By Birbal Boniface Musoba
In a very old fashioned way of expressing
chivalry, I was never raised to idly stand by when heavy loads are being packed
into vehicles, regardless of who was doing the packing. But as I stood in that
cool morning breeze that had become such a rare occurrence as one of the
hottest summers on record in Zambia flared, overlooking so much green my eyes
couldn’t believe such colour existed in nature, in that instance I couldn’t
help load the vehicle; other people were being thoroughly compensated to ensure
that the goods were packed, but more than the thought of taking food out of a
working man’s mouth, safety reasons prohibited me from helping least I sue a
corporation for restitution – ok, maybe, just maybe, a little part of me was
rejoicing at the prospect of not engaging in manual labour when the weather’s
invitation to be enjoyed could not be resisted even with a lion’s heart.
But as I stood by and, in awe, watched FQM’s Health
Promotion officers jam-pack the mud laced Toyota Land Cruiser, I could tell that
the day that laid ahead held remarkable promise. Although, one could have argued
that the euphoria I was feeling was a subconscious response to the Officers’ packing
the Land Cruiser with life saving drugs, condoms and malaria, syphilis,
gonorrhoea and HIV and AIDS test kits for people living in the remote areas of
Kalumibila – well, full disclosure, Kalumbila in its entirety is a remote area
– thus, giving me a falsified sense of doing good by association, or that
because the Land Cruiser was a repurposed ambulance, it fostered in me an
erroneous sense of safety. Whatever Freud’s reasoning would have been for that
moment, all I knew and cared about was that that Wednesday was teaming with
such promise and I intended to ride that wave to the bitter end.
My unbridled optimism held for the most part of
the morning until we started hurtling down a gravel road that, from my point of
fright, seemed to be the bumpiest and most treacherous gravel road ever paved
by insane men playing at God. The Officer driving the erstwhile ambulance cruiser
offered no comfort, as with blithe, he sped down the road with what can only be
described as either reckless ease or balls-swinging confidence in his faculties
or, in my soon to be piss-stained opinion barring any change, utter disregard
for human life. At that moment, driving in that ambulance in the back seat, my
mind could not but think of the many dead bodies that might have been ferried
in it in the same controlled and seasoned rash. How ironic, I brilliantly
concluded, would it be if my demise came in such a vehicle, even more so with the
contents we were trafficking.
Then it hit me, maybe the Officer was speeding
because of his unwavering focus and drive – pan intended – to reach the
Northern Resettlement area of Kalumbila in order to administer, as quickly as possible, this life saving programme FQM has poured millions of dollars into establishing and sustaining.
This thought calmed me down as I allowed myself to believe that a person who
pursued his job with such diligence would not allow himself to take any life
for granted, more so than mine the hundreds of expectant families needing the
packages the Officers so brazenly packed and were brashly transporting.
I calmed down further when I realised that FQM
and its Health Promotional Officers had been doing this for a long time, more
specifically since 2010, even before the resettlement of 560 families that
became displaced from their ancestral homes so that their virgin, wild, mineral rich
lands could be explored, subdued and tamed. Even before the relocation venture
in 2013, an initiative that cost the multinational mining and metals company, a
company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in Canada and the London Stock
Exchange in the United Kingdom, US$11.6 million, of which US$10,762,147 was to
build 560 houses, seven churches, a school and pay repatriation and disturbance
allowances1, FQM had been running community outreach and health
promotion programmes, programmes it insists it had to set up because of the
need that was there in the community, an apparent need that the Zambian
government, as a whole. could not fill.
At that precise moment, everything started to
click as the gears of my mind started turning at a rational pace. Speeding down
that gravel road at 85km/hr was now reminiscent of the light speed at which FQM
had developed that once luscious green forest and farmland into something that
resembles a town, with hospital, clinics, schools, ATMs, roads and churches in
tow. Maybe that is why the Officer was driving with such ferocious speed down
the road, his head bopping up and down as he showed his unrivalled proficiency
in multitasking with his incessant texting, because such drive, such speed,
such determination with which FQM had developed and achieved and continues to
achieve so much is what it instils in its employees, using it to maximise their
potential and, thus, exploit the most possible turnover. In that moment, a
clear sense of clarity overcame my every sense – this is what Spider-Man must
feel everytime before he takes a shit – maybe this multinational corporation has
finally gotten it right. I mean schools, churches, roads, housing, payouts,
hospitals – things that before the exodus were nonexistent – and community health
outreach programmes; I mean who doesn’t want that?! Who doesn’t need that?!
