NESLON CHANDA traces his life journey highlighting serious obstacles he had to surmount along the way, including being attacked, battered and robbed by criminals, before he achieved his life dreams. Read on…

MY mother told me how my father clobbered a white inspector who was an intruder in their home, while I was in her womb.
She said he was sentenced to six months in prison with hard labour by the British colonial masters.
He was released after serving his time.
That was two days after I was born, in a mine hospital. Enock, my father, named me Nelson, after the late South African icon, Rohihlahla Madiba Mandela, at the time he was being imprisoned for life.
The reason was that, he fought bad laws of apartheid, mother could paraphrase, as I was becoming aware of my maturity.
She called me her first born child.
At the age of three, I found myself at a kindergarten, which was under the auspices of the Young Men Christian Association (YMCA).
It was not common in the post-independence era for most Zambian children to attend pre-school as it is today.
It was compulsory then to begin writing on a small piece of a black board tablet called a slate, with a nail like pencil, before one was permitted to write in an exercise book.
After a three-year stint in nursery school, father felt I was ripe to commence ascending the educational ladder.
To be precise, it was not easy to be enrolled at a government school because the head teacher and other seniors said I was too young to start grade one.
But father argued convincingly and told them to test me.
Instantly, they directed me to fly my right arm over, across my head; if I could be able to touch my left ear, I was of age. Then, they conducted another aptitude test which I wrote legibly and read fluently. Incredibly, they all applauded.
Grade one coincided with the world news about  American astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins becoming the first people to walk on the moon.
At school, we watched the adventure at an exclusive Cinema Hall for a small amount.
I was extremely frightened and was often beside mother, as my classmate at that time Kenneth Kabesha, today jokes that I was like a baby who cries every time the sky thunders in anticipation of rain.
Sometimes, father was strict and severe.
As a child, I used to make errors like any other. For instance, when I lent a brand new electric pressing iron to a neighbour whom I could not remember where he stayed, in the absence of both parents, benevolent mother would save me from being lashed after she had recovered it.
From there onwards, I learned not to lend anything without permission from parents.
Eventually, we shifted to another section, a distance from my school which was infected with bullying. Always father had to assign a big boy who was my classmate to protect me from bullies.
My dad, tall and dark, worked for the mines on the Copperbelt as a crane fitter and operator at the smelter’s cobalt plant. Often, Kabilo, my mother told me myths.
She would sometimes tell me true stories and how the traditional norms forbade the girl child at that time to go to school, because they would become pompous.
My mother’s words help me today to remember how during the 19th century some Russian rulers in history closed the doors of universities to women.
It was while I was in grades two and three that I taught mum how to write her name, recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing as many miscellaneous songs in the hymn book as possible.
That was an integral whole of her success at the mine-careered community Women Centre Welfare, learning to knit sweaters, shawls, table cloths and other domestic activities and at the women’s organisation at the United Church of Zambia (UCZ).
No sooner had I began grade four than father introduced me to teaching and I taught my immediate second and third born sisters in grade one and pre-school, respectively, on a black chalk board he provided.
I was paid one K100 every month-end which I gave to mother to buy a tray of eggs.
Our local currency was strong then.
I sang in the church choir and was called Zakeyo or Zacheus then because I was a devout member of the Boys Brigade upon its inception.
Every two weeks, I would travel by bus to borrow books from the City Centre library. That inspired me to write a story in abstract, ‘The King and the Prince’ and gave dad to keep it for me, for future reference.
Usually, my father bought newspapers from which after reading, I would cut sports pictures and paste them in books which had no use. That was common among boys, including my intimate childhood friend John Phiri (former Times of Zambia managing director).
“You must know a village as well” father would say as he took me to a rural district on a long journey by bus, where I saw many Chinese people working like organised ants erecting what came to be known as Tanzania Zambia Railways (TAZARA).
In remote villages, kinsmen and women would welcome us, visitors, by serving cassava or millet ‘Nshima’, a staple food with delicious relish like full chicken or bush meat or fresh bream.
Boys of my age would surround me ecstatically, listening to my English football commentaries, emulating the late legend Dennis Liwewe on radio Zambia. I was nine years old.
Generally, at school, when we reached grade five every pupil and the teachers were obsessed by fear of an apparition, ‘aka kokolo’, a female pair of shoes or sandals which strode the corridors with an invisible human figure wearing them.
