Ta Lakata: review by Tom Norman

Three streams of Africa in one African Princess:

SHAKA ZULU, Missionary Dr. Livingston, Devastation of AID/HIV & Copper Mining Pollution.

TA-LAKATA, the Tears of Africa introduces Princess Zindaba Nyirenda, who has taken responsibility to increase awareness of the ravages of AIDS in its many dimensions inside and outside of Zambia. Her moving book documents her growth in a loving family, in a prosperous Zambia and the reversals that the entire new nation suffered.

First there was the reversal in the commodity prices of copper in the late 1980s, and then the absolutely devastating effects of AIDS. This occurred in the context of “madango,” the special culturing of young girls to be submissive to authority and not to express that which will put the family in a bad light.

As the people she grew up with are “dropping like flies” (even her own father from unsanitary needles in the early years of blood donation), she brings a special urgency and insight into the reality here and abroad.

Her story in words has so many layers of interest to the Western-educated modern American that it can’t be put down. It keeps people up late into the night. Her commitment and what she most wants to talk about as Princess Zindaba, the direct line from Shaka Zula and Chief Mphamba who settled his people near Livingstone in Zambia [then Rhodesia] in the early decades of the 20^th century… has to do with her special name: Zindaba.

An ‘inDaba’ is when there is a reconciliatory counsel in the cool and shade of a tree. It is where stories are shared and told leading to the meeting of hearts and minds and the reconciliation of wills.

No one had such a name before her. Her mother gave her the seemingly novel name at birth. Coming to study with her husband in the U.S. in the early 80s she has found her voice with a commitment to lead the reconciliation of tribes and peoples inside and out of Africa.

This book is written directly from the heart. One gets a full view of an open and resolved heart and each stage of life's journey. It unites the great-granddaughter from the line of Shaka Zulu to the commitment of the missionary Dr. Livingston, to the ravages and trials of the present day in Princess Zindaba's resolve that one person can make a world of difference.

It is difficult to set down the book. The chapters flow like a river through the various stages and turns of her life. You feel like you are not on the banks watching the flow of the current, but out there in the boat with her.

The book is a one of a kind. A personal documentary with residual, long lingering appeal: It rings true.

Sincerely,

Tom Norman, St. Louis, MO

March 8, 2010