Station 64

In our new house i stare out the window and it feels like i am in Banff. Pine trees on the hills above us, lining my view like i’m a pioneer. Frost clings to the trees and the river, which was originally frozen, breaks earlier this week and water rushes forth. Holding Nila out back on her leash i hear the running water and it feels like a ‘whoosh’, the realization, washing over me, that i am near moving water. It is magical and spectacular. I remind myself that this is why I moved here. 

With that said, when i went to the old place, Panorama Court last week in the midst of all the cleaning I felt the warmth of that place. From September 2020 to January 2025, our home near 17th Ave, behind a loud and insane alley, it held in its walls so much hope and optimist. Near the yellow wall with all the paintings where I found myself as an adult, where Jamar and I clung to each other as two fully grown humans, where Nila came to us as a baby puppy. Where I learnt my own body at the gym, where i discovered the otherworld, where ghosts and spirits and beings visited that one spring while we were editing Jinn Julian. A place where magic slowly unfurled through the paintings and the early mornings and the sunlight that poured in. I must bring that magic here, now to River House. Glowing, warm, hopeful, brave, home. A new home. Erected to bring my writing to life, to be our safe haven against the rising war outside. Trump announced his tariffs last weekend and Trudea appears to be fighting back. These are the times we live in now. Where it feels, somewhat comedically that we are on the brink of a war, or perhaps one that will come in two years. But the trouble is brewing, faster than ever. 

Something about being outside in the chill, borrowed ice spikes on beneath my boots with borrowed layers of winter gear, I feel awake. I tell myself that if I do see some animals out here, I would pray. We continue trailing behind each other for an hour and a half - I am definitely the slowest, my lungs weaker than everyone else. I tell myself this is a part of the pact of getting stronger, learning to acclimate in the Canadian winter that I had spent the last two and a half decades of my life absolutely despising. How did they used to track these mountains before? Who made these paths? I imagine that when the sun sets, we would be enveloped in complete darkness. No lamps, no distant city lights, just the tall trees (Englemann Spruce and possibly Alpnine Larch's) and silence. On our drive back, we drive fast past a Big Horn Sheep. Great curving horns and eyes that look blind catching the parked car on the right side of the bridge. I yell out, asking if we can turn back because I am thrilled. I look at the sides of the towering rock formations all around us and imagine the sheep running on them, sideways, cutting their teeth on life as they risk falling to their doom. BIG HORN SHEEP - I remember the giant painting on the side of my lodge in Dead Mans Flats from the spring. Blue and grey and sombre and epic like a wanted poster of an animal. Great being looking over the flats, protecting all the visitors to came through that enchanted path to a place that was held in time. Inside, on the desk I pushed up to the window, writing fast and imagining the apocalypse. Inside that suite, fireplace burning slow, readying myself to try the gateway tapes but being too scared, waking up at 3 am to the power cut and pressing my eyes closed so tight because I felt something. On the bed, watching Brahmayugam consumed by anxiety and dread, choosing to feel past it, arriving at the clearing. The woods, the lake, my salvation. 

On my last night in Africa I hear the rain pour down outside my gated windows. Each time I think the downpour is at its peak, it gets even heavier. The thunder and lighting here are deeper, more rumbling and severe. Every time I hear it I feel as thought I will wake up the next day to find a flood has come over the land. It never happens though, the only evidence of the heavy rains are the hundreds of rain termite wings scattered on the front stoop. Fairy wings, breaking off the termite bodies after such a short life. Rising to their life and their death during rainfall. The first time I saw them emerge, descend on us actually - in the restaurant, I had stared at them in disgust. Hurriedly putting on my black rain jacket and zipping it up to my face, terrified I would feel them against my skin. Now, I look at their scattered wings with a weird affection. Some of their wings make their way into the house, fluttering about the floor of the bathroom and bedroom and living room. My toes brush past them now, unafraid. 

