Sad times in Western

Hi Mom -

Bad news today ... there were chips in the edifice of Zambia's long peace yesterday. Agitation over the Barotse Agreement of 1964 let to a riot in Mongu yesterday in which a man and a child were reported to have been killed. Rumors are swirling with regards to the actual number; sounds like the town center was a pretty sketchy place to be. My boss, Mr. Mooto, has children and grandchildren in Mongu; he anxiously phoned them in the late morning (as rumors had been swirling around), and we could hear the gunshots through the telephone. Needless to say, he was not fully attentive most of the day. Me and the two other guys, Patrick and Aka, worked on as usual, but there was a pensive air within and without the office.

The riot was partially in response to a visit by the President to the Litunga (King) of the Barotse tribe; there is a lot of disagreement over the interpretation of the Agreement on both sides, and this being an election year exacerbates the situation. You see, [the Kingdom of] Barotseland was a protectorate within Northern Rhodesia; when Independence was achieved in 1964, it was predicated on an agreement between the Barotse Kingdom, Great Britain, and the then-nascent government of Zambia. This was and is now known as the Barotse Agreement; within it were a number of conditions regarding relations between the two entities upon their union as the Republic of Zambia.

I can't say much else about it; I've been cautioned by the U.S. Embassy through our Peace Corps staff to limit my discussion of the Agreement or the riots yesterday, as the U.S. has no official stance on the disagreement. Don't worry; there's absolutely no danger here and everyone looks out for me. However, it was definitely a more somber than usual, both yesterday and today. I pray that having received a small taste of violence, people will recoil from it and seek more peaceful resolutions.

It was a fitting coda to the day that while having a beer and watching the sunset, I had a discussion with one of the Somalian guys who run the local halaal butchery. He was genuinely sorrowful over the violence; he told me that though he longs to see his home, the chaos that is Somalia keeps him and his family out; such a turn here worries him to no end.

A bad an end to an otherwise great week; our peanut butter sales hit a new high of K540,000 and we turned a couple of corners towards becoming a self-supporting company. We only have about a hundred more corners to turn, but you have to start somewhere.

Love,
C.T.