Poetic voices inside prison

NKOLE NKOLE

Lusaka

ON REGULAR days, the Mwembeshi Maximum Correctional Facility chapel is accessed by inmates who want to spend some quiet, reflective time with God.
It is an escape from the daily routine that characterises prison life for the inmates serving maximum penalties behind the facility’s towering walls.
The chapel is also used on special occasions when the inmates welcome visitors from outside.
Today, the chapel has come alive because some inmates will get the chance to perform poetry in front of a special guest. It is something to momentarily help them forget that they are trapped behind walls. The inmates will, after all, do anything to pass the time while serving time.
To commemorate World Poetry Day 2018, the facility hosted a poetry workshop organised by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), in collaboration with the National Arts Council (NAC), which trained inmates in the creative art of poetry and that has culminated into the poetry show about to take place.
For a few hours, those serving sentences for murder, manslaughter, aggravated robbery, fraud, rape and defilement assemble in the chapel, giddy with excitement like children about to perform before an audience.
The inmates have reason to be excited, not only because they will be performing their poetry for the first time after spending days learning the art but more so because the poetry has provided an outlet for them to express the emotions they inwardly battle with.
The chosen theme for the 2018 World Poetry Day is “The voice inside” which aptly describes the emotional release that is part of the process of rehabilitation for inmates through poetic expression.
When all the inmates have settled down, assistant superintendent Cornelius Mwale begins calling out the names of those scheduled to perform their individual pieces.
The first performer, Dauzeni Mwale, saunters up to the podium to deliver a piece in Bemba called “Pano Pa Mushi”. It is a poem coloured with humour that cheers his fellow inmates as it dwells on the lighter side of prison life.
Moffat Nkhoma walks up to the stage with a paper in hand, upon which his chilling and deeply reflective poem is written.
He admits that he is not a good writer but can at least talk because the first thing he produced at birth was a cry.
“Bang! Bang! Bang! Silence in Court!” his piece begins, attracting the full attention of the audience. “The only sound I heard was papers flipping and on the back of my head came a Bemba adage which says, ‘Umusuku ubi utukishe mpanga’.”
Moffat goes on to describe how finding himself in the wrong company has cost him dearly by landing him in prison for aggravated robbery and murder.
He says regretting his crimes is foolishness for him but shares his wish to re-enter his mother’s womb and make amends for the hurt he has caused her and stitch the bleeding scars and wounds.
“Every night in my dormitory I see the walls pointing at me, saying, ‘Shame on you Moffat, your mom bleeds’.”
Despite his open shame for the pain he has caused his family, he says correctional officers have helped him realise his true potential in life.
Assistant superintendent Mwale worked closely with the inmates to show them how poetry can be used as a form of emotional release and healing.
