By ALFRED MUKANAKA
Chingola has a cathedral
Reel-to-reel X-rated film fanatics
Laid the foundation stone
And bats begged to live
Like stubborn demons!
Someone said, ‘Cry the Beloved Country’
I say cry no more my beloved town
Now you have a cathedral
The WWII cinema hall
“Too ugly for motion pictures,” one scribe inked
(Don’t judge a book by its cover!)
Mobutu splashed gold in his home town
Senghor built a basilica, world class
Chingola has no Mobutu, nor Senghor
Be content with what you have!
By 2030 you will become a city
With mushroom-high buildings
Not the twin-towers type
No boulevards but bumpy gravel ring roads
No fly-over, but one WWII airstrip.
The writer is a Poet, writing both in English and his native language Bemba.
