more involved in civic affairs to ensure good governance. The Indigenous evaluators and holders of traditional knowledge have a major role to play. It is time that the Made in Africa and other Indigenous evaluation methodologies became part of the toolboxes of development evaluation. Interests of Indigenous communities, lands, environments and ways of life shall then be safe guarded. Their aspirations realised.

​The Zambian government, through the DMMU, is supplying relief maize to vulnerable communities in the country. Headman Tiopa had pointed out that all plants had wilted and not just maize.

​115 by 50 Kg bags of maize were being distributed. A bag per household. According to the DMMU, there were 115 households in the area between Chamilala and Pitala villages. However, the local distribution committee’s leadership estimates that they are more than that. Therefore, the committee was redistributing on the basis of what it considered to be a spirit of Ubuntu hospitality. One bag to the elderly and one bag divided between two households to the rest of the settlers. A 50 kg bag of maize should produce a 23-24 kg of milled maize (commonly referred to in Zambia as mealie meal). An average household has about six members. They on average consume three to four bags of mealie meal per month. The mealie meal is only for nshima (porridge), however, to have a full meal and a balanced diet, the nshima is accompanied by relish. The relish is mainly consisting of meat, fish, vegetables and legumes.

​The DMMU has not in the emergency food distribution included other types of food, e.g. lentils (e.g. Nyemba (Indigenous beans)), vegetable (Chiwawa (dried pumpkin leaves)) and other nutritious and energy foods. Therefore, recipients of the DMMU’s relief maize must find other sources of food for the shortfall.

​The DMMU officers were not sure if and when there would be a next consignment. They requested, in their discussion with the representatives of the local distribution committee, that Zambians should be selling their maize to the government’s Food Reserve Agency (FRA) instead of private companies. It’s the FRA that is helping to supply the relief maize to the DMMU.

​According to the DMMU officers, people that are considered able to afford food, such as teachers and hospital workers in the area, were not to be included in the list of recipients.

​The presence of the DMMU in the area shows the total breakdown of the traditional sustenance system of the Nyalugwe chiefdom and our Zambian culture. Many tribes in Zambia hold annual thank giving ceremonies to ancestors and share their harvest with their chiefs as the key representatives of their ancestors. The Nyalugwe chiefdom holds annual Tuwimba ceremony in conjunction with other Nsenga tribes. A chief’s granary is supposed to be the granny of a whole tribe. It’s from the chief’s granary that the tribe used to get relief food in times of drought and hunger.

​The UN, EvalIndigenous, other voluntary development associations and some individuals and philanthropists have been calling for respect of Indigenous community rights. They have called for a major shift in the evaluation practice, its decolonisation. The freeing of the evaluation discipline from the hold of white supremacists needs concerted efforts of well-meaning stakeholders both in the south and north, developmental institutions, practitioners, Indigenous communities and businesses. This shift needs more research in Indigenous knowledge and the development of the curriculum in Indigenous evaluation. The admission of Indigenous knowledge and evaluation methodologies in the evaluation practice will be a realisation of the major shift.

​EvalIndigenous has embarked on enhancing the visibility of Indigenous evaluators and their communities. It has also been strengthening them to assert their rights in the the development evaluation process. It shares it ‘Ten Questions to Ask Evaluators and Development Intervenors. It has also developed an African Evaluation Protocol. Its work with Indigenous communities is being highly appreciated. Like many non-profits, it has the organisational and environmental challenges. They mightily block the full realisation of its programmes and projects. Therefore, it needs help from well-wishers to overcome them. Otherwise, it shall become another addition to the statistics of failed UN decades of development. Become a casualty of the historical walls against marginalised Blacks, people of colour, Indigenous and poor peoples of the world. It can become a casualty of its own grand ambitions.

​Resource mobilisation is a major challenge of non-profits during the corona and post-corona pandemic era. Therefore, I very much thank the Ford Foundation. It has offered the much-needed help to EvalIndigenous, its members and their communities. Now we can make progress in the decolonisation of evaluation. I am a recipient and very grateful for that help. I am now able to be present in my community in its time of need and contribute to finding viable solutions.

​Due to civic activities, there is a call on me by some Nyalugweans to lead them in finding a lasting solution to many of the developmental challenges of the chiefdom. Some believe that I could use my global network to find donors to fund emergence food supplies as well as viable drought resistant agro-schemes in the chiefdom.

