This is the fourth, and probably last, of my posts with images taken during a month I spent last summer documenting the work of an archaeological team in the Southern Province of Zambia. In this post I’m sharing a group of portraits. Some of the photographs appeared in earlier posts, some not. I wanted to bring my best images of people together into one group. These are all local folks, most living in compounds of thatched-roof mud-finished structures on the edges of the broad flood plain of the Kafue River, a couple of hundred miles west of where it joins the Zambezi River, the fourth-longest in Africa. The locations, in Basanga and Mwanamaimpa, are remote from towns. The roads are sandy tracks. These compounds, where sharing arrangements had been made for our stay, and near where the archaeological digging was being done, have no electricity. Water is carried in buckets balanced on heads from communal bore holes or rivers. Meals of cornmeal (chima), chicken, and greens are cooked in pots balanced on the logs of fires on the ground. There were no cars, other than the ones the team brought in. Life appears less complicated here in a way that I think is reflected in these portraits. People look directly into the lens, usually without pretend smiles. They are not performing for the camera. The subjects are observing the photographer as much as the photographer is observing the subject.
On the day we drove from Livingstone, where we had met up, to Basanga we stopped in Namwala and waited for some members of the archaeological team who drove from Basanga to meet us. The paved roads stopped here, and the Basanga car came to lead the way along dirt tracks at the edge of the Kafue flood plain to the home compounds in which we were staying. While we waited I had the opportunity to photograph some of the Namwala folks. This boy sat at the base of a large tree with a trunk split in two, probably from lightning-generated fire.On the flood plain in Namwala. This man was one of a large group of people making their way across the plain to church services. He was the only one on a bike, and stopped for a portrait.In Basanga I took a long walk one day, out of the compound area and into the open flood plain. This boy had been asked to make sure I returned back ok – and he was waiting at the edge of the compounds, watching for me on my way back.My keeper.Exuda was also waiting for me.Two boys warming themselves early one morning by a fire near the home compound’s kitchen. We were there during the month of July, but it was winter in Zambia, south of the Equator. The temperature would warm up to the 70s during the day, but some of the local folks still wore cold-weather jackets.At the home compound the kids played miniature pool on a home-made pool table, using marbles and straight sticks. Cattle wandered – but there was some organization to the wandering.A deft hand with his home-made pool cue.Kids were also handy at making wire-framed cars. I don’t think I saw any manufactured toys at all.Maggie, a Zambian native, at the lab where bones and pottery and other artifacts from the Mwanamaimpa mound excavation were being cleaned and sorted. Maggie is pursuing a degree in zooarchaeology at Rice University.Steven and his family live in a compound adjacent to the Basanga compounds where we stayed. His thatch craftsmanship was impressive, and I asked him to pose by a structure he had recently built for bathing privacy. Every piece of thatch neat and in its place – walls at clean right angles. Collins, one of our Basanga hosts. On a day out with the field survey team he stopped to show me the seed pods on this tree. When he was a kid he would find pods the same shape as his feet and use them to make sandals.John, also on the field survey team, stops his digging for a portrait. The box on the ground has screening on the bottom that’s used to sift the dirt for artifacts.Brian, one of a group that dug and screened small excavations for Federica, a soil scientist. He is the acting headman for the Mwanamaimpa compounds, and was being interviewed by Federica for information on place histories.Brian’s son, Davis, came by to watch the excavation activities carrying a long paddle used in dugout canoes on the river close by. He set the paddle down and leaned on it in a natural pose that made me rush over to capture this image.Hilgread is one of a group of local men working at the Mwanamaimpa mound excavation.Jester, at the headwoman’s compound adjacent to the Mwanamaimpa mound. She loved to see us arrive for lunchtime. One day she gave me a bowl of peanuts that she had roasted.A girl at the headwoman’s compound. She helped Jester tend a small child who could not walk.Adjacent to the excavation mound, a man tends a fire for cooking. A typical cooking scene – pots are simply balanced on the firewood. A local woodcarver poses with one of his pieces. At the Chidakwa family compound, adjacent to the Mwanamaimpa mound, a boy poses. The young man in the background leans against an elevated corn crib.Children at the Chidakwa compound.A young boy poses against a wall of thatch.At the water’s edge, below the Mwanamaimpa mound, a self-confident young boy in a dugout canoe.A young woman at the water’s edge gazes into the camera.Kennedy and Hildegard, brothers-in-law. Both were working at the exacavation mound.At Isamu, a fishing village that we visited near the Kafue River, a young man poses with barrel-shaped fish traps. Bundles of long stickes extend into the sky above him. The Kafue flood plain extends into the distance.Adrian, another of our hosts at Basanga, and the headman at the fishing village, stretches on a chair cleverly made from two interlocked boards.Adrian’s son, Adrian Jr., looks directly and calmly in the camera.A woman at Isamu leans against a cart,An intriguing face.Woman at the Isamu fishing village.This young man at Isamu posed in what I imagined was his batchelor’s pad. The essential pots and pans, an old wine bottle, a non-functioning bike – and all open to the sky.
