Small Shoulders. Heavy Burdens.

The first Friday the 13th of 2026 has arrived, a date long associated with bad luck among the superstitious. This year brings a rare triple occurrence, as the 13th day of the month falls on a Friday in February, March and November. While the idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky can be dismissed as mere superstition, the day remains culturally significant. Even if its power lies only in what people believe about it, that belief alone makes it noteworthy. And for many, the superstition is still very real.

While many fear a calendar date, for a young girl in Gwembe, 'bad luck' isn't a superstition, it is a permanent resident in her home. 

During my last travel, I encountered a story that still weighs heavily on my heart to this hour. It is the kind of story that stays with you long after you walk away. Like a shadow on a sunny October day. A Friday the 13th horror story.

Mary (not her real name) is a 10-year-old girl living a life no child should ever endure. She lives with her mother, let’s call her Jane, who suffers from epilepsy.

Based on available records and historical timelines, I estimate Jane to be about 27 years old. Mary was born under circumstances Jane cannot bring herself to discuss. Within the community, painful whispers persist. Whispers of abuse, superstition and cruelty. From what were able to piece together, both Mary and her baby sister were likely conceived by men who believed the myth that sleeping with a woman who has epilepsy would bring them wealth or protect them from imagined danger.

Whatever the origins of these beliefs, whether rooted in superstition or fear, their impact is tragically real. Three innocent lives are now bearing the consequences of these harmful and deeply entrenched practices. Mary is not Jane’s only child. There is also Ruth (also not her real name) who is just eight months old, still a baby and entirely dependent on her mother’s care.

When Jane suffers an epileptic episode, the world stops for this family. And in those moments, it is 10-years old Mary who carries out everything. She becomes the caregiver, the decision-maker, the protector. She watches over her mother as her body convulses and sometimes dashes to the healthcare facility to ask for help. Regardless of the hour and that healthcare facility is about 2 Km away from where they live. She soothes and carries along her crying baby sister. She manages fear, hunger, uncertainty and responsibility all at once. Mary has no childhood to remember: no space for play, no room for dreams. Her days are shaped by survival. At an age when she should be learning, laughing and being held, she is instead holding everyone else together.

And the other relatives? Surely someone should be there, after all we respect the extended family system in Zambia. Surely family should matter. Yet no one could give us a clear answer on where other family members are or live.

We documented this heartbreaking reality and reported it to the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS). We are committed to following up with the relevant authorities. Our hope is that this family will be placed on the Social Cash Transfer programme and relocated to an environment where Jane can receive proper medical care, where Ruth can grow safely and where Mary can finally experience what it means to be a child. They need a radical shift in their fortunes like yesterday.

At first glance, this may appear to be an isolated tragedy: one family, one community, one painful story. But stories like Mary’s do not exist in isolation. They ripple outward, touching our society in ways we often choose not to see. When a child is forced to grow up too soon, when superstition replaces humanity and when silence stands in for responsibility, the cost is carried by all of us.

Mary and Ruth are not just victims of circumstance; they are mirrors held up to our collective conscience. If help does not come now, what kind of future awaits them? What kind of adults are we allowing them to become: shaped by fear, neglect and survival instead of care, protection and love?

Mary shouldn't have to spend her whole life 'goodwill hunting' like scavenging for the basic kindness and safety that should be her birthright.

A society is ultimately judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. If we allow children like Mary to carry burdens meant for adults, we are not merely failing one family, we are quietly accepting a future built on abandonment. There is still time to intervene, to protect and to restore what has been taken.

But time, like childhood, does not wait.

Joy Comes in the Morning

When I was young and restless, I had a propensity for driving in the evening whenever I was on a long journey. Some many moons ago, I started from Chama at 16:00hrs, and by 18:30hrs, I was already in Lundazi. Sable Construction Company Limited had just completed work on the Lundazi - Chipata Road. It was a smooth, unadulterated, and unmarked highway.

There I was, cruising at an average speed of 140 km/h.

The air conditioning was set to its lowest, fast-paced music blared at high volume and adrenaline rushed through my veins. I wore the cloak of invincibility from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. A whippersnapper, I felt the need for speed.

At around 20:30hrs, I reached Chipata.

Against my better judgment, decided to pick up four people who were hitchhiking. Sitting in the front passenger seat was an elderly man. Behind was a young couple and another elderly woman.

I later realized that the old man had appointed himself the responsibility of keeping me awake by telling endless stories. He also doubled as my navigator.

“This stretch usually has domestic animals on the road,” he would say.

“There’s a large hump in 500 meters.”

“There’s a dangerous curve in this area.”