​There is also a call for a unifier to bring the different ages and sectors of our people together. I have been proposed to lead my extended family back to our Indigenous ways of Ubuntu. The emphasis is now setting aside individual interests and getting back to placing at the centre of all our actions and thoughts only communal interests. Unity and unselfishness are recognised as of cardinal importance in solving communal challenges. What is your education and professional expertise for if you cannot find solutions to the developmental needs of your community?

​The call for a unifier is also a call for the holding of a traditional ceremony. A communal mass to request for our ancestors’ forgiveness for having turned our backs on our Indigenous ways. The idea scares me. Why choose me to lead the process? A Tuwimba is ordinarily led by traditional leaders and sages. The financial, infrastructural and organisational demands of holding a tribal ceremony are very much beyond my personal abilities.

​Indeed, the chiefdom needs to foster a spirit of unity and altruism to find communal solutions to the challenges brought about by climate change.

​Most of the people of Nyalugwe chiefdom need urgent help to be able to have food until the end of the next farming season. They need help to avoid starving to death. The DMMU that is assisting them has insufficient food. It’s also only supplying starch (maize for mealie meal) but no other food stuffs required for a person’s good health. It, therefore, need the help of other institutions and well-wishers. Soup kitchens need to be set up in the vulnerable settlements, especially for children, different abled, mentally challenged and the elderly.

​For long term solutions, the government and its partners need to start educating farmers to start planting drought resistant crops, venture in communal water retention’s ventures and use equipment that shall raise the production of food crops from their land.

​There need for a change of behavior from the current sense of entitlement among national and traditional leaders. There’s currently a winner take all attitude. Subjects and citizens also need to change their behaviour. They need to be civic aware and proactive. They should be assertive and be demanding good governance from their leaders.

​Traditional land is held by the chiefs on behalf of all members of their tribe. State land is held by the republican president on behalf of all Zambians. However, in most cases, traditional or Indigenous land is treated as the private property of a chief and not that it’s held on trust on behalf of the tribe. Their subjects are also not strong enough and politically empowered to question this anomaly and fight for their rights.

​Therefore, just a few members of royal establishments and the elite that live in royal opulence amid squaller and abject underdevelopment. Imagine the difference it would make to a poor Nyalugwe communities if those benefiting from the resources of their Indigenous land instead of spending their income on owning planes or expensive vehicles or many residences in town or lavishly clubbing, they could spend that money on reducing poverty including hunger in the community or developing the chiefdom.

​The Nyalugwe chiefdom is not in a conflict zone. Zambia is a peaceful nation and richly endowed with numerous and abundant resources. With good leadership, a return to patriotism and the Ubuntu spirit, the chiefdom and Zambia can overcome the current challenges.

​I kept a look out for the signs of not usually spoken about and hidden social and economic matters during my May 2024 visit to the chiefdom. In national underdevelopment and chaos there is an orderly game and powerful hidden forces in control.

​Driving from Lusaka to Nyimba, I noted a lot of charcoal bags for sale. The roadside communities are coping with the loss of livelihood by turning to charcoal burning. The government has banned charcoal burning.

Some of the people in the chiefdom like in other rural areas of Zambia have resorted to charcoal burning. There is high demand for charcoal as a result of inadequate electricity supply in urban areas. Loadshedding introduced by the national electricity corporation to ration electricity is for 8 to 14 hours a day. There is inadequate water in the Kariba dam to ensure sustainable generation of electricity and meet the demand. The trade in charcoal is worsening the deforestation and related climate change. There is need to sensitise people against engaging in charcoal burning as it adds to deforestation and adverse climate change. Long term measures need to be found quickly by the governments, civil society, businesses, and citizens to save lives and ensure sustainable communities.

​A roadblock was established on Wednesday the 15th of May at Uyanya village to stop motorists ferrying charcoal across the Luangwa bridge. The opening ceremony was attended by Chief Nyalugwe and his headpersons. There is a police and council roadblock at the Luangwa bridge market for livestock and aliens, and a military one a short distance west of the market for the much sought after hard wood, mukula.

​The production of charcoal is very labour intensive. Firstly, cutting of the trees. Secondly, gathering and piling them in one place. Thirdly, covering the pile with soil and leaving vents for firing and air intake. Fourthly, setting the pile on fire. The charcoal burners have to sleep at the kiln to ensure that the wood does not over burn and turn into ash. Lastly, when they are certain that the wood has turned into charcoal, they remove the soil. Then wait for it to cool down and start packing the charcoal into 25 kg sacks.

