Seeds on the Journey
- Details
- Written July 2020
Just 20 miles from Zambia's Chikankata Hospital is a cluster of boulders. The locals knew Livingstone had
spent a night there. A nearby stone cairn marks the spot where he first viewed the Kafue River. We often stopped on our way to Lusaka. And every few miles along the north-south road there's a palm tree, planted by slave traders to mark their routes. Livingstone was following it. During our Zambian years, I visited several centres for leprosy treatment. One was to Chitokoloki in the northwest province. I'd travelled part of the way up the Zambezi by motor boat. My hosts suggested I return in a dugout canoe, poled by two Zambians. We dodged hippos at the confluence of the Kabompo River. A century before Livingstone had no doubt also been poled down the river, mapping the river, its terrain and natural history as he went. During those years we'd paid a few visits to Musi-o-Tunya, renamed Victoria Falls by this missionary doctor-explorer and antislavery activist. As we gazed at his statue looking over the falls, our four-year-old asked me: 'Daddy, is he really a man?' I was starting to wonder.
The 1980s brought us to London. Apart from my SA medical adviser task I was asked to assist at a leprosy hospital in Essex. My colleague, himself a Livingstone enthusiast, took me to Ongar where this medic-missionary added theology to his preparation. And on journeys to the Albert Hall I'd glance up at the sculpture of him on the nearby Royal Geographical Society.
We spent a few holidays in Balvonie, overlooking Scotland’s Wemyss Bay. The ever-observant, Margaret, spotted installations on the rocks as I entertained the children with a fishing rod. The local library gave the answer. Ships had tied up there a century before, among them a Cunard liner, New York reporter H M Stanley.on board. That's where he first met Livingstone. It was years later that he found him in Central Africa with: 'Dr Livingstone, I presume.' When native bearers returned his body for a Westminster Abbey burial, (Yes, I've been there too!) they were accommodated in simple shelters in a field near Wemyss Bay - to make them feel at home, it seems.
But most interesting of the Scotland visit was to the Blantyre cotton mill where he was born, worked as a young man, and where his devout father had cultivated his interest in reading theology and missionary exploits. He had encouraged his son into the ministry. It was here he had developed his interest in natural history, and the blend of science and religion. Here he realized that the way forward for him was as a medical missionary. What had motivated this man, I wondered. Was there one single seed, or multiple factors that had influenced him? I'd seen the Livingstone Museum in Zambia. Now I stood in its equivalent in Blantyre, Scotland. A feature there is the monument bearing the words: 'The love of Christ constrains me.' Did that answer my question?
When we left South Africa in 1998 the National Advisory Board hosted a farewell reception. I spoke in thanks to these business leaders for their contribution to our work. 'I think of David Livingstone as I look at you,' I said. 'He was church minister using medicine to serve the people, but always looking beyond the immediate. History has not always been kind to him. He had his imperfections, but what burned deep within him was the curse of slavery. He saw trade as the ultimate answer and was determined to open Africa to just that.'
If Livingstone were to return today I'd want to tell him a little about my own story and about some of ‘his’ places I’ve visited. I'd want to take him to the oak in Keston where Wilberforce had sat with Pitt, persuading him to enact legislation to outlaw slavery. I'd ask him if that was the seed that prompted his concern about slavery. I'd want to tell him about modern slavery, about The Salvation Army and its anti-trafficking programmes worldwide. I'd want to tell him about apartheid and that it's now officially a thing of the past, but that racism survives. I'd tell him about the current movement: Black Lives Matter. I'd ask him what he thought of it. I'd wait for an answer, but he'd no doubt keep silent. His time has passed. But good seed survives, and is passed down the generations. Given his love for nature and things botanical, I think he’d understand - and agree.
June 2020