Zimbabwe: Kariba – the Families the Lake Left Behind

The first thing I remember about Kariba is not the lake, even though it is impossible to be there without being confronted by its enormous presence; it is the silence that seemed to hang over the community, a silence that felt different from the ordinary quiet of a rural town at the end of a long day.

This was the heavy, almost physical silence of people who have run out of words, the kind of silence that settles over a home after a coffin has been carried away, and the kind that comes when a family…