IT'S TIME! PLEASE COOK AND EAT!

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 Nkana, the local traditional ruler,” says my consultant, Mr Wikipedia. People in my village named their mail runner after this place because, as you may guess, he delivered mail to and from Nkana on foot, covering a distance of about 1040 kilometres within a week. History shows that he did this as often as there was mail from other villagers, daring dangerous wild beasts such as lions. At times, he carried heavy loads, parcels he was asked to deliver on behalf of relatives who lived this far apart. Usually, he travelled alone.

Nkana provided this service free but for little aliments for sustenance along the way. I cannot tell whether he did this voluntarily or if they hired him without pay.

When I was a boy, he had stopped offering this service. Communication had improved. The postal services were available, though it took a long time to receive mail in remote villages like Muwele.

 Nkana had two peculiar habits he never abandoned.

He never stopped speed walking around villages. He was such a fast man that you had difficulties walking with him.

Secondly, he moved with a Germany-type Calura police whistle, named locally as Chinjoni. There was something special about this whistle. He only blew it whenever he was hungry. He could walk to someone’s house, blow the whistle and announce, “It’s time. Please eat!” He would sit and wait until the host gave him something to eat. Whether this was his way of demanding repayment for services rendered to the community in the past or he had just lost his senses, I do not know.

Calura Police Whistle

 

There was a man who selflessly sacrificed everything to serve his community. Chiefs and commons enjoyed his services. The only thing he earned is the moniker, Nkana. He will never appear even in the footnote of the history of Muwele/ Ng’ungwa, just like some of the political firebrands of the Salimu Fumpa fame. What a world we live in!