“It’s through the poetry workshop that we have seen that when one is in prison, we do not lock their minds. Their minds stay open to art, to writing and various types of healing and it is during this process of healing, correction and rehabilitation that these inmates have decided to write and show their guests what they learnt in the one-week workshop,” Mr Mwale says.
Phineas Njobvu learnt to speak English while in prison. He also learnt to paint in prison to keep him preoccupied despite having no brushes and no paint.
He first stepped into Mwembeshi Maximum Correctional Facility in 2008 as a prisoner on death row who could hardly speak a word in English.
“I was a taxi driver outside and I committed aggravated robbery and murder. I was sentenced to death in 2008 and I spent six years on death row,” Phineas shared before the crowd while simultaneously explaining the thought process behind different paintings he had drawn in prison.
One particular painting depicted a herd of elephants walking together peacefully which he said reflected the calm in their natural environment.
Phineas joined the facility’s school beginning in the second grade and went all the way up to grade eight which helped him improve his English.
He came to realise that his time in prison was not necessarily wasted time because he was learning and doing valuable things.
In 2013, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and then later on it was commuted further to 25 years.
Zambia Correctional Service (ZCS) commissioner Tobias Mwanza said the poetry workshop was timely in view of the transition in the prison system from Zambia Prisons Service to ZCS.
Programmes like the poetry workshop are essential because they hinge on the correctional philosophy which proposes that inmates are regarded and treated as equal human beings, Mr Mwanza says.
UNESCO director general Audrey Azoulay says poetry is not limited to the artistic aspect but is also a tool for both formal and informal communication.
“This is why UNESCO encourages and supports artistic education since it strengthens intellectual, emotional and psychological development, shaping generations that are more well rounded and capable of reinventing the world,” Ms Azoulay says.
Before the poetry and arts show closes, ZCS commissioner general Percy Chato, makes a brief appearance. He is the guest the inmates were expecting and has come at the tail end of the programme. Upon the special request of the inmates, he hears a repeat of some pieces.
Dauzeni returns to the stage to share his three poems again but it is the words of his piece called Mwembeshi Maximum, which he delivers passionately, that resonates with all the inmates.
He begins: “Year after year I sit and watch with a hawkish eye over these men that once used to be mighty men but are now fallen like Lucifer. Their faces are ashen like the soot from coal. They wander aimlessly. I marvel at their state of confusion because I watch. Yes, this is what I do. I watch and observe. I keep murderers, now murdered. I keep rapists, now the raped. I keep defilers, now the defiled. I feed them but it’s not enough. Like a swarm of locusts they descend on me, plundering every bit of a crumb. Just like a river that bursts its banks I offload them yearly yet I immediately consume them because my thirst is unquenchable. Desolate oblivion in their eyes. I am built on four pillars and I stand tall and mighty. Yes, I am Mwembeshi Maximum Prison.”
Dauzeni bows after his performance and his fellow inmates applaud. The show is soon over, the guests leave and the inmates stay staring at the prison’s mocking walls. The walls stare back.

