The Lemba of Southern Africa secular life 
The South African Lemba are, on the whole, a well-educated, successful group. Many Lemba are university graduates and work in professional areas – they are doctors, lawyers, professors, salesmen, computer programmers and land owners. Many of the Lemba who live in Soweto consider themselves temporary residents. They have come from the Northern Province to work, to make money to send home to their families. One day most pledge to go home to the North, to retire to their Lemba homeland. Still, most Lemba Sowetans have lived and worked there for decades.
During the days of Apartheid the Northern Province of South Africa was home to the nation’s most determined white Afrikaaner population. Whites ruled the area with a strong, convinced hand; blacks were allowed to play only secondary roles in the area’s public economy. Today the Afrikaaners are still there, but today they share power (and some wealth) with local Africans, including many Lemba. Lemba like former Coca Cola truck driver Ephraim Selamolela, who owns several stores and a game lodge around Louis Trichardt, have become prominent citizens in the area. Most Lemba in Zimbabwe live in poor farming villages throughout the southwestern part of the nation, especially in the rugged hills around the distant town of Mberwengwe. They live beside each other in Lemba towns as they have for centuries – coaxing crops from the fickle ground, raising maize to form the base of sadza, the local starch with which Zimbabweans eat most of their meals. Zimbabwean Lemba value their culture, and are deeply committed to passing their Lemba traditions from father to son, as Lemba have since, they believe, the days of the Old Testament.
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