HERE & THERE

SOMETIME

in early May, 1966, at about 11:00 hours, a 57-year-old sales representative for the now defunct Heinrich's Syndicate in Kitwe (who manufactured the famous Chibuku opaque beer), was driving from Kitwe to Bwana Mkubwa on the then Broken Hill (now Kabwe) Road.

About a kilometre from the Skyways Club, he noticed an army truck in front of him. Then he saw a woman with a small child going in front of him on the roadside.

The trouble was he could not catch up with the woman although he was in a van and she was only walking. Then she began thumbing for a lift.

“I never gave lifts to anybody in the company van,” Machinjili was to narrate to a local newspaper later, “and I did not intend to stop on this occasion. But before I realised what was happening, the van had stopped and the woman was sitting beside me and we were moving again.”

The next thing he noticed was that he was on the road to Tug Argan Barracks and not on the one to Bwana Mkubwa.

“Woman, where did you say you were going?” he asked the woman sitting beside him who was constantly looking out through the window.

“Don’t you understand?” she said in Nyanja. “I told you to leave me at Bwana Mkubwa junction.”

He then noticed that the woman no longer had a child with her. And before he had time to think, his van had turned and was heading for Bwana Mkubwa again. But just a few metres from the road, his friend disappeared into the mist of a very clear day.

Machinjili was now thoroughly perplexed. He drove as fast as he could to Ndola. But just as he was joining the main Broken Hill Road for his escape, he saw the same woman going in the direction of Broken Hill!

This did not make any sense. Machinjili drove as fast as he could, feeling even more confused. But eventually, he reached his home and did not, or could not, tell anybody about his fascinating story until two days later.....

The Heinrich's Syndicate employee was but just one of the many "victims" of the mystery girl nicknamed Rosemary Kapenta of Ndola who was reported to be on a manhunt for a boyfriend who had killed her so that she would avenge her death.

Yes, this was a time in Zambia when men were wary of giving lifts or making