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Spotlight - Summer 2004
edited by Maggie and Pippa Currey
LETTERS PAGE
Dear Editor
I grew up in Choma and it was wonderful to go back after 40
years and see so much unchanged, or improved, though sometimes at
a cost: the streets are cleaner but you have to pay to park in the
main street! My first school, Beit School, has been restored and
is used as a museum and craft centre. The gardens are well
cared for, and I was able to buy excellent local craft items.
We called at the Moorings Camp site near Monze, a clean, well-ordered
place where chalets are being built. In the impressive Malambo project
there, local women make beautifully embroidered goods for market
sale.
At Kabalonga Girls’ School, where I was a pupil from 1957-1962,
most of the classrooms are still used for the same subjects; the
Library is where it was, as is the Art Room, where I spent so much
time under the watchful eye of Edna Elphick. (She taught me
so much and I would love to know what happened to her.) Even the
tuck shop is in the same place. But there is no music room and the
whole place, including the faded honours board, needs painting.
I shall have to offer to do that on my next visit!
Munda Wanga Gardens outside Lusaka are magnificent. They
were just a fountain with a few circles of small bamboos when I
was there last; now you can't see the tops of the bamboos and the
gardens are exceptional by any standards. On to Shiwa Ng'andu
which we found inspiring, not only as a unique and beautiful part
of Zambian history, but as the heart and soul of a thriving business
and farming community. It should be high on the list of anyone returning
to visit Zambia: a wonderful country that so very many of us still
feel is our ‘home.’
Marie Gray
The Laurels
Bronllys, Brecon
Pwys LD3 0HS
Tel: 01874 712188 Fax: 01874 712187
www.shiwa-lodge.fsnet.co.uk
marie-gray@shiwa-lodge.fsnet.co.uk
Marie and her husband John have transferred the function and content
of their erstwhile guest house Shiwa Lodge to The Laurels and are
open for business to all ex-Zambians and to anyone who loves Africa.
Dear Editor
I was a surgeon, and successively a CMO and Group Medical Adviser
with ZCCM
between 1975 and 1986. At that time I became interested in the work
done by the investors in mining in the then Northern Rhodesia on
public health, particularly the control of Malaria.
I have taken the opportunity of retirement to start an MSc. in the
History of
Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester.
I intend
to do my dissertation on the decision-making process by which the
investors
in mining took the farsighted step of investing a considerable sum
of money
in public health. I have already discovered that the papers of Alfred
Chester Beatty are at Queens University Belfast. I am aware of the
Mining
Industry archives in Ndola and will be contacting the archivist.
I would be grateful for any advice from readers of Zambia Spotlight
about
other potential sources of information which may be helpful.
Douglas J Buchanan
10 Rosemoor Gardens
Appleton, Warrington; WA4 5RG
Tel: 01925 261206
Email: dj.gkbuchanan@ntlworld.com
Dear Editor
Having many happy memories of our time in Zambia (1949-1969) it
is always a pleasure to receive Spotlight and the monthly News from
Zambia, which I pass around.
I have great admiration for all that your team and members do to
aid people in Zambia and have pleasure in sending cheques for the
two seed funds mentioned in the spring Spotlight.
Maureen Barclay
6, Avon Castle, 47, Avon Castle Drive
Ringwood Hants BH24 2 BD
Tel/Fax: 01425 474781
Maureen and the late John Barclay both worked for government departments,
John as head of Inland Revenue in Ndola and Maureen in the Labour
office. John set up his own accounting practice in Ndola and stayed
on in Zambia until 1969.
Dear Editor
How very much I enjoy reading News from Zambia and Spotlight. It
is 40 years since I was in Zambia, but it made so vivid an impression
on me that I have remained interested in and concerned about the
country ever since. I was visiting my daughter, Jo, who was nursing
at St. Francis Hospital, Katete. She was working for most of the
time and I became involved during my four-week stay with Chisale
School, where I was made most welcome by staff and children.
And what a contrast it was, helping children who were so willing
and eager to learn, after teaching at a boys’ secondary school
in inner London. I also visited in her village the mother of a Zambian
staff member, and we were able to communicate, as women do, about
our husbands and families. That visit was my first-ever holiday
abroad and remains the most important and best holiday I have ever
experienced.
Sally Peart
5, Dowler Court
Kingston on Thames
Surrey KT1 5TA
Mrs. Peart’s daughter Jo is the honorary secretary of the
Zambia Society Trust.
Dear Editor
I write in connection with Mr. Danaher's letter on
Zambia and Debt in the spring edition of Spotlight. His comments
on the ratio of debt servicing to aid are interesting, but do not
seem to take into account the effects that the conditions imposed
by the World Bank and IMF in order for Zambia to qualify for debt
relief are having on the economy and infrastructure of the country.
I refer him and your readers to an excellent report recently
compiled by the World Development Movement, 'Zambia: Condemned to
debt - How the IMF and World Bank have undermined development.'
Copies can be had from WDM at 25 Beehive Place, London SW9 7QR,
or down-loaded from their website, which is www.wdm.org.uk/campaign/colludo/zambia/index.htm
Also on this website is an excellent account of a visit to Zambia
by Martin Powell of WDM, which describes in detail the effects of
these conditions on the ordinary people of Zambia. The report
has been compiled by a Zambian Policy Analyst at Jubilee-Zambia
and a Zambian Economist at the Bank of Zambia.
My role as World Mission Adviser includes facilitating the Companionship
Link this Diocese has with the Anglican Church in Zambia, and I
have been to Zambia and seen the conditions described in the WDM
Report at first hand. I should be interested to hear Mr. Danaher's thoughts
on the report and whether it affects his opinion on the
subject of aid versus debt cancellation.
Jenny Humphreys
World Mission Adviser
The Diocese of Bath & Wells
The Old Deanery, Wells, Somerset, BA5 2UG
Telephone 01749 670777 Fax 01749 674240
email: enny.humphreys@bathwells.anglican.org
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