ZAMBIA LETTERS, 21

05/07/2025

I cut up Mathilda's bread for breakfast and Hanna was disappointed in me for it.. She had wanted to take a picture of it beforehand. I apologized and left our house at 09:00. Chowa was waiting in his car, ready to take me to the Shaolin tempel. It is only a 25 minutes drive from LuCAC. Hanna really wanted to come along, but Irpa was tired after the trip yesterday so they decided to stay.

When we got there I was struck by the sheer size of the compound. This is a very serious project, undertaken by a Chinese businessman. The area covers a large ground. There are five temples on the premises, each home to several massive statues of Buddhas. Everything in the temple was built in China and put in place by Chinese artisans. A stone inscription informs us that the total budget for the project equals 5,8 million USD. 

Here Chinese and Zambian Shaolin monks live and train Shaolin Kung Fu, together with Zambian children. The children are between four and 18 years old. Most are boys, but we did see a couple of girls too. Not all of them live permanently at the the temple, some stay with their parents and are taken to the compound every day. It is also possible to come and train for the weekends. That being said, many of the children are former street kids who has now found a home and a life as a Shaolin monk. 

We were greeted at the entrance by two monks. The younger was stuck in his smart phone but the older welcomed us and made us sign a book before we were let in. We did not receive a guide but were allowed to stroll around at our leisure. 

Behind the first temple structure, children were busy doing their stretching. They soon began to do somersaults and cart wheels. Their curriculum reminded me much of what I have seen on films from temples in China. There was also an Indian couple there, training together with a monk. He instructed them in running. 

I was shown to a desk where a Chinese monk was seated, selling arm braces and incense for worship. I asked him if my daughter could come and train with the other children and he said she was welcome. We may come tomorrow at 14:30. 

On our way out we saw a few curious boys who were peering inside the gates. On the wall, illustrations showed the vision for the temple and the area surrounding it. The plan includes not only a temple, but also houses for Chinese families, shopping malls and a palace, presumably for Chinese dignitaries or maybe the businessman who financed the structure. He is apparently very wealthy and runs a large hotel chain called Golden peacock. It is his stated ambition that this temple should form the main temple in a series of Shaolin temples all over southern Africa. 

After, we drove to the Kalimba Reptile park which lies very close to the compound. They have snakes, including Black Mambas, as well as Crocodiles and Turtles. The handler picked up a baby croc so that I could hold it while Chowa took my picture. It is important, I was told, to hold the snout steady as even these little ones have a very potent bite. 

I also learned something new about vipers here in Lusaka. Apparently there are many poisonous snakes in the city. They come out to hunt at night, so staying away from gardens after nightfall is probably a good idea. 

On our way back I asked Chowa if he had thought more about yesterday. He repeated his opinion that the presence of white landowners is problematic. He also said that he struggles to see a future in Zambia, given the situation here today. A friend of his has moved to Australia in order to work for a mining company and he is thinking along the same lines. 

Then he showed me, grinningly, a stick he had picked up during our hike yesterday. The men who guided us had been chewing on a similar one and he had asked them why. They answered it was for erection.

Two death accidents occurred in Eastern province yesterday. They were tourists. An elephant who had a calf felt threatened by them and charged their company.

On our way back a large crowd of Catholics were blocking the road. They were marching, drumming and singing. ”It is a crowd funding”, Chawo explained. The group slowed us down considerably. 

We came home after lunch time. Hanna had prepared a sallat. She had also managed to activate the Deichman service for E-books, so Irpa was mostly absorbed in reading but at one point she put her head up saying: ”Det er rart. I Zambia har jeg ikke lyst til å lese visse bøker. Det er bare ikke mulig å lese dem når jeg er her.” I asked her which one she was thinking of. ”Ingenlund.”

Benne Banda has contacted me. He sent me a video on messenger of a Vimbuza performance, asking if I was in town. I will answer him this evening. 

Two boys visited Hanna in her studio earlier this morning. They were very serious about learning art. She told them to come back Saturday morning. 

Irpa seems interested in trying out Shaolin. I hope we manage to go tomorrow. 

——

Naoko Mabon held a presentation during the afternoon. A lot of people showed up. There wasn’t room for everyone so many guests needed to stand in the hallway behind the stairs, peeking in. Some of them had come a long way for the event.

For her, curating is about caring and taking care of, in the sense of arranging and bringing together. She sees herself as a freelance curator. It means in practice that she is not a curator who puts together exhibitions but rather one who arranges connections. She is driven by a desire to contribute to positive change. 

One of her projects involves mapping, trying and publishing home recipes. Another one involves looking for artists who work with dyes and textiles in attempts to bring about change on a local level. 

