Archive for the '2013-03' Category
The Eighth Day
I have been looking up some elements of Chinese culture that fascinate me since theirs is the oldest uninterrupted world tradition and found that “The number eight is viewed as such an auspicious number that any number with several eights is considered very lucky.” On March 8 Zambia officially recognises International Women’s Day – the […]
Read the rest of this entry »Muchinga Meander
Muchinga, the name of the escarpment which runs the length of Zambia’s eastern side, but now also the name of our latest Province, with Chinsali as its headquarters. Travellers to and from Nakonde and Tanzania would be forgiven for not knowing where Chinsali is, nestled as it is the hills sixteen kilometres off the […]
Read the rest of this entry »An Hour of Dark
It’s that time of the year again when citizens of the world are asked to spend one hour showing their support for climate change action, by turning off their lights. We all depend on energy, be it for cooking our food, charging our phones, running our computers or getting our morning cup of tea. […]
Read the rest of this entry »Fool on the Hill
There are no ghosts in our house, though it is built for haunting. Moorish by design, it’s more of an architectural beaux geste to Bunny Allen the former refugee gypsy White Hunter who washed up on the shores of Lamu in the 60’s and built several rambling castellated houses, than to the courtyards of the […]
Read the rest of this entry »Groundee Rent
Come September every year is a task that must be done, however irritating. The ground rent has to be paid. This is a comparatively small amount of money but, if you do not pay it, there is a chance, pretty remote, I must say, that your property can be taken away from you. The reason […]
Read the rest of this entry »Can You Handle It?
A few months ago, I had the sad task of choosing a coffin in which to bury my father. No matter how long someone has been ill and, as he said, ‘in the departure lounge’ when the time comes and your loved one does pass on, it is still a shock and a highly emotional […]
Read the rest of this entry »Road Safety – An Oxymoron?
‘Fifty Three Killed’ screamed the headlines. And everyone rushed to the scene, shocked! Yet I am only shocked that it has not happened earlier – these passenger coaches that tear up and down our roads at full throttle, screaming past cars and trucks as if they are on the Formula 1 track. Granted, in this […]
Read the rest of this entry »Human Types
In my younger days I worked in Fiji; one of those tiny Pacific Island countries. Being young, I wanted to understand the various cultures obtaining in this idyllic research resort of anthropologists. Needless to say that the first book I bought was Bronislaw Malinowsky’s The Sexual Life of Savages of North-Western Melanesia. It was a […]
Read the rest of this entry »Insurance Scam or Genuine Error?
The scamming insurance salesman cartoon is well known to us all, as is the second hand car salesman, and it seems that this is not necessarily a misnomer. One of our readers recently went to purchase the legally required insurance for her vehicle. The existing insurance expired three weeks after the end of the quarter, […]
Read the rest of this entry »