Canaan Banda and the business of rice

 

 

Nyamuka Zambia 2017 winner, Canaan Banda.

NKOLE NKOLE

Lusaka

GROWING up in a family of 11, Canaan Banda knew what it was like to fight for the chicken wing at meal times.
He learnt about business as a boy when he would lend a hand to his mother, Catherine Banda, who traded for a living to supplement his father’s monthly salary.
When he finished his high school education, he couldn’t pursue further studies because he was from a big family with siblings that had competing needs.
He had nine brothers and only one sister, so there was stiff competition for the family’s limited resources.
“It was a humble background and it’s from there that I could see my mum doing a lot through her little business,” Canaan shares.
She sold farm produce at Chifundo market in Kafue Estates; a consistent and serious market in the area.
Canaan’s childhood comprised spending time at the market, helping his mother to sell products like vegetables, tomatoes, sugar cane and ‘Chikanda’ or African polony.
She would order those products from a place called Great Chilumba in Kafue.
Canaan and his siblings took turns helping their mother sell at the market.
“Of course, we were a bit resistant when it came to selling at the market, but we were forced to do so because we had no way out,” he says.
The money from market sales got them through hard days.
Canaan’s father, Poston Banda, worked as the head of security at Indeco Estates Development Company and his salary was not adequate to cater for their huge family, so his mother had to make up for what his father’s salary could not cover.
Canaan and his siblings helped their mother on a rotational basis and their time was collectively spent at school, at home and at the market.
Despite helping their mother at the market, school was still a priority for Canaan and siblings. As a matter of fact, their mother wouldn’t let them miss any classes.
As a young boy, he learnt how to convince customers to buy their products and his business sense slowly began to grow.
When he finished high school, Canaan got a job as a site supervisor at a Catholic Church project in Kafue. That job lasted four years before the entrepreneurial bug began to tug at him really strongly.
“The rice idea came about in 2008. My friends noticed I had written out a small business plan and was researching different businesses,” he recalls.
One of his friends thought he would be interested in the rice business. Canaan thought long and hard about it but was sceptical about experimenting with the idea in Western Province, where the market was already congested.
Understanding Canaan’s concerns, his friend instead suggested the rice market in the Muchinga town of Chama.
Beginning in 2009, Canaan began gathering information on rice. He researched the rice trade in Chama and received information on it from personal sources based there.
In 2011, three years after he began his research on rice, he decided to take a trip to Chama for the first time.
He bought his rice, transported it to the milling point, and had it graded.
After processing the rice in Chama, he was able to transport and package it before selling it. He wanted to have a feel of the whole process for a better idea of what the business involved and told his wife honestly that he didn’t think he wanted to work for anyone.
She was hesitant at the beginning but Canaan convinced her otherwise. He had after all spent four years without a formal job and they had not died of hunger.
Being the handyman he is, projects kept him going and he saw no reason to let his business vision die.
The word “rice” became part of his everyday vocabulary. He talked about it like a man would a woman he can’t keep his mind off.
“People were telling me to find something else to do other than the rice,” he says, emphasising just how much the rice idea had taken over his life.
In 2016, he entered the Nyamuka Zambia business plan competition for the first time using his rice processing idea but did not even make it into the semi-finals.
The competition is designed for start-up businesses with a total prize fund of K1,275,000.
Last year, he again applied with exactly the same business plan. The only difference this time was while he submitted the first application in handwritten format, his second application was submitted in soft copy.
“I simply changed the way of filling in the information,” he says. “That was the only thing that changed and I found myself in the semi-finals.”
There were 10 coveted spots, which each carried a range of cash prizes, and once Canaan made the top 10 shortlist, he was determined to make it as a finalist in the top three.
He had a lot of confidence in his business plan and was certain he could defend it successfully before a selected panel of judges.
The only thing that kept him on edge was not knowing the business ideas of his fellow contestants.
“People were not sharing what they were doing, so you couldn’t give a judgement about your opponent,” he explains.
Canaan was convinced, though, that somehow he had the winning idea. It took him seven years in the making after all.
Currently, Zambia is facing a deficit of between 15,000 and 20,000 metric tonnes of rice yearly, which is being covered by rice imports.
Canaan knew this was justification for his business plan, which until that point, he had been unable to realise fully because of financial constraints.
He had suffered many setbacks in his business journey but here, Canaan was now on the cusp of victory; a win would propel him forward and was just the thing he needed to take him to the next level.
Remarkably, he was shortlisted in the final three. To prepare himself, he pitched his business idea in front of his five-year-old son, exciting the boy by telling him that he was going to share a story with him about rice.
That pitch would eventually make him the winner of the K250,000 grand prize in October 2017.
Since his win, Canaan has been preoccupied with setting up a rice plant in Chama and working closely with Nyamuka Zambia to make wise investment decisions.
“I have a business development mentor assigned to me by Nyamuka Zambia, who I will be working with over the next one year,” he shares.
His company is called Chaca Rice Processing Initiative and he intends to upgrade it to a company limited by shares in the near future.
He has since bought an automated combined rice mill with his winnings; a machine he says can process rice without much physical labour involved.
Canaan is a bona fide self-starter, who does not believe in using the word “impossible”. He says a hero just knows a thing can be done one way or another.
When he wants to do something, he sees it through and if it fails, he simply tells himself that it is not the end.

Being Zambia’s first female surgeon

Dr Mulundika (right) with Dr James Cairns at Saint Francis Mission Hospital in Katete, 1995, during her district posting for her  Master of Medicine and General Surgery programme.

