I BLAME THE COUNCIL

I remember one incident that happened many years ago when I was in Grade 5 at Perseverance primary school in Ndola. It was the last week of term. We had finished writing our end of term examination and there was nothing much to do. We were just waiting for the closing day on Friday.

On this particular day the teachers were having a Staff meeting and our teacher Mrs. Mumba asked us to "kill" our time by singing songs while she was gone for the meeting. We sang a couple of songs sang by pupils in school when one of the girls decided to take it back to streets and started a song called "Ama Witch" which means "The Witches".

The song was some kind of praise for one of Zambia's greatest Zamrock bands called Witch Band. The Witch's songs included Introduction, Like a Chicken, See your mama, Kangalaitoito and my favorite track Lazy Bones. The name Witch was an acronym for "We Intend To Cause Havoc"and not what you had in mind. 

It was a long time ago and I cannot recall the full words to the song but they were about the Witch Band's drumming skills. 

We were in the middle of the song and enjoying ourselves when the door to our classroom was violently opened and three men clad in blue overalls, gum boots and gloves burst in. We stopped singing at once because the look on those men's faces told us we were in so much trouble. 

"You dogs. Who are you calling  Ama Witch?" one of the men said.

"Your fathers are the Witches," another one added.

We were called all types of names and insults were hurled at us as we cringed like helpless little caged animals. These were men in the same age range as our parents and we had absolutely no idea what felony we had committed. One of the girls tried to reason with the men by telling them that we were not singing about them but that only seemed to annoy them more.

To our relief, the teacher came back and intervened on our behalf. She managed to calm down the men and assured them that she was going to deal with us severely. In case you are wondering where these men came from, they were garbage men who had come to empty the garbage bins at our school. They came to our school every week in a Ndola City Council green garbage truck.

But why where they so annoyed with our "Witch" song? Well, in those days it was common to see garbage trucks going around in residential areas emptying dustbins. Households used to take their dustbins to the road side on a chosen day which I think was Thursday in my neighbourhood. These silver metal dustbins were provided by the Ndola City Concil and had NCC embossed on the side.

The garbage truck wold roll down the street at a slow pace and the garbage men would lift the bins and hand them over to one of the men riding at the back of the truck who would empty the rubbish in the truck and then throw the dustin to the ground in a careless manner. It was the cacophony of the bins being thrown down that earned the garbage men he nickname "witch" because the metal bins made a noise similar to the drum instruments used in music and the Zambian Witch Band was famed for their firece drum beats. This is what earned the garbage collector the name Witch. 

So when we were in class singing the Witch song, the garbage men who had come to collect garbage at our school thought we were deliberately singing the song to mock them. Yes, the nickname for the garbage men at that time was well known even to them because when they were doing their work in the compounds the young boys and girls used to shout "Ama witch yaletuta" (The Witch are banging).

When we were singing that song in class it had nothing to do with the garbage men who had come to our school to help keep it clean and hygienic. We didn't even know they were at the school doing their job at that time. We were just singing that song to "kill time".

Presently, the garbage trucks and garbage men have disappeared from our streets together with the silver dustbins.  This has resulted in people living side by side with garbage. People are dumping rubbish any where. For example in the community where I live it is not strange to wake up in the morning and finding a new mountain of rubbish has mysteriously appeared at your doorstep.  

I really don't blame the citizens for dumping diapers, packets of Shake Shake beer and left over foods all over.  This was not the case when the Ndola City Council garbage collectors were intentionally causing havoc by banging the dustbins in the streets. Where did they go? Why didn't anyone stop them from leaving? Now look at how we are slowly drowning in garbage?  

I know we kids used to annoy them by calling them Ama Witch but that was just to entertain ourselves. We looked forward to the dustin music because it made our backyards and streets free of stinking garbage. Ironically, when the garbage men packed their bags and left, someone also switched of the street lights. This has even made it easier for people to carry a sack load of rubbish and dump it near other people's houses.

When I wake up in the morning and find a sack of rubbish at my gate I just pull it inside my yard  and wait for the night. When it is dark and quiet,  I take the sack and dump it at someone else's gate. I am thinking in the end we might just invent a game similar to rugby but this one will be called Pass the Sack.

If the council can not afford to bring back Ama Witch, let them try putting huge bins where citizens can throw rubbish and then the Council can come and collect at their own time. Every time I see a heap of rubbish on the roadside I'll blame the Council because it is their job to keep our cities and towns clean.

Please bring back Ama Witch.