After 16 exhausting hours from Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C, the excitement of the final descent to Lusaka Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Zambia in Southern Africa is overwhelming. It is hot and the rainy season is steaming humid outside the airport terminal. I chat with the taxi driver who is taking me to the Rnbnb or Serviced Apartment across the city. The bill boards have large photos of Zambia’s six deceased Presidents over the last 60 years of Zambia’s independence from British colonialism in 1964. This is reflection of Zambia’s fortune of having a robust peaceful democracy devoid of deep violent and deadly political scandals, coups, and other national political tragedies.
Jet lag is no longer a minor inconvenience that lasts maybe only two days at the author’s age of 70. I needed to recuperate in my apartment for a few days before taking the challenging and grueling 753Kms. or 467-mile bus trip to the village in the remote district of Lundazi in the Eastern Province of Zambia. Each time I visit my 105-year-old father, I rightly have a well-founded fear it might be my last visit to see him alive. It is such a great rare privilege for a few people in Zambia let alone in Africa and the Third World countries.
I arrive at the bus terminal on Freedom Way at 3:30am as the bus was departing at 4:00am. Unfortunately, the bus had only 7 passengers for a 50 passenger capacity bus. So last minute the bus company used a taxi driver to quickly whisk us to board another bus that was going to Lundazi at the main massive Intercity Bus Terminal. Once we arrive there, we were quickly lead through a maze of over 50 buses that were departing and some arriving from all parts, towns and cities of Zambia.
After 12 grueling hours, I arrive in Lundazi. After all the passengers had claimed their bags, I could not find mine. My bag was lost. But how? The bus conductor said he had just received a cell phone message. Another disembarking passenger 80 miles or 128kms earlier at Kaulembe bus station had mistakenly offloaded my bag because the size and color were very similar to hers or his. My bag would be brought to me the following day. How could I lose my bag in tiny rural remote town Lundazi?
How could I explain this to anyone? I had travelled and flown for more than 50 years or may be since I was 10 in 1964 when I first travelled by bus going to boarding school. I had never lost my bag. I now wish my bag had been lost while I was flying between Los Angeles, New York, London, Zurich, and Casablanca or may be between New York and Abudabi; Flying between exotic places except travelling by bus from Lusaka to tiny remote Lundazi. All my bathing stuff and change clothes were in my bag.
During the night at the Lundazi Castle Hotel, I had nightmares about my missing bag. What If I just never got it back? There were so many irreplaceable items in it.
The following day, the young Billie bus officials happily gave me back my bag. I rushed to my hotel room and first placed my bag in the middle of the room and stared at it. It was all intact. This is when the Martin Short character Ed Grimley took over in my excitement. I jumped around my hotel room with joy.
“I am so excited to get all my stuff including my electric shaver and vlogging camera. I am feeling so mental with sheer joy!! But what if I opened the bag and there was nothing but a huge stone in it? I would be so sad. But if I found all my stuff intact, I would be so thrilled!! I would take three baths and change my now stinking underwear. Maybe I should not open the bag until the morning so that I would not be disappointed. But then I would not be able to sleep just thinking about what could be inside the still locked bag.
What if the person carefully picked the lock? What if nothing has been stolen? What did the person who got the bag by accident think? Was he or she tempted or not tempted to open it? Were they afraid of witchcraft? Maybe they thought it was a sting operation from the bus company and the Zambia police and American President Trump’s FBI? I would like to meet the person who had my bag for 12 hours? What was in their bag that they left with the bus?”
I was relieved and glad when I opened the bag that everything was there and untouched. Have you ever lost a bag while traveling?
By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
Such an incident certainly can only happen in certain African countries such as ours Zambia where we still have Colonial mentality of not attaching any name tag on any buggage or luggage that is loaded on these buses,,otherwise 60 years of independence is a long time the bus companies need to up their starndards to begin attaching name tags on the buggages and lugguges so that it will help the other passengers to quickly identify their lugguges and of course the destinations where these lugguges are destined too,this will surely insure the passengers travelling on these buses not to worry so much as they travel because their lugguges can not wrongly be picked by other travellers on the bus…. My thoughts
Ba Professor Tembo, thank God for his travelling mercies. I have a question on behalf of a beloved nephew. Why are choosing to spend 12 hours on a public bus to Lundazi, particularly having flown 16 hours ?. You are a national treasurer & resource. This kind of stress & insecurity on your person is not warranted. Inter city at 0330 ?. No, please.