Monthly Archives: July 2025

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Introduction

My father was a teacher at Dzoole Primary School 30 miles or 48Kms along the Chipata-Lundazi road in Chief Chanje’s area in the Eastern Province of Zambia in Southern Africa. This was 60 years ago in 1965. I was 11 years old and in Grade 6 at Tamanda Dutch Mission Boys Upper Boarding School.

One day during the that August school holidays, my young 25-year-old dashing Grade Six English teacher Mr. Lyson Mtonga arrived near our house at Dzoole School riding his sports bicycle. He called and told me to tell my 2 older sisters that he was coming to visit them that evening after dinner. My oldest beautiful first-born sister, Kabuthu Tamara Mary Stella, was 18 years old. Her younger beautiful second born sister, Mwangata Christina Bridget, was 16 years old. Mr. Mtonga proposed marriage to my first-born sister Mary Stella. Both were teachers. They got married a few years later.

Some of the most exciting years of my Chizongwe Secondary School holidays were spent at Mr. and Mrs. Mtonga’s house when they were teachers at Chalumbe Primary School. This was 58 years ago from 1967 to 1970. Chalumbe School was located 25 miles or 40Kms along Chipata-Lundazi road. Mr. Mtonga exposed me to his hobbies which included listening to music because they had a gramophone in their living room with numerous records, bird hunting, photography as he owned so may cameras, and ballroom dancing. Among many features of his happy personality was his laughter, which everyone could hear as his laughter always echoed outside when he was in a house or in a room.

Death of Amulamu Brother-in-law

In February 2025, 55 years later as I am living in the United States, I received a phone call that my brother-in-law had been seriously ill for months. I talked to my sister Mrs. Mtonga. I talked to my brother-in-law who sounded weak. I promised him that when I returned to Zambia, I would play the Jim Reeves ballroom dance songs on my laptop computer. He and my sister could dance ballroom once again. We laughed. I had already planned to travel to Zambia before I received the alarming phone call.

I took the 18-hour flight from the United States to Zambia and arrived by bus in Chipata on Wednesday March 19, 2025. That evening, I went and visited the ailing Mr. Mtonga for about an hour and returned to my hotel. I had not seen him since 23 years ago in 2002. I was planning to return to Lusaka that next day on Friday when I got the fateful call from my nephew Gasion Banda. Mr. Mtonga had passed away that morning at Chipata General Hospital. I immediately changed my plans. I had to travel by bus to Mwase Mphangwe along the Chipata-Lundazi road to attend the funeral.

Next morning I went to the Chipata-Lundazi turn off where I got a lift. I had strict instructions to drop off at Muyayi bus stop which was 71 miles or 115 Kms from Chipata in Chief Mwase Mpangwe’s area. When I dropped at Muyayi at 4:00pm or 1600 hrs. Zambian time, the small bus station had a small shop. I saw a motorcycle with a young man calmly sitting beside it. He agreed to take me to Mr. Mtonga’s farm which was west of the road on a two-track gravel road which was surrounded in many parts with overgrown rain season grass.

Five minutes into the motorcycle ride, the young man was speeding when we flew high in the air and fortunately landed avoiding crashing.

“Hey!!!! Iwe!” I shouted. “Slow down!!!”

“Sorry bamdala (old man),” he responded. “I did not see that big bump”.

“Just take your time!! Be careful. I am in no hurry”.

We finally turned left through a small 2 track grassy road and arrived at the funeral. There were large fields of tall maize around the small brick house. I spotted a small tent shelter which had just been built. Women were drawing water. There were mourners sitting everywhere. I got off the motorcycle with difficulty as my legs felt cramped. I paid the young man.