He genuinely looked out for me, and for everyone else in that car that night. By extension, he helped in keeping us alive. As a result of his close supervision, we reached Lusaka at around 04:00hrs the following morning. Very late for my Satwant Singh alter ego.  

After dropping off three people, including my assistant driver, the elderly lady remained. Apparently, she didn’t know where she was going; her son was supposed to come and pick her up once we arrived in Lusaka. She was in terra incognita. 

Unfortunately, her phone had run out of battery and we couldn’t call him.

After some frustrating conversation, she asked for her backpack, which I had kept in the boot. She began searching through it, eventually pulling out an old, worn-out A5 exercise book. She flipped through pages filled with scribbles, some in pencil, others in pen. By then, my already thin patience had completely withered.

At last, she found the page she had been looking for and showed me her son’s phone number. The very son she had come to visit.

However, there was yet another problem: his phone number wasn’t going through, and my conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave her anywhere.

In Obotunde Ijimere's The Imprisonment of Obatala, the multifaceted Yoruba deity Eshu makes a profound observation: kindness has never killed anyone but brings a lot of problems.

It was almost 05:00hrs. when I decided to park in front of Radian Stores on Freedom Way.

This decision was as strategic as it was an act of resignation. Strategic because I was assured by the security guards at Radian Stores that I would be safe there; resignation because I truly didn’t know what else to do with my only remaining passenger, who had no idea where she was going.

Sleep eventually set in, only to be interrupted by the hustle and bustle of Lusaka’s morning. I checked my watch, it was almost 07:00hrs, I tried the lady’s son’s phone number again.

And voilà, it rang.

Truly, joy comes in the morning. By 07:30hrs, he had arrived, explaining how he had started panicking when his mother’s phone stopped ringing, fully aware that she knew nothing about Lusaka.

From this experience, I learned a few lessons.

Firstly, there are people sent to look out for you. You may never get the chance to thank them, and often you may not even know their names. These are people who mention your name in corridors of power and influence, who believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

By the same measure, there are people who will dislike you for no reason other than you being yourself. They use frivolous justifications: “I don’t like the way he walks,” they’ll say, or “I don’t like his head or his nose.” Nothing about character, only things you cannot change.

Secondly, don’t be too quick to judge people unless you fully understand their situation and perspective. As humans, we judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. We must extend to others the same grace we so readily give ourselves.

The old lady’s life experience had taught her to keep important phone numbers in an exercise book. Experience, often held by the elderly, is the antidote to the reckless invincibility that many youths exude today.

Thirdly, humanity thrives on interdependence, and interdependence is a never-ending chain. I cared for the hikers by giving them a ride. The elderly man cared for me, and everyone else, by navigating and keeping me alert. I cared for the old lady by not abandoning her. The security guards at Radian Stores cared for me by providing a sense of safety. The old lady’s son cared for his mother, and his relief completed the circle.

No one is truly independent. Our survival and success depended on a network of mutual responsibility. At various times, we are all the driver, the old man, the old lady and the waiting son. In theory, every single person falls somewhere on the continuum and can fit perfectly into one of the four categories. A functioning society relies on these roles being fulfilled with patience and duty.

In the end, this journey mirrors life itself: moving from the arrogance of solo speed, through the humility of accepting help and bearing responsibility, to the exhaustion of persistent duty, and finally to the redemption that comes with dawn and resolution. It reminds us that speed is not the same as progress, and that while our greatest trials on the road often come from our fellow travelers, so do our greatest lessons and aids. As we step into the new year, slow down when needed, be kinder than required and always assume that the person besides us may be fighting a battle we cannot see. The road ahead should be shared, just as the one behind was.

 

A Bullet Repaid Kindness

In the mid-2000s, I had a friend named John.

I remember exactly how we met.

On my very first day of school in Lusaka, I showed up in rags, nothing “representable,” as the teachers called it. My guardians couldn’t afford a uniform either due to unpreparedness or lack of means. John’s parents gave me some of his clothes that I wore at least for that particular month. At school, he never mentioned nor made fun of some happenings. He also never said a word to other school kids.

Just like that, I stepped into that classroom looking like I belonged.

We were both village boys, new to the city, trying to outrun the dust and squalor we'd been born into. For a while, things looked up. School. Shoes. Friendship. But John's life hadn't started softly.

Him being a friend, I would learn and understand his life like my own.

He was born in Bimbe Village, a small, forgotten speck in south-eastern Chongwe District, tucked kilometers from Chalimbana. The village drew life from the Chalimbana River, a persistent vein in Soli land, though Lenjes like John's family had settled there from Mungule in Chibombo. Ba Lenje, bantashi. Bene chishi!!