​Like in any dusty industry, there is silicosis. The charcoal dust causes difficult to cure respiratory illnesses. The villagers are aware that the prolonged exposure to wood smoke and charcoal dust harms their health. However, they argue that they have no other choice of a sustainable livelihood.

​While the trade in charcoal involves the poor, the trade in the hard wood involves sophisticated traditional leaders, politicians and foreigners. Just like when there was much poaching of the elephants for ivory in the 1980-90s leading to the depletion of its elephant population in the Nyalugwe chiefdom, mukula trees that used to be plenty are now very hard to find in the chiefdom. There is also no sign of owls and nightjars during starry night drives. Where could we find answers on such matters? Is it a taboo to ask questions on the disappearing communal resources? I have observed that we generally censor ourselves and are unable to talk maybe due to taboos and superstition. By bewitching ourselves with fear and expecting others or good supernatural forces to intervene for us and correct wrongs, negative forces take advantage. A researcher needs a lot of patience and a long time with a Nyalugwe villager respondent to be trusted and told what actually is going on.

​Wood cutters and charcoal burners should be encouraged to replant trees in their areas of operation. It would help reduce deforestation. They should think of future generations as well and leave an inheritance of good forests.

​I had heard about the shadow economy in the chiefdom. So, I drove to Kasansamula village to find out more. Though it is an open secret, however, it is taboo to talk to strangers about it. Exposing clandestine economic systems can be very dangerous for individuals. Where the financial stakes are very high, people thought to be endangering the main players’ income can get into trouble. In an underdeveloped nation like Zambia, where the majority may be financially challenged, money talks and the truth sayers are hated. Even if a person collecting data is trying to correct financial and social wrongs in order to protect rights of communities from abuse by powerful forces, poor people can turn against that person and protect their abusers. Poverty can make Judas Iscariot look like a saint.

​I had heard of the gold belt from Shona land in Zimbabwe that runs through the Muchinga escarpment. From the confluence of Zambezi and Luangwa Rivers in the south to the Rift valley of East Africa. Nyalugwe chiefdom from the confluence of Lusemfwa and Luangwa River and up to the confluence of Luangwa River and Nyimba stream near Luembe has been known to have deposits of gold.

​The infamous fugitive, John ‘Changa changa’ Clark, and equally infamous investor, Cecil Rhodes, are said to have eyed the gold in the Luangwa valley, especially in the old Petauke area. Petauke then stretched from a place that was called Nyakolwe (now Luembe chiefdom) to Charter land (the area around Minga up to Mozambique in new Petauke district). Nyalugwe chiefdom was part of Petauke district under the Ngoni. The Ngoni chief fled after learning of the massacre of Ngoni impis and the British District Commissioner entered the area. The Commissioner was appointing chiefs among the friendly people and traders.

​Cecil Rhodes had set out to weakness the most feared tribe that controlled the area and trade, the Ngoni. With the help of the British army that was stationed in Malawi, he was able to eliminate the threat against his domination. The Ngoni impis armed only with spears were no match against guns in the 1898-9 war. Prince Singo and his wife were executed to send a chilly message to the other tribes. Singo was the commander of the impis (Ngoni warrior). The day of his execution, 4 February 1898, is a tribal day of mourning. He is now considered as a national hero and one of the first freedom fighters. Being unable to raid weaker tribes for food as weaker tribes sought British protection, King Mpezeni was forced to sign an agreement of subjection to British rule. Without their herd of cattle, the economic mighty of the Ngoni based on cattle instantly diminished, and they sought work in the mines and farms owned by the British. Some of the impis were conscripted into Rhodes’ police force and sent to control their war cousin tribe, the Ndebele of Zimbabwe. They were considered a threat to British access to the coal field in Zimbabwe and copper regions in Zambia.

​Kasansamula is about 10 km west of Tiopa Mukamwa village and perched on the eastern bank of Luangwa River. The road to it from Great East Road, a stretch of 10 km has not been maintained for almost 40 years. The village is usually forgotten by politicians until days nearing the general elections. That is when its residents become the darlings of politicians vying for votes for seats in the local council and national assembly.

​There is a roadblock of game scouts (forest wardens) about 3 km from the junction of Nyalugwe and Great East Road. The road also leads to two safari camps.

