Rediscovering Kabwe

Abstract

This long-form journalism piece consists of three interwoven themes. On the one hand it is a memoir, which is by definition a factual account of one’s life and personal experience, but in reality is open to contestation and subjective interpretation. An exploration of my first six years in the mining town that was once called Broken Hill in then Northern Rhodesia, the piece also takes the form of a travelogue, recounting my observations on a subsequent trip back, 54 years later. Today the town is called Kabwe and is the capital of Central Province in Zambia. My project is an attempt to ‘fill in the gaps’ in my memory, as I was very young when I lived there, and my memories are flimsy. In addition, expatriates often live a life cut off from other communities, and I sought to find out more about the experience of these communities from the time of the town’s establishment until the present day. I have also intended my piece to be something of a sociopolitical treatise; returning to the town in February 2018, I was able to revisit places I remembered, and, building on research I had done previously, place my memories and the town as it is today in a sociopolitical context. Speaking to people in the town and drawing on accounts from family members helped me ‘rediscover’ Kabwe for myself. It helped me to round out my knowledge of the town and our life there, as well as the reasons that made my parents decide to leave on the eve of independence.