We may not claim to be hydrologists or water experts, but with our umbilical cord safely buried on the shores of the Zambezi river, and having grown up swimming or fishing while dodging the crocodiles, we understand one or two things about the movement and distribution of water.
Our Nyachipopa Royal Village, the seat of the Chief Ishima Palace, East of Zambezi distric, is situated approximately 250 meters away from the mighty Zambezi river, with two lakes tucked in-between.
As a matter of fact, there are several lakes dotted alongside the said river in the district as it journeys to the Indian ocean.
During the onset of rains, the river does not burst to the seams immediately. It usually takes several weeks for it to completely overflow towards the plain and “swallow up” these lakes. They’ve exotic and sweet sounding names such as Chinanbumba, Isolu and Musekelembwa etc.
Despite the Angels opening the heavenly taps month of November, the Zambezi river in that part of the country only starts getting overflooded somewhere between February and March before feeding into the lakes.
It’s also important to appreciate that most of the water that accounts for filling up the Kariba Dam actually comes all the way from Angola. Now, imagine the period it would take for the Zambezi river to deposit part of its water into the Kariba Dam.
This year, we have obviously been blessed with abundant rainfall. Somewhere in the Scriptures we are cautioned thus, “people perish due to lack of knowledge.” It’s therefore quite understandable when ordinary folks you encounter on the buses, in the markets and on our streets begin questioning the logic behind the continued loadshedding amidst all these good rains!
Imwe ba Minister of Energy….naba ZESCO, can you please pull up your act and start explaining such dynamics to our people.
Prince Bill M Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst
Mayeng’u, Zambezi
The equilibrium has been upset. You see by the time that water reaches Kariba Dam the current waters will have been depleted and we’ll be back to square one(half full dam). The status quo has changed due to continued mild droughts. I wish when you were in opposition you would have taken time to learn this instead of promising something that you had no power over.
Half Full ??? that is overly generous When was that ?? 70/80’s
Kapinga.The Minister and ZESCO are actually putting out your facts to the masses,but like I was advising the new UPND media team under Mark Simuuwe,the masses are complaining about not getting the UPND message specifically because the current mass medium is very fragmented.There has been a proliferation of media platforms that has segmented listeners,viewers and readers into ever smaller interest groups.The challenge is to be innovative and enough resources to capture these interest groups and meet their specific interests across the various media platforms one or two messages at a time
Forget the media team for now, it cannot salvage anything. What messages would they even have on the continued loadshedding, and remember the very fact that bread and butter issues in terms of pricing are worse off, that in itself is a barrier to listening for the population. Even the message of blaming the PF must have reached its expiry date by now. It’s a tough call, but anyway they will continue keeping up appearances that they are working. Where?
Kapinga, the two lakes on Zambezi are Kariba and Cabora Bassa. Which ones are you yapping about as being “dotted alongside”, the ox-bow lakes?