Jack Zimba

Fr. Thomas is dean of the cathedral.   The people’s cathedral Thousands have passed through its door, dead or alive JACK ZIMBA   V ERY few places in Lusaka have such a unifying force as the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and perhaps none comes close to its architectural magnificence. Many times, I have come here for the sad reasons – a funeral service. I have seen so many tears in this place. I have seen many caskets carried into the cathedral and carried out for the final journey to the other side. I have heard numerous poignant eulogies by heart-broken relatives and friends. I have heard many fervent prayers in this place, many beautiful sermons and boring ones too. I have heard singing like the singing of angels and awful singing too. Sometimes, I worry at the rate I have to return here for a funeral service for a government official or other prominent people. Last week, I was here for Minster of Gender Victoria Kalima’s mem...

The first top picture shows the E.W. Tarry building in the 1950s and, below, the building now undergoing reconstruction.   Iconic E.W. Tarry building gets facelift   JACK ZIMBA BEFORE there were glitzy banks, multi-storey office blocks, popular restaurants and shops on Lusaka’s Cairo Road, there was E.W. Tarry. Built in the 1920s as a farm stall selling agriculture machinery and fertilisers, this single-storey building was the first shop on Cairo Road (or at least one of the first), according to Kagosi Mwamulowe, who is regional director for the National Heritage Conservation Commission (NHC). E.W. Tarry Limited Company was established as a machine distributor by Edward Wallace Tarry in South Africa in the late 19 th century. Years later, the company had grown and extended its tentacles northwards, opening shops in Bulawayo and Salisbury (Harare) in then Southern Rhodesia, and then the newly established settlement at Lusaka in 1927. The company ...

Maina Soko's granddaughter, Maina Soko, wants to know where her grandmother was buried. A street in Ndola City named after Maina Soko. Brig-Gen. Malyangu says there are no written records about Maina Soko. JACK ZIMBA Lusaka   SINCE independence, one name has stood out, yet not much is known about the person behind that name. Maina Soko’s legacy is immortalised in a military hospital named after her. Maina Soko Military Hospital was initially a maternity annex for the University Teaching Hospital, built in the 1960s. Then in 1979, it was converted into a military hospital to take care of military casualties of the liberation war. When the army were looking for a name to name the hospital, Maina Soko was suggested. To many today, Maina Soko is nothing more than a military hospital located on Ash Road in Woodlands in Lusaka. This is largely because little is known about Maina Soko; who she really was and what she did has for four decades been shrouded ...

White Tembo retired in 1955 and has been living at his farm in Rufunsa since 1956. Pictures by Jack Zimba. Juliana died on April 18, 2018. She is believed to have been 108 years old. White Tembo thinks he still has a few more years to live. Mr Tembo's third daughter Justina (right) is 82 years old.   Could this be the oldest man alive? JACK ZIMBA  WHEN White Nyamfukudza Tembo comes out of the small house, he is borne like a toddler in the arms of his teenage grandson, and then his fragile frame is carefully placed in a chair. His grandchildren and great grandchildren gather around and gaze at him like a relic in a museum. Well, at 114 years old, he is a living relic. “Get me something warm, it’s cold out here,” demands the old man. His voice is still strong, but he is hard of hearing and one has to shout when speaking to him. He can hardly see, but he was able to detect the flashlight from my camera. “Are they taking pictures of me?” he asks his...

  Dr Bvulani with one of the Siamese twins named Mapalo. Dr Bvulani with the twin girls. Bonding time with the doctor. Pictures by JACK ZIMBA.     Gifted hands too   JACK ZIMBA, Lusaka WHEN Bruce Bvulani was a little boy he had a fascination with frogs. He kept some in the backyard of his parents’ house and, later, when he learned how to stitch cloth at school, he would cut open the frogs and stitch them up again. Of course, the poor creatures never lived through the gory procedure. Today, Dr Bvulani’s subjects are not little frogs, but little humans. He is one of only four paediatric surgeons in the country. With Zambia’s population of children estimated at eight million, it makes him responsible for two million children, theoretically. And as head of unit neonatal and paediatric surgery at the country’s biggest health facility, the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), Dr Bvulani was the lead surgeon in the operation that sepa...