​Kasansamula’s main road’s entrance looks like time has ignored it. The compounds are still having a precolonial look. Grass thatched mud caked circular buildings in small open areas. Not many iron roofing sheets in sight. Modern building materials though perceived by many villagers as signs of wealth are an addition to the carbon footprint.

​The signs of modernity are a water pump, a primary school and the deputy headmaster’s home. Headman Petulo’s home is not different from the other low-level structures. It was mostly built from local forest products. I had noted the same about Headman Nyalugwe’s home when I visited it at Nyalugwe HQ.

​The pre-historic looking Kasansamula village had an abandoned look. A classroom of pupils and a lot of young men mingling at a small store probably selling alcohol were the main signs of residence. Behind that profound façade of underdevelopment, we discovered an invasion of mostly urban aliens. The young men at the store were part of the illicit gold buyers from urban areas. They were camped in tents around the village. Some were renting the huts. Most of the villagers had shifted into the nearby forests and dry riverbeds. They were the miners. They were enduring hard labour and the extreme cold nights in the valleys of streams and hills. Hope of striking it rich one being their driver.

​The process of extracting gold from the ore involves using mercury. The villagers are oblivious to the dangers of using the chemical. The miners’ health and drinking water was at risk of mercury poisoning. It is the same case with the use of agro-chemicals. Most peasant farmers are unable to read the warning on the packs of chemicals. They inadvertently harm their own health and the health of their ancestral lands. The resulting strange illnesses are mainly attributed to witchcraft. Specialised hospitals are far away in the capital.

​Like in other parts of Zambia where mining is going on, except for the royal establishments and politicians and their cronies, the locals have not much to show for their ancestral land being richly endowed with minerals and wildlife. They remain abjectly poor and their settlements lacking good roads, telecommunication facilities, and other infrastructures while the aliens that buy mining products from them at very low prices or operate businesses in their land show rich rewards for engaging in commerce, mining and tourism.

​The extended family system has broken down. Everyone was for themselves and the micro-family. The extended family was a social media one of mere observers. No longer was it offering the needed social security to the poor, widows, orphans, physically and mentally challenged people and childless people. Very few of the elite and high net worth descendants in the urban areas and diaspora have close bonds to their ancestral rural land. They are very much aware of the underdevelopment of their Nyalugwe chiefdom. However, like many people whose parents long left the ancestral homes, they have no close bonds to their land. They talk more about helping ending poverty there, but lack action. Even those that act, their contributions are very negligible in ending poverty in their chiefdom. For example, Mrs. Leke Mwale, a widow of the Nyalugwe HQ village, narrated to me how she was struggling alone to look for food and firewood.

​The Nyalugwe chiefdom is in the Nyimba district of the Eastern province of Zambia. It is about 300 Km from Lusaka, the capital. It has the usual characteristics of underdevelopment. Bad road networks, low calibre public education system, high unemployment, inadequate health facilities, no electricity grid, early age marriages and lack of telecommunication infrastructures. It is partly located in the Luangwa basin. The Muchinga escarpment is running beside the Luangwa River. It is rich in flora and fauna, mineral and precious stones’ deposits. If the leaders were patriotic and practiced the spirit of Ubuntu, the chiefdom would be very much economically developed. Intermarriages during the precolonial, colonial and post-colonial eras made the chiefdom a tapestry of ethnic groups. The original inhabitants were bush men. The Bantu ethnic groups migrated from West-Central Africa some 4–5000 years ago and filled Sub-Saharan Africa. The Chewa and Bisa displaced the bushmen in the current chiefdom. The current rulers have less than 200 years in the Luangwa basin.

​Mrs. Leke Mwale’s mentally ill son was not receiving any medical care. Her home was once the marvel of the village during colonial time. It was the first palace built by the British administration for the chief. The plaster of cement was peeling off to leave the reddish clay bricks. The streams of reddish sand starting from the wall near the house and its rusty metal sheets showed that nature was gaining lost ground. Her remaining family members were surviving on throw aways of the maize grinding mill in Nyalugwe Hq village. She had to go to the mill and gather gaga (by product of maize milling that is used for stock feed) to cook nshima for her family. Relatives and neighbours were unable to assist them as they had no food. Most of the villagers had a poor harvest during the 2023/24 farming season. The effect of Al Nino was very visible. Southern Africa has been ravaged by a severe drought. Most of the people I met lamented that they are going to die this year if they do not receive food assistance. The required help is for this year up to the end of the 2024/25 farming season. God willing there shall be good rains in the 2024/25 farming season and better harvests.

