Return to Lundazi

摘要

God must have been working to a budget when He came to make Zambia for, after the spectacular creation of the Victoria Falls and a few lesser bursts of exuberance, it was nearly all monotonous bush for the rest of the country, and by the time He got to Lundazi the cash was clearly at an end. Lundazi is an unremarkable place, way out east on the Malawi border, and on the road to nowhere much. The only town-township, technically-in an area the size of Ohio, it has just one building of note, a hotel built in imitation of a small Norman castle by a district commissioner in the late 1940s, when the country was run by the British. The Castle is a charming curiosity, but from its battlements the horizons hold none of the views for which Africa is famous. For the most part, Lundazi is quiet, mildly decrepit and, in the dry season at least, always dusty. Yet, for all that, it is unpretentiously welcoming, and its people are delightful.