While I was away from Lusaka visiting my friend in Cape Town, South Africa, a Fountain of Hope grade seven student and frequent library patron named Natalie, known to friends as Natty, passed away.
The day I arrived back in Zambia, the Zambian news on TV reported from Misisi Compound on the fence being constructed around the nearby dam after many drownings. Natalie was the youngest person to perish.
Yesterday morning, I met her parents and grandmother in Misisi Compound, and they handed me a frame containing two photos of Natalie. One photo eerily featured Natalie and a friend arm in arm on a rock along the dam, the place that took her life. The second photo taken in front of one of the large tree designs on either side of the Lubuto library door. I was chilled and then silent and then tearful and offered condolences.
Ni Cho Yipa! (What a terrible thing!)
Natty spent many afternoons in the library with her friends. She listened to a few of my stories, and we perused nature books together.
On behalf of Lubuto, I give deepest sympathies to her friends, classmates and family.
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