By CHUSA SICHONE –
SHE has been moving around with a dummy Patriotic Front (PF) party symbol, a boat, on her head, paddle in her hand and clad in PF regalia from the time she joined the party in 2008.

. Hara

Theresa Hara leaves her house around 07:30 hours dressed in PF attire, carrying the party’s symbol on her head and only gets rid of them when she gets back home at 20:00 hours.
“When I’am about to leave home at either 07:30 hours or 08:00 hours, it’s a must that I put the boat on my head and I only remove it from there when I’am about to sleep. Even when I’am having my supper, I eat with the boat on my head,” she said.
Mrs Hara, who was widowed in 2005 and has six children (four boys and two girls), has been viewed by many as not being in her right frame of mind ever since she started moving from one area to another with her ‘tools’.
At some point her children thought their mother was going mad as she would regularly wake up in the middle of the night with her eyes closed and start searching for the boat, thinking it had been stolen!
According to Mrs Hara, all her children could not stand being ridiculed and laughed at owing to their mother’s strategy to drum up support for the party and thus they left Mansa, where she is based, to settle in other areas!
Contrary to assertions by her critics, Mrs Hara proved in an interview with this author lasting almost an hour in Mansa on January 17, 2015 that she was a sane person but had employed a unique way to show her love for PF, in which she is the Luapula Province Information Publicity Secretary (IPS).
She was born Theresa Yankonde on July 9, 1964 in Kitwe, a seventh born in a family of eight. She was married to Jonathan Hara for 15 years.
The Hara family moved from Kitwe to Mansa in 1997 after Mr Hara was transferred to Mansa Trades Training Institute where he worked as Communication Skills lecturer until the time of his death.
Mrs Hara, a Grade 10 dropout, once worked as a cashier at Kitwe Municipal Council before her husband was transferred to Mansa and has not worked since then.
However, despite being a school dropout, most of her children have managed to further their education and currently one of them is a chief internal auditor (daughter) in Central Province while another is a technician on the Copperbelt. Their sibling completed his college education but is unemployed.
Mrs Hara’s second daughter completed her secondary education last year and is preparing to go to college while the other children are in grades 11 and Nine. Mrs Hara is currently looking after her late brother’s five children.
Simple as she may appear, the Haras own three houses in Kitwe’s Chimwewe, Chamboli and Parklands Townships and three shops at Chisokone Market besides the house Mrs Hara is currently occupying in Mansa’s medium density area.
Mrs Hara currently operates a restaurant at Mansa town centre. She used to run that together with a bar at Down UB Market but the latter has since been closed. She had a tailoring shop after she left the Kitwe Municipal Council but Mrs Hara no longer does that business.
Mrs Hara said she has been a PF supporter since inception but did not want to come out in the open for fear of jeopardising her husband’s job.
“I joined PF in 2008. All along I had interest in PF but because my husband was a civil servant, I didn’t want to come out in the open for fear of putting him in  problems. I had to hang in there until my husband died in 2005.”
“Now in 2008 when Mr (Michael) Sata lost the elections, I started feeling the urge and pain. It was then that people started encouraging me to take up the IPS position, saying I was a very open and fearless person,” she said.
Mrs Hara recalls that it was in 2008 during then acting President Rupiah Band’s visit to Mansa for a rally ahead of the presidential by-election that she publicly demonstrated her devout support for the PF.
Mr Banda was at the time expected to hold a rally at Muchinka Ground and instead of running away, as other people did, from Mr Banda’s security personnel and cadres as they passed within the Central Business District, Mrs Hara took off her shoes and got into a ditch full of water and started paddling in full view of the MMD entourage until the rally had ended.
Her act of bravery while other PF members scampered was received with mixed feelings, with some labeling her as mad while others as courageous.
Mrs Hara said she bought her first boat at Down UB Market at K25 and felt it was through that method that she was going to make the PF presence felt by other political parties. Before acquiring a paddle, she used a cooking stick.
