I asked for a taxi to take me to Kawama. Kawama is a poor, provisional, noisy, rough and ready shanty searching for better times on the edge of Kitwe. It is home to the Friends of Street Children’s (FSC’s) boy’s shelter. FSC had changed their board of trustees and I was keen to see how they were getting on and to meet the staff, trustees and the children in their care and to find out from them what had led them to where they were and how FSC was helping them.
The girl at reception could not find FSC’s address on her mobile and Yango (the Zambian equivalent of Uber) could not find it either. I called Meya, FSC’s manager , who sent one of her most trusted taxi drivers, William. I got into his car and turned round to say good morning, and there at the back of the gap between the front seats, at shoulder level was a little face.
‘What does your wife do?’ I asked William.
‘She works. She’s a nurse…..so I bought this car to earn some money, to send the children to school, pay for their clothes….it’s good but now I want a bus’. We both found this funny.
‘How old are you,’ I asked the serious face at my shoulder.
‘He’s three’….and turning to the child, as we drove through a muddle of pedestrians, cars, dust, exhaust fumes and lorries, ‘ Say please…..say please…’, and with a great deal more emphasis, ‘Say please’.
William’s style of driving was what I would call easy-cool free style. Quite a lot of the time he was on the phone, looking at the screen, or tapping the keys and driving one handed. Often, when gesticulation was needed to make up for lack of vocabulary, he drove without either hand on the wheel.
‘Where are the seat belts?’
‘There aren’t any……Don’t worry I drive safely’. I noticed a large cobweb of shattered glass radiating from just below the mirror.
‘What happened there?’ It looked as if someone had hit it with a brick.
‘My boys were playing football’
‘Why did you take the seat belts out?’ Surely this car, old though it looked, could not pre-date seat belts.
‘I covered them with the seat covers.’ And yes, sure enough, I could see his own seat belt disappearing under his seat cover.
We drove past small stalls, and huge compounds surrounded by walls topped with razor wire and electric fencing, their gates inscribed with Chinese characters. The Chinese investment here is massive, and there is a second tier of Chinese businesses to service it and the Chinese workers here. The West was asleep. We bumped and swayed past women in beautifully coloured robes carrying loads on their heads, boys too with loads on their heads, pairs of men pushing carts piled with timber, scrap, or vegetables, past stalls selling brightly coloured drinks, vivid fruit, and clothes, men sitting on the side of the road doing nothing, and billboards, one with the catch line, ‘Like a baby without nappies’. I’m not sure what it was selling.
I had a huge welcome at Kawama. All the boys were out standing in a line to give me cards they had made with messages on the inside. Even the young ones seemed to be writing well. There was one very sweet little boy, surely very young.
‘How old are you?
‘Ten’
‘No you’re not’, someone said, ‘you’re four’. We went inside for them to sing me a very loud welcome song. I was shown around.
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I kept a diary when I was in Kitwe and over the next few weeks will post excerpts. If you would liked to be notified when I post these, please enter your email address and click on subscribe.