Earth Hour

W

e are strangers arranged in a circle, a central fire licking shadows into our faces. As we sit speaking, it is as if peering into caves to catch each other‟s eyes, to seal the

meaning of sentences. There are at least 13 different cultures here woven into this moment, thousands more beyond the edges of these flames. We talk in nods, animated faces, the dance of hands kicking in and out of darkness, all the subtle gestures that tell so much more than words. It is Saturday, March 27, 2010, and I have only recently turned 50. We are at the edge of the rising Zambezi River, upstream from Livingstone, Zambia, above the gushing flow of Victoria Falls. Being here is my way of celebrating a half-century on the planet. Vervet monkeys are tucked, sleeping, into the lush canopies of ebony trees above us. Hippos grunt and splash off shore while an occasional copper flash below the riverbank reminds us that we‟re watched by crocodiles. Golden silk orb-weaver spiders, some splayed long as my hand on the lashes of legs, are knitting their massive, communal, sticky webs all along the elevated wooden pathway back to our thatched treehouse. We are entering Earth Hour, when all lights and all things electric will be turned off in recognition of global climate change for one hour. When Sareth, one of the guest managers, showed my husband and me to our treehouse cottage this afternoon, she asked us to please join the other guests and staff for special cocktails at 19:30, “so that all of us are safely together when we shut off the generator at 20:30 for a candle lit dinner on the patio.” While my husband considered the romantic implications of a candle-lit dinner engulfed by the music of a wild, rushing river and whether to bring the mosquito repellent, I was trying to convert what I thought of as military time into dinner time. Sareth interpreted our silence, absorbed in our mental imaginings, as concern, and apologized for the inconvenience of no electricity for an hour. A tall willow of a woman, her skin lightly perfumed and the color of cinnamon in the sunny threshold, she looked down at me and sideways to my husband, her brown eyes meeting our blue for brief intervals and then glancing away. She explained, “Here in Zambia we see that climate change is real and it

By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

Earth Hour 2

is hurting us. The Zambezi River keeps rising higher each year. Whole villages that never saw the river come near are being washed away, leaving people with nothing, only giving them hunger and disease. Villages and families have been broken apart. People try to find new places to live, but some ground won‟t grow crops, not maize, not cassava. There can be conflicts, too. People become refugees in their own country and they worry for their children.” Embarrassed that Sareth might think us to be over-pampered, fussy tourists, we quickly let her know that we are conservationists and look forward to an hour in her beautiful country without artificial light and the buzz of a generator. I told her that my husband is a wildlife biologist, my husband told her that I am a naturalist poet who used to work for an international humanitarian group, and together we made the case that at least we deemed ourselves to be enlightened visitors. Sareth smiled and handed us a letter about Earth Hour. “I‟m glad you will like to be a part of this global event with us. We will have speakers, and you can learn more. You are from California, yes? You have a famous bridge in San Francisco, and it will go dark for an hour when it is 20:30 there. Do you know that bridge?” We nodded. I envisioned the luminous bay below the lit Golden Gate Bridge, then the water suddenly dark, just quick peaks of light picking up more distant city glow. I wondered, how much will the city itself go dim? And the fish, the crabs, the harbor seals piled on rocks and piers, will they be surprised? Sareth handed us a wooden key carved with the number 12 and headed back to the main lodge, turning for a moment to say, “Our candles are citronella, but you may want to use the mosquito spray or have long sleeves.”

After more than a week travelling in the Botswana „bush,‟ we are here for just two nights in Zambia to visit what CNN dubbed the seventh natural wonder of the world, those falls downstream tomorrow. But right now, I‟m savoring the irony of turning off the lights in a country, a continent, with so few light switches. Technically, this lodge of 12 thatched treehouses, ours perched over the flooding Zambezi, has no real electricity in the suburban sense, only a couple of generators. My Zambian hosts are clearly not energy abusers. How many of the staff return to dark homes on any night? I close my eyes and remember the light pollution maps I‟ve seen of the earth from a satellite, the nighttime images. Usually I would not think of Africa as „the dark continent,‟ such an pejorative and antiquated phrase, but By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

