Jack Zimba

With Bill Modica and Chebet at an inter-faith meeting in Roanoke, Verginia. Chebet (right) with Prof. Patricia Kelly during our Thanks Giving meal. Chebet with Bill Modica and Mwaka Namfukwe. With my dance partner at the Floyd Country Store. Jack Zimba spent a month in Virginia State, USA, on a Global Health Fellows programme. He now writes about his experiences. More than the three-lane inter-state roads teeming with zooming traffic, more than the elegant buildings that adorn its landscape, more than the military prowess and media supremacy, America is about people. And it is the people that I met during my month-long stay in the US that left a lasting impression on me about the world’s greatest nation. And America is really a melting pot for different races, cultures and traditions and all this came to light during my stay. Bill Modica Part of my programme in the US was to experience the American culture while living with an American family for o...

Dr Kaunda singing a love song to Betty during my interview with her in 2007 On Tuesday September 19, Mama Betty Kaunda, wife of Zambia’s first president Dr Kenneth Kaunda, died in her sleep in Zimbabwe. A media-shy woman throughout her life, Mama Betty rarely gave interviews. Jack Zimba got one of those rare moments with Mama Betty and now reflects on her life. Mama Betty Kaunda or just Betty, as she was fondly known, was not born for the limelight. In fact, as she told me in a rare interview five years ago, she hated the blaring sirens of the presidential motorcade and the heavy security that went with it. And she hated the flashing and clicking of the cameras of a prying media. “I never liked it. I never, never, never,” she told me matter-of-factly. And as first lady, she chose to play a supportive role to her husband who, for almost three decades, had a larger-than-life presence in the country and internationally. Betty was always a step behind her husband,...