One last yango ride to and from East Park Mall - upon Anthonys request to find food, as our fridge was full of nonsense and rot. Sure, we can go, I said, half annoyed. I was enjoying the stillness of the empty room. An emptiness and privacy I had not been granted in nearly 16 days. Begrudgingly I wear my glasses out, no makeup on, brown dress that I didn’t know if I hated or loved. Sitting in the back of the yango I let my eyes wander the long stretch of Obama road one more time. Car boots filled with vegetables, CHOPPIES where it seemed people were always lingering. Salon after salon with girls stretching their neck to let braiders lazily move their fingers - but somehow also delicate and quick to create a hundred thin, long, swinging braids as was the current fashion amongst the youth. Walking through East Park, I feel a strange power roiling around in me. I had felt it on New Years Eve as well, in my body and my bones at Granddaddys, a weird mature confidence. An understanding that my priorities were changing. An understanding that no matter what, my mind and body and form were mine. 1 minute before New Years, walking fast through the parking lot outside scanning for Bupe, Byuna, Misha, Bessie or any of the others, but I couldn’t find them fast enough. I looked at my phone in panic, 10 more seconds till midnight, what if I don’t find them? And then quickly, fast, midnight closed in, fireworks all around us, lighting up the sky but strangely close to land unlike the fireworks I was used to seeing in Canada. This was closer, more immediate, touchable almost. My panic moved away and was replaced by an understanding. A weird cosmic sign - of course I had to feel the first seconds of the New Year alone. Surrounded by the bursting light, in what felt at times like the heart of the world. 15 seconds alone - only mine and nobody else’s, and then I found them. Just a couple cars away. Happy New Years Happy New Years - phones pointed to the sky, laughing and moving and swaying, Byuna balancing on one leg hugging the man she claimed she was only casually seeing. Misha hurriedly calling a yango, so quickly after the countdown, as if she needed to run away from some realization and feeling that hit her. I didn’t want to leave, but I dignified her need to escape with a quiet nod. Sure, we could leave. 

Victor, the head of Lusaka Contemporary Arts tells me about one of the former prime ministers of Zambia. “He was a bigger man, stern looking, from the Copper Belt. But somehow he knew how to move with everyone, figured out everyones language. He would go into villages all over Zambia and move through the crowd like a common person.” I nodded enthusiastically, stating ‘Yes that’s the only way to do it - the only way to really know your people’

All of this had come up when I asked how Zambia had avoided communal violence and tribalism. 72 tribes, 72 languages, mineral rich, surrounded by African nations with a reputation for violence and instability. What made this place so different? Was it Kenneth Kaunda’s ONE ZAMBIA ONE NATION dream that took route after independence? All national identities are to some extent, invented. Zambia’s was as well. But through some miracle it seemed to have worked. Class here was not determined by tribe, or geography. It was simply who has more or less money. You could be a rich Bemba man or a destitute Bemba man it seems. At least this is what I was being told by someone who sat at the centre of the arts scene here. ‘A place to think freely, where we have to see all ideas to its end’ He had said, pointing to the beautiful white building near Obama Plaza. It had an elevated, California-esque containment about it. Like it would be a Soho house. A cool breeze moved through it, and oddly I spotted no insects. As if they knew not to come here. 

Earlier in the day, after a few hours in Zambia Daily Mail, leafing through archives from 1976, 1978, 1964 I smell the dust on my finger tips. Carrying the memories of another time, of another people on my hands. Sometimes I stumble across small stories - a petty crime, domestic violence, murder over something small - these small fragments of history, I realize somewhat chillingly that nobody will ever think of those people and nobody ever has since they had lived and died. I tell myself that maybe I should not skim quickly, that when the small random stories emerge from the archives - the irrelevant and random ones, I should actually read them slower. Resurrect they're ghosts in the moment, think about their life beyond the 200 words on the aging brown paper. 

Day 4.

Many things have transpired since the last time I wrote - long, hot car and van drives through the city weaving in and out of sparsely populated roads to the wide streets near dated, yellowing government buildings. In the car next to me Forest and Nala speak slowly about their private lives, using formal words casually - ‘There’s a domestic issue I have to handle’ I look at her again wondering what serious issue is taking place at home. Later on she says ‘I have to drop off keys and feed the dogs’. 

In Kapuacha Market, one of the older market places from Lusaka that was erected in the 70’s we loiter around outside the market office, under the beating sun, smiling sheepishly at the vendors of the market. All of us clustered around the rubble of the path, looking like we were about to do something massive and important. We all speak quickly, debating how much money to give the market ‘manager’ to let us shoot videos of the vendors, and maybe even push it to ask them questions about the location. Forest is loud and abrasive about her discontent about shooting here ‘These people have been exploited for centuries, they will stone you if you go and start photographing them’. Fair. Fair Fair. I try to find a way to make it feel less icky - but it is hard. Class and color cuts through the country like a sharp knife, colonial ghosts linger everywhere. Who is poor? Who is even poorer? Rwandan refugees make up the market vendors in Obama Plaza, someone from Burundi owns the BIG DESIRE shop. Two Zambian woman with a baby walk by us asking casually for a job. I look at my feet with guilt, fingering my stupid iPhone in my stupid leather bag. 