She also spoke about her identity, being born in Japan and living in Scotland. As she travels she feels more and more how her identity is undergoing constant changes. Her stay here in Lusaka has made her consider coloniality. 

The presentation was well received and some discussions followed. A couple of things became clear. First, there aren’t many venues in Lusaka today that facilitates connections between people who are interested in the contemporary art scene. Secondly, many visitors voiced that the lack of a good infrastructure for art represents an obstacle to the development of the personal skills of artists and curators in Zambia. In this sense LuCAC fills an important gap in the local art community and it seems that more and more people are opening their eyes towards the venue.

Victor commented on her presentation, saying that it is becoming more and more clear that we are hybrids. We are hybrided individuals in hybrid cultures. We live at points of exposure where our hybrid nature is revealed to us. 

During her talk Naoko brought up a local poet, Anna Zyambo, who writes about Zambian identity. Victor, in turn, quoted a Nigerian author, who’s name I have forgotten, who has written and spoken of ”The dangers of singular stories about a people.” She advocates multiple stories as a way to better bring light on the hybrid nature of an individual or a people. 

I met Rudolf, a Gem artist from the Copperfields. I remember him from over a year ago, in Oslo. He had a residence at OCA and held an interesting talk. 

Hanna came to bed late in the evening. She had been to the bar. I couldn’t go back to sleep. 

The day after she told me that one of the guests had been exposed as working for the government. The woman had been presenting herself as someone who is interested in art and in people. When she exchanged details with another person, it was discovered that she was actually working for a government agency. This caused considerable irritation among some of the other guests. 

So, what is the situation with the authorities in Zambia right now? Apparently a new law has just been passed; The Cyber Security act of 2025. According to a few of the Zambians we have spoken to, it allows the authorities to go after, and jail, anyone who criticizes the president. According to them, the only people who can avoid this censorship are the ones who have the connections and the money to pay a good legal counsellor. When we asked one person about this, he suggested that this poses a real threat to the liberty of the citizens of Zambia. As a consequence, he said, people have largely stopped discussing politics and many even refuse to vote. 

——

06/07/2025

Sunday morning. 

We got up early and I went to the garden to do my training. Stretching. Some forms I learned in China and want to remember. Cirkelwalk. 

When I came back I made breakfast. 

Answered the message from Banda. 

Had an argument with Hanna over who is doing what in the household. It escalated and afterwards I felt I needed to sit down with Irpa and explain what just happened. We took a swim together in the swimming pool. It was very dirty but we did it anyway. 

Later the three of us took a Yango to the reptile farm. I wanted to show them what Chawo had showed me yesterday. They loved it. I was a little stressed out, because I wanted us to make it in time to the Shaolin training, but we managed to see the whole thing within an hour. Irpa got to wear a live python around her neck and we sent a picture of it to our family back home. 

The same driver who drove us to the park also picked us up for the Shaolin temple. A Zambian monk came out of one of the pavilions together with all the children. We told him why we were there and he escorted us in. Showed us a room where Irpa could get changed. When we were done we went to see the Chinese monk behind the desk. I asked if Hanna and I also could join the training and he said yes. He asked us if we had any prior training and I told him we did. He was very impressed that we even knew about Baguazhang and told us he also had done some, but Liang style, back at the university. He showed us a couple of moves and we talked some more before it was time to get started. 

The same monk who we had met at the gates took us on a jogging tour. for warmup. It was the first time we ever did something like this together with Irpa so I was interested in seeing how she would react. She took it very seriously and really went for it. When we got back to the temple we were ushered together with the children and made to do what they did: jumping kicks, spinning kicks and somersaults. It was new to us and the monk soon decided to take us aside and to show us some more basic moves. 

It was reasonably hard work. It included stretching for a long time, deep squats and different forms of leg work that got our thighs burning. After a short break we were shown some basic forms we could take with us home and practice ourselves. 

I was impressed with his ability to read our bodies. Even though I am in a good shape and also aware of what I need to work on, he could spot my main weaknesses and gave me some instructions on how to improve. He challenged us, but didn’t overdo it. 

To our right, we could see how the other monks were putting the Zambian children under hard pressure. Five year olds were made to do flips on their heads on bare stone pavement and when they started crying they were made to continue. It sounds harsh but I could tell they enjoyed it, even when they were crying. I guess they were proud of having their outmost abilities being brought out of them. It showed in their eyes and their determination. I also saw the instructors smacking some of the teenagers with bamboo sticks, pretty hard too. These boys, and girls, are destined to be top performers. Some of them will be touring the world, displaying their skills on large stages in front of huge audiences. Their progress was impressive. 

At one point one of the kids was being lifted into the air above the heads of the others. Dull spears were put under him in order to encourage him to activate his core muscles. The monk who was training us smiled at that and showed us his scars, saying he received them in China. The spears I was facing weren´t dull, he said. 

