Ode to the Cape Lilac

It's deep September, which in Zambia means the hot, dry season.

Hot, as opposed to the cool, dry season means a difference in daytime temperatures of about 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Physically, it means everything ... brick houses tend not to heat up very much until you pass 80-85 degrees for more than six hours. To whit, in June and July, you tend to feel warmer outside your house than within. After that, the situation reverses, and the house becomes a nighttime oven.

It's really great. You sweat throughout the day, go home, and sweat throughout the night. I sweat buckets. Ironically, in this climate featuring the aridity commensurate to the Atacama, you never feel sweaty because it evaporates so fast. It's only at the end of the day when bathing, particularly if you've been working in the soil, that you notice the cold water you pour on your head tastes strongly of salt and your legs are covered in the black dust which is essentially all the organic matter the soil is capable of holding. It's something to consider, particularly when we have guests from HQ in Dublin; they typically are fine and then almost collapse from dehydration. You simply have no idea how fast your body dries out in these conditions ... it's like putting a blow dryer to a piece of plastic wrap.

A great ball for our farmers ... we encourage them to prepare early precisely for this reason. Swinging a hoe when it's 95 and headed for 105 or 110 is just not pleasant. However, the sand-dominated soils out here tend to turn people off to preparing early, as the basins collapse soon after digging. Therefore, we try hard to get the farmers to dig the basins and apply some form of organic inputs earlier rather than later so that they can find the indentations months later when it's time to plant.

Though the heat is inimical to the extent of being personified as Philistine or as the presence of unforgiving Nature, the season does have its subtle (and brilliant) joys, particularly in the deep forests that despite "rampant charcoal burning" are quite extensive in this part of Zambia. To whit, the week before last we were in Senanga visiting the CA farmers in Kaeya and Lui Wanyau*. In either place, we walking through extensive stands of Afzelia quanzensis (Pod mahogany) and Julbernardia that were just coming into bloom.

Contemporary music in the form of Phil Spector brought us what we now refer to as the "Wall of Sound". This is Zambia's version of the Wall of Scent ... it is a pervasive olfactory aura that is magnified to an exponential volume relative to the individual trees (which are themselves impressive in stature). And is a fundamentally good smell, as in when you encounter it, your thoughts are merrier, your step is lighter, and your soul is uplifted. It's hard to describe to our increasingly urbanized species what a good smell is or what it can do for you. Those among you who have read Süskind will know that among the five senses, scent is the most powerful, most fleeting, and most difficult to control.

It's no small wonder that Zambian honey, which is harvested further north in the miombo woodlands, has a quality of taste and scent unsurpassed by few, if none, other foods. Walking through it, you can understand that a Zambian bee would have other purpose than to get the nectar, and with immediate effect. Try it for yourself if you have one of those organic-hippy-cooperative-etc. groceries in your neighborhood (e.g., the Willy Street Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin). They sell a product known, if my memory serves me, as Zam-bee-zi Honey.

All that aside, the tree that appeals to me most is the introduced species, Melia azedarach (Cape lilac). It was intentionally planted en masse in Zambian towns and around rural schools over the past 20 years, due in large part to its similarity to Azadirachta indica (more commonly known as the neem tree). Neem is well-known in agroforestry circles for its capacity as a natural insecticide; doubtless, because of the similarity in leaf shape and arrangement, not to mention the parity of the Latin nominal that lead to the confusion of the species.

By all means a fortuitous mistake ... the two species share many similar properties, M. azedarach is far easier to propagate** in the Zambian climate, and as it's English name suggests, it has an unremarkable looking bloom of greyish-violet flowers which exhale a transformative odor. I stand transfixed whenever I'm downwind, remembering for the briefest of instants the Louis and Irene Beady's place on the Raber Road, which was lined with lilacs. Brief, but so full! Standing people who were time-travelers from the Jazz Age with the semi-stacatto accents common among the 2nd generation Poles of our area. Fresh bread. Bright blue skies. Lake herring.

Alas, the wind changes and it's back to the fulsome scent of the neighbor's burning garbage. It is in such refuge you are lucky to repose, if only for a moment.

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* The Lui (pr. "Loo-ee") River is a large tributary of the Zambezi that starts way up by Mayukwayukwa on the Kaoma / Lukulu border and flows about 125-150 miles south / southwest until it joins the Zambezi 20km south of Senanga. It is considered the eastern limit of settlement in Senanga to the extent that the eastern shores is locally referred to as the "East Bank" (similar in nature to the difficult-to-access "West Bank" i.e., western shore of the Zambezi Floodplain). All villages in the Lui Valley are prefixed with "Lui" as a locative ... hence, the village/community Wanyau (in the Lui Valley) is known as Lui Wanyau to differentiate it from other Wanyau villages.
** Neem tends to throw seed in June, the coldest month on the Zambian plateaux and consequently, the worst time to plant trees. Unfortunately, waiting for warmer degrees is tricky, as the seeds themselves have a relatively short shelf live (1-2 months).