Last words of COVID patient

 By Victor Kalalanda, February 26, 2021*

Gerald Mwale is dead, but he left us with a message

Until his death, Gerald Mwale was a photographer and writer. This photograph of city life is an example of one of his talents.

Gerald Mwale with his wife

Gerald Mwale

He’s the focal point in a photo illustration of an insurance ad that is meant to romanticise old age, but which now inspires horror instead, as a jarring reminder of the COVID crisis.

If you’ve driven or sauntered along Cairo Road in Lusaka, you must have spotted this visual icon, given the splendour of its size and colour.

If not, you might have to look again—but this time for the essentially deleted figure, the 60-year-old Gerald Mwale, a highly accomplished journalist and media academic, who has died of COVID-19.

In that frozen moment on Cairo Road, Gerald Mwale tilts from his garden chair on the shores of a lake, with fishing rod proceeding from his laps and resting on the shoulder of a grandson, who stands before him as they stare at the unlucky little fish caught on their bait.

It’s a worry-free retirement, touts the banner ad in its headline, but ironically not true anymore for Gerald, who during his journalism lectures at the University of Zambia (UNZA) would speak of an imminent happy existence that he anticipated on his farm.

He was convinced his retirement, like a ship on the horizon, was coming, and so would anyone who since 1980 was involved in journalism, media and communications work, rising to the highest editorial and leadership positions in multinationals and locally most reputable institutions, including the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) and UNZA.

To thus look at Gerald’s photograph in a new context is to begin appreciate the brittleness of life, and as the artefact begins to loom large before one’s eyes, you realise it is as important as America’s 9/11 Falling Man image, except that this one features a COVID case.

Now perhaps the most significant clue to Gerald’s last days is his Facebook page, where when he started writing about his life story late last year, under the title Unrecognised Writer, he probably never realised he was bidding farewell to the world that had known him largely as a writer and photographer.

What a remarkable instance of serendipity, therefore, that his memory should centre around writing and photography, because aside from the Cairo Road photo and the many that he personally took with his camera, he jabbed his pen at the COVID pandemic as he lay sick at the Levy Mwanawasa Hospital in his last days.

He titled what he wrote as a View From The Hospital Window, a piece that reads like a eulogy of modern Lusaka, penned by a city slicker but literary genius, until it narrows down to the crux of the matter.

“For a countless times,” he thus began writing on 16^th February, “I have driven along this section of the Great East Road, resisting the temptation to step on the gas, as the road dips and rises sharply past the imposing edifice of the newly built Levy Mwanawasa Hospital. This is one part of Lusaka that has undergone tremendous change over the years.

“If you are coming from Chelstone going into the greater Lusaka area, you will drive past the Munali flyover bridge still under construction, then into the now widened six-lane highway past the University of Zambia, then the ultramodern Eastpark Mall, then climb the now completed Arcades flyover, that makes you glide right past the intersections of Thabo Mbeki and Katima Mulilo roads. The six-lane highway takes you right to the heart of Lusaka.”

He continued: 

“I’m conjuring up this image as I stand at the fourth floor of the Levy Mwanawasa Hospital going, gazing at the area beyond Munali and Kaunda Square. Farther beyond I see the rising hills of Kabangwe to the Great North Road. It’s been raining heavily in Lusaka, giving a lustre vegetative look to the city. It’s a picture that has set my mind thinking about a subject I had never given much thought to, until this time. This is because I’m gazing down at this beautiful scenario from my hospital room, where I have been admitted the last two days. I’m in the COVID-19 section of the hospital. I’m feeling much better than I was two days ago when I was brought in. It all started with a rather irritating sore throat, then tightness in chest, followed by laboured breathing.

“Coptic Hospital was the nearest facility for testing, the result was positive. By that time I had lost strength to stand or sit on my own. I was referred to Levy Mwanawasa Hospital. A wheel chair and a disinfectant man covered in protective gear awaited our arrival. I was straightaway given a bed, with oxygen tubes and a drip. All the hospital personnel were dressed in protective clothing, their faces totally incognito behind the Shoprite screen masks.

[What] followed [was] a period of drug administration, temperature checks, throughout the night until morning. Another shift of the health personnel took over, going through the same routine. After the first night I felt some of my strength return. My mind was clear enough for me to think over my ordeal. And so, as I sat through this period, staring at the ceiling, I picked up my phone and decided to begin this narrative,” he wrote.

Then came his two concluding paragraphs: 

“I really do’nt know the aim yet, whether to alert you to the reality of COVID-19, or to let it sink into you that you might, like me, be driving past the Levy Mwanawasa Hospital and never thinking that you might end up in that hospital room one of these days.

“You see, it’s not as ‘impossible’ as you might think. It’s just a matter of letting off your guard in a moment of careless abandonment: forgetting to wear your mask properly, failing to maintain social distance, and not sanitising your hands, just as simple as that.”

Such is the grace with which Gerald wrote, summoning his literary talent to carefully weave his words into a beautiful tapestry of advocacy for public adherence to COVID-19 health guidelines, not knowing that on 23^rd February his death would be announced.

In the wake of his death, this particular post happens to be the most heart-to-heart last words that Gerald shared with his readers and followers.

A graduate of Evelyn Hone College, University of Zambia and Wayne State University in the United States, he had worked for the Zambia Daily Mail and ZNBC as journalist and editor; OneWorld Africa as Africa Region Editor; and for USAID Zambia as Development Outreach and Communications Specialist.

At the time of his death he was working at the University of Zambia Department of Media and Communication Studies, where he once served as head, and taught a wide range of courses such as photojournalism, photography, media history, digital journalism, media ethics and media law.

He was at UNZA as an academic since 2005, during which time he indefatigably trained generations of media professionals like Felix Chiteule, who states that “I worked with Mr Mwale as a tutor in his photojournalism course for the last three years. He mentored me in the most unusual way, bringing himself to a level like he is just beginning to learn the field, always exchanging notes and open to learn new things from a young and relatively inexperienced me.”

Another former student, Luckson Sikananu adds: “He had an air around him that made any student instantly like him, as a lecturer and as a human being. He had this carefree, laissez-faire kind of teaching which to most of us who passed through his classroom [allowed us] to explore our creativity and the freedom to ask questions free of judgement.”

“In second year when he was my photography lecturer,” remembers Andreas Muhwanga, another of his former student, “I had a photo story that I was assigned to do. The tutors did not like it. I brought the idea before Mr Mwale and he told me why it was an excellent one and guided me and I executed it perfectly.”

And to Salome Sakala, it was Gerald’s “catchphrase, ‘You-know,’” which he usually said to begin his statements, which she remains with as a fond memory.

It is by the trilogy of journalism, photography and communications—not forgetting his humble and kind demeanour at a personal level—that many will remember Gerald, as much as by his last words on COVID-19.

So, under the glare of cameras from photographers he trained, the journos who possibly went through his hands will write the final script as Gerald, one of his country's finest writers, is put to rest today.

*This article was first published in the Zambia Daily Mail on the stated date. The author is a former photojournalism, digital journalism and media history student of Gerald Mwale.