Zambian Diaspora Personality – Mother, Carer and Author “Me and my Mum” – Grace Chama-Pupe

Grace Chama-Pupe

Grace Chama-Pupe (nee’) Grace Chama Katebe was born on 28th December, 1952 in Chief Mulala area, Luwingu District, Northern Province, Zambia.

She attended local schools before she was selected at the age of 12, to enrol at Chipili Girls Boarding School, a prestigious mission school run by then white missionaries from the Anglican Church situated near Mansa, Luapula Province.

After primary school, Grace went to Kasama Girls Secondary School in Northern Province of Zambia where she obtained 8 ‘O’ Levels.

In 1973 Grace enrolled at Evelyn Hone College to pursue a Secretarial Course. However, after a brief high profile secretarial career in Zambia, Grace and her family migrated to the United Kingdom. Grace pursued a four year degree course at the University of East London where she attained a B.A. (Hon) Sociology Degree and a Certificate of Qualified Social Workers (CQSW) She further attained a Diploma in Community and Primary Health Care (Dip.CPHC) at Westminster University, London.

Married and a mother of four, Grace worked as a Social Worker in various London Local Authorities before she returned home to Zambia in 2011.

Grace today, is a proud mother of four adult children, and five grandchildren. She readily admits that she now lives in two countries as she divides her time between nursing her mother in Zambia and making frequent visits to her family back in the United Kingdom.

The unexpected responsibility left on her to care and look after her widowed mother who suffers from on-set dementia led her to writing a book detailing her everyday frustrations as well as exciting moments with her elderly mother.

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2012

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

Product Details

Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Trafford (July 17, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1466943939
ISBN-13: 978-1466943933
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces

The book is also available on Amazon Kindle; Barnes & Noble; WHSmith. The book is all about “DEMENTIA AWARENESS” in Africa and Zambia in particular. Grace can be contacted directly on Email: gracechama@btinternet.com Mobile: +44 7404505035.