“Before acquiring the boat, I used to feel as if there was nothing I was doing to drum up support for the PF and whenever I was walking in the streets dressed in a PF chitenge, I used to think that the UPND and MMD were not getting agitated because there was nothing to demonstrate to them that PF was also a force to  reckoned with here,” she said.
That prompted her to approach then former Mansa Central Member of Parliament late Kennedy Sakeni and told him about her idea, but the deceased thought Mrs Hara was joking until one day she appeared at his home during a meeting with a boat on her head!
She said Mr Sakeni then ended up being convinced and accepted Mrs Hara’s strategy and gave her money to buy a slightly bigger boat, which she did. Printed on the boat were words in support of the Mansa Central lawmaker and PF leader Michael Sata.
Before the 2011 general elections, Mrs Hara would abandon her business to move from one place to another with the boat, paddle, whistle and red card to drum up support for Mr Sata, a move which at certain times was not received well by some MMD cadres including her chief internal auditor daughter’s employers.
Mrs Hara would walk from Down UB Market, Civic Centre, Mansa General Hospital, police station to Shoprite, among other areas, to woo support for PF.
Some MMD cadres, she recalls, tried to rough her up on several occasions but at no time did she relent neither did she drop the boat. Her daughter and several of her colleagues were relieved of her duties for allegedly encouraging her mother to visit her work place to campaign for PF.
Her daughter and her colleagues have since been reinstated but transferred to other areas after she bitterly complained to higher authorities.
Mrs Hara was heartbroken when Mr Sakeni, at the time Information and Broadcasting Services Minister, died as she viewed him as a brother who encouraged her and her political ideals. She left a boat in his honour at State House.
Her first contact with Mr Sata was in 2008 when he visited Luapula Province to hold a series of rallies and it was during that period that their friendship started and grew stronger thereafter.
Mrs Hara described Mr Sata as a person who was misunderstood by people who did not know him personally.
Mr Sata, she said, was a humourous person who spoke his mind and condemned erring persons but without holding grudges.
“Up to now I don’t know if Mr Sata knew my name because he used to jokingly address me as a mad person,” she said.
Mrs Hara and Mr Sata’s friendship strengthened such that the Head of State would request for her presence at several gatherings and she made several visits to State House during his three years in power.
Mrs Hara, who at her first attempt to see the President at State House was blocked by security, said Mr Sata would tell her that the officers should not stop her from seeing him as it was because of voters like her that they were employed there.
When Government announced that Mr Sata was evacuated to London for a medical checkup, Mrs Hara’s morale and spirit dwindled, especially that she was hoping to meet him during the Golden Jubilee Independence celebrations with her boat.
“When I was told that the President had gone for a medical checkup in London, my body started feeling heavy, I wasn’t feeling free as if there was something following me behind. I became demoralized and unhappy.
“Even when we were going for marching to the stadium (on October 24, 2014), I was feeling strange until finally I received a call from Lusaka on October 28, 2014 that the man had died,” she said.
She screamed, threw away the mobile and fell to the ground at the news of President Sata’s death. Mrs Hara lost consciousness at some point but was resuscitated by the children with help from the neighbours, who also broke down after they heard about Mr Sata’s demise.
The 14 days of national mourning were sorrowful not only for her but those around her such that people would openly weep with her at the restaurant, home and on the streets.
Mrs Hara defied Government’s directive for people in other provinces not to travel to Lusaka during the mourning period and for burial as she travelled to the capital city and left a boat on Mr Sata’s grave instead of flowers.
Optimistic that PF presidential candidate Edgar Lungu will emerge victorious at the January 20, 2015 presidential by-election, Mrs Hara is already preparing another boat for him, which she wants to deliver to State House.
“Another boat has been made, am taking it to have it painted, it’s bigger than this one. I will leave it at State House the same way I left the one for Mr Sakeni and Mr Sata.
“I will stop moving with the boat on my head when I usher Edgar Lungu into State House but I will resume in 2016,” she said.