(Excerpt from the book ‘The Greek community in Zambia’)
Nikos Vlachakis left Malia of Crete and settled in Constantinople in the
1880s. In 1884, he embarked on a ship and arrived in Beira, in the then
Portuguese East Africa where he began working on the railway project. A few
months later, he settled in Chirundu of Northern Rhodesia, next to Zambezi
River.
In 1889, he went back to Constantinople and brought his brother Dimitris to
Rhodesia. They were originally involved in trade and hunting. In 1913, they
were given 510 hectares of land and created the farm 'Demetra'.
Living conditions were particularly difficult in that area and wildlife
attacks were a daily occurrence. In such a lion attack, Nikos Vlachakis was
fatally injured and died in 1913. In the ensuing decades, Dimitris acquired a
boat carrying passengers from one bank of Zambezi River to another.
The two brothers came close to the local population and married women from
the local tribes. Nikos had a daughter and Dimitris had twenty-four children.
