The Lozi people of Western Zambia use the silemba (xylophone) as an instrument not just of entertainment, but of celebration as well.
In Sikuyu village the instrument is at the heart of local life. It is used during rights of passage ceremonies for teenagers, at weddings and on other occasions of observance for local people.
As many as three and four players will assemble to beat out a rhythm on this distinctly Zambian instrument, producing elaborate layers of melody on tuned wooden keys that are amplified by a series of resonating gourds.
In mid-August the music was being played in Sikuyu for a different reason, as villagers gathered to mark the formal brokering for villagers of a lucrative new contract for the sale of their rice to Zambia’s National Milling Company.
Close to 30 producers are set to benefit from the deal, which will provide them each with 100,000 Zambian Kwacha (€15/£13) per 50kg bag of grain they can provide to the Lusaka based cereal distributor.
For David Lianga the deal will be worth 1.9 million Kwatcha (€285/250), or close to 25% more than he was getting for his rice on the local market, while collectively Sikuyu’s 30 rice producers estimate that they will be nearly €1,800/£1,600 better off as a result of the contract.
‘We are celebrating’, says tribal chief Maswese Kunanambe, although he admits that he does not grow rice and will not benefit himself directly from the deal. ‘We see this as a good boost for the village, and know that when some of our people have good fortune, it will be good for us all in the long term’.
Sikuyu is a good rice growing district, the wetland soils rich in alluvial deposits and the paddy fields that encircle the village submerged for much of the growing season between November and harvesting in May.
‘In the local markets there is not a huge demand for rice because it is not a staple food in this area. Individual growers had problems sourcing markets, and simply wouldn’t have a chance of attracting interest from the National Milling Company (NMC) becauses of the volumes they were dealing with’, explained Watson Limbali from Self Help Africa’s local ‘Keepers Zambia Foundation’ partners.
As part of the Market Orientated Rural Enterprise Project (MORE) being supported by Self Help Africa, the project negotiated on behalf of the Sukuyu growers and a number of other rice producing commodity groups in the Liangati district outside Senanga, and a total of 96 local families are set to benefit from the arrangement.
In order to benefit from the deal that was brokered with National Milling the farmers of Sikuyu had to meet certain quality control standards required by the company however and this was achieved with training and support provided through a network of community business facilitators recruited and trained by MORE in each of the seven areas of Senanga where the project is operating.
‘Community business facilitators such as Mubita Mate and Kufekisa Mubiana from Liangati area were given training in harvesting, storage and cleaning of the rice, and they went back to their communities and then spread this knowledge to others’, said Watson Limbali.
Although the silemba soundtrack underscores a mood of celebration in the village, not everyone is yet totally convinced that the agreement with National Milling Company is grounds for jubilation.
29 year old Sanyambe Libanda had already sold seven of her 16 bags of rice to a local trader before the agreement was reached with NMC. She accepts that she got a significant lower price, but believes that the deal has presented her with a new problem.
In the deal it has been arranged that we must each get their rice to a central collection point that is five kilometers away from the village. ‘I don’t have my own transport and I do not know how I will do that’, she says. ‘If I pay someone to transport my sacks of rice then I will be losing some of the profits, and I have yet to see if this is going to be a better deal for me or not’, she says.
‘I am just a little hopeful, but we must wait and see’, she says through a translator.
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