SWAMPY TALES

My great-grandchild will probably wonder who a mail runner was. Unless we excavate and thoughtfully unearth hidden layers of civilization to see where this indispensable service provider then belonged. While mail runners in other parts of the world were in the ancient or mediaeval times, we had ours in colonial and modern times. Yes, as late as the fifties. For us born frees, we are accustomed to current courier services, including today’s bus driver/conductor arrangement. Everything looks so simple and automatic. You can send your parcel or documents from the Mwami border to Kasumbalesa within a day and almost effortlessly track its movement. It was not that easy a few decades back. In Ng’ungwa lived a speed walker nicknamed Nkana.  Why Nkana? “Nkana is a section of the city of Kitwe, Copperbelt Province, Zambia which started in the early part of the 20th century as a railway station to support the growing complexity of copper mining operations. It was named after Chief Nkan...