Chipata

The hills around Chipata were Chewa country, linked to the old Maravi states, when the Ngoni arrived in the 1830s after their long migration north from what is now South Africa. The branch led by Mpezeni settled in these highlands, and his chiefdom dominated the district.

In 1897 Mpezeni rose against the British South Africa Company with a force of over 4,000 warriors and was defeated; the company then established a fortified boma, or government station, on the ridge above the plain, naming it Fort Jameson after Leander Starr Jameson. The town was the capital of North-Eastern Rhodesia from 1900 until 1911, when the administration was consolidated at Livingstone, after which it settled into the quieter role of a district and later provincial centre in farming country worked by European settlers and African farmers.

After independence Fort Jameson was renamed Chipata, and it became the capital of Eastern Province. Its position has shaped everything since: it stands at the end of the Great East Road from Lusaka, close to the Malawian border at Mwami, and at the turning for the Luangwa Valley, so goods, buses and traders move through constantly. A railway link to the Malawian network at Mchinji, about 35 km long, opened in August 2011 and made the town Zambia's eastern railhead. Growth in recent decades has come from trade, farming, government offices and the tourism traffic heading north to South Luangwa.

Chipata is the centre of Ngoni life in Zambia, and the descendants of Mpezeni's kingdom keep an unusually visible ceremonial tradition. Nc'wala, usually held at the end of February at Mutenguleni on the outskirts of the town, is the first-fruits ceremony: the paramount chief tastes the new harvest, and regiments in animal skins perform the stamping, shield-beating dances that recall the Ngoni's southern African origins. It draws crowds from across the province and beyond.

The province is mixed, however, and Chewa, Nsenga, Tumbuka and Kunda communities all trade in the town. The Chewa keep the masked Gule Wamkulu dances of the Nyau societies, a ritual tradition shared with Malawi and Mozambique. Nyanja, the language of the east, is the common speech, and it is Nyanja from this province that became the street language of Lusaka.

Chipata also has a long-settled Indian trading community, whose shops fill the down-town streets, alongside Catholic, Anglican and Pentecostal churches. Proximity to Malawi shows in everyday life: families, languages and trade cross the border constantly, and Malawian music and football are followed as closely as Zambian.

Chipata was declared Zambia's fifth city in 2017. About 193,000 people lived in the city at the 2022 census and some 327,000 in the district as a whole, and the numbers grow steadily as people move in from the surrounding districts. Most residents live in low-rise neighbourhoods of brick and block houses spreading outwards from the centre, with the wealthier and older housing on the higher ground near the old boma.

The economy is farming, trade and administration. The Eastern Province accounts for about a fifth of Zambia's agricultural production, with sunflower the largest crop, and Chipata is where crops are bought, stored and processed, and where farmers buy seed, fertiliser and tools. Cross-border trade with Malawi is the second pillar: trucks, informal traders and money changers work the Mwami road daily. Provincial government offices, a teaching hospital, colleges and schools employ many, and lodges and transport firms serve the steady flow of visitors bound for the Luangwa Valley.

Days begin early, with the market trading soon after dawn and minibuses filling for the villages. The concerns of the town are those of rural Zambia: the price of fertiliser and maize meal, the rains arriving on time, fuel costs, and the power cuts that follow drought. Malaria, water supply and the pressure on schools and clinics from a fast-growing population are the recurring issues in local debate.

Eastern Zambia eats nshima — stiff white maize porridge — at the middle of almost every meal, taken by hand and dipped into a relish. The relishes here are the ones the province grows: beans, chibwabwa (pumpkin leaves), kalembula (sweet potato leaves) and delele (okra), very often cooked with pounded groundnuts, since this is groundnut country. Dried kapenta, small lake fish, and fish from the Luangwa add protein, and village chicken is the dish of honour.

Seasonal foods matter. The rains bring wild mushrooms, sold in heaps at the roadside, and ifinkubala or edible caterpillars, dried and fried; the first storms bring inswa, flying termites eaten fried and salted. Chikanda, the savoury loaf of wild orchid tubers and ground peanuts known as African polony, is eaten across the province. Fresh and boiled groundnuts are sold everywhere, and roasted maize cobs are the standard snack.

The town's Indian trading families have made samosas and curries part of local eating, and Malawian influence shows in the fish and the sweet fried snacks sold near the border road. Bars serve bottled Mosi lager and cartons of thick Chibuku sorghum beer, while munkoyo, the lightly fermented maize-and-root drink, is sold in the markets and villages.