Silicon Insider: Africa, Land of Entrepreneurs

Mfuwe, Zambia, July 27, 2006 — -- Constantino Maunga is a combination guide, host, master of ceremonies and chamber of commerce director for his hometown of Kawaza Village, in Zambia. As such, he has become a pretty important figure in his community … something that he hints might not have occurred after he dropped out of school.

Kawaza Village is a real African village, with mud huts and chickens running around in the dirt and old men sitting around a fire talking and women using branches to sweep the grounds in the early morning. But it has one crucial difference: Kawaza takes visitors, mostly from Europe and a few from the United States, and lets them immerse themselves in traditional village life.

Most visitors just stay for the day, but the more adventurous spend the night as well. They can help the women cook the dinner that will be eaten on the floor of the open winter hut, sleep in a hut under mosquito netting -- and best of all, join about a hundred folks from Kawaza and a half-dozen nearby villages -- in a dust-pounding, drum-beating dance at which Maunga serves as emcee.

Even for those who don't stay the night, Maunga puts on a terrific tour -- to an intervillage soccer game, to the medical clinic, to the local moonshiner (pretty good corn liquor, by the way) and a traditional healer (I could taste the male potency powder for the next three days).

The final stop is a visit to the local school. It is a typical southern African elementary/junior high school: underfunded, bare light bulbs, torn books, hard working teachers and proud students voluntarily choosing to wear white shirts and ties. We watched the morning assembly, complete with prayer, the national anthem and a lecture given by a stern headmaster -- a flashback to the way American schools used to be.

The morning assembly completed, we were ushered into the unlit office of the same headmaster. Talking with adults, he was far more affable but just as single-minded. He set out for us a list of the school's needs, from textbooks to sporting goods to a VCR

This, too, was part of the Kawaza Village experience.

Fifteen years ago, a local tourist lodge and travel company, Robin Pope Safaris, teamed with nearby Kawaza Village in a unusual venture. Pope would promote visits and overnight stays at Kawaza Village. The village would in turn, in exchange for being good hosts, not only earn revenues from hospitality fees but also get a chance to meet with foreign visitors directly (rather than merely wave as they drove by) and, with luck, convince them to make donations to Kawaza School.