Time for our next stop — Zambia. We’re here for just a few short days, but this country leaves a deep impression.
This past of Africa was originally inhabited by the Khoisan tribe, but then became a British protectorate called North Rhodesia in 1888 (its neighbor, Zimbabwe, was known as South Rhodesia… this might come in handy while watching Jeopardy someday). Zambia gained its independence in 1964 to become a fully fledged country, and in 2010 the World Bank named it one of the world’s fastest economically reformed countries.
Plus it’s home to my favorite safari park in Africa, South Luangwa National Park. I can’t wait to share those photos in a few days.
After crossing the border, we make our way to Tribal Textiles for an afternoon visit.
At first I’m skeptical about why we are here (sometimes tour companies get kickbacks for visiting these kinds of places) but it proves to be an interesting stop. We watch each step of the process as locals transform simple cloth into bright and intricately designed works of art. We are invited to take photos throughout this visually engaging tour.
Interesting fact: glue plays a big roll in the design creation. The initial artist draws the pattern in glue so that during the next step of the process (which is painting) they just have to color inside the glue lines. Later on someone else will scrape away all of the glue, leaving behind a visually seamless rending of the particular animal or pattern. But this glue artist gets credit for laying out the actual design.
Next the painting department takes over, mixing colors to get particular shades just right.
And then a group of painters will color in every detail of the original glue design, paying close attention to each section of the pattern.
This woman uses a scraper to remove the original glue design that kicked off this whole process.
Here are some of the nearly complete projects, drying before the last stage of the process:
Once dry, the fabric will be flattened out and pressed by this machine:
Everyone in this room puts the finishing touches on each piece — sewing pillow covers together, ironing fabric, etc.
Goals for the week:
This chalk board catches the attention of our group — it’s got tips on how to avoid financial mistakes, as well as key points about self-esteem. How neat that this is up where everyone can see it. I’m curious who initiated it (the employer? an employee?) and if or how often it changes.
There is a lovely store with hundreds of products and patterns for sale.
Once our textile tour wraps up, we hop into vehicles to visit a local village. I’ll have those photos and stories in tomorrow’s post.
In the meantime, enjoy these photos from the road — the Zambian countryside is quite picturesque, and the people are friendly. Not quite Malawian-friendly, but lots of them wave back and smile.
These next two photos are from dinner the previous evening (our last night in Malawi) but I forgot to include them in the Malawi posts, so I’ll share them here! It was Klaus’s birthday and we celebrated with a meal from his home country (Germany), a delicious sausage dinner.
We toast to Klaus around the campfire with wine and goodies generously purchased by his wife Renate. They are one of the loveliest couples I’ve ever met and it’s a joy to celebrate with them.
Be back tomorrow with our village tour in Zambia!
I visited Zambia on a 30-day Nairobi to Joburg tour with Nomad Tours. They discounted my tour in exchange for blogging and photography; opinions are my own.
