An interim note

For those of you who haven't heard from me via email, that is because even in Lusaka internet connection isn't universal and I rely on my host to drive me to an internet cafe at Arcades Mall. Every day I've been accompanying her as she manages her business (pig farm and pork products) and meets people. I will tell you my stories and write them up when I return home, when I don't have to pay for internet by the minute.

RETURNING

Returning is not generally recommended. Changes can be upsetting. We are not the same, and neither are the people we go to revisit. The mind prefers continuity, the predictability of what is known from the past.

In less than two weeks now I am returning. After twenty-six years! On my first trip to Zambia in 1976, I knew very little about the country, and learned a lot in the three years I stayed, teaching at a girls' secondary boarding school in one of the further provinces, not Lusaka. I returned in 1985 for a five-week visit, and did stay in Lusaka. I spent more time in Zimbabwe, a new country, then.

I notice how I dredge up whatever I once knew, as if this is of any use. I may as well face the fact that the future is always unknown and I once again know nothing about what is so, right now in this country, this country of my dreams, this place from whence much of my poetry and stories spring.