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from the literal standpoint of electricity, of human-made light, I know that this diverse continent of nearly one billion people generates less than 5% of the planet‟s electricity. I let my inner eyes scan the map, there‟s a sprinkling of light at Africa‟s top edge from Morocco over to Egypt, a glistening puddle on the coast of Nigeria, and the glow of Johannesburg spreading south and west to Cape Town. From space, the Eastern US, Japan, and Europe are all bright blurs, and Africa almost invisible. I guess that’s exactly what this hour is about, isn’t it? Some of us are so dazzled, blinded, by our own light, we can’t see anyone else. Refocusing my attention, there is the fire, shredding up into the humid air and faint stars. There is no pure darkness, always some residue of light, a stain of starshine. An enormous splash in the river, and I stare at the ribbons of fast water, the orange and yellow from the flames floating like a shimmering skin, but I can‟t see the hippo. We‟ve had some spectacular animal encounters during our trip, though continue to find the encounters with other humans, the locals and the travelers, just as intriguing. We‟re part of a motley intersection of tourists at this rustic but elegant lodge on stilts, our upscale splurge at trip‟s end. Looking through the fire to the opposite side of the circle, there‟s a young doctor and his wife from Johannesburg, talking to an older couple from New Zealand and a science teacher from Germany? Austria? I can‟t hear her well. They all wear khaki safari pants with zip-off legs that they keep zipped on and variations of leopard- or zebra-print tee-shirts. A Canadian couple clutching martinis, dressed in polo shirts and polished loafers, join their discussion, complaining that they‟ve travelled half-way around the world, picked a lodge that was supposed to have modern amenities, only to end up sitting in the dark in the middle of nowhere. “It‟s a fitting end to the day,” the husband gripes. “We‟re here to see Vic Falls and saw nothing, just mist and fog, a wall of water, our clothes and sandals drenched.” “Yes,‟‟ his wife adds, “I really don‟t see what all the fuss is about—we could have visited Niagara Falls, saved a lot of money, and had enough light to see what we‟re drinking.” For a moment, no one speaks, though I think, thank you for not being Americans. Then the grey-haired New Zealander quips, “Well, consider it a bit of adventure. Surely it‟s not often you get to share the night with hippos and crocs?” There is a lull in the conversation. The Johannesburg couple looks at each other, laughs, whispers in Africaans. They convert back to English to order two more lagers from a young server who addresses all of us, as if old friends, by first name. None of us recall his name without glancing at the tag on his shirt, which says Arnold or Reginald, maybe Leopold. I don‟t have my glasses on, but it‟s his By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

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English name, his Zambian name being longer with more b‟s and m‟s, soft as a lullaby. Everyone speaks English, guests and staff. We Americans are spoiled when we venture out of the States. Yet each voice is spiced with its own dialect or accent, reminding us that we‟re far from home.

This morning began on a savannah in the Northwest corner of Botswana, part of Chobe National Park. My husband and I woke to the sound of the Savute Channel churning with water and the snorting sounds of elephants standing ankle deep in the flow, guzzling and spraying, engaged in their own dialogues. They were joined by five kudu with twisted horns that glinted when the big antelopes dipped their heads to drink, and dozens of the more petite impala, tails flicking constantly in the pink and amber pre-dawn light. A single Lilac-breasted Roller, a common but strikingly iridescent, bluish-purple bird of Eastern and Southern Africa, darted in and out of the crown of an acacia, catching invisible insects drawn to the newly moist morning air. Given the calm bodies, we didn‟t bother looking for leopard or lion. The Savute Channel had been dry for 29 years, then in January 2010, just two months before our trip, it began flowing again. No one knows exactly why on January 4th water suddenly appeared with a rush in the arid grassland basin. The Channel has a history of long dry spells then the return of the Savuti River. But I read that one factor is likely a slight elevational change in the broad landscape of Southern Africa precipitated by recent seismic action: an „earthquake swarm‟ in Malawi. About 30 quakes, the largest 6.2 in magnitude, rumbled through Malawi near its border with Tanzania and the Great Rift Valley beginning in December 2009 and continuing into January. When I read of the earthquakes, the thousands of people impacted, and the miraculous replenishing of the Savute Channel, I felt immediately connected to that place. My own community in the redwood country of California‟s far north coast was hit by a 6.5 earthquake during that timeframe, on January 9th. My calico, dozing in my lap, sat bolt upright, looked around then leaped to the floor, scrambling under the bed, huddling close to the wall—my intuitive little cat—just seconds before the quake hit our home. Living in a rural area, in a developed and regulated country, there were no deaths, no mass of displaced people—for me, thankfully, only a broken picture of my cats. By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

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Listening to the elephants parked along the Channel, marveling at the luminous wings of that Roller, I couldn‟t help but think of the quakes. I realized that as I was sweeping up glass that January evening, mentally calm though surprised by the quiver in my hands, the Savuti River was transforming cracked ground into a riparian oasis. At the same time, Caroline Malema in a Malawi village, I‟d read about her in an Oxfam news story, was sleeping outside, fearing the next quake, asking herself “Is God doing this?” Caroline, are you still sleeping outside? Then of course there were all those people in Port-au-Prince going about their Saturday night, getting children ready for bed, couples embracing in love or hunched over the kitchen table worried about bills, no one imaging the unaccountable loss that would crush them in three days. Chileans, at least some, were probably enjoying a little red wine just then, gazing out at their stretch of Pacific that would, in six weeks, be anything but pacific.

