By Chibamba Kanyama
As many of you talk out there, I am happy to confess that I married in a great Chisaya family, known for tolerance, integrity, love for people, harmonious living and ‘minding own business.’ They don’t usually talk; purely out of courtesy; the whole Chisaya family!
I would be surprised if my surviving in-laws visited me today to complain about what transpired three decades ago, ‘We undercharged you when you married Eneless. We have fresh information from people who knew you well at the time that you were not as poor as you posed to be, even coming on a bike to negotiate marriage. We now understand you already owned a car. Because of your deception, you denied us an opportunity to fetch higher dowry from most noble suiters who had offered big amounts for Eneless. For this, we demand compensation.’
I would be surprised because in 2010, just before he died, my father-in-law Peter Chisaya, told me he was refunding two cows out of the four we had paid for dowry stating that the way I looked after them from the time I married Eneless was immeasurably high, so high that if all was quantified in monetary terms, it superseded what he had earned in pension as a retired teacher.