Before we went back we sat down outside the temple and had our lunch box. An Indian couple came up to us and talked to us for a little while, asking who we were. They offered us a lift with their car but we told them we had a Yango coming for us. It took forever before it came.

Chawo lost his erection stick today. He is spreading the rumor I took it from him. 

Peter the kid came by as I was writing, asking for Irpa. 

——

07/07/2025

Emanuel the bartender, who sleeps in the shed by the swimming pool, next to the laundry room, is ill. So he didn’t get up this morning to unlock the gate. As a result, Mary couldn’t get in. I was training by the gate but I couldn’t open it for her. I had to go and get Emanuel to rise from his sickbed. 

Hanna wanted us to go and see the principal at the school today. She wanted to ask a her few questions but it was closed so we had to turn back. She and Irpa went to get some groceries and some wood for Hanna´s canvases. I spent the day writing in the library. 

A man and a woman came by. His name is Alexander and he is a photographer from the Copperfields. Her name is Jess and she is an anthropologist, from Gibraltar. They were interested in the venue so I showed them Hannas studio. We discussed art and had a conversation about inspiration. It was a long time ago I was last talking to someone about the joy of being inspired and it was a good reminder for me. Why are we doing what we do, in the first place? Why, if not for the joy of being inspired? 

Hanna came back and they three had a long talk while I and Irpa took a swim together with Naoko. I cooked dinner. Hanna came back. She told me she had been trying to create a glue for her canvases, but that it hadn’t worked out. They went to bed. I didn’t feel like it. Only after a long time did I become sleepy. When I went to bed, they were still reading. I told Irpa to turn out the lights, and she did. 

——

08/07/2025

I met Victor in the morning and told him I wanted to visit the Copperfields soon. He is going to talk to his connections living there and get back to me later today. Wrote the whole day. Hanna and Irpa was working together in the studio. After, hanna went shopping and Irpa stayed with me. I told her to do English on Duolingo, since she hasn’t done that for a while and I want her to be ready for school. She really didn’t feel like it but I made her. After a while she got too bored and asked me if she could do calculations instead and I said yes. 

In the afternoon Chowa came by. We discussed the Shaolin temple. I told him he could come with us on sunday and train with us. He hesitated and said you really have to be fit for Kung Fu. I answered that the training makes you fit. It gets you there. You start out on your level and make progress. 

But you don’t look so out of shape, I told him and I meant it as well. He does look reasonably fit. I was really out of shape when I started. I was 35 at the time and I had bad habits. 

-Do you remember the point that turned you around? 

It was something that happened over a period of time. I started training because I wanted to move around a little and I was looking for something I could do on my own, in between writing sessions. I found a Kung Fu school and started visiting it. Soon, the training started to affect me. It made me more fit and it developed me, mentally and physically. When I realized that there was a philosophical side to it, it gradually started to interest me. I became more and more influenced. At one point I felt that if I really wanted to find out what this can do for me, then I also have to accept the whole package. Suddenly the right choices came easily. I gave up my bad habits and changed even more. 

The strength of Chinese philosophy, I said, is the connection they make between the mind and the body. It is not so much a matter of believing in something, as it is a way to experience something. Just do the exercises and they will do their work on you. At one point our mind and our body becomes separated, but this is an illusion. They are one. Chinese philosophy brings them together and places them in the context of the surroundings. The training teaches you how. The mind and the body is a reflection of the universe. They are in dialogue with it. The idea that we can mechanically separate ourselves is false. When I started training I thought my hand was just my hand. I didn’t think of it as being a part of the arm, let alone of my waist or my entire physical structure, or my mind. I knew nothing about my body or how it’s components work together. The training taught me things about myself I had no idea of before. It gave me my body, in a sense, and this was the starting point for another experience, one of being in dialogue with my surroundings. It has been a profound experience. Once you have that sort of experience, then it makes no point anymore to desire that which is bad for you. 

Tonight Rachel is cooking for all of us.

——

09/07/2025

First day!

Irpa got up at six, got dressed in her new school uniform (today she is wearing her training suit as it is gym day) and packed her school bag. Then it was off to school. Her teacher seems very kind. She will be joining a second grade class, which is slightly below her age, but I think it is a good choice as English is not her first language. 

We were told she needed a snack box for 10 AM so we went back and made her one. Hanna brought it with her during her morning jogging session. 

We picked Irpa up at 1230. She looked very happy and she walked tall from the experience. Some things had been different from what she is used to (they were praying), but everyone had been kind and considerate and she made new friends. 

I cooked and did the laundry (power is back on at daytime so I jumped at the opportunity). Presently, I am waiting for Hannas smartphone to charge so I can order a Yango and do some shopping before the afternoon traffic.