Maybe some corporations, this multinational corporation in particular, as Stephen Colbert
farcically puts it, ‘are people too’ and they care for more than just the
bottom line.
“Water sanitation is the major problem that we
are facing in this community!” Chrispine Chipolongu, a local business owner in
his mid-thirties living in the Northern Resettlement area, said. His nostrils
were now flaring, his breathing had increased, and I knew I had hit the sweet
spot.
“If you had to go around the community, you
will find that a lot of boreholes are buggered already,” he continued, talking
at rapid pace as if punctuations would kill the urgency of his message. “And I
can’t even be sure if the damage to the boreholes is as a result of the boreholes
being made from cheap materials or they are being vandalised by the community; all I am sure of is that if I was to draw water from that well in the middle
of the market and give it to you, you wouldn’t drink it – the colour is
different, it looks like it was diluted with petrol.”
He was now speaking with such passion and
conviction that I did not dare interrupt him. His eyes beamed, beckoning at me,
not to say that he blamed me per say, but more of a plea for him to be heard,
for someone to listen and do something about it.
“This is not just a small matter because how
are people expected to survive if the water that they need for everything is
contaminated and killing them!” he
continued, only pausing to see if I was not just listening but hearing him as
well. “The elders in the community have tried to complain, and FQM knows about
this, but nothing is being done about this because they have gotten what they
wanted (rights to mine the minerals), so why should they care or listen
anymore? Tell me why?”
I did not have answer for his question, neither
did I want speculate on matters I did not fully grasp. All I could do was draw
water from that well in the middle of the market. A young girl, maybe six or
seven, pumped the water for me as I placed an empty bottled water container in front of the tap, one of many bottled water we, together with the Officers, brought along to drink when we got slightly parched because we could not be bothered to drink the borehole water. As the young girl cranked the lever away with such joy and enthusiasm
of helping a total stranger – it still baffled me how the people in the
remotest of areas, who only have the bare minimum of essential to survive on can be so willing to go
out of their way for a total stranger – her face beaming with a grin from ear
to ear, I couldn’t help but think of what Sharon, the twenty-something lone-school
teacher at Sheneng’ene, another resettled area by FQM, told me when I asked her
about people’s living conditions after the resettlement.
“The most precious commodity here is Flagyl,”
she said with no whiff of sarcasm or bitterness, just a matter of fact. “We
take it daily because the water causes us such severe diarrhoea and stomach
cramps that we need to take Flagyl as a preventative measure. Coz what else are
we supposed to do? Are we going to stop drinking water or using it to cook our
food?”
As I sat outside the Ndola offices of Nkanza Laboratories
awaiting the results for the water purity test I had requested and performed out
of my own pocket, my mind wondered back to the days I spent in Kalumbila, to
all that I saw and experienced, to all that heard and witnessed. In that
moment, I realised that, even as the Lab Assistant was walking towards me with
the results, at an unbearably sluggishly slow pace, a battle of wills still
raged on within me; on one part I was naively failing to believe that such cruelty existed in the world with the sole purpose of maximising the bottom line, and on the other hand, I misguidedly but apologetically needed to believe that human beings were ungrateful and unappreciative of what’s
done for them when they themselves could not do it. My mind was stuck in limbo,
but as the Lab Assistant drew nearer – a fucking dying monkey moves faster than
he was moving – I knew that without a shadow of doubt, with a clarity I hadn't had in years - scientific data tends to do that to unzealots - that I could not not do anything if I wanted to live with myself a day longer.
“Motherfucker!” I exclaimed upon reading the
results.
The End
1Figures courtesy of www.lusakavoice.com. Retrieved on 20th
November, 2014, from http://lusakavoice.com/2014/03/31/fqm-to-spend-us-11-6m-to-resettle-displaced-families/
