Jack Zimba

Dr Zelan attending to Anderson. Anderson lies in bed a day after one of his feet was operated on. The other foot shows the extent of the condition he suffered from. By Jack Zimba Anderson Mambwe lies in his cozy-looking hospital bed at LewisGale Medical Center in Salem, Virginia, with almost everything to make his stay in the private health facility comfortable. He has his own bathroom, a doctor, a nurse and two assistants to attend to him round the clock. But none of this was really stopping the pain the 17-year-old from Zambia was experiencing after undergoing a complex six-and-half-hour operation to correct an extreme case of macrodactyly that had caused both his feet to grow to three times his normal size. He was trying to be strong, but his facial expressions and an occasional groan gave him away. According to Dr Charles Zelen, the surgeon who operated on Anderson, Macrodactyly is a congenital condition which causes abnormal growth in the limbs. Before h...

Three years ago, after a long and treacherous journey across violent seas, the small boat finally docked at harbor, received by jubilating crowds of men, women and boys and girls, alike. I still remember the night of September 23, 2011 when the Patriotic Front and its leader Michael Sata were declared winner. I remember the half-dressed men who poured into the streets at that midnight hour to celebrate the victory. There were young women in night dresses running down the streets, arms raised and screaming to the point of hysteria. One elderly man I met likened the scene to Independence Day 1964. I could not argue with him.   At that moment, nobody would have thought that a political party that had swept to power with such a popular vote and good will from the general populace could, three years later, be fighting to remain afloat with a popularity rating so low that its continued existence cannot be guaranteed. Indeed, the boat that docked safely three years ago ...

For almost three decades, Mulungushi Textiles was at the core of Kabwe town, providing a livelihood for thousands of the town’s residents. But in January 2007, the factory, co-owned by the governments of Zambia and China, collapsed. Jack Zimba looks at the prospects of the factory as government plans to resuscitate it. “Let me show you the pigs; they’re very big,” said the caretaker, breaking off from his monotonous moaning about his poor salary. He then led me out of the dingy, fetid room adjoining the poultry he uses as his office, to the pig pens. Above his table hangs a brightly-coloured Chinese ornament, a relic of the relationship that once existed between the government of Zambia and the Chinese government at this factory. At the gate leading to the huge complex of buildings, uncompromising military guards from the Zambia National Service do not allow people to enter, but they will usually let in anyone intending to visit the poultry behind the factory to buy chicken...