THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT

It was with mixed feelings that we received the news of the President's visit. Our headmaster Simposya announced in the staff meeting that the President of the Republic Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda was intending to visit Luwingu within a period of two months and he would be addressing the pupils, teachers and parents during that time in the school hall.


Even though we had heard a lot about President Kaunda, we did not have the opportunity to meet him. In Africa, President Kaunda was not only well-known but also well-respected. He had the vision of a Unified Africa. He knew very well the importance of education in a developing country and he wanted all Zambians in the on-coming generations to be fully literate. With this view, his government in conjunction with the World Bank, formulated a plan called the Transitional Development Plan (TDP) under which new secondary schools were established in all the districts of Zambia. This was in addition to the existing "high schools" of the Colonial days. Luwingu secondary school was one such school.

The district governor called a series of meetings of the heads of various departments in the district to make preparations for the Presidential visit. The schools in the district, especially the one and only secondary school had to play a very important role. Pupils and teachers were briefed adequately on the procedures involved and the part each had to play. The Ministry of Works did their best to give a face-lift to the town and its surrounding areas. There was a week-long campaign of cleaning activities within the school campus. The atmosphere was filled with an air of expectation. The teachers also got busy making the classrooms under their charge as well as the laboratories and departmental offices to look spick and span.

In the midst of all this excitement, there was some apprehension also. The reason was that the teaching staff consisted mainly of expatriates (foreigners) only. Many of us still remembered what another prominent African leader commented about his capital city a few years ago. He said that he wanted his capital city to look like an African city and not like "Bombay". When he visited some schools in his country he remarked that he would like to see "more African faces than the faces of expatriates". Even though there is ample justification in what he said, it could hurt very much when such "truths" were hurled in your face when you were recruited by the very same people and given a contract. We did not know what would be President Kaunda's reaction when he found out that the entire teaching staff consisted of expatriates.

Being a very enthusiastic amateur photographer, I wanted to take some pictures of the President's visit. To my dismay, I found out that I had no films in my camera. The nearest place where I could get some 35 mm film was at Norman Kenward in Mufulira, about 250 miles(400 km) away from Luwingu. The President's visit was now due in three weeks' time and it was unlikely that anyone from the campus would be travelling to Mufulira during the above period. As I knew how much a film would cost, I decided to send the necessary amount plus postage by registered post requesting to send a roll of film urgently.

Just two days before the President's visit, I received a registered envelope from Norman Kenward. It contained some money and a note telling me that the film could not be sent as my payment was short of 15 ngwee (about 15 cents). I felt very bad but could not do anything about it. So I put my camera safely away.

We had a science club at the school comprising of a number of students. They wanted to record the President's speech, but the school had no tape recorder. The headmaster gave us a broken-down tape recorder and told us to repair and use it. We opened it and found a couple of loose connections which we soldered up. We found that the tape recorder worked well.

At last the great day came. All the students and the teachers lined up at the airstrip to welcome the President. There were the governor, district secretary, heads of departments, party militants, members of the public and a lot of police personnel. The Mercedes car for presidential use was brought from Lusaka two days ago and kept at the district governor's place. As we stood there straining our eyes, someone spotted the plane even from a very long distance and cried out in joy. The Zambia air force jet landed smoothly and rolled to a standstill. There was a make-shift rostrum near the place where the dignitaries sat and a red carpet was spread from the step of the plane up to the rostrum. As we looked on, the door of the plane opened and a smiling President, as well-groomed as ever in his Savile Row tailored safari suit emerged, waving a white kerchief at the crowd. No sooner than the President climbed up the rostrum the military band started playing the national anthem. The President addressed the crowd briefly, then got into the Mercedes and departed for the guest house accompanied by a number of police vehicles, and other vehicles containing heads of departments, party officials and other dignitaries. We returned to the school to continue with our preparations for the presidential visit in the late afternoon.

The school and its surroundings were decorated with colourful banners and Zambian flags. The banner at the main entrance to the campus read "WELCOME YOUR EXCELLENCY DR. KENNETH DAVID KAUNDA TO LUWINGU SECONDARY SCHOOL". Seats were arranged in the main dining hall to accommodate over 500 people. The Zambia Information Service (ZIS) put up their public address system with a number of loud speakers all around the place. There were many security men among the crowd that had gathered already. One of them was asking questions to the students who placed the tape recorder under a table for recording the President's speech.

At 5 PM the Presidential motorcade arrived at the entrance of the school campus. The teachers and the pupils in two separate groups lined up on both sides of the path. The President waved at the pupils and shook hands with all the teachers with a smile and one or two words in Cibemba (pronounced "chibemba" which is the prominent language of Zambia).

When the President stood up to address the crowd, there was thunderous applause from the people for many minutes. The loud speakers carried the President's rich voice all over the place. He made a special mention of the expatriate teachers by saying that he was greatly delighted to find so many people from other friendly countries who were there to assist the Zambian people and he was extremely grateful to those people and the countries from where they had come. He wished all the expatriates in Zambia a pleasant stay as long as they desired.

After the President and his entourage left, we wanted to replay his speech. The tape had already run out but we were sure that most of the speech had been recorded. It was then that we noticed that someone had pulled out the microphone cable from its socket. As we had checked and double-checked everything before the arrival of the President and none of us could go anywhere near the dais thereafter, there was no doubt that one of the security men could have played this mischief thinking that our old-fashioned machine was some kind of a voice-operated time bomb or something. Needless to say that we all felt very disappointed.

In spite of such disappointments, the visit of President Kaunda, who is considered as one of the greatest statesmen of Africa, and his encouraging words still remain fresh in our memory even after so many years of leaving that Friendly Country.