As morning break, Monday 22nd, bit of rain,started with mist. The flood plain is to the west, Savannah forest to the east surrounded our village had scarves of clouds. In the flood plain of Lui river ,the mist were becoming dense. It was May the river were already full and taking its water to the Zambezi river south of Litawa. The fish had just been opened by the government in February and were plenty of them. The fresh maize was getting dried up as the community were happy for the Kuomboka was around the corner.
The schools had just been opened and mother woked me up from sleeping. She made a little shout to me, but could fill the touch of love and care in her voice for my future. "Sonny, woke up, it is time to go to school!" She shouted softly and tenderly. "Mum please! I still want to sleep, it's raining!" I replied. It was a wonder, how on Earth will rain come during the month of May. As I was still wondering I was taken with a deep sleep. The next moment I saw and heared her voice, a whip stick was in her hand, I jumped out of the bed and started to put on my uniform.
The next half an hour was worse, had ever experienced in my life. It was getting darker because of the mist, even mother was surprised at her age, she had never seen rain and mist like this in May. Mother sat me down and told me that climate is changing. Our nation needs more teachers to educate our people about these changes of our environment. Mother said that I can be a good teacher in the future if I persist with education and teach our people for the growth of our economy. She told me that education is a key to find any problems faced by climate change..
I was encouraged by words which came from her heart. The words entered my system and became a nice Melody, a song to remember, my soul was delighted, the flood plain of Lui became a witness as I shouted in the air, " I will be a teacher! I will be a teacher!" The whole world knew it. I went to school joyfully, doing grade two at Litawa, my teacher Mrs Lyamba was surprised to see me joyful.
THE DANCE DAY
It was June again, shortage of relish in our community, the season when vegetations drop their leaves yet a good time to plant cassava. The night is cold and long night, days are short. It was better if the government schools were closed during this season , I admitted but I think they did not plan well. Most of us we disliked school during cold school because without shoes the coldness of sand burned our feet like fire. Stepping on water as we went to school was challenging.
One day I was very late to go to school because it was very cold. I remember ,I arrived at the school around 09:00hrs when Mrs Lyamba our teacher had already started teaching. The whole school feared her, they called Tau ya musali meaning Lioness. I had no option but to stand at the distance,watching the school from afar. As I stood there, I was composing my music, by expressing my inner artistic beauty in the melody, I was an expert in playing silimba. The silimba is a 17-key xylophone that originates from our land, Western province. It produces both melody and rhythm when played. It is played with two sticks. As I continued to play the silimba in the air making my own melody, Mrs Lyamba saw me and send big boys to catch me. I danced alone to the rhythm and shortly I saw boys coming fast toward me then I knew I was in danger. I tried to run away but the big boys were too fast for me. They caught me and brought me to the lioness. She beat me like no man business. That was the last time I went to school late. I told mother about what happened at school that day, she reminded me about the future, "son education is the key"