ZAMBIA LETTERS, 12

View of The boiling pot, The knife Edge and the falls

Our drivers name is David. He picks us up at Tabonini guest house which is affordable and located in the middle of Livingstone. The accommodation is a “lodge”, i.e. small cabins that are spread out within the same area. They are constructed around a beautiful swimming pool and between them trees and bushes have been planted, which creates a peaceful atmosphere for those who want to retreat and take notes after a day full of impressions.

During the journey to the falls, David asks us about life in Norway.

”It must be very cold.”

”Yes, very.” 

”Is there a lot of snow?” 

”Well, in the winter it can become very deep.”

”And are there many churches in Norway?” 

”Yes, quite a few, I suppose.”

”How do you get to church when it is snowing?”

”We don´t go to church.” 

”Why not?” 

”We don´t believe in God.”

”Aaah…That’s a relief. Yes. Very good.”

We tell him about the bus journey from Lusaka. He explains that the freedom fighters who opposed the colonial power were all christians, and thus it was put into the constitution that Zambia must be a christian country. This means, in turn, that the bus company is obliged, by law, to read such prayers.

David makes me realize that Livingstone is not one story but several. If you travel to the city by bus from Lusaka, as we did, you will travel through many small communities, all lined with churches and schools named after different congregations. Within Livingstone itself, there are also churches everywhere and the streets are often named after preachers or representatives of the colonial power. It is the only city in Zambia that still retains its English name. But both religion and the legacy of the English have landed on top of the landscape and it’s people like a cowlick.

Most visitors travel to Livingstone in order to experience the magnificent features of the Zambian landscape. One of them is of course the famous waterfall ”Mosi-oa-Tunya”, or "Thundering Smoke" as it translates from Lozi, and which goes by the name Victoria falls in English. It is considered to be most dramatic waterfall in the world.

The steam from the cascades is clearly visible to us, long before we pass the city limits. The violent forces activated as the water falls over the precipice are so explosive that they hurl the river over 400 metres back up into the air. The display is spectacular. The “smoke” can be seen from up to 50 kilometres away.

The Zambezi river actually starts as a small spring. It trickles out of the ground in the northwestern corner of Zambia and grows larger as different streams join the main channel. By the time it finally passes the falls, it has reached an impressive width of 1.7 kilometres. Like all other rivers of this size, it is home to a spectacular diversity of plants and animals. The hippos and elephants that live on the river stay on different islands and are careful to avoid each other, but since hippos are angry and violent by nature, conflicts often arise, especially during dry seasons when the large animals have to fight for food. It always ends with the death of the hippo.

It is also home to countless species of birds and fish. Other animals that come there are macaques, baboons, giraffes, impalas, wildebeests, snakes and rhinos. Crocodiles are very common. What distinguishes them is that they avoid the parts of the river where there is a current. Instead, they lurk in the calm bays and in the pools of water that gather near the river.

As soon as you leave the urban area, there is a high possibility of encountering elephants. Animals have the right of way and all cars must stop when the road is crossed by herds on their way to or from the beach.

It is not uncommon for such rivers to be perceived as spirited. In Hinduism, the Ganges is considered a sacred river and in the traditional Egyptian religion, it was believed that the flows of the Nile arose as a result of divine influence. The Tonga people of Zambia worship a being, or God, named Nyami Nyami, who has the form of a snake. He is also called the god of the Zambezi River. According to the stories, his and his wife's spirits live in the Kariba Gorge and they control life in and on the river.

Luyando Muleya, a Tonga curator, told me that a huge dam was completed across the Zambezi River right at the Kariba Gorge and that it caused the relocation of up to 75,000 Tongas. Some of them chose not to move when the dam was constructed and, according to him, they subsequently died. The authorities and the construction company ignored the warnings of the Tongan chiefs and their spiritual leaders, who said that permission had to be sought from Nyami Nyami in order for the intervention to be safe. This was not done and as a result, the construction was fraught with accidents and deaths. Among other things, cracks appeared in the dam. The Tongan people understood this to mean that it was the male Nyami Nyami who was trying to find his way back to his wife. It was only later, when the prescribed rites were carried out, that the bodies of those who died during these accidents were recovered.

Today, it is believed that Nyami Nyami and his wife have left the human world and retreated to the spirit world.

When we arrive at the falls, David instructs us not to have anything edible in our hands, and no water bottles, because then there is a great risk that the baboons will snatch them. He also says that there is no point in hiring a guide. You are better of just walking the trails around the waterfall on your own. “Take the knife bridge last” he says, “That way you don’t have to walk soaked for the rest of the day.”

