Our Kitwe Umfazi in Texas

From Great North Road

By: Linda Dore

Howdy y'all from Austin, Texas!

My sister, dad and I arrived in Kitwe in 1960, by Zephyr 6, after a harrowing experience coming over the Escarpment, and losing all our possessions off the top of the car. The car got into a two mile long skid from side to side and we thought we were gonners for sure! It was an unexpected move for my sister and I, and since dad was currently boarding with people, we spent some time in an orphanage called Albion House, across the road from Kitwe Primary School.

We lived for a year or two after that in an old farmhouse just outside of Kitwe on the Ndola Road, opposite the old Coetzee Clinic (the rehab center for alcoholics) with no electricity, running water, or even glass in the windows. Life was hard, but like many of us in the old days, we managed to survive.

In my early elementary school years, I have vivid memories of having to come into town on the same bus as the local miners and house-boys did, sitting freezing cold at 5:30 in the morning at the side of the road, in the dark, waiting for the bus. It took my sister up to Kitwe Girls High, and then I had the daunting task of riding my bike which was kept at her school, as fast as my little legs could carry me, from Kitwe Girls High to Kitwe Primary and then back again after school to get a bus home. Looking back, I now realise that we were in a dangerous situation, although I must say that we were always treated with the utmost respect by the workers travelling on the bus with us. My father ended up burning the farm to the ground while checking oranges in the orchard with a lighted cigarette. (Perhaps in retrospect this story should be about my father, since his life was very colourful!)

We later lived in Harrow Crescent, up behind Kent Avenue Park, Orange Crescent in Riverside and Niles Road in Riverside.

My father was responsible for many building projects in Kitwe, but would probably tell you his most memorable experience was when, for a short time, he was employed by Roberts Construction and was the foreman in charge of the dynamite factory on the Mufulira Road. Although he was not responsible for blowing it up in the early 70's, he was in charge at the time, and it ruined his career with Roberts to say the least. He was demoted to training the guard dogs for Roberts after that, so decided that he was better off back with Graham Snelgar!

My teenage years were very eventful with the most regrettable incident being that I was the person driving the MGB GT sports car that smashed through the plate glass showroom window at the petrol station on the main road in Chingola in 1970 or thereabouts. The terminology "instant justice" was never more meaningful than at the moment when I realised I had actually knocked a Hondo 750 and two garage employees straight through the window with me as I plowed through it. An angry crowd of locals gathered immediately, and had it not been for a good Samaritan passing by, I would not be alive today to tell the tale.

A few years after emigrating to Texas, I made a trip back to Kitwe, taking with me 10 softball gloves and a bat. My plan was to finance the trip with the proceeds from selling this equipment since it was like gold and unavailable. The customs official at Lusaka airport seemed convinced that I was trying to smuggle some kind of weapons in and asked me to "dismantle these suspicious articles, madam!" I told him it was a bit tricky to pull an aluminium bat apart but that I would give it the old try. I tugged and tugged and then "dropped" a K20 note in my struggle. It was whipped up in an instant, and he retorted, "You are quite excused, please madam!" Ah, the good old life of bribery and corruption.

I still have fond memories of playing in Kent Avenue Park, building forts along the river bed. All that is now a stinking zoo that is not kept up.

Who could forget the red glow in the sky as the old train chugged along the top of the slag heap and tipped it's contents each evening at 7? How about those Saturday morning outings to the Astra Cinema, across the road from Bata Shoe Store one side and O.K. Bazaars on the other side. Of course, there was also the old Rhokana Cinema up in Nkana, across the road from the Mine Club and next to the Old Mine Mess, run by Ernie Rogers and his family. Or sneaking into the Mine Swimming Pool when you could. What about shouting your head off at a Diggers Rugby match, the old whiskey bottles filled with Kafue water miraculously reviving team members when they went down. Or the treat of going to Rhodwins on the Mufulira Road, gliding across the water on the "foofee" slide, hoping you wouldn't swallow a fly! Not to be forgotten was the "Luna Park" on the Ndola Road once a year, watching the circus wide eyed under the big tent, then making yourself nauseous on the carnival rides afterwards.

Nothing can beat the feeling of camping and fishing out in the bush, with the fire blazing brightly to ward off the old hyaena or two. Eating boerwors and baked beans cooked in an old plough disc, and washed down by a Castle Lager (cockroach included) or a cane and coke. The luxury of a bath in the old tin bath maybe once during the camping trip... Or the grunting of the the hippos in the river, the thrill of croc hunting at night with a spotlight. Yes, I am female, but the love of the bush is not limited to gender. How can you describe driving through a game reserve to someone who has only experienced seeing our beautiful African animals caged in zoos in other countries. What does an anthill conjure up in the mind of someone who has never seen one?

Life was good for all of us, and then came independence, rationing, sanctions, and changes that would affect us irreversibly for the rest of our lives. Murder, robbery, rape became every day events. Expatriates left in droves, others remained in the hope that somehow things would change, turn around, and we could hold on to the remnants of our lives. This never happened, and so we find ourselves scattered across the world, but with one common denominator that will forever hold us together. We have an intertwined love for our continent and our individual countries, nurtured by memories of a lifestyle and culture that can never be duplicated anywhere else. Many of us are sadly faced with the realisation that our memories will die with our own generation, since many of our children have been born in foreign countries and will never have the priviledge of knowing and loving Africa as we have done.

While we have the means and determination to keep these memories alive, I urge you all to maintain contact and stay Rhodies forever in your hearts.

Long live our memories!