Enormous elephant footprints cratered a dirt road in Zambia’s rural Nakatindi Village. A floppy-eared intruder had rampaged through town the previous night, foraging acacia and mango trees as stray dogs viciously barked and locals clanged pots and pans to scare the pachyderm off.
But morning brought calm. At the Sishemo cooperative, four village women took turns manually crushing empty bottles of Bombay Sapphire gin and Jack Daniel’s whiskey to recycle into glass beads for artisan jewelry they proudly make and sell.
“We named our business Sishemo because it means ‘mercy’ like ‘have mercy on someone’ in our Lozi language — and that is what happened,” said Hellen Kahilu, her second child, 2-year-old Nellie, strapped to her back by a flowered cloth sling. “Before this, I was a single mother with no job. Many people in our village are poor. This has really changed my life.”
Just yards away, inside a converted shipping container, three of five female mechanics who own Chipego Bike Shop recounted how intense training taught them to refurbish and sell bicycles donated mainly from the United States. Since 2015 they’ve repaired and sold more than 11,500 bikes, a crucial mode of transportation here. Buyers have been from Nakatindi (estimated population 7,000) but also from widespread rustic communities; a farmer, located five hours from Nakatindi, purchased 30 bikes for his field laborers to pedal to work.
“It’s a miracle. We are now able to feed our families,’ said Musole Mbonge, who learned to fix bikes before ever riding one. Her colleague, Agathar Mabuku, wielding a wrench over a pink Huffy Dream Girl model, added with a chuckle: “We are experts. But the spokes, balancing the wheels, is the hardest part.”
Both of these projects — and others in Nakatindi Village and the world — were sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent’s philanthropic arm (AKP). Most tourists know the luxury global travel brand for its exceptional safari lodges and upscale journeys but the 64-year-old company has long focused on enacting positive change in disadvantaged communities near their destinations. Last year, the nonprofit AKP raised $3.3 million from bookings, guest donations and various partners to support 80 programs in 27 countries; what’s more, A&K vacationers are encouraged to visit philanthropic milestones during their trips.
In Zambia, I stayed at A&K’s Sanctuary Sussi & Chuma, named for explorer David Livingstone’s loyal companions, upstream on the Zambezi River from iconic Victoria Falls and within mammal-roaming Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. Days later, after traveling by van and bush plane, I thrillingly faced dagger-fanged lions at A&K’s Sanctuary Chief’s Camp in neighboring Botswana. I’d enjoy stellar safari adventures but witnessing people’s lives being improved and hearing their stories firsthand epitomized what I trust many tourists desire — a deeply meaningful connection beyond sightseeing.
One early evening, my Zambian guide Eddie Kanjilu navigated our pontoon boat on the Zambezi, past creepy crocodiles, semi-submerged hippos and river-slurping elephants, when it was time for the classic African sundowner cocktail. This was a good thing because Sishemo depends on the lodge’s drained booze bottles.
“The hotel brings us the bottles for free and our first job is to wash them and remove the labels,” Hellen explained at the bead shop. Next, the Sishemo women (seven in total) smash bottles with a large metal mortar and pestle, sift the glass powder to put into molds with cassava tree sticks that create holes, fire those in a termite clay kiln, and then individually sand and shine each bead to craft bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Before Sishemo opened in 2019, AKP sent a beading guru from Ghana to instruct the women on the process.
Jameson whiskey bottles result in kelly green beads, the Amarula liqueur and Black Label beer into brown ones, the Bombay Sapphire into blue, and the Gordon’s gin and Jack Daniel’s into white. My Zevenwacht Sauvignon Blanc became sea green baubles.
AKP has been actively involved with Nakatindi since 2012, helping to fund a medical clinic now serving 16,000 Zambians, a separate maternity ward, and at Nakatindi School a lunch program, clean water, classrooms (where kids learn about conservation), a library-computer center and soon science labs. I’d check them all out with AKP’s kind, soft-spoken Zambian Impact Manager Mupelwe Matete, based at Sussi & Chuma. Along the way, we strolled by some of Nakatindi’s traditional mud-and-brick homes, heaps of for-sale sweet potatoes, and mangled branches torn down by the errant elephant.
