Just after we graduated high school, I was 18 and my friend was 17; he came up with a plan. His idea was we buy beans and dry Kapenta, take them to an illegal mine in the Lumezi Constituency, and exchange them for precious stones. He got the idea from his uncle, who lived in a village near the mines.
We were young and broke, but hungry for money. All we talked about was expensive clothes we would buy once we sold the stones. The only problem was finding the capital to invest in our business.
At the time, my father was building a house and kept all the materials at the plot. He had already purchased tiles for the entire house. I went to the plot, took half of the boxes and sold them. We bought a 50kg bag of beans and two 25kg bags of dry Kapenta and took off. We spent one night in Chipata and connected the next day.
We were open to exchanging our merchandise for either cash or stones. However, we weren't happy with the quality of the stones they offered, maybe our expectations were too high 😄 So we decided to sell everything for cash instead. Within three hours everything was gone.
We stayed at his uncle’s house that night, planning to leave early the next morning. While talking to the people who worked for his uncle, my friend found out that the uncle had "something" valuable. He suggested we steal it and sell it in Lusaka. I thought he was joking. He woke me up in the middle of the night, took the item, and hid it in our bag.
When we reached the Luangwa Bridge, the Paramilitary Police came inside the bus and shouted, “Everybody get off the bus with your bags and form a straight line outside!” To make a long story short, we were loaded into a police Land Cruiser and taken to the Lusaka Central Police. My friend’s father bailed us out the next day after spending a night in the cells. We eventually appeared in court, but the case never took off. We were acquitted.
“i'm not only an astronomer, i'm also a horologist”
no shame in that, dear...i mean, we all have to earn a living, eh?
“no, i'm a horologist”
so was my mum but she didn't crow about it as loud as you