I experienced a hair –rising experience when we felt being invaded by ‘aka kokolo’. The whole class would bundle itself at the back of the classroom with frenzied screaming in unison! Some pupils jumped from the top floor and died while others injured themselves seriously.
Now, I was in the much awaited grade seven class. Unfortunately, a week before we opened the second term, I was admitted to the mine hospital with ‘ifipute’, very painful swellings on the body called abscess.
They sprouted on my upper left thigh.
The medical personnel said I had to wait for weeks before they ‘ripened’ to be worked on.  I could only move on a wheel chair.
I will never forget doctor Leever, a white Briton, who ‘butchered’ the affected part of my thigh. He had pierced crooked -shaped instruments, deep into my flesh; to my defeaning screams as the pool of pus, then blood, oozed out, to the astonishment of the pair of female nurses who held my arms and legs tightly.
“I have done it!” Dr Leevers congratulated himself triumphantly and disappeared.
Afterwards, the nurses dressed the wound  temporarily for the night. To unwrap the bandage and remove the wool stained with pus was agony. My whole second term was wasted without a book in my midst, while the pain and tedium of being confined to a hospital bed continued.
The following year, without waiting for the results, dad took me to another school for grade seven and he bought me vital text books and other school items as motivation.
It was then that I reminded father of the fictitious story I wrote in grade four, ‘The king and the price’. ‘Okay, I haven’t forgotten,” he said and gave it to me.
I later entered grade eight (then form one) class at secondary school. For the first time I sat in a laboratory, learning general science which was split into biology, physics and chemistry.
Each of the 10 subjects, inclusively, were taught by its specialised teacher and we spent most of the day  in school, but Thursdays, were half days.
I cruised through forms two and three and on to form four (grade 11) where I found literature in English a unique subject. It inspired me to re-write my struggled maiden story titled ‘The King and the Price into ‘Doctor of behaviour: an observation about the similarity between the teacher-learner relationship and the parent -off spring bond.’
It was published in the school magazine, to the delight of David Fergurson, the literature teacher who personally gave me a present.
Normally, I competed for the first position in class with the late play –wright- actor and director of the then Kabanana television soap opera, Kingsley Sinkala, who was shot dead in cold blood in South Africa in 2003.
Meanwhile, along with my friend, we applied for various short courses advertised in our local media. But after receiving positive replies, my father strongly refused to pay fees for practical geology for me which was similar to geography theories I was studying in school.
I cried foul because he favoured my half-brother who applied for a mechanical course, but I vowed to be creative!
“Each person is an architect of his or her own career,” I encouraged myself. My colleague Chalo Rightwell Chileshe was honoured by his benefactor and completed his draughtmanship course in good time.
When father was confronted by his counterpart, he pretended not to have been told. But I simply sensed that he had just woken up from a good sleep.
We completed our senior secondary school the following year and were scheduled to undergo the 20 months compulsory military training at the Zambia National Service camps, but it was abolished , amid jubilation.
The first ever interview I attended after applying, was at the Zambia Institute of Technology (ZIT) now the Copperbelt University.
I was intimidated to travel back to Lusaka without waiting for the outcome of the interviews because father’s grumbling got out of hand.
In the capital, I stayed with my half-brother for a couple of months, grasping some basic mechanics he performed at home. But strangely, when he became intoxicated, he chased me out of his home for no apparent reason. Gradually, life changed for me and I moved in with my childhood friend.
Hardly a week passed-by, when using my statement of results of ordinary levels, I was employed on a temporary basis at LENCO, a company which assembled buses and other vehicles.
Then, I was exposed to metal fabrication and rented a single room in a block of flats in a site and service area of Lusaka. Six months had passed now since I left the Copperbelt.
One day, I was surprised to learn that my brother had hidden my acceptance letter from ZIT campus to study auto-engineering, according to a cousin who was sent by my father to fetch me at my place of work. It was too late for me.  “It’s obnoxious!” I said, shocked at such strange behaviour.
In a fortnight, I went back to the copperbelt as requested by parents who perhaps concluded that I was unsafe in the capital.
The following year, I was employed by the government as an untrained teacher after observing corruption in the criteria used in selection of students in teachers colleges.
Opportunity comes once in one’s life. Humbly, in the comfort of an attic, in my parents’ home, I pursued a diploma in English language by distance learning with Central African University College sacrificing half of my monthly salary to paying fees.
