Jack Zimba

A place called Kikonkomene · · · · · JACK ZIMBA RECENTLY I returned to a place I had first visited 17 years ago in Kasempa, North-Western Province. It is a place with an unforgettable name and unforgettable misery. After negotiating our vehicle between nondescript brick-and-mud houses, we burst into a small compound on a hillside with rolls of small brick houses. Coming to a stop, our vehicle was soon surrounded by curious faces, children in tatty clothes peering inside the vehicle, while the adults sat idly outside their houses. A one-legged man sat quietly on the door-step of his house, his chin cupped in his hand, while an elderly woman with crooked legs hobbled across the compound, supporting her body on a long stick. Outside a nearby house sat a half-blind woman with her daughter and grandchildren, while at the next house sat a man and his wife. The man had stumps for his feet and his right hand was bound in a dirty piece of cloth. I had come back to Ki...

Rejoice Mushala: I liked the way he walked and he had a beautiful smile. Adamson Mushala in 1975.  Mushala's body is paraded in Solwezi in November 1982.   Adamson Mushala: As told by his wife JACK ZIMBA ONE day in December 1972, Adamson Mushala bundled his wife and five children, including a two-weeks-old baby, into a brand new Land Rover 109 station wagon and drove off from his home in Mufumbwe. He had told his wife that they were going to attend a friend’s wedding in Mongu, Western Province, but they soon found themselves crossing the border into Angola. That was Mushala’s escape out of the country to begin his armed rebellion against the Kaunda government that would last from 1976 to 1982. Before he was finally killed by government soldiers, Mushala had morphed into an enigma who inspired both fear and admiration. Thirty-six years after his death, his widow, Rejoice, remembers a smartly dressed gentleman with a beautiful smile. On the wall of her ...