Dr. Livingstone, I presume?
At Sussi & Chuma, I slept in one of 12 jungle-chic treehouse-style bungalows furnished with vintage map-print easy chairs and linked by elevated wood walkways. Raucous grunts of hippos echoed underneath pre-dawn; at daylight endearing bushbuck antelopes, comical warthogs and troops of wily vervet monkeys acted like they owned the place. The latter did. Devious simians regularly swooped down on dining tables to hijack sugar bowls; I spied a furry rascal opening the beer fridge in the bar.
The remarkable lodge looks across the rippling river at the country of Zimbabwe and is just miles from Zambia’s onetime colonial city of Livingstone, christened for the Scottish physician-missionary-explorer who was escorted through Africa by trusty cohorts Abdullah Sussi and James Chuma.
Centuries ago, indigenous tribes called the world’s largest curtain of falling water Mosi-oa-Tunya (the same as the national park), which means “The Smoke That Thunders.” David Livingstone renamed the natural wonder Victoria Falls in 1855 after his British monarch.
I swear the ground forcefully shook, the water’s raw might thunderously bellowed, and my chest palpitated standing across from the magnificent falls’ Zambian side (the mile-wide spectacle spans over to Zimbabwe). Despite being draped in a tarp, I got soaked on the viewing trail as water fiercely crashed over the falls’ edge and sprayed up to thrust torrential downpours over visitors. Elsewhere, vibrant rainbows from the sun hitting the thick mist arched over the walking path, then bewitchingly disappeared as I squished through in soggy slip-ons.
Within a dry area, a bronze statue towered above of Livingstone, who in 1873 died from malaria and dysentery in Zambia. “Sussi and Chuma removed his heart and his intestines and buried his heart under a tree in Zambia,” Eddie told me. “They used salt and whiskey to embalm his body and then wrapped his body using animal skin and leaves to disguise it. That was because in some villages you are not allowed to pass through with a dead body. It took about nine months to walk with his body from Zambia to Tanzania, where his body was returned by ship to England.”
Back at the lodge — where bronze statues of unsung heroes Sussi and Chuma greet guests — Eddie and I left to rendezvous with assault rifle-toting rangers who follow and guard the national park’s rare nine white rhinos from poachers 24-7. On foot, we trudged behind a ranger until two prehistoric-like double-horned beasts, 3-year-old Mukupa and mom Jesse, appeared grazing in the grasslands, an incredible scene.
There are no lions or other predators in Mosi-oa-Tunya. From our safari vehicle, I gawked at dazzling zebras, exquisite elephants, shy impalas, regal giraffes — and human graves. Inside this animal preserve, the Old Drift Cemetery contains 20 toes-up European settlers, many who tortuously succumbed to malaria between 1898 and 1905. The interred include a doctor, shopkeeper, and a Hawaiian tourist smacked by a plummeting boulder in 1904.
Also on a game drive, a gigantic male white rhino suddenly crossed the road and momentarily went eyeball-to-eyeball with a family of warthogs who may have wondered what they were staring at. Rhinos have bad vision and the wild pigs wisely skedaddled. I didn’t notice any of the anti-poaching patrol, but was assured armed rangers were watching.
Compassion in action
Nakatindi was extremely isolated from decent medical care until the AKP-supported health clinic debuted in 2013, treating diseases such as malaria and HIV, and administering vaccinations. Five years later, the adjacent life-saving maternity ward opened; most moms-to-be had been giving birth at home with no prenatal care. Zambia’s HIV mother-to-baby transmission rate had also been among the world’s highest, but now in Nakatindi, “The rate is almost at zero,” said Elina Mazyopa, the clinic’s assistant in charge. “We start using medicine to ensure the viral load is suppressed as soon as a woman knows she’s pregnant.” Elina showed me the sterile delivery room and ultrasound equipment, as mothers lined up with bundled newborns for postnatal checkups they didn’t have access to before.
