Jack Zimba

 CHRISTINE with her son, Victor in the late 80s.   THE couple on their wedding day in 1998. DR TARCISIUS Mukuka with his wife Christine.    The secret a Catholic priest could no longer keep JACK ZIMBA   O NE frigid morning in July 1996, in a hotel room at the Lusaka Hotel, a Catholic priest told an eight-year-old boy in his care that he had a little secret to tell him. “Young man,” the priest said, while helping the little boy to dress up, “there is something I need to tell you.” “What is it uncle?” the boy said. He had always known the priest as a generous uncle who usually visited his home, bringing him gifts. “I’m not your uncle, I’m your dad,” replied the priest. “So can I call you dad?” the boy asked, bemused. The priest said: “Okay, when the two of us are together like this, call me dad. But I’m still working for a church that says I cannot be dad, so in public don’t call me dad.” Today, Dr Tarcisius Mukuka, wh...

The vehicle after the attack. Picture by Mackson Wasamunu. JACK ZIMBA Lusaka “GIVE me the camera or you die!” shouted one man with a tattoo on his forearm. I would not have taken his threat seriously, but for his menacing look. His eyes were full of rage like a caged beast. Besides, our vehicle was already surrounded by four or five men wielding machetes and baying for our blood. Their language was vile. Another group of about 100 men, some wearing face masks, stood across the road chanting and brandishing their machetes, taunting the police. I saw one man with a pick-axe. I fumbled with the key in the ignition, but it was too late. I heard an explosion, and another and then another. Each explosion was followed by a shower of glass inside the vehicle. My first instinct was to duck and shield my face, screaming. My colleague, Steven Mvula did the same. It was the most terrifying moment in my career. The explosions sounded like gunshots, and the fi...

 Pamela Mutale (left) and her daughter Mwenda (middle) made the long trip to India to seek medical attention for the little girl.   Mwenda had a form of nasal cancer. She was successfully treated in an Indian hospital and is now fine and back in school.   When life matters most ·        Local company helping medical tourists pay for their lives     JACK ZIMBA   THEY say you cannot put a price on life, but for one mother fighting to save her only child, it took all her savings to afford a trip to India for treatment. In 2018, Pamela Mutale’s child, a daughter named Mwenda, was diagnosed with nasal cancer and needed specialist treatment in India, as recommended by doctors at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH). Before her child’s condition was correctly diagnosed, Pamela had spent about a year trying different hospitals, but the little girl’s condition only grew worse. Pamela talks ...

  Abraham Tembo wants to have a music label to promote talent in Chibolya. Pictures by Jack Zimba.  Ethel Kasabi dreams of becoming a model. Ethel poses for a photo. Many household in Chibolya live in poverty.  Lushomo Mweemba plays for the women's soccer national team. Players vie for the ball during a soccer tournament.  A billboard showing Augustine Mulenga, the national soccer team player who started his career in Chibolya.   Can anything good come out of Chibolya? JACK ZIMBA Lusaka VERY few places in Zambia are as forbidding as Chibolya Township in Lusaka. It has some of the dingiest houses, and drug dens where roughnecks and lowlifes spend hours lifting weights and openly smoking marijuana. Here, you don’t need sniffer dogs to sniff out the illicit drugs; the smell of weed fills the air like smoke at a barbeque party.   About three weeks ago, police and the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) raide...