Binga

The land along this stretch of the Zambezi was the home of the Tonga, who farmed the fertile valley floor, fished the river and lived in scattered homesteads on both banks. Their world ended in the second half of the 1950s, when the Kariba dam was built between 1955 and 1959 downstream and the rising lake drowned the valley. About 57,000 Tonga from both banks of the river were moved out of the flooding valley onto the dry, stony ground above it, in one of the largest forced resettlements in the region's colonial history; the move was made without compensation and the new land was far poorer.

Binga was laid out as the administrative centre for the displaced population — a district office, a police station, a hospital and a school on a site above the new shoreline — rather than growing from an older settlement. For decades it was among the least developed districts in the country, reached by a long dirt road, with few clinics, little electricity and almost no share of the power and irrigation that the dam made possible downstream.

Since independence the harbour and the kapenta fishery have grown, and the town has acquired a modest tourist trade based on the lake, the hot springs and Tonga crafts. The grievance of the resettlement has not gone away: the demand for recognition, for services and for a share of the lake's benefits remains a live political subject in the district, and it shapes how people here talk about the government in Harare.

The Tonga are the defining community of Binga, and their culture is distinct from both the Shona majority and the Ndebele of the rest of Matabeleland. ChiTonga, one of Zimbabwe's sixteen official languages, is predominant in the district, and the valley's oral history — of the river, the crossing and the move — is passed down in families that still name the places now under water.

Nyami Nyami, the river spirit of the Zambezi valley, is central to belief here and is carved into the walking sticks and pendants sold in the district: a serpent with the head of a fish, held to have been separated from his wife by the dam wall. Ceremonies and rainmaking rites continue alongside large Christian congregations, and traditional healers are consulted widely.

Craft is the best-known expression of the culture. Tonga women weave symmetrically patterned baskets, collected well beyond Zimbabwe, and men carve stools from a single piece of wood, along with headrests and drums. Music uses drums and the budima or ngoma buntibe ensembles of horns and percussion, played at funerals, war dances and celebrations.

Binga is a small town — the service centre for one of the country's most sparsely populated districts — and everything about it is shaped by distance. Goods arrive by lorry along one long road, prices are higher than in Bulawayo, and a serious hospital case means a journey of several hours.

Fishing carries the local economy. Kapenta rigs work the lake at night, their lights strung out across the water, and the small silver fish are sun-dried on racks by day and sold across the country. Alongside it are subsistence farming of maize and sorghum on poor soils, cattle and goats, basket weaving for sale, jobs in the district administration and schools, and a handful of lodges. Drought is a recurring threat, and food aid has been needed in bad years.

Days begin early and stop in the heat of the afternoon. Water, firewood and school runs organise the morning; the evening belongs to the shore and the bars. Power cuts are routine, mobile signal is patchy outside the town, and many households depend on money sent by relatives working in Bulawayo, South Africa or Botswana. Younger people leave for work, and the ones who stay talk about the road, the fish catch and the rains.

Fish is what Binga eats. Kapenta — a small lake fish, also called matemba, dried in the sun — is shallow-fried with onion, tomato and groundnut powder and eaten with sadza almost daily, and fresh fish from the lake, grilled or stewed, is the meal offered to a guest. Tigerfish, the lake's best-known gamefish, is caught mainly for sport, and dried fish from the racks is traded inland as far as Bulawayo.

The staple is sadza, or isitshwala in Ndebele, made from maize meal and eaten by hand with a relish of pumpkin leaves, covo, okra or beans. Sorghum and millet, which stand the heat and the poor rains better than maize, are still grown in the district and cooked as porridge. Wild foods matter in a dry place: baobab fruit, whose chalky pulp is sucked or mixed into a drink, other wild fruits in season, and mopane worms dried and fried.

To drink there is sweet tea, maheu, the thick fermented maize drink, home-brewed sorghum beer for gatherings and ceremonies, and Chibuku from cartons in the beer halls. Lodges along the shore serve the usual braai and buffet cooking, with lake fish generally the best thing on the menu.