Strange how memory is a kind of onion. I peel away the layer of this moment by this river, and find a memory of this morning by another river, and when I peel back that memory, there‟s another, and another. Sareth, passing behind me, leans down to my right ear. “Are you enjoying Earth Hour?” she asks. Startled, I say, “um, yes, great, lovely evening, who needs electricity?” She laughs and continues toward the lodge. What was Sareth doing during all the earthquakes? Tending to her tourists? Watching the rain pummel down and wondering how much worse her river would flood this year? I scan the ring of flickering faces, then beyond, making out the silhouettes of flooded reeds under a gibbous moon. Every hour is earth hour. Each of us stands on our own crust of dirt and rock, but under it all, the same hot core sputters, and we’re thrust together. Closer together, I hope. I return to the hands, the unique sets of fingers and palms, drawn up in talking, cradling drinks, restless in a lap, tucking strands of hair behind an ear. Different, but still, all hands. We are on this indifferent, physical earth that shakes, drowns, thunders, blows—a hard place, impervious to complicated politics or one person‟s plans. Yet there is this inherent drive to endure. A river appears like a magic trick where dead trees sketched the landscape for 29 years. Within hours, animals begin to congregate; in a few days, something green sprouts. Caroline Malema may sleep, fitfully, in the open, unwalled Malawi night, but apparently she still wakes each morning, finds a way to feed her children. The Zambezi keeps reaching toward Sareth, yet she believes, despite long human odds and affluent habits, By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

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that her foreign guests can be taught to care about her continent, her country, her people. Can we really be transformed?

“Isn‟t this simply wonderful?” I turn, and it‟s the retired widow from Australia, sitting beside me. I must look confused. “Hello, dear, don‟t you think this is a wonderful experience?” I bob my head. She tells me she‟s been working her way through African, beginning in Kenya a couple of weeks ago, then to Tanzania, down through Botswana and parts of Namibia, arriving yesterday in Zambia and still two more weeks of travel. Being a charitable gift planner, I think, wish you were in my donor portfolio. She‟s heavy-set and uses a cane. Earlier the staff members, speaking a bit frantically in one of the native languages— there are 72 in Zambia, plus English—had to search the lodge to find a wide, sturdy chair so she could comfortably join the circle. She breathes audibly and smiles constantly as we chat, her teeth narrow and gappy. “Yes, I mean, all of it, it‟s wonderful—the strange trees, the peach-colored moon, oh, the silent flashes of lightning in the distance, the huge sound of the Zambezi, and how kind and interesting the people are here, and it‟s just us and the candles and the monkeys sleeping through it all right above us. Wonderful, just wonderful.” Ronald, one of the lodge managers, taps a water glass to capture our attention. Time for the speakers. It‟s getting late, and the days of travel, the deep glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc, the cling of the warm musky air, make me a little sleepy, my mind full of its own monkeys jumping from thought to thought. There is a murmur, some guests still talking, and I miss the introductions. A man in safari clothes, a biologist, I gather, stands in front of a wide map of the world that has suddenly appeared on an easel. He points to Zambia to make sure we know where we are, which seems silly until I hear a voice whisper, “I didn‟t realize we were almost at the bottom of Africa.” Guess he knows what he’s doing. Then he points to America. “The United States, with 4.5% of the world‟s population, is the highest user of electricity in the world, with Americans using nearly 1,500 units of power per person. To put that in perspective, Zambians use less than 85 units per person.” Everyone shifts their eyes to my husband and me and the only other American, a military diplomat stationed in Zambia on holiday with his visiting friend from the UK. I‟m intensely aware of the rising Zambezi. I

By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

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glance as Sareth and Arnold and the other staff, standing at the outer edge of the patio. Under their calm demeanors, are they angry with us? The biologist continues, “However, it is estimated that by the end of this year China will be the world‟s largest electricity consumer, though given that country‟s population of 1.3 billion people, their power use will still be relatively low at about 360 units per person. Of course, that is expected to rise with China‟s economic growth.” There had been two Chinese men at another table during lunch, businessmen on a side trip, we‟d assumed. They wore souvenir Victoria Falls tee-shirts, Zeiss binoculars hanging around their necks. They were polite and private. After they checked out, the native guide, who will take us to the falls tomorrow, gave us his perspective on Chinese funds and products flowing into Zambia. “The Chinese are bringing some industry to our country, which is good. We need that if it will bring us good wages. They will help with things like bridges and roads, too. But such opportunity also hurts our own businesses. Do you know about the problem with shoes? Zambian shoes are made well, but Chinese shoes are cheaper. People earn less in six months or a year than you are paying to stay here two nights, so they buy the imported shoes. Then the rains come, and the shoes fall apart. People have no money, so they do all kinds of things to try to make the shoes hold together, sewing, taping, gluing. Tomorrow when we pass through the marketplace, look at the feet, and you‟ll see.” The biologist finishes by saying that it took the planet until 1804 to reach a total population of one billion people. Yet in just the last 50 years—that’s my lifespan—the population has gone from a little over 3 billion to nearly 7 billion. “There are more people alive now than in the entire history of the human race.” It‟s a mind-boggling statement. I imagine the first peoples under a clean, brilliant path of starry light spilt across their night sky. How sufficient that was for so long. Now everyone wants porchlights. How many times have I shuffled off to bed, forgotten to flip off that switch? All those porchlights left burning have filaments we can’t see, connections, implications, they twist and tangle, and then the Zambezi rises higher, drowns crops and children. Another speaker stands, dressed in tan slacks and a colorful, African-print shirt with what look like tiny, wooden lion paws for buttons. He talks about the many humanitarian issues affecting the people of Zambia and Africa. He draws connections between climate changes, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, HIV and AIDS, overpopulation, and what he calls By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

