Down Memory Lane To The Experience!

Last Sunday on the most recent edition of our weekly radio show were delighted to welcome back Evaristo Webster Mutanga (pictured above and far better known to Livingstone residents as ‘Uncle Jumbo’), for the second time as a Guest on ‘The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring Kaufela’.

Uncle Jumbo (pictured above) is host of another long running show on Zambezi 107.7 fm – ‘Down Memory Lane’ where he shares his memories and his music with listeners to Livingstone’s leading local radio station. “What have you been doing since we last saw you on our show?” Milli Jam wanted to know at the top of the programme. Our Guest revealed that having retired some time back, he had been asked to resume work by Mulobezi Railways and was busy teaching their employees in the marketing department about passenger services and public relations. The teaching was being done at Mulobezi Station and he much enjoyed travelling out there by train from Livingstone. He also revealed that his weekly radio show had gone from strength to strength and had ‘stood the test of time’ – “just like yours” he added kindly.

We missed Kaufela on this show who was busy with ‘family matters’ so the play list was all down to Milli Jam and I. MJ chose Chefy ft Roxy’s ‘Kopela Swag’ back to back with Macky 2 ft K’Millien’s ‘No More Love’. On the international scene he chose tracks from Justin Timberlake ft Jay-Z and Usher. My choices were from Duke Dumont ft AME and Chris Brown. Our oldie of the week was Roy Orbison’s ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ and our pick was Lana del Ray’s haunting ‘Chelsea Hotel 2’. We closed with Zonefam’s awesome ‘Sinjonjo’ currently zooming up the Zambian and African charts.

Uncle Jumbo revealed that he had spent more than 30 years working for Zambia Railways in marketing and passenger services before his retirement. He had been educated at David Kaunda Secondary School in Lusaka leaving in 1971 (“the same year I came to Africa” I commented). He hails from Kasempa in North Western Province. He was proud of his seven children, especially Chomba and Leo both studying IT overseas, Chomba in London and Leo in West Germany. And too Nesbitt, the last born who had just scored a super 9 points in his Grade 12 exams. He was happy that Professor Clive Chirwa had recently been appointed to run Zambia Railways and all the staff were looking forward to much improved services on the railways in our country. He mentioned the days when tickets were issued for passengers to travel all the way from Zambia to Cape Town and those tickets included hotel accommodation as part of the journey!

Our Guest greeted his niece Naomi and her son Mike, as well as neighbours Anne and Serviso. His phone buzzed through the show with call and texts from his fans, delighted to hear him on ‘the other side’ of the microphone – Milli Jam pointed out that Uncle Jumbo was one of the few of his generation in Zambia who had embraced modern technology.

Asked where he would like to be and what he what he would like to be doing in ten years’ time his answer was:- “Don’t ask such silly questions my son Milimo, I shall be in heaven down memory lane”! Sweet!

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