On the other side of the entrance gate, you will find four different paths that you can take to experience the waterfall from different perspectives. If you go straight to the right, you will come to the edge of the falls. You find yourself standing right where masses of water tumble over the cliff and begin to fall down towards the ravine. Strangely, the water flows very calmly towards the edge, just before it takes off due to gravity. There are several islands and islets right near the edge and you can pay for a boat ride and go out to them. On some of them you will find natural pools (such as "The devils pool") where you can bath while leaning out over the abyss.

We take a walk past that point and continue a bit up the river to get a picture of what it looks like when it is calmer.

If you instead take the path to the left immediately after the entrance, you will find a trail along a hill with a view of the front of the waterfall. From there you will be able to see the falls themselves but also what is called ”The boiling pot”, which is the basin below the falls where the water collects and forms a whirlpool. You will also see the cliffs that shoot up like plateaus from the ravine and which form a canyon through which the water gushes out after rushing down its precipice. From here, the water continues on its way towards Zimbabwe, much later emptying itself into the Indian Ocean.

The third path goes right between these, out to a height called ”Knife Edge”. To get to it you have to walk over a bridge called ”Knifes Edge Bridge”. It is built as a narrow footbridge with a precipice on each side and it runs in front of the falls themselves so if you walk that way in June you will be drowned in the masses of water that the falls throws up over the bridge.

You can rent raincoats and rubber boots before taking that route but when we were there the falls were so powerful and the cascades were so violent that it would have made no difference. Those who paid for it looked just as wet as we did. It is of course also true that even if the gear would have protected us against the water, we would still have chosen not to use them. We came there to experience the fall.

The sounds from the fall were completely overwhelming. They hit us as a constant, deafening roar. When we were standing in front of the fall, facing it, gushes of water would be thrown, violently, at us from all directions. We found ourselves conpletely engulfed in a soaking, all penetrating, fume. 

If you have studied Daoist exercises, you may find that this experience offers many opportunities for your practice. Just seek out to a point where changes are visible, or audible, or felt on the skin, but not too powerful. You must be able to perceive the manifestations, but it is also important that they are not changing too slowly. Look for that certain speed when it is easy to experience them, but do not attach. Allow the changes to return and identify with the change rather than the shape. This is usually more easy to do when you observe something from a sufficiently large distance, or if you fix your gaze on the edges of a shape when vapors form different patterns. Adjust your posture, your breathing, your mind. Since you are also surrounded by water that hits your skin and by the roars of the fall, you will find ample opportunities to harmonize yourself with the changes in the water surrounding you.

I once asked a taoist monk, Shi Yin, what he thought of Shinto and his answer was that it is basically the same thing as Daosim. It was an interesting answer since Shinto is so occupied with rituals, which is something that Lao Tze warns against. According to Shinto, everything is ritual and rituals allows practitioners to come into contact with the flows and processes in nature. Much of what we associate with Zen actually comes from Shinto. For example, the heightened approach to everyday tasks, such as cleaning and washing dishes, is very prevalent in Shinto. A Kanushi; a Shinto priest, once explained to me that when you clean, you are actually dealing with the traces of your own interaction with your surroundings. You are also dealing with the traces of processes in nature. Rituals initiate something new, a change, so when you stand in a natural flow and interact with it, you enable changes, both on the inside and on the outside.

One such ritual is the Misogi Harae. It involves standing in running water, preferably a river or a waterfall, and most beneficial of all is pure salt water. I explored this practice when I was preparing myself for my piece Vandring for Engebøfjellet. I also practiced it during the performance itself. It can be a very profound experience. In Shinto, it is common to perform rituals like that daily for a period of a hundred days. This is done as a part of a spiritual development. Practitioners believe that such ritual purifies them.

In connection with such traditions the concept of naturalness, or “Ziran” as it is called in Chinese, begs our attention. Bruno Latour claims that everything is artificial. His argument is that there are always traces of human influence in that which we refer to as nature, and also that our gaze always makes everything artificial. The first time I heard this, I spontaneously thought that the exact opposite was equally true. There is always an element of nature in all our constructions and in all forms of culture. The natural always penetrates the artificial, in the end, and puts it to rest.

Arne Næss spoke of unspoiled nature, and it is a term many would dismiss, but we can all experience it. There is a difference between standing high on top of a mountain peak, or standing in Oslo with a view of an advertisement. Different environments do different things to us. Powerful experiences in nature energizes us, as Arne says, and maybe our experiences of reality should form the basis for our behavior towards it. A person who experiences a waterfall as a harsh but fundamentally benevolent living being, or as an expression of the flow of life in a condensed form, is perhaps less inclined to intervene thoughtlessly with it. 

It is told that one of the monkeys that lived at the waterfall was very popular with the tourists. He was tame and used to come up to them and allow himself to be petted. One day, when he was on ”The Knife Edge bridge”, one of the tourists began to entice him with a piece of bread. The monkey reached for it and the man threw it into the waterfall. The monkey went after. The man was sentenced to six years imprisonment.