Three colleagues went in search of company business out in the woods of remote Kawambwa, but there, they came away with stories of snakes and a ghost, reminiscent of the horror movie “Dracula has risen from the grave” which turned their trip into a nightmare. MACTRIBOUY MUPETA reports.
IT was in July, 2010, when my two workmates, Moses Mofya and Cyprian Bwalya (known as Mr Kafoola) and I, all of us senior sales officers made a field trip to Kawambwa District in Luapula Province to procure Zambia State Insurance (ZSIC) life insurance business.
Our field journey took us far, penetrating the interior plateaus and the remote areas of Kawambwa. We visited government schools, hospitals and clinics. In some places, there were neither houses nor any form of shelter; only the wild bush with trees filled with monkeys.
We saw, and listened to the sweet sounds of, chirruping beautiful birds. We also saw different types of snakes, including the poisonous vipers, green mambas and the red-eyed cobra. At one point, while riding bicycles on a very narrow road, I saw a black cobra lying in the middle of the road as I was in front of my colleagues.
Screaming, I quickly jumped off the bicycle and fell upon a rope on the ground. Because my friends were riding their bicycles at high speed, there was no way they could avoid me and they hit into my fallen bicycle and fell badly, too, across the road. We all ran into the bush fleeing from the spitting cobra.
We sustained minor injuries and, to make matters worse, we were very tired and thirsty thus too weak to carry on our journey. After a five- hour rest, Mr Mofya asked me: “Mr, Mwamba, how are we going to take our bicycles?”
I laughed and said, “Umuswema ukukose fupa kulambe nshila,” (Let’s take courage and get our bicycles.” So, we went back and found the cobra gone. We then moved for about 20 kilometres and got to a certain government school.
There, again, I witnessed a very threatening experience. The school manager kindly offered us accommodation, in a government house that was once occupied by a former head teacher. The house had been vacant for a very long time.
We were later to learn that the house was haunted as every teacher who entered it had to abandon it. Nobody stayed there for more than two days without running away. Immediately we entered the house, I told my friends that “something is wrong in this house, naumfwa umushishi waululuka.” Moses, who has married a daughter of the senior chief Chama in Kawambwa told me to just ignore everything and go to sleep. “Imbeba ya mwenso yafwilile kubwendo,” he would add. The room was dark and, around 23.00 hours, there was some unusual cool wind blowing into the house and I heard the creaking sound “kweeee” of a door being pushed in.
Someone appeared to have opened the door, but the door was not open. Someone was pushing the door in, but he was invisible. I quickly covered my face with my blanket, shivering. But shortly, I decided to remove the blanket from my face and what did I see?
A ghost! The room was suddenly lit; the ghost released whitish, amazing and shining light from its head. The terrifying light was like that of a telly lamp shining and reflecting from all angles. I was paralyzed with fear.
I screamed and cried loudly. The more I shouted, the more the ghost released more light. This spirit was legless. It was visible from waist to the head in pure white colour. It emitted a red-blue constantly changing colour!
It also had white wings like a bird or white angel. When I cried in a loud voice, the ghost disappeared mysteriously without a trace and a loud noise was heard on top of the roof of the house like that of a crawling crocodile. Although my shouting awoke my sleeping friends, the spirit had already vanished.
But Moses also saw it when he went outside the house and came back in quickly screaming. He truly saw the ghost and was terrified. This experience left me in a state of great amazement and melancholy.
In fact, I’d say we were all post-traumatically stressed. I did not sleep that night. At first, Mofya protested and criticised me believing I had not seen any strange thing, but was just hallucinating or had a bad dream, but when he saw the ghost “Ichisaami” with his open eyes, that’s when he, too, was convinced that what I said was true.
Kafoola asked me, “What is happening and why are we experiencing these things?” I told him to relax because I also didn’t know.” “Umupamba ukulu bawipusha pa kubwela.” When we woke up early the following morning, we narrated our ordeal to the school manager and he apologised.
He said he didn’t know that what had happened could happen to us strangers and disclosed that the “Ichisaami” had caused so many new teachers to leave the school. We then left for our base, Mansa.
Our life manager Mr Christopher Mulenga was extremely sad and shocked about our experience. But Mr Darius Chama, who is a very active and highly influential sales executive in Luapula and Mr Shepe mocked us when told about what had happened to us. They said if I and my friends had drunk some beer and smoked cigarettes, such a thing would not have happened.
According to them, sprit ghosts fear cigarette smokers. “The problem with you is that you all don’t smoke and “ifyakulya fyanona fimonekela kubashaishiba ukusheta,” said Mr Chama. I said thank you, but I risk invite cancer.
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