It Takes A Village

For being one of the seven natural wonders of the world and consequently a tourist destination, Victoria Falls is surprisingly undeveloped. There are a scant few hotels in the area and town is nondescript except that it looks like any 3rd world small town where tourism is the mainstay; ramshackle buildings riddled with tour companies for thrill-seekers, adorned with unemployed loiterers. We learned that about 1/2 Zimbabwe's population (about 5 million people) live in villages and exist as if it were another century. The only upside to this arrangement is that they do not rely on their ill-conceived government for anything. The current predicament of a contaminated water supply not withstanding. Otherwise they abide by their traditions.

Each village has a village head (leader) who is overseen by a chief. The chief may have 4 villages under his authority and he acts as the magistrate for each. The chief and heads confer on village practices, crime punishment, land distribution and other such matters. Villages are self-sustaining and coalescent in nature. Decisions regarding infrastructure are made collectively and constructed with resources found on the land. For example if they want to build a school everyone contributes to it's construction. Most of what they need can be found in the bush around them but on the occasion that they should need to purchase building materials they will raise the money or sell some of their assets. They grow their own food - mainly maize, sorghum, squash, pumpkin - and cure illness through traditional witch doctor methods, antidotes often derived from local plants and fruits, etc.

Land is free and is given to the eldest born boy by the chief. He just need ask for it. Huts are erected of tree branches and bark, and roofs thatched with grasses. Floors are made of clay earth and the exterior walls are plastered with dung. Parents share one hut as the master bedroom and there will be additional huts for the girls to share and one for the boys. There is always a separate kitchen hut and those where grains and dried meat is stored. Multiple marriages are rare these days but in the event that a man takes more than one wife each will have her own bedroom and kitchen. It is forbidden for the wives to share kitchen utensils. They can share their husband but not their spoons. Visitation is entirely up to the husband but protocol is that the eldest wife is the most respected and the youngest is the most loved. Each villager is born in the kitchen and everyone dies in the kitchen (pregnant ladies are put there to deliver and the sick lay up there too).

The eldest son is in charge of the family assets - livestock, crop accumulation. The youngest son is expected to remain on the homestead and care for the elders and the land repeating the cycle with his own family. It is assumed that female children will marry and move into their husband's home so family assets are not passed to them in order to keep the family fortune pure. If a man bears only daughters the uncles will benefit from the fruit of his labor. Marriages are not often arranged anymore and occur much younger than they used to. People used to marry in their late 20's but now they start families earlier so they can be around to raise their children since AIDS is so prevalent. Because as much as 25% of the population has AIDS, disease is feared as hospitals are often hundreds of kilometers away and they have no means of getting there or even paying for services if they can.

As primitive as this lifestyle seems there is something so pure and functional about it. Yes, it's a hard life, toiling in the sun and literally performing rain ceremonies for days on end to inspire Mother Nature's mercy. But ask yourself if your life is any less hard. We are not nearly as self-reliant as we'd like to believe.