Jack Zimba

Mirriam with her friend Alisa say they are happy to be lighter. We’re FBI and happy about it JACK ZIMBA, Lusaka MIRRIAM Kaziya and Lilian Kalunga sit bubbly at a restaurant in Lusaka. The two sisters are both wearing heavy make-up and above-the-knee dresses. For Mirriam, her dress is short enough to reveal an elaborate tattoo covering her right thigh. Both women are light complexioned. But they both have not been light-skinned from birth. Their new complexion is a result of bleaching. Though still considered controversial by society, Mirriam and Lillian do not flinch talking about their own transformation through skin bleaching. They both laugh and giggle as they compare their before-and-after pictures on their phones. Mirriam refers to herself as a FBI (former black individual). “I used to be really dark. I used to look like that man,” says Mirriam, pointing to a man sitting a few tables away. Mirriam says she decided to bleach her skin because she usually felt

Moonga (left) is worried about the spread of the Mimosa plant. (Main picture) A small herd of the Kafue Red Lechwe with a flock of water birds. Kafue Flats: A threatened wetland JACK ZIMBA , Monze BACK in April, while flying from Mongu, I beheld its breathtaking beauty – like a huge canvas painting spread for miles on end. Even from a thousand metres above, the eyes could only frame in so much of the shades of green broken by shimmering patches of silver, turning to gold as the afternoon sun waned. Such is the beauty of the Kafue Flats. After coursing for several hundred kilometres from its source at Kipushi on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Kafue River seems to just dissipate, breaking up into oxbows, lagoons, tributaries and ponds. The result is this expanse of grassy plains covering an area of 6,500sq km. Six months later, here I was again crossing the flats, except this time I was not flying over it, but driving through it. And sadly, the

Sunset on the Kafue Flats in Lochinvar National Park. Picture by Brian Malama Lochinvar: A lost paradise JACK ZIMBA, Monze THE vehicle did not seem to go any faster than I wanted it to, it was slowed down mostly by the bumpy gravel road we were travelling on. My eagerness was to reach Lochinvar National Park in Monze, Southern Province. Back in the colonial days, Lochinvar was a private ranch belonging to a Scottish man, but after he left, the land was converted into State land. And in 1972, it was gazetted as a national park. Home to about 400 bird species and the Kafue Red Lechwe, Lochinvar ought to be a paradise – a top destination for birdwatchers and other tourists. But arriving at the park gate, something did seem amiss – defaced walls, a dilapidated guard’s house and a non-functional information centre were what greeted us. Still, park warden Wilfred Moonga, who was leading our small party in his Land Rover, was eager to show me and other visitors what the park