Kisankala

I went out to a mining camp for a week with some friends. It was a great experience sleeping in luxury tents complete with carpet and electricity with ablution blocks situated behind each one. They had a play station 3 and a 50” flat screen tv with satellite. We were in the middle of no where but I had wireless internet and microwaves. Eric, a Zambia guy who works there, has a pet monkey named Coco. He’s pretty cheeky and loves to break into the kitchen and wreak havoc so he stays tied up by a tree most of the time. One night Eric asked us to baby sit Coco. We accepted and tied him to a tree between our tents not thinking it would be a big deal. At around midnight Coco started screeching like only monkeys can. He just wouldn’t stop. All night long he made those high pitched noises and we didn’t get any sleep. When we went to move him in the morning there was poop everywhere. It was a really bad idea. Coco jumped on my back and started picking through my hair and wouldn’t get off. Never again will I baby sit a monkey.

The mine is just a few kilometers from a village. I was surprised with how much stuff they have in the village and how temporary it is. Most of the residents just showed up in hope for a mining job and live in make shift tents created from plastic tarps and sticks. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. I was amazed that even those who had lived in the village for years had never bothered to make bricks or thatch a roof using grass. Some of the artisanal workers are making more than $100 a month (consider that most people make $1-$2 per day) but you would never know it by looking at their homes. I visited some of the churches and was surprised to see so many. A lot of people don’t go to the churches though because there aren’t any trained pastors so the sermons are in general pretty bland.

I asked around about the chief and availability of land for people interested in agriculture and everyone said the chief would give out land but no one seemed to be growing anything. That was probably the most shocking thing about the village. In Zambia that is the only way villages survive. Here people see farming as beneath them. It’s like being a janitor or garbage truck picker upper. I really don’t understand why. They have impressive rain fall here. I’ve heard the soil has been depleted of resources and requires extra fertilizer but the price of food is high. I heard this country imports 90% of its food and my general observation is inline with that. Agriculture is the foundation of an economy. I wish Congo would realize they can’t focus solely on their mineral wealth.