Mutomboko Ceremony

The President of Zambia Mr. Banda giving a speech.

The Paramount Chief doing the dance of conquest.

As our time here in Zambia is wrapping up we spent our last weekend "up north" going to the Mutomboko Ceremony in Kazembe. We left around 8:00 Saturday morning (thanks to transportation provided by PLARD) and rode the few hours up to the site. When we got to Kazembe it was so full of people, people everywhere. We scoped out the stadium area and then decided to go visit some waterfalls nearby (instead of just sitting around and being in the crowds). We also went up a little bit further north so that one of the other passengers could go see his daughter at the boarding school she is at (she is in 10th grade) and give her some food and money so she can take the bus home in a few weeks. After that we went back to Kazembe for the ceremony. We got there in good time and didn't have to wait around very long. The place was crowed though, so we climbed up on top of the Land Cruiser to watch. There were a number of speeches. The President of Zambia was there and gave a speech on what is being done in Luapula (fixing roads, fertilizer support program, building a cultural center, and stuff like that). Then there were some dances and then the Paramount Chief (the big boss man) came out and did a dance. The ceremony is celebrating the conquests of the Lunda people. We didn't know that at a certain point the Chief will lift his leg and stomp it down and that indicated "He is King" and "the end of the Mutomboko ceremony". At that point everyone started running and fleeing the stadium, to me it appeared to be chaos! People were running in every direction! We climbed down off the land cruiser and left, that was the end. Others stay and spend the rest of the night drinking/partying. It was an interesting thing to experience.