​Reeling from the adverse effects of the Corona pandemic, the drought has thrust itself to become the newest major factor in the devastation of the social and economic sectors of Southern African countries. Many people in the region depend on subsistence farming. Many of their crops failed to grow and not just maize. Exposed is bad economic planning and management on the individual and national level. Exposed is the folly of ignoring Indigenous knowledge. Drought is not a new phenomenal.

​The ancestral farming and food preservations methods enabled Indigenous communities to withstand the impacts of climate change. However, modern agriculture with its dependency on rain fed farming and daily shopping of food has failed to respond to need of people during current droughts. The agriculture extension services offered by the government have been exposed as weak. The donor funded agriculture projects and programmes evaluations have also been found wanting.

A close observation of climate change’s effects on the village of Nyalugwe showed that apart from obtaining urgent supplies of food, there are other developmental challenges that have been exposed by the drought and corona pandemic that the local population, businesses, government and non-governmental organisations with interests in the area need to urgently tackle. The corona virus pandemic had forced the shutdown of the foreign tourist dependent tourism industry in the chiefdom. Climate change has knocked out the remaining livelihood of farming and fishing.

​Most villagers have no alternative source of income. The women have stopped making clay cooking utensils. They also abandoned their bead making and clay pot making industries. The men also no longer engage in iron foundry and making of spears, knives, hoes and other household items, and reed baskets and mats. They no longer make reed mats for sale. There are cheaper and better imports.

​Fishing and hunting were the ancestral livelihood. However, they now need licenses. Not many can afford them. Due to overfishing, the fish catch is also low. They are no longer able to freely gather forest products for sale. Most of the virgin forest land with abundant forest products around the village is currently owned by foreigners.

​Climate change has seen the mushrooming of enterprises that pitch helping Indigenous people to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. In Nyimba district, there is the Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO). It initially organised villagers into cooperatives to sell agro-products for its factory. It pitched elevating the standard of living for cooperative members and helping them with modern farming methods to beat climate change. However, that did not happen. Members still use traditional methods and inefficient tools to farm. They are now 

​Community game ranches are being introduced. A neo-biocolonialism is emerging in the climate change mitigation ventures. Unknowledgeable communities in modern business are being preyed on by sophisticated enterprises and non-governmental organisations. This goes on despite government institutions and local chambers of agriculture, commerce and industries that should protect them being aware.

​Most of the members of these communities are not aware of hectares declared and the amount of money that COMACO is realising from their land. COMACO has not been conducting the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) process well. It has purportedly been just promising nice things to signatories of its beneficiaries’ agreements without specifying what these nice things are. ' REDD+ (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) schemes are all legally based on proper FPIC of participating communities being carried out.

​This is contrary to their presentation of their REDD+ approach and United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Due to weaknesses of royal establishments, COMACO is able to get away with excessive exploitation of Indigenous peoples. Traditions of not asking royal establishments to be transparent and account for moneys realised from dealings with investors on behalf of the people have also not helped commoners benefit from their ancestral lands. The names of communities keep on being used in transactions that only benefit a few. National commerce, industry, forest, and fisheries policies are not helpful to most Indigenous people. There are mostly poor. Therefore, they help perpetuate the colonial and neocolonial exploitation of locals by external investors.

​COMACO is acquiring large areas of land in contrast to what chiefs are giving to locals. This will in the end reduce the amount of land for residences, farming, and developments of the locals in future. For example, the upgrading of a rural health centre in the Mvuwa – Chamilala area into a hospital will lead to major social and economic developments in the area. The 7 to 10 Km behind the hospital to the border will be needed by the community and newcomers in the area for residences, shops, offices and entertainment. However, it won’t be available if it is held by COMACO. The royal establishment and civic managers should be able to see this as a seed for future civil conflicts between the community and company. The youth may begin to resent what their royal establishments, elders and civic managers are doing. Giving away land in return for menial jobs, small amounts of cash, cell phones, motor bikes and used vehicles.