The Funeral Wake or Nyifwa

I took my small carry-on bag and my backpack to the brick house where my bereaved sister was with women mourners. I joined the men mourners under the tent. Dinner was roller meal nshima with soy pieces as ndiyo or relish. We ate in groups of six men sitting on the ground around the nshima. I was very hungry. The meal was delicious, perfect, and just what I needed. We laid down on the ground tent to sleep. The women mourners were sleeping opposite us men with a huge bone fire roaring between us.

My niece brought me a thick blanket. I folded my night robe or sleeping gown and used it as a pillow. There was a huge roaring fire in front of us. When I laid down and faced the sky, I could see the beautiful moon and the twinkling stars all night. We talked and laughed all night. The mourning wailing or chitengeolo could be heard all night. There were church men and women’s choirs singing funeral songs all night.

An African culture textbook author Khapoya (2013) says: “Marriage is also conceived as a relationship between two extended families rather than just between a man and woman.”(p.24) Therefore, when a man and woman marry in African culture, it is not only the two people who marry but two large extended families marry and get to deeply know each other. For 2 days and three nights I met so many nephews, nieces, in-laws, and numerous relatives from Mr. Mtonga and Mrs. Mtonga’s large extended family members whom I would never have met had I not attended the funeral.

One moment will stand out for the rest of my life. As I was sitting in the tent with the flickering flames of fire when a man walked up to me.

“Mwizenge Tembo! I am Donald Ng’uni!!”

“I cannot believe this!!!” I yelled excitedly as I grabbed and vigorously shook his hand and slapped his back many times.

“Donadi!!!! You even have grey hair now!!” I was so happy to see him 56 years since 1969 when Mr. and Mrs Mtonga were teaching at Chalumbe School. We laughed and talked about the naughty things we did as children.

“You were a little younger,” I told him. “There was a young boy who was 14 years old about my age of 14 at that time. We loved each other so much. We were so happy together. We were always laughing. I was always excited and looking forward to being with him during the school holidays. One school holiday I arrived at the house and asked where the boy was. I was suddenly told he had passed away at his boarding school.”

“That was my older brother Kingswell.” Donald said.

“That was Kingswell Ng’uni your older brother?” I asked. “I must have forgotten. I cried and was so sad and missed him so much that whole school holiday. I miss him even up to this day.”

I was quiet for a while as the memories of his brother Kingswell flashed before my eyes. I was momentarily sad again. Donadi told me about all his troubles and struggles in life. He is married and had 3 grown children.

Mr. Mtonga’s body was driven from Chipata General Hospital to the farm that second night. More than 300 men and women slept around the huge bonfire. A few people slept in the few cars. Choirs sung all night. The next morning at 10 hours, the more than 500 mourners travelled ten miles or 16 Kms to the funeral church service. Burial took place at the village burial site for so many people who lived on many farms and villages in the area.

[I do not feel it is appropriate to put too many photos of the funeral on Facebook. If you belong or are related to these clans, you can ask me to send you the 48 photos I have from the funeral. I would advise you to download the photos and print them for your children to get to know many of their relatives and family members. Keep the history that way. These are not all the clans. Mtonga, Zimba, Tembo, Zerweck, Kabinda, Mayovu, Banda, Nyoni, Mpande]

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Introduction

There was an alarming story in the press two decades ago that many mothers in an east coast town in the United States were expressing frustration. They had had it. They did not know what to do. Their children had to participate in so many extracurricular activities after school. The multiple after-school activities included piano, soccer, football, basketball, ballet dance, violin, piano lessons, swimming, reading tutoring, and martial arts practice and lessons.

 Between rushing around and participating in these activities, the mothers had barely enough time to go through a drive through fast food restaurant window to grab some fast food which the kids quickly ate in the car as the mothers drove on to the next activity.

Once they arrived home late that evening, the kids had to do their homework before they went to bed. The families had no time to sit together to eat dinner. What was the solution? The town council apparently announced that everyone in the town had to pause what they were doing and go to the nearest restaurant and sit together to eat dinner between 6 and 7 pm. What does all this mean?

