I went to a dinner party a few weeks ago at a colleague’s home. Her family has an amazing house on the outskirts of Lusaka, with 10 horses, 3 ducks, several cats, and several acres of property. It was an interesting mix of people, Americans, Scots, Brits, Zambians, etc., of all ages. …so conversation was very interesting. We had cocktails on the back patio while we watched the ducks swim in the pool, and picked out constellations. Dinner was set up under an ivy-covered canopy, and the table looked like something out of La Dolce Vita, with lots of flickering assorted candles and fresh flowers. Dinner was fabulous, fresh spicy/sweet greens, homemade bread, individually baked chicken pies, with a side of roasted parsnip (love!) and potato. Combined with the four courses of cocktails (pre-dinner G&T’s, multiple bottles of red vino at dinner, homemade toffee vodka*, and whiskey), it was a great break from the hotel food I had been eating the first few weeks. Probably the nicest dinner experience I’ve had in a long time.
The evening got interesting when we realized that one of the dinner guests, a born and raised second generation Zambian, happened to be quoted in an interesting New Yorker article my colleague had just read on the flight over here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/05/100405fa_fact_goldberg
You have to have a subscription to see full article, but there’s a good synopsis here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2010/03/a-shooting-in-zambia.html
“…American scientists who, in the late eighties and nineties, moved to Zambia to do research on large animals, and ended up as zealous guardians of wildlife. They were caught in what Goldberg, in commentary accompanying the video above, calls “the poaching wars”; his piece explores their work, and the shooting of a man during their time in Zambia.“
The gentleman we met, who was quoted, obligingly answered our questions about the story, which is pretty fascinating, and quite controversial here.
The evening was great, and a gentle reminder of how small these communities can be.
*toffee vodka: Take a bottle of vodka, pour out enough to fit in a whole package of Werther’s toffee candies, shake it up, and put it in your dishwasher the next time you do a load. The toffee melts, and leaves you with a very tasty liquor.
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