​COMACO’s virtual board shows how huge the Indigenous land being used without Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local inhabitants to sell carbon credits to polluters abroad is. They openly describe their carbon strategy. However, it is also not explaining to communities or communities do not understand the restrictions on future usage by local people that is intrinsic to the REDD. If it is difficult for most literate people with even access to internet to understand what REDD and climate change issues are about, what about Indigenous communities that have challenges in general education and having access to information?

​The local politicians and traditional leaders, and top government official are aware of the concerns of the villagers on COMACO’s purported purchase of a large tract of land from the Luangwa bridge to Kacholola. COMACO’s activities in the area disregard the objections of the local community and their chant of COMACO NO! COMACO is making efforts to even expand its presences in the area. It is disregarding this communal objection and approaching individuals to sell land to it. This is starting conflicts between family members fearing a loss of their heritage and those that want easy money.

​The Catholic church's Commission for Justice, Peace and Development, a much powerful ally of the poor, had during a meeting with the Headmen and journalists in December 2022 at the St. Joseph Mission volunteered to investigate, remedy these shortcomings, and sensitise people on FPIC. However, later the Lay Priest in Charge, Mr Lungu, had revealed that the matter was an important issue requiring national and not village organs to investigate and facilitate change.

​Unemployed young men beg for alms or money for a drink. There is a high rate of alcohol abuse among the youth. Unemployment is very high. Oddly, though some villagers were lamenting expressing fear that they shall die if relief food is not sent there, maize grain is still being used by some to brew illicit gin in 200 litre metal drums. The concentration by mainly males in the high consumption of alcohol retards their villages’ developmental progress. It also exacerbates their personal social, health and financial challenges. The habitual abuse of alcohol among Indigenous communities is a global challenge that is usually ignored.

There are a lot of early marriages and divorces. The teenage girls are physically, educationally, financially, and socially disadvantaged as they have to cope with motherhood at a very early age. The youths need a lot of sensitising and mentoring to turn their lives around.

​Guided by Aliyele Daka the Coxswain, we first crossed the Luangwa River by a leaking banana boat to Nyamwalika village on the west side of Nyalugwe Hq village. Aliyele informed us that the boat is owned by the Nyimba District Council. The council has been notified that the fibre is cracking but has not repaired it or bought a new one. It is meant to help mainly school children and pregnant mothers to easily cross the river. During the rainy season when the Luangwa bursts its banks, it is very difficult for the children and those seeking to access the clinic to be rowed across it. As we scoop out the water from the boat, we notice that the sand that settles at its bottom is glittery. Aliyele, caution us to beware of the vicious crocodiles larking in the murky brown water of the river. They are the protectors of the river and the reason none of the villagers try to pan for gold and other minerals in the river.

​We did not see crocodiles or other animals or any tourists around the river. Though we had heard two small planes flying east of the river. We assumed tourism was still to recover from the effects of the corona pandemic and that crocodiles were hiding in the coffee-coloured river. The safari camps on the Luangwa River are mostly owned by foreigners.

​Women in villages near the murky and crocodile infested Luangwa River fetch water from it. Interventions by the government and non-governmental organisations that sink boreholes in the villages have failed to help them get safe clean water. In Tiopa and Nyalugwe HQ villages we saw that the water pumps had broken down. Broken down Indian hand pumps for water are a common sight in rural areas. There are no local mechanics to repair them. After sinking the boreholes, the donors do not help maintain them. The village development committees have no budgets to repair them.

​Specialist medical treatment is not accessible to villagers. A father showed us in Nyamwalika his son of about 6-8 years whose body had swelled up massively. He was having a liver problem. The Nyalugwe HQ’s village clinic was not able to help. He needed to be evacuated to a bigger medical facility. The father lamented that he could not afford transport and medical expenses.

​I observed that in the Nyalugwe HQ and at Tiopa Mukamwa village, they had mental health patients. There could be more cases as I have not visited a large number of villages in the chiefdom. The ones noted are younger men and seemingly their illness and plight were either underestimated or ignored. The man called Chimwene (thought to have come from Malawi) walks between Nyalugwe HQ to St Joseph Mission (24 km) preaching to no one in particular. There is a mental health hospital in Lusaka, Chainama Hospital.

​The terrains are harsh, and our vehicle suffered the loss of the spider bearing of the left CV joint during the drive to Tiopa village from Nyalugwe HQ. The vehicle limped to the nearest mechanic about a 100 Kms from Nyalugwe Hq in Nyimba.