His birth came on the cusp of January 2000, as the world braced for the Y2K bug, a chilling spectre threatening to crumble digital infrastructure, from power grids to banks. Programmers scrambled globally, but a primal panic swelled too: religious leaders and survivalists proclaimed it the End of Days, blending tech glitches with apocalyptic prophecies. Economic collapse, nuclear meltdowns, a plunge into pre-industrial darkness, millenarian zeal fuelled stockpiles for the final reset. 

In Bimbe, nobody knew computers. The nearest clinic was over ten kilometers away in Chongwe's central business district, so John entered the world at home, his umbilical cord buried in the village soil. While half the world fretted over a computer bug, the other half birthed babies in huts, cut off from proper healthcare. A stark contradiction of realities.

His mother, young and restless, left him at three months old with her own mother, Subeta, to seek work in town.

Subeta was... different.

Not Sabetha, her Christian name. In Bimbe, names bent to the land's tongue: Subeta. She walked like a soldier, talked like a Pentecostal preacher, fought like both combined.

“If someone touches my blood,” she'd say, tying her chitenge tight at the back like a boxer, “I won’t ask for the story. I’ll write it myself.”

Like the people of Umuofia in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, she believed the fox must be chased first; only then can the hen be warned against wandering in the bush. Villagers whispered she once trailed a drunk who insulted her niece to the market and slapped him into next week. Unconfirmed, but it felt true.

She had one child, Rabecca, from a man named Chanda who vanished before the girl could walk. Life plodded on as it always does, hard, dusty, sun-baked.

Subeta hustled, her ventures dramatic. A trip to Itezhi-Tezhi for fish resale brought back more than stock: a fisherman husband, trading free kapenta for her capricious affection.

Subeta’s fisherman husband looked like a question mark somebody had forgotten to straighten out: shoulders drooping so low they practically waved at his knees, back bent in a permanent apology to gravity. The village kids swore that on windy days his silhouette looked exactly like a fishhook, and even the chickens stopped pecking to watch him pass, probably wondering if he was coming or going.

As expected, their love was tumultuous.

Their grass-thatched mud rondavel reeked of dried fish and resentment. One scorching afternoon, Mr Fisherman asserted authority, targeting young John, must have been out of clumsiness, defiance or both. The boy stumbled into the kitchen, tears streaming.

Subeta, who was cooking something at the fireplace, didn't turn immediately.

When she heard, her breathing drowned out the chickens.

“Tell me,” she commanded, “how did you get so comfortable putting hands on my grandson?”

“This boy needs discipline! I’m the man here!” He scoffed.

Subeta’s eyes narrowed. “No. You were a discount. A bag of free fish. You are nothing.”

She slapped him; his palm-leaf cap spun like a coin. A brutal fight erupted. Minutes later, he was out, hessian sack full of his belongings, tossed into the dust. He vanished to Itezhi-Tezhi or wherever Subeta’s exes went. Bimbe never saw or heard of him again. 

John grew under Subeta's wings, but the streets whispered when adults weren't listening. He found fast boys who laughed at rules, slept through lessons. He craved their boldness, the fear they inspired. 

At ten, a cousin from Lusaka visited, finding him shoeless, eating cold nshima, wandering like a retired old man.

“This child will die here,” the cousin said. “He should be in class, not a water boy for an old woman.” 

And so, John was taken to Lusaka. For a while, things looked up. School. Shoes. Even meeting me.

Years rolled by.

John was constantly pressured to work hard, to be better, but the echoes of Bimbe’s neglect were too loud. School felt like a prison. The streets and the easy acceptance of the wrong crowd beckoned.

Teenage John now ran with a small-time crew that stole whatever they could carry. Not big crimes. Bags. Scrap metal. Chibuku crates. Sampo silema, was their mantra.

"Just be the eyes, John. That’s all you gotta do. A quick twenty minutes, and you got cash for weeks," whispered Linos, the gang leader, his face hidden in the shadows.

The target that night was the local Chibuku brewery factory, adjacent to the cemetery. John was the lookout, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

"I don't like this, Linos," John hissed, peering over the wall.

"The guard looks twitchy tonight."

"Relax! He's dead-asleep," Linos sneered. "If he wakes up, you whistle. Simple."

John waited. The silence was broken only by the distant clink of metal. Then, a sharp, frantic shout from inside the factory compound: "Stop! I've called the police!"

John spun around to whistle, but before the sound left his lips, a blinding flash and a deafening report split the night. A bullet tore into his chest.

He collapsed instantly, the cold cemetery dust filling his final sight. The gang scattered. The responding police officer, answering the guard's distress call, lowered his firearm, his face pale in the light of the security guard’s torchlight.

John’s body hit the ground like a sack of maize. His world instantly went dark.

He was dead.

And.

I was the cop on duty who pulled that trigger. His day one kindness has just been repaid, ungratefully so.