Meanwhile, at Nakatindi School, 1,369 AKP free lunches were about to be distributed to students, for some children the only meal they may eat all day. A village volunteer, inside a small structure and using a wood-burning stove, cooked massive vats of nshima, which is a Zambian staple of corn meal porridge, and colossal pots of soy chunks seasoned with beef flavoring sprinkles.
“When students are hungry, they can’t concentrate. Sometimes they sleep at their desks,” said Salome Mudenda, the teacher overseeing the food program. Since AKP began offering lunches in 2013, “Absenteeism has been severely reduced.”
Everywhere, brightly smiling pupils shouted, “Hi! Hi!” to me. When I went to talk to them, they giggled a lot.
AKP’s Mupelwe is hoping to install LifeStraw clean water systems at 14 other schools, which like Nakatindi, are on the edge of the national park. I joined him during his initial meeting at Simoonga School with Christine Mweemba, deputy head teacher. She seemed unfamiliar with the philanthropic efforts but was eager to listen. “We have a a crisis of water here,” she said, noting frogs and dead birds have been found in the school’s water storage vessels.
“What is the magic?” she asked about LifeStraw. Mupelwe detailed how a filter can eliminate illness-causing contaminants from any source — even the river — and that a single LifeStraw container can purify water for about 100 people for five years. He then took water samples in plastic bottles from the school’s outdoor taps. “I am very humbled,” the grateful Simoonga educator said.
All projects pay it forward. The Sishemo and Chipego women financially assist their extended families and community members; Sishemo also provides for three disabled residents. Chipego donates bikes for students to ride to school and for health care volunteers to tend to the sick. Last year, when Nakatindi School was about to be shut down for sanitation issues, Chipego — which means “gift” in the local Tonga language — bought materials to build a new septic tank.
Captivating cats
After bidding goodbye to Sussi & Chuma, by van Eddie and I crossed Kazungula Bridge, where the four countries of Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe famously converge in the river below. At Botswana’s border, as required by guards, I stepped my Asics into a disinfectant (a precaution to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease), then at a health station had my temperature taken, and finally waited at a busy immigration office to be approved for entry. Next, I hopped on a 12-seater bush plane that landed on a tiny dusty airstrip favored by baboons on remote, private Chief’s Island in the Okavango Delta.
“They call this Predator Island,” said Ryno Du Rand, general manager of A&K’s outstanding Sanctuary Chief’s Camp.
He was spot-on. During my first game drive, cat-savvy guide Khan Gouwe swiftly discovered the most elusive Big Five celebrity on any safari. A stunning amber-eyed leopard sprawled on a lofty branch of a marula tree, camouflaged by her rosette-patterned coat. Eventually, the leopard climbed down and led us to her stashed kill, a bushbuck. We could see her burrow the antelope’s guts to deter hyenas and lions from smelling and swiping her multi-day feast.
The following morning, again on Chief’s Island in the 1,880-square-mile Moremi Game Reserve, Khan turned a brush-choked corner and abruptly braked because four majestic lions and a Simba-cute cub lurked in front of us. One by one, the apex carnivores nonchalantly plodded so near to me in the open-sided 4X4, I could almost tickle their chins if I didn’t want my arm.
Slinking along, the pride sloshed through watery floodplains — the 5-month-old seemed annoyed getting wet. I had been at Chief’s Camp nine years ago but that was long before heavy rainstorms surrounded part of the lodge with mystical lily-packed waters that I’d later traverse by a guided mokoro canoe.
At one point the cub stopped to chew on a sandbag as if it were a kitty toy instead of means to keep our vehicle from getting stuck in mud. When two more lions picked up, carried off and dropped sandbags, Khan half-joked we might have to radio for help if any more were looted.
That evening, we saw no sign of the leopard’s obviously stolen bushbuck carcass. The stealth feline rested up in a different tree, before she descended and stalked off to hunt in the vast savanna and ambush another dinner. We two-legged creatures returned to Chief’’s Camp and were met with flutes of sparkling brut rosé.