Yesterday, Samba’s van parked outside Paul Ngozi’s house, the BBC radio blares loudly. 

US DIPLOMATS HAVE LANDED IN DAMASCUS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 10 YEARS. 

I lean over, feeling like a kid on the run, craning my neck to listen.

AFTER BASHAR AL ASSAD’S REGIME COLLAPSED, THE US GOVERNMENT IS IN TALKS WITH THE NEW HTS LED REGIME. 

I had not even known Assad’s regime had fallen in Syria. It feels strange, once upon a time this was a conflict I had followed so closely. Updated my internet daily, tracking the movements of ISIS through articles and news clips and YouTube comments, assuming that I would one day wind up on the border writing about the conflict. Now, sitting in van far more South than the ancient city of Damascus I am researching Zamrock in Lusaka. I am learning about KK, I am trying to read between the popular thought to find the weeds and the seeds. “She was a cult leader” Forest says about Lenshina while I look at a newspaper cutting about her. Self-proclaimed prophetess, anti-KK religious figure, Alice Lenshina started the Lumpa Church and rejected the authority of any "earthly government", refusing to pay taxes and establishing it’s own tribunals. Obviously, I am fascinated. I can feel that the project I am here to do is being led in many ways by a neoliberal figure - I can smell the inauthentic nature of her perspective. Or either, it is not inauthentic as much as it is one dimensional. Uncomplex. Excited to be telling the story of her country. But all places have secrets within secrets. Whose job Is it to uncover them? Sometimes the truth is delivered through and from unlikely agents. 

Later - or maybe earlier - the days are all mixing together, I sit outside the house in the dark. The sun has set and a light bobs in the distance coming closer. I feel as though I am within my own memory - or a story I have written. Ghost in the distance holding a lantern, brahmaraksha spirit passing through the forest and the hills, luring my great aunt towards her psychosis. I adjust my eyes in the darkness until a figure begins to emerge. It is aunty Mwonza, light strapped to her head like she’s a miner, black rubber boots on to crush through the insects, black and white dress blowing lightly in the cool central African wind.

‘Just checking on you’

5:30 am. Sunrise over Lusaka, Zambia. It is quiet and then fast, i blink and the sky is a cool rising blue. Just half an hour ago the darkness seemed so contained while i lay in the small white bed looking outside, speaking on Whatsapp to Jamar. I think the challenge when you arrive anywhere is to look at yourself and persuade yourself to not imagine a ‘place’ as something useful to ‘you’. My enjoyment, my joy, my happiness - looking at people and their surroundings as an experience meant to bring me more fulfilment. How selfish and utterly first world. Instead, the drive should be - what does this place mean? Who are its people? How do I interface with this new terrain in a way that is meaningful to them. How can what i learn change me? Especially in a place so ancient, so old - the bones of this place has histories that I probably cannot comprehend. Ancestors past our species walking through this flora, transforming slowly into who we became. Bullish dreamers. Sometimes i fear that my realizations, the good ones coming from a genuine place, are things people have always known. People less self-centered than me. Sometimes i fear that my grand realizations about humanity are like, coming in super slow because i am slowly unfurling my narcissism. LOL, super late into adulthood. 33. 

I stopped writing here - momentarily, spotting a Guinea Fowl outside my Airbnb window. It stands still and looks at its surroundings. It continues to stare. I am trying to understand if it is looking at the space around it like I look at the space around me - with wonder. Walking home last night from ‘Granddaddys’ at 9 PM, sundown, through the outskirts of this city, trailing the road to our airbnb compound the lights were small, only around when needed. I did not see the moon above us but i felt her presence on the walls and on people's skin. Purple light from the back of BLACKS club illuminating a steel wall across the street. Our shadows are moving past it, i think I should capture it on camera but my tiredness from the flight keeps me from jumping into action. 

Earlier on the phone with Jamar i say that the realization of my adulthood is that i feel the same things all the time, and it doesn't become more extreme based on what i’m experiencing, my ‘feelings’ just attach itself to something else every time. My joy, the thrill, the happiness, the anxieties - all of them attach itself to the life i’m living at any given moment.