DEAR SON

Dear Son,

I'm writing to you on the 20th April, 2016. I will have you know that the bus stop smells like fried chicken because Hungry Lion opened next to it. It's an environment I know full of people I don't. Isn't it funny how hundreds of people come in and out of the bus stop and yet our lives never really touch. Some are business men, some are students and most are people just like me; people who are just living life. Among us are criminals, vagabonds and murderers. Until I heard about the Lusaka killings on the morning bus I had never really thought about it. Somewhere among us are people with blood on their hands.

Lusaka has spoilt me. I walk around with my purse open and money held loosely in my hands. I have lived all my life in a city where people beg but rarely steal. You will meet ten beggars before your path collides with one thief. Lusaka has made us all trusting. Even the police are lax in their steps. The criminal mind isn't understood or explored here because the crime rate isn’t that high. Crimes of the corporate or petty kind are more common followed closely by sexual violation especially in high density communities with low employment and low literacy levels. When something vile or blood curdling happens, people don't really know what to do.

As of the 4th of April, blood has poured in Zambia. Inter-provincial buses have turned and given everyone something to lament over. Siblings have killed each other of nsima. Now the killings have come. Killings so gruesome that my mind has failed to fully grasp what, how and why they happen. There is nobody to be seen when we ask who should serve the punishment for the crimes. It's almost like nothing is happening but bodies are turning up. Still waters run deep. In the peace and tranquility of Zambia, some people have found their prey. Bodies are surfacing almost every week with their organs and genitals ripped out. This is Africa. The first assumption is organ harvest for satanic rituals. But why now? Didn't the perpetrators need organs all the years that we enjoyed peace and freedom. What can drive a human to attack and snatch out someone's heart even in broad daylight? Why did it happen now?

Another scary aspect for me is the pictures online. I'd die to see my loved one’s body splayed online for strangers to analyse and poke fun at. It’s almost a competition for who can get more like for posting the ghastly pictures by calling them news. It is not news. Someone’s pain shouldn’t be a source of news or a way of obtaining wider coverage.

You must be wondering why I am telling you this. Am I trying to scare you? Of course not. I am giving you a nibble of history. History of a time when lovers were afraid to stay out gazing at the moonlight. History of a time your mother was so afraid she was always indoors after 6p.m. Yes. Your very same mother who you know to be fearless and bold. I lock the doors, I latch the windows and I don’t entertain the company of strangers.

It shouldn’t be this way. Zambia is a safe as well as peaceful nation. I miss taking walks in tiny shorts in October heat. I miss laughing with my friends in dusty roads as we search for our next adventure. Until this April, Zambia was the kind of place where you could meet someone, start your day as strangers and end the day as best friends.

I want you to enjoy life. I want you to take walks in humid April evenings. I want you to laugh outside your girlfriend’s gate while saying your last goodbye for the hundredth time knowing fully well that you still have more to tell her.

Diana died this April. Prince died this April. Papa Wemba also died this April. All of them remind me of childhood. Everything was bigger and everyone was taller. I looked up and watched my father and mother dancing to Papa Wemba many times. Nobody knew the lyrics, they just knew the feel. My mother swayed and said that rich people don’t sweat when they danced whenever dad laughed at her moves. I grew up with a music lover and the classics are more than just familiar to me. I knew three songs performed by Prince, not because my father never listened to him but because he never listened to him around me. I was too young to understand why but some part of me felt like Prince was something bad and that made me want to find more of Prince and experience it.  He was at every grand show looking like he was just visiting the planet Earth and I was in awe. Awe is a feeling I experienced a lot when I was young. It is a feeling that marks almost everything I celebrated and still acknowledge. Very little feels the way it felt when I was young. All the freedom has changed. The liberty of a child is fearless while the freedom of an adult is fearful but bold.

Every single day I pray that you will be both fearless and bold and that you will be born in the kind of Zambia that allows you to be both.

Blood has poured this April and its tragic but it is life. I want you to blaze through life accepting the hard realities but also being strong enough to know that there are some realities that aren’t final.

Freedom isn’t the pass to do evil. It’s knowing that you have the ability to be evil and deciding not to be.

My son, as long as you have life I want you to know that you can be kind, you don’t have to pay evil for evil or take justice into your own hands. Vengeance is a devouring but minuscule force. Selfishness is also small. If you really want to do something big and different, be selfless. Be good. You can create. With your mouth you can express yourself and with your mind you can create the world that you want to see, the world that should be.