​We also had to walk sometimes long distances in hilly terrains in the Luangwa basin where my Toyota Regius could not manage. There were no roads to some of the settlements. Being habitually desk bound and from an urban area, it was physically very challenging. Those that want to walk along the Luangwa River to be in sync with nature or reduce weigh would have found the walks very beneficial. Why don’t the villagers not think of coming up with local village tourism and walks along the river and hills?

​The four goats slowly headed toward the gazebo. The old woman, moving just as slowly, started to stand up in her gazebo. Her gazebo served as a kitchen as well as the meeting and eating place. She held her traditional wrapper, the chitenge, with both hands tightly around her neck and chest. The chitenge was faded and earthen coloured. It would have long been torn or rotten if it had been woven of cotton; it had withstood multiple usage. Bare footed she stepped out to meet them. It was a bony left limb that had lifted up the chitenge and displayed ribs devoid of much flesh. Her flesh was wrinkled much more around her tummy. The tummy was almost touching her spine. The skin was tight around her head and the deep lobs around her mouth gave her a perpetual unhappy look. Her unplaited crinkly and kinky hair was wholly white. No comb seemed to have touched the hair for a long while. She had not worn the traditional head-ker-chief.

Two of the adult goats leaped away. The two kids mehed at her as they lazily eyed the skeleton in front of them. She shouted at them, and they leaped off to join their parents. After shooing them, she went back into her gazebo.

​She tightened the thin chitenge covering her body as she sat down on the bare cold floor. She then looked forlornly at the thick dark porridge in her small aluminum pot and boiled pumpkin leaves on her small plastic plate. They were leftovers from her meal yesterday. The national staple food is maize - gaga. The thick porridge cooked using maize flour was called nshima. The dried pumpkin leaves were usually cooked in times of scarcity of relish. The ancient ones used to dry foods in times of plenty. However, not many people do this anymore. The dry pumpkin leaves are usually cooked with a seasoning of salt and additional ingredients of tomatoes, onions and cooking oil. Apart from coarse salt, she had no additional ingredients. 

​She faced the goats and waved threateningly at them. The nearby chickens and sparrows instinctively jumped and screeched away. However, the goats eyeing her pots with hungry eyes remained motionless. When there was no grass in the bush around the village, livestock were usually fed on by-products of maize milling and left overs from meals. In times of abundance, gaga was fed to livestock. However, it was their gaga that she had used to cook the nshima.

​She muttered as she looked around on the earthen floor for something to throw at them. The centre of the gazebo where the cold ashes were had no stones. She had no energy to fetch firewood from the forest. She had no child or dependent to help her fetch water from the river and free forest products from the forest. The villagers had to circumvent for many kilometres the nearby foreign owned safari camps to be able to have access to free forest products.

​She sighed as she held her wrapper tightly around her willow body. The sun was lazy that morning. She called out a name. There was no response. She picked up the utensils and walked over to a rondavel. She again called out a name. A male voice boomed angrily behind the door.

​“Food! Here is food for you my son,” she quietly responded.

A lanky man came around the door. He held his belt less pair of trousers by its front and eyed her blankly. A tattered shirt covered his bony upper. She greeted and proffered the pot to him.  He grabbed the pot without a word and quickly sat down. 

​The doorway showed that no broom had ever touched the floor of the building. The grey clay was peeling off the hut. Reeds weaved around the wooden poles were being attacked by termites and moths. in some parts. He forked the nshima with his dirty hands and shoved it into his bearded mouth. Earth and body oil had turned his hair and beard into dry mats. They had coated his body thickly. Water was a stranger to his body. 

​“You shall choke! Eat slowly. And there is relish here,” she said quietly to him as she placed the plastic plate in front of him.

​He looked at it with disdain. Snorted deeply, picked up the plate and threw it away. The goats scrambled for the vegie. 

​The old woman covered her face and u-turned. The goats got closer to her son. Some rubbed themselves on the rondavel’s wall while keeping an eye on the eating man. 

​“Hmmm, she has a job. He has finished her pots and cups,” said a bystander to no one in particular.

​Her son was renowned for breaking utensil in rage when he was not happy with his mother’s provisions.

​The old woman glanced at the speaker and thrust her chin up and her tightened lips putted up. She muttered as she heard the thump of a drum in the distance. It competed with the blare of gospel music from the speakers of the newly opened church.

