My mum told me stories about when she first moved to lusaka as a single gal. Here’s some: her first appartment was up a flight of stairs. when there was no water she carried buckets up to the top floor. From that day I knew why growing up I never saw her never lift a bucket

She told me she ran away from national service after an expensive watch her father got her was stolen. She decided “this ain’t no way to live” and went to do a simpler version of nursing which she loathed too.

She became Buddhist after she met her friend’s older sister. She really wanted to further her education in Italy after getting her degree. she chanted to go to Italy and it happened. Then she went to Norway too. By the time I came along she’d been a Buddhist over 15 years

She told me about a white woman who was doing a short bit of work in Zambia. She knew this woman because she traded her life to stay “ku kombonn kwatu” with my mum’s neighbor, a man she fell in love with. He beat her senseless all the time. She rarely smiled.

She told me she’d make sandwiches to make extra money while she was working after I found names in her old diary with what seemed to be orders placed.

met my dad he took her for a walk once and a dog barked at them. He ran away and left her. She later told me this was when she should’ve known he wasn’t the one