kuomboka

this past weekend i went on a spontaneous trip to mongu, a town about 8 hours away by bus in the western province. i went for the ceremony called kuomboka. the ceremony is for the king of the western province, and it based around him moving from one house to another. seems a bit strange. but he has to move houses every year from the low land to the high land because the houses where he lives in the low land start to flood this time of year from the rains. so there is a whole ceremony focused on him moving to his house on the high lands. although the idea behind it all is a bit odd, the ceremony itself was really cool.

i actually remembered to take pictures this weekend, so i'm going to give you guys a picture book story time. probably the easiest way to explain this ceremony....

5:00 pm thursday - my friends, mike and jen, and i decide were going to go to kuomboka

8:00 am friday - get on our 8 hr bus ride to mongu. it wasn't a bad bus ride at all. i sat by a lovely woman named mavis who is originally from mongu but now lives in cape town. she hadn't been back home since 2005, so she was going home to see her family and for the ceremony. she took buses the entire way from cape town.....that's days and days of buses. miserable.

bought a whole bushel of bananas for 1,000 zmk, which is about 25 cents. things are so much cheaper when you are out in the small villages and not in the city.

4:00 pm - arrive in mongu

set up our campsite. the lovely owner kalube, let us camp for free since we were volunteers, and let us use her personal shower. she was super sweet.

went into town to explore and grab some dinner. the town was very dead, which we thought was really weird because we had heard the ceremony usually attracted 30,000 people (a lot being locals). but still, the town was very quiet for the night before the ceremony. we later found out that is was because a lot of people weren't attending the ceremony this year because they were afraid of riots. recently, zambia implemented a new constitution that stated the king of the western province no longer has any rule over the western province. so there was a lot of tension against the government, and people were afriad there were going to be riots started by people supporting the president. we were stupid/naive and really had no idea this was going on. so we decided to make it an early night and went back to our campsite after dinner.

got up the next morning at 5:30 am

cooked some lovely egg sandwiches for breakfast and had some tea to get warm


went down to the harbour to get on a boat to get to the king's 1st house. the one that is on the low land and starting to flood. the boat ride was about 30 minutes, and so beautiful in the morning sun. made me realize how much i miss being on water (can't wait to visit home in july!)

harbour

boats we road in

huts along the water

men fishing

we arrived at the island of the king's 1st house fairly early....probably around 8am. we were some of the first to arrive, which was kinda cool because we were able to talk to a lot of the paddlers. they invite paddlers from all over the western province (which includes about half of zambia) to come and paddle the kings boat. it is a very big honor to be asked, and people train to be selected for this position. so since we were early, they were all still hanging out and it was cool to get to talk to them and learn more about the ceremony.

a bunch of the paddlers huddled together

the red hats represent being a follower of the king. then the paddlers all wear their chitenge (that's the pattered fabric) skirts and vests. and they wear animals furs on a belt around their waist. you can kind of see the little bit of fur on the hat of the man on the left. the men who wear the fur (or lion's mane) are of the royal family.

this is people carrying all the kings belongings onto the boats. as they walk by with the royal belongings, you have to kneel down and clap. there are specific ways to clap depending on if you are a woman or man

this is an example of how the houses flood from the rain and why the king has to move to higher grounds....

the king's procession from his house to the boat

all the paddlers getting ready

the boat starting off

and they're gone. the paddlers use the big sticks to push along the ground (the water is only a few feet deep since it is just from the rains. in the dry season, there is no water in this whole area). the paddlers paddle for 5 hours! in the hot sun! and it was extremely hot. apparently someone said that if any of the paddlers can't finish, they get thrown overboard.

after the king's boat left, we got back on our little boat, back to the harbour, back into town to get some lunch, then back to our campsite for a few hours. we knew roughly the time the kind would be arriving at the spot of his 2nd home, so we had some time to kill.

3:30 pm - we headed to the arrival site of the king

women singing and dancing as we were waiting for the arrival of the king

4:30 pm - the king's boat arrived

the boat comes into the inlet and then goes back out 3 times to simulate the elephant charging.

all the paddlers had so much energy after having just paddled for 5 hours straight. amazing!


the king exits the boat in his fancy outfit. i was expecting him to be wearing something more like the paddlers, but he is in almost a full military looking outfit.


there is a whole ceremony at the end. music, dancing, speeches. above the paddlers are doing a traditional "paddlers" dance for the king. different groups performed different dances. the vice president was there and spoke.

and then it just ended. haha. all very anti-climactic actually. the vice president finished speaking, and then everyone just started leaving. i thought it was very strange that throughout the entire ceremony the king never spoke. but apparently that is normal. not really sure why.

all in all, though, the ceremony was a very interesting and cultural thing to see. i'm really glad that i decided to go. and like i had said earlier, a lot less people attended this year (no, there didn't end up being any riots. thankfully!). it ended up being nice that it was fewer people because we were able to get a much better view than normal. many times you don't even get a chance to see the king or a lot of the ceremony, and we were front row for all of it. so that was really cool.

ok, this blog post took waaay too long. so don't expect pictures like this again for a long time. but hope you enjoyed.

the end.