​“Psalm seven verses to nine says…”

​Instantly a small aluminium pot came flying in the air and he ducked. It narrowly missed him, but he continued speaking. 

“Hmmm, it’s early in the morning and they have started dancing and drinking,” the bystander remarked to no one in particular.

​The old woman walked over from the gazebo and picked up the pot. She muttered as she looked up at the man facing her son’s door. As she walked back, she looked towards the local gin distillery as the throbbing of a bass drum rose up. Her voice was low but filled with anger as she spoke to no one in particular,

​“No, no, no, no! You cannot play such sacred music at a drinking hut. That is mocking the ancestral spirits! How can they stop being angry with us if we continue behaving badly. I swear upon the graves of my children, this world is going to end one day badly!”  

​Another drum joined the first drum. Her heart started thumping when the lead drum sounded. Its throbbing soprano vibration made even her son come out of his hut and look towards the bush. She recognised the beat of the call to ancestral spirits. She hurriedly sat down. There was a baboon’s bark and sounds of rattles. The usher merged from the bush followed by dancers of the male secret society, nyau.  The society was banned in colonial times as its rituals and dances were considered demonic by Christian missionaries. In the days when traditions were adhered to, they only appeared from the graveyard when there was a fool moon. They would enter the village for the masquerade dance celebrating life.

​“We shall all die of hunger this year,” sung the lead nyau.

​Such scenes are not unusual in the unfolding adverse impacts of climate change in rural Zambia. The drought had worsened food scarcity and poverty. Many of the villagers talked of past droughts in the decade cycles of drought. They consider the last rainy season as the worst in history. I visited Nyalugwe HQ, Kautukilo, Nyamwalika, Mvuwa, Tiopa Mukamwa and Kacholola’s Elina villages in the Nyalugwe chiefdom and Tangulani village in chief Ndake’s chiefdom. Both are chiefdoms of the Nsenga ethnic group of Nyimba district. It is one of the rural areas in Zambia dependent on farming and mostly adversely affected by drought. The wondered how they will survive until the next harvest in March-April 2025. They requested for urgent help from the government, urban relatives, and well-wishers. They may not have been aware that the government had already declared the 2023/24 farming season a disaster and was making efforts to supply relief food to vulnerable communities.

​Though the residents of Kautukilo also had a poor farming season, they had a bumper harvest of indigenous rice. It is grown in small quantities along the Chilinga stream north of their village. Elephants and other herbivories seem no longer to reach the villagers’ gardens. The chiefdom does not have chigayo (milling equipment) to mill rice. It has several for maize milling. It’s the Portuguese that had brought maize to the chiefdom. The indigenous people found maize easier to grow than their indigenous rice, rye, sorghum and millet. Some of the villagers argued that if they had continued growing sorghum and millet, they would have a better yield even during the drought. They also explained that they used to survive on usala and usika (white roots that are carrot like), wild vegetables and wild fruits in time of a drought. The masau berry grows widely along the Luangwa River. It is loved by humans and herbivores. The masau trees are fruiting and their fruits will ripen in June-July. The villagers hope to gather and sell them in urban areas.

Gratitude on data collection assistance on climate change in the Luangwa valley
There is not much data on the effects of climate change and economics of climate change in Zambia or the rest of Africa. I have been using my own resources to start studying and filming the effects of climate change in the Luangwa basin. I am grateful to receive a pledge of support from EvalIndigenous to support my efforts. This has been made possible through its receipt of a 2024 grant from the Ford Foundation.   

We have conducted the Mijikenda Study at the Kenyan Coast and we are back in the Capital. I was with the same Research Assistant with whom we worked the last time on this, Grace Wanjiru Murigo. We were supposed to have conducted research in the remaining 7 Kayas of the Mijikenda, but given the logistical challenges and cost implications, given the rise in cost of everything in Kenya, we decided to visit 4 of the 7 Kayas.

However, we increased the number of Informants from 2 per Kaya to 3, which included: Kaya Elder (Man), Kaya Elder (Woman) and a Youth for each Kaya. So in total, we were supposed to conduct 12 Interviews. On the final day of fieldwork, it rained heavily and the roads became impassable, which made us spend substantial time getting our car back to the road. This therefore meant that we arrived late and instead of doing three interviews, we managed only 2 and then sent the Questionnaire to the third person to fill and share back with us. So in total, we still had 12 interviews, but only 11 Video clips.