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“economic oppression.” “Don‟t you see?” he asks. “Everything is connected.” I respond to myself, yes, I see, well, at least I glimpse—no one can see it all. Ronald appears out of the shadows and thanks us. Another guest whispers to my husband and me, “Ronald is related to a family of well-known missionaries generations past, but he might not really be a Christian.” Yes, there is gossip in the bush. “Well,” my husband replies, “we‟re impressed by how well Ronald knows the local birds, and he really seems to respect his staff.” We rise, stretch, and head to another patio for dinner. Soon the table talk evolves away from conversations about global warming. Our comfortable little crowd of travelers wants to avoid the airing of too many awkward opinions, as we realize that climate change, the human role in it, is a form of religion. Some of us are impassioned believers while others staunchly assert it‟s all a hoax. The Australian widow is next to me again. “Really,” she insists, “Who wants an ugly argument on such a beautiful night?”

The young guide we met at lunch leads us along the raised walkway back to our treehouse. “The hippos and crocodiles sometimes climb on land, and with the water higher, they have been coming more into the lodge,” he explains. “Never walk at night without me or another guide to make sure everything is okay.” We pass the colony of orb-weavers, their webs strung from the handrails high up into the ebony trees. The electricity is back on now, and the low lighting on the walkway makes the webs shine. Back in our room, we find a hand-written note from our housekeeper—I heard her name as Thamwa—who had walked our duffle bags, one of them balanced on her head, from the main lodge to our treehouse. My husband wanted to carry them, but Sareth assured us, “it is no burden for her.” The note says “Mwabonwa! Welcome!” She writes her m‟s differently, like fat, round n‟s. “We would like to wish you a pleasant and great stay with us.” She has untied the mosquito netting around our bed that looks out to the Zambezi. She left on a lamp beside the bed. In the lit room, we can‟t see the Zambezi, only our pale reflections on blackened glass. I shut off the light and slide under a sheet, the cotton cool against my skin. Darkness is the first pelt we wrap ourselves into, and the last. My eyes blinded by the sudden absence of light, learn to see again, and I make out the sheen of the river‟s skin while I wait to fall asleep.

By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz

Earth Hour 9

With less around me visible, sounds are amplified. Water moving under the edge of our room wails into my ears. What is that low crunch below the floor, that moving weight in the woods? There‟s a toad in the windowsill. Is that you, hopping about? Recalling the sprawled colony of spiders, dragging their nets from branch to branch, I believe I can just barely hear their legs scraping the night air. Rain taps then crackles, heavy, on the thatched roof. A storm. I imagine the wet beads pelting my bare arms, how my leather sandals, left out on the deck, must be darkening, saturated. I dream of zebra, thousands ambling in a line on the Savute savannah, then jolted to trotting and galloping, wind gusting at their flanks, hooves gouging blond grasses and earth, kicking plumes of red dust into the drama, pulsing air in currents around their bodies, turning them to grey smudges in brick-colored mist, a red oxygen filled with the wildness of the zebra, and I breathe it in. Somehow I‟m with a group of women who believe in God. I don‟t know them but they seem familiar. One of them looks at me, and says, “We are married to pain.” I realize they are nuns, and we are crossing the upper Zambezi on the Kazungula Ferry from Botswana into Zambia. Their bodies are soft and lonely under their drab clothes as they give food to skinny children lined up by the river, their breasts falling forward beneath thick fabric, the heat of their love contained. My eyes flutter back open. Time has passed, and the room is slowly brightening. Still raining. Silhouettes of tree limbs hang heavy over the deck, dripping. The Zambezi pulses along. Relentless. Spindles of a chair, a slip of paper on a table, a tarnished door handle, webs in the thatching, emerge and take shape. Good morning little toad in the window. I hear Thamwa and someone else talking out on the walkway in one of the Zambian languages, low and musical. The day begins the only way it can—light seeping from each body, all things, until we illuminate each other.

By Kimberley Pittman-Schulz