Most Americans including children live the so-called fast paced life in which they are multitasking; texting, talking on the smartphone, responding to ping notification sounds on their cell phone, anxiously checking email every few minutes,  scrolling through the social media to make sure they are not missing out, watching tik tok videos, driving, attending to five open windows on the lap or desk top computer, listening to music on the cell phone, playing video games, all at the same time 24 hours every day. 

On top of all of this, most citizens run around all day at a hectic pace from one activity to another including maybe 3 jobs and 18-hour days of stressful work either to pay bills or to maintain their rich lifestyle. Reports suggest that most Americans do not get the full eight hours of sleep. Since as recently as the 1980s, nearly everyone has no time to waste. How is this affecting our lives here in the United States?

Alan Lightman, In Praise of Wasting Time 

In a few 9 short pages of his first chapter, Alan Lightman, In Praise of Wasting Time, describes visiting a village in Cambodia in Asia. The women perform all necessary daily chores and tasks in a relaxed manner with no consciousness of time. The author describes how decades ago he used to wander through the woods and play around ponds wasting time as a boy before arriving home after school, while growing up as a child in the United States. He contrasts those bygone early days with his life now hyper connected to the grid in the digital world. Every moment from when he wakes up, he is wired to the loud, addictive, and intrusive world of the internet which does not give his mind and senses time to rest.

“If we are so crushed by our schedules, to-do-lists, and hyper connected media that we no longer have moments to think and reflect on both ourselves and the world, what have we lost? If we cannot sit alone in a quiet room with only our thoughts for ten minutes, what have we lost?” (p.7) He asks the reader so many questions in the first chapter.

Lightman’s main argument is that we need to return to some of the practices from the period before the technology of addictive hyper connectedness when we had time to waste. We need time to rest, play, unplug from the grid because we need that wasting of time for our minds in order to think, rest, and be creative. We need time away from the loud hustle to just rest our brains and minds. The 90-page book has 8 chapters in which he addresses such topics as The Grid, The Rush and the Heave, Play, The Free-Grazing Mind, Downtime and Replenishment, Chronos and Kairos, and Half Mind.

The Book Reviewer

The reviewer grew up in  Zambia or Africa in villages in Southern Africa 65 years ago in 1960. He now lives in America in the western developed world. He looks back and realizes the timeless life in the village that he enjoyed during his childhood was so precious and gratifying for the human soul. That lifestyle is characterized as Kufwasa among the Tumbuka people of the Eastern Province of Zambia. 

The introduction of British colonialism in the then Northern Rhodesia and the school introduced some significant social changes. But the changes were not enough to destroy the primordial lifestyle of living in a traditional village world of timelessness. There was resistance. He lived through rapid urbanization, westernization, and now the internet technological grid. That wasting of time in Zambia and elsewhere is slowly shrinking and disappearing. This applies to the world in general, including the rest of the Third World which used to be a bastion of resistance to the western rebuke and criticism of wasting time because of underdevelopment.

Lightman briefly explores the changing nature of attitudes to time in history and how wasting time is related to the most creative of the human minds, especially inventions. In discussing how the nature of time is different in the Third world, I was perplexed at how the author does not discuss or mention the nature of wasting time in the giant and largest continent, that is Africa. It has such a complexity of cultures and history of time.

Recommendation

I highly recommend this book if you want to explore and understand why our contemporary stressful lifestyle might be responsible for a wide range of social pathologies including psychosomatic illnesses, the lack of creativity among children, college students, and adults. Many people today experience high levels of depression, anxiety, suicide, divorce, dysfunctional families, political conflict, decline of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism, emotional stress, social alienation which causes loneliness, isolation, attention deficit syndromes among children, crime, being victims of war and violence, lack of attention for the poor, low incomes, and unemployment.

Alan Lightman, In Praise of Wasting Time, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster Publishers, TED Books, 2018, 90 pages, Hardcover, $16,99 (K403.80)