NKOLE NKOLE

Lusaka

THE beeping of machines in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) is a sound Jacqueline Mulundika-Mulwanda has become accustomed to over the last 10-plus years. She has also found herself in the rather uneasy position of being the bearer of bad news on different occasions as a result of being a member of the unit.
Most of her time is spent in the unit monitoring the respiratory progress of ICU patients and overseeing the administration of critical care.
For over 20 years, the UTH has been Dr Mulundika’s home ever since her graduation as Zambia’s first female surgeon in 1999.
She was cutting and stitching surgical patients for the first half of her career before switching departments on medical grounds.
In 1980, she was among the last group of youth to attend the Zambia National Service (ZNS) training that was compulsory upon completion of secondary school.
That was the year typhoid broke out in the ZNS Mansa camp, which led to Dr Mulundika’s camp in Solwezi being closed as well.
Because she already intended to study medicine at university, she registered as a student of Natural Sciences under the University of Zambia (UNZA), completing her medical programme at UNZA Ridgeway Campus in 1989 and then interning at the UTH.
After her rural posting at Siavonga District Hospital, she returned to UTH for her Masters of Medicine in General Surgery beginning in 1992.
“I remember one of our teachers, an orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Regisford, used to say surgeons are physicians who know how to cut. It’s like you know what everyone else knows but on top of that you have the skill of cutting or of doing surgery,” Dr Mulundika shares.
It occurred to her that in surgery, one may be overcome by the keen suspicion that something is not quite right but it did not end there as it would for a general physician.
A surgeon, she realised, could confirm whatever suspicion they had by going further and cutting up a patient without having to run a series of tests beforehand. This becomes especially handy for surgeons in emergency cases.
In those days, medical students specialised in surgery were few. Overall, the number of Zambian surgeons was underwhelming but hers was a group of medical forerunners.
Her class was tiny. There were only four students to be precise and she was the only other female student.
Later, her female colleague, Natalie, left for South Africa without completing the course but Dr Mulundika made it to the end, becoming the first qualified female surgeon in Zambia.

Dr Mulundika (2018)

In Dr Mulundika’s time, surgery specialties like neurosurgery or orthopaedic surgery, for instance, all fell under general surgery and there weren’t many specialists.
The specific programmes under Master of Medicine being offered today were not running then. The general surgery units took care of everything, so Dr Mulundika and her colleagues became adept in different areas.
“We kind of learnt how to deal with neurosurgical cases whereby if someone is bleeding in the head or you have an orthopaedic case and you need to mend the bones, we could do that,” she explains.
During her training, there was only one qualified female surgeon named Professor Bailey in the Department of Surgery who stood out for Dr Mulundika because she was the only female among a group of white male surgeons at UTH.
“At least there was Professor Bailey, who was there before me and she was a very good surgeon, a very strict woman you know, amongst our teachers, so I didn’t think it was impossible to do,” she says.
Spending many hours with her two male colleagues in general surgery also led her to find love. She would later marry her male colleague and fellow surgeon, Jabbin Mulwanda.
Most of the senior doctors encouraged her surgical pursuits and she still remembers the first time she performed an appendectomy on her own.
“I was just being instructed by this doctor,” she recalls. “He was a white surgeon and he was telling me where to make incisions and was very encouraging.”
She also remembers the long nights: “When we were doing surgery and got into theatre, there were no breaks then. You would be in theatre till morning the next day. Maybe we would just tell ourselves to take a break for a few minutes and then we would continue,” she says.
The many hours of standing on her feet looking down at patients while performing surgeries have taken their toll on her back.
In 2006, she was diagnosed with a back problem leading her to take on her current administrative role in the critical care department.
When she was in training, the head of her General Surgery department, a Professor Krikor, used to be the head of the ICU department as well.
After Prof Krikor left, Dr Mulundika decided to fill up his shoes and went into critical care.
Before taking on her present role, she studied for her Master’s in Public Health at the University of Alabama in America in 2006.
Her last operation was performed in 2006 at the Arthur Davison Children’s Hospital in Ndola.
At 54, Dr Mulundika seems unfazed by the fact that she was the first female in surgery in Zambia.
Surgery, she says, can be done by anybody and if she was still able to operate, she would probably focus on breast disease.
“We still have a problem with breast cancer in this country and people not getting checked early,” she says. “I like oncology, although not all breast lumps are cancer and that would be a start. There is a huge focus on cervical cancer, which is a good thing, but it would be nice to actually have a breast clinic.”