SINCE 1998 I have tried go to Zambia over five times and failed to. So it remains that I have never been to Zambia, not even across the bridge from Victoria Falls into Livingstone. The first time was an impromptu trip that came when I didn’t have a passport. The second time was supposed to be a performance of a theatre piece, but the trip was cancelled. There were further postponements, cancellations … it never seemed to work.
BY ELTON MJANANA
Last year, when I failed to attend the Lusaka Music and Film Festival because the dates fell so close to the dates of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival, which I was working on, I resigned my fate to having a curse on visiting Zambia upon my travel bug. What troubled me was that I had been everywhere in Southern Africa, except Zambia. I have even travelled to East Africa, West Africa and Central Africa.
Yet my duck has been finally broken. I have just returned from Zambia. Finally, Anopa (Makaka) got me to Lusaka and there could never be any more horrendous reasons as to why. My phantom curse of not being favoured to visit Zambia was finally broken. But was this first trip not like a curse in itself?
My first sights of Lusaka were dream-like sequences of blurred visions and a dusty downtown, as I waited for George Mpofu to come and pick me up from the Cosmopolitan Mall. My mind was preoccupied with trying to convince myself that Anopa was not dead. Surely not dead in this Zambia he had asked me a few days earlier to come and see if I want to join him and George in this venture they had started.
So it remains, my maiden trip to Zambia was to pick up a brother and bring him home to sleep. What a tour of duty! When the news of his passing on was announced to me by his wife, Tendai Musoni, on Monday morning, all strength deserted me. I was weak for all of a minute then remembered that my wife and I had been chatting to Anopa on WhatsApp the previous night into wee hours of Monday morning. He was perfectly fine — had gone to watch a movie and was retiring to bed.
He was looking forward to the day ahead, the business meetings he and Mpofu had scheduled and all the promise that their business venture presented. The future was bright. So I regained my strength because it was not possible that Anopa had died.
Musoni was in tears on the other end of the line, saying she had received the news from Mpofu in Zambia. Musoni was back at their home in the United Kingdom with the children. I tried calling Mpofu and couldn’t get through. For me that was a sign that.
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Anopa couldn’t be dead. I went to the office. Did anyone else know anything? I was “zombified” all day at the office. I felt tired. There was a huge weight on my shoulders and I was slumped on my desk all day — staring at the computer. I called Mpofu and, finally, I got through. He told me Anopa had died. I asked how and he told me it was sudden. I interrogated him. He didn’t have answers, except to say he collapsed and died. I asked him how he knew that Anopa had died.
He told me he took him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. I began to feel gutted. I braved my phone and checked out the numerous messages of condolences pouring in. I got numerous calls, too.
When I logged onto Facebook to check out his last post — a picture of his very impressive well-chiselled muscular body — I was met with hundreds of messages expressing shock. Some were reporting on the death and others asking questions. I didn’t respond to any of the messages. I didn’t want to partake in that. I called Musoni again. She was weeping, sounding like a widow. It all seemed wrong. I went home. I only believed that Anopa had died when I got to Lusaka and Mpofu picked me up.
Mpofu was a broken man. He told me he had, had a breakdown that morning. He, together with Zadzai had covered some ground with the paperwork to repatriate the “remains” of Anopa Makaka back to Zimbabwe for burial. They showed me the death certificate.
I had my own breakdown moment. Thankfully, Anopa himself, even in death, seemed to want to come home. A process that could have taken weeks was done in three days.
Courtesy of the tireless efforts of Mpofu, Zadzisai Mazivisa, Mudhara Chris, Shamiso Fred and the very helpful staff at the Zimbabwe embassy in Lusaka, Anopa came home to sleep. I will never understand this cardiac arrest, cardio respiratory failure or whatever fancy medical name it is they call this sudden dying of a good man like Anopa. We just have to understand that Anopa died young at 46, but lived his life to the fullest. He was met at the airport by family, relatives and his arts fraternity family.
The huge numbers at the chapel service and unity of his fellow arts colleagues in bidding him farewell warmed the hearts of many, including his mother and siblings. The skits and moving speeches by those who had worked with him sobered us all up.
Sleep well Mukanya. I first met Anopa in early 2005 in Harare, on Kaguvi Street. He came to the little office Walter Muparutsa, Zororo Mubaya, Mandisi Gobodi and I were operating from. We were called Global Arts and we produced theatre pieces and co-produced some film projects. We were, however, well-known as a Casting House. That’s how we got to make Evil in Our Midst and Absolute Jiti and write all those scripts, conceiving all those ideas we were yet to fulfil.
It’s hard to imagine that the script he wrote and completed in three months for the Dambudzo Marechera biopic has lost its author. My challenge to the film industry is that we owe it to Anopa to pay attention to the great script he birthed. If it can be made, it must be made. Anopa Makaka was born in 1971 to Aspinos (late) and Eddy Makaka.
He did his primary education at Sir John Kennedy School before proceeding to Jameson High School for his secondary education. He had already discovered his love for the arts as he acted in some Campbell Theatre productions.
He, however, had professional Electrical Engineering stints at Rio Tinto, Jena Mine and Ziscosteel. Before leaving to settle in the UK, Anopa had established a hardware store, Lian Supplies. He is survived by his wife, Musoni and five children. Oh, and a completed script that was ready to go into pre-production.
