Chama - Pupe

This book is written as testimony to a returnee's nightmare. It is a well-known secret that when people live abroad or in another town or city, there is always a spiritual longing for the country or town/city they leave behind. Nobody expects to return back home after a span of years in a foreign country to surmountable responsibilities. On the contrary, one assumes to return home as a hero or live a quiet life with less pressing responsibilities. Leaving her adult children and friends she has lived with in England, the writer of the book returns back to her native country Zambia and realises that she has no support networks as people she perceived to be her friends have either moved on with their lives or moved to other parts of the country. As for her immediate family, they abandoned the responsibility of caring for an elderly mother solely on her. The writer finds the 24-7 caring experience both exhausting and at the best frustrating. Hence, she turns to writing down her mother's daily observations, which serves as an escape route as it evolves positively in her caring role. However, the author perceives her book as lasting memory to her mother whom she is nursing as she journeys through her twilight days. Though as a daughter, the writer would like to cling to fond memories of her mother in her previous life before the onset of dementia, the writer acknowledges that living and caring for her mother on a day-to-day basis has made her become aware of the fact that there is still life and fondness between daughter and mother despite the fact that the latter may be engulfed in a life of distortion and confusion. By providing a tender and loving care environment, the mother flourishes in physical health although there is nothing much one can do about the reversal of mental health well-being of a dementia sufferer.