Lynette’s Storybook.

Stories of my chilhood home, an orange facebrick house with a thatch roof, standing on a rise above the Zambezi river overlooking the floodplain which stretched before us to merge with the far distant horizon. A beautiful panorama of river, land and sky where everyday life became an advenure in exploration of the tiny insects and little creatures abounding in the garden and beyond (as long as we coud be seen from the verandah!). A highlight of our lives were excursions on the river and to accompany my father on tours across the floodplain, as far as ‘The Mashi’, as my father called it, his favourite place in the universe, today known as the Kwando River. There we camped with grazing herds of game within sight, where at night the hippos grunted, hyenas laughed and the lions roared. This is the land of the Lozi people who live on the floodplain where they graze their cattle herds, and along the riverbanks where they cast their fishing nets. My memories were reinforced in their retelling in countless family conversations over the years: we never forgot our bush home and to this day, I regard Barotseland as my childhood heritage and homeland.