Then, at last father retired got his benefits and fulfilled Kenneth Kaunda’s ‘back to the land’ slogan characterised by the ‘lima’ cultivation programme. My three- year contract, including extension, expired. Fortunately, I was referred to a rural district of my choice where I was appointed as a teacher  and allocated a good house in the  splendid teachers’ compound.
During this time, I was exposed to agriculture. I gave over termly weekend vacations to doing barter trade, exchanging my groundnuts, finger millet and village chickens for  ‘salaula’ (second hand clothes) and paraffin  by travelling to remote villages more than 150 kilometres away.
I would invest the proceeds in poultry, rearing village chickens and turning vast arable land my parents possessed to productivity and thus, ending their financial woes, after their retirement benefits had dwindled.
Soon, I was among those chosen by the Agricultural Co-operative Board to study agronomy.
In the long run, father fell sick after an invitation by his clansmen who were suspected of  poisoning him. “Did I know that your words can make tangible things and full of generosity? Stay well,” father uttered feebly as his health had deteriorated and he expired the following morning.
Immediately I returned for work, I started studying accounts parts one and two, then business law certificates at the Centre of the University of Zambia For Continuous Education for a year.
I was later offered a managerial position at Crested Crane Hotel built in 1912, in Muchinga Province which was better than teaching without confirmation or recognition of qualifications from private universities and colleges.
Even confirmed teachers pursuing degrees in education with Azaria of South Africa through distance learning had to abandon studies because the ministry didn’t recognise their theses.
After seven years, I visited the Copperbelt, but my stay was short lived because my half-brother who previously betrayed me was on the verge of death.
He lived in solitude after his wife’s death as he was inhospitable even to his own mother. He died after 30 days and I waited on him and called his mother as directed. We buried him unceremoniously.
I then went back to the Copperbelt and ventured in tutoring book-keeping certificate course students at a private college. My three younger brothers, who joined me by utilising the salary I left behind were well accommodated. Simultaneously I ran a business selling second hand tyres, as a supplement.
After a year in my birth place, I forged ahead with my odyssey. I signed a contract with TAZARA and worked in the maintenance department. Most of the time I rubbed shoulders with the principal accountant to make sure that casual workers were decongested by paying them promptly since.
At last a new thought to go back to the place I was bred and nurtured, the Copperbelt, to do  a diploma in journalism at Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation was tormenting. I’d eventually go to the United States of America via South Africa where a familiar clergyman was to connect me to Mr Patson Sichilongo.
But unfortunately, around 1800 hours, after unlocking the door of the house I rented, I was battered by four men who stabbed my right cheek with a knife as I pleaded for mercy.
They instantly fled with all my luggage, money and shoes, leaving me in a pool of blood at the door steps. I was treated at the government eye ward and in the process life became unbearable and all my hopes had been dashed. I no longer thought of America! I, however, recovered quickly and was fortunate to have someone employ me at her private school, my first experience.
‘A career is (made) by yourself and God only’. Consistently, I pursued a diploma course in freelance journalism with the Writers Bureau of England through distance learning. Again I proposed a woman for marriage (I ditched the first girl because she was a snake in the grass), but to my disbelief we were separated  by the difference in denominations. It pained me.
To clear the air, my life made a difference for the better when I met the Consul General in collaboration with Chalo Chiluka General Contractors and Shimampanda Transport and Spare Parts Investments to renovate structures which became learning institutions and tuition centers until the demise of the General.
‘Diligence is a great teacher,’ says a proverb. By the end of 2014 I was still teaching at Glad Hearts Trust School in the town centre. The school has decent accommodation and I expect that some where there is someone, a lady to be my long life partner. ‘Ninshiku shileta, tabalila awe’, its days which bring everything don’t cry, goes one lyric. With dogged determination, nothing is impossible in life.
Meanwhile, I thank Mr Mundumbwe Chabu of Kasama for his response to my earlier article ‘lost in the woods’ published in this column on March 14, 2015, which he enjoyed and is ‘yearning’ for more.
Comments: cnelsonenock@yahoo.com 0964894338
NB: Contributions to this column, the column you write, should be sent to The Editor, “It happened to me” P O Box 30394, Lusaka, email: tozletters@gmail.com or drop them at any of our Times Printpak offices. Please note that it may take some time before articles are published; this is because they are published on a first- come- first- served basis. Don’t lose hope. Keep sending in your valuable contributions.— Editor.