Siavonga

The Gwembe Valley, the deep trench of the middle Zambezi, was home to the Tonga for centuries before the lake existed, farming the fertile alluvial soils along the river and moving with its floods. Their villages lay on both banks, and the river was crossed and fished rather than feared, though the valley's heat and tsetse fly kept outsiders away for much of the colonial period.

That world ended with the Kariba Dam. Built between 1955 and 1959 in the Kariba Gorge for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the dam created a lake more than 220 kilometres long and displaced tens of thousands of Tonga people from both banks — about 57,000 people in all — most of them resettled on poorer land above the new shoreline, a dislocation still remembered in the valley and the subject of long-running grievance. As the water rose, Operation Noah rescued thousands of stranded animals from shrinking islands. Construction was dangerous, and eighty-six workers lost their lives building it.

Siavonga grew afterwards as the Zambian administrative and service town for the new lake, on the ridge above the north bank near the wall. Kapenta, a small sardine-like fish brought to the lake from Lake Tanganyika, created a fishing industry that remains the district's economic base, while hotels and houseboats made the town Zambia's lakeside holiday resort. Kariba's turbines supply much of the country's electricity, so drought years lower the lake, cut generation and are felt in Siavonga in both power and livelihoods.

Siavonga is a Tonga town, and Tonga identity runs through it: a cattle-keeping, farming people of the southern plateau and the valley, with a strong oral tradition and rain ceremonies held by chiefs. The story of the dam and the resettlement is part of that identity, and the figure of Nyaminyami — the serpent-like river spirit said to have been separated from his consort by the dam — appears in carvings, on walking sticks and in the name of businesses all around the lake.

The town's other culture is the culture of the water. Fishing crews, rig owners, boat builders and houseboat crews set the working rhythm, and life on the shoreline runs to the lamps going out at dusk and the catch coming in before dawn. Weekends bring visitors from Lusaka, and the bays fill with families and church groups; Zambian holidays turn the town into a resort in earnest.

Churches of many denominations are central to community life, and the border gives a steady flow of Zimbabwean traders, workers and shoppers. Manners are those of rural southern Zambia: unhurried greetings, respect for elders and chiefs, modest dress in town, and hospitality towards guests even in the fishing camps.

Siavonga is a small town and the administrative centre of a district counted at about 66,000 people in 2022, spreading along the lakeshore and up into the hills. The town is built on steep ground, so daily life involves a good deal of climbing between the ridge, where offices, schools and the market are, and the shore, where the work is.

Kapenta fishing and processing dominate the economy: rigs and crews, drying grounds, ice and transport to markets in Lusaka and the Copperbelt. Tourism is the second pillar, with hotels, lodges, houseboats and boat crews employing a large share of households, and its fortunes rise and fall with the domestic holiday trade. Government offices, the hospital and schools, the border post and the dam's own operations provide most formal employment; farming is limited by the heat and the thin valley soils.

The pressures are visible: falling lake levels in drought years reduce both fishing and hydropower, national load-shedding leaves the town short of the electricity generated on its doorstep, water supply is difficult on the slopes, and work in fishing and tourism is seasonal. Even so, the lake keeps Siavonga busier than most towns of its size in Southern Province.

Kapenta is the food of Kariba. The small fish are landed at night, spread on racks or bare ground to dry, and then fried with tomato, onion and oil into a salty relish eaten with nshima, the stiff maize porridge taken by hand that is Zambia's staple. Fresh bream from the lake is grilled or fried whole, and tigerfish, prized more for the fight than for the plate, is served at some lakeside kitchens.

Around the fish, the food is Tonga and southern Zambian: relishes of pumpkin leaves, rape or okra cooked with groundnuts, beans, and beef or goat stewed slowly, with mabisi, thick soured milk, in farming households. Roadside stalls sell roasted maize in season, fritters, chips and sweet potatoes, and mangoes, bananas and papaya grow well in the valley heat.

The hotels along the bays cook a wider mix — grills, chicken and chips, curries and South African-style braais — for Lusaka weekenders. To drink there is Mosi lager, cartons of Chibuku sorghum beer, munkoyo, the lightly fermented maize and root drink, and strong sweet tea, with cold drinks a priority in a town where the afternoon heat rarely lets up.