Zambia World Wide

Some incidents after independence

The first incident took place when Bill got himself a new garden boy. On his first day Bill was assured he understood what was expected of him. Bill really had a beautiful garden. However when Bill returned from work all the roses were dug out. He immediately lost it and got stuck into the garden boy. The garden boy on leaving threatened him with the Youth League of U.N.I.P. Bill then contacted Ronnie who advised him to go and join U.N.I.P. before they closed.

The next day when Bill got home there was the garden boy and members of the Youth League. Before Bill could say anything he was verbally attacked and in the end he was confronted with some ridiculous compensation. Bill enquired what they would of done under similar circumstances. Their reply was that in their case it would be acceptable as they were brothers. Bill then produced his U.N.I.P. card and wanted to know if he wasn’t considered as a brother.

The end result was that the garden boy was instructed to work without pay until the loss was recovered.

The second incident took place after the dogs belonging to Des had bitten a passer by in the sanitary lane. His wife informed him telephonically of the incident According to her the bite and the tear in his trousers was minor. He however refused treatment and compensation and threatened her with the police. When Des got home the police and the complainant were waiting for him. He invited the two policemen in. The first thing he did was to pour a Brandy for each of them. He then requested them to join him, as he first wanted to calm his nerves. Des could hold his liquor but after a couple of Brandies he could see that it was beginning to get to the policemen. It was then that he informed them that they could go ahead with the case. Firstly they wanted to know if Des had bitten the complainant. When he told them it was the dogs they went outside. They informed the complainant that since it was the dogs that bite him and not Des he would be allowed to go and bite the dogs in revenge.

Bribery was the order of the day for example. When you came to the front of a queue to pay an account and it was your turn to be served the clerk behind the counter found reasons to make you wait. You became so frustrated that you felt like climbing over the counter and throttling him. If however on leaving you left him with a reasonable amount of change you could be assured of priority service with your next visit. If he saw you in the queue he would call you to the front using some excuse.

I organized a dance at the C.P.C. Club. To add to the atmosphere I would hang sheets of paper from the roof with various slogans and pictures on them. The paper was from the small rolls of paper that was discarded by the Northern News after a days printing. On the one sheet for instance I had a picture of a DC4 Dakota. The slogan read “ One Aeroplane one Zambia. During the dance I was informed that members of the U.N.I P youth organization had just arrived. The above poster and a few others were quickly removed and hidden under the bar counter.

A year or so after Independence the mines and C.P.C. decided to sell all the household furniture for five pounds. The main reason being that they were experiencing huge loses with new tenants who were not ready for this transformation. Even the doors were used as firewood.