Mosi-oa-Tunya
Why, how and when the smoke thunders there
When David Livingstone, during his travels across Africa, first saw this waterfall in 1855, he was so impressed that he named it the Victoria Falls, after his queen.
A bit arrogant, really, the waterfall already had a name: Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning “the smoke that thunders” in the local Lozi and Tswana/Sotho languages. It’s also called Shungu Namutitima or “boiling water” in the language of the Tonga people. Both these names are descriptive and powerful. It’s the former that is more in use, although foreigners and visitors to Zambia usually call it the Victoria Falls.
Pity.
When I read that the Globetrotters monthly challenge for March would be on waterfalls, it was inevitable that I had to write something about these, arguably the world’s most dramatic, and changing waterfalls.
Why dramatic? Well, with a height of more than 100 metres, they do mark the spot where the river, over a width of some 1,700 metres, pours into a narrow gorge and then transforms itself into a narrow torrent that rushes down a series of zig-zagging fissures in the earth. More about that later.
When “Fall” has a different seasonal meaning
Over the course of the last few years, I’ve been fortunate to visit these waterfalls a…
