Following a busy week in Nairobi, I flew to Lilongwe on the 22nd of June 2004, stopping in Lusaka in transit. Dr Kenneth Kaunda boarded. I instantly recognised him, and my heart missed a beat. There were not many people on the aircraft, and as the flight settled, I approached Dr Kaunda. His security man looks a little cautious, and I disarmed him with a warm smile. I vividly recall saying, ‘Good afternoon, sir. I always wanted to meet you.’ Then, he said modestly, ‘who me?’ and gestured that I should sit next to him. He told me that he was on his way to Lilongwe, representing a charity to talk about Aids and HIV. In my spare time, I was working on a biography for my long-term friend, sadly now late, Mzee Bhoke Munanka, a freedom fighter and a former Tanzania Minister of State in the first Tanzania Union Government. KK said that he knew Munanka, and they met several times. Before my stay in Nairobi, I was busy researching the biography in the University of Dar-es-Salaam Africana Library and the Tanzanian National Archives. I had several photos of a young KK meeting Nyerere and attending State functions. I showed him using my laptop. KK and Munanka both chaired PAFMECA, and this were replaced by the Liberation Committee created by the Organisation of African Union (OAU), founded in 1963 in Addis Ababa. As the flight started to descend, I reached in my pocket and produced my remaining Kenyan Shillings no longer required, and I offered them to KK to contribute towards his HIV charity. He thanked me, and I offered my camera to the security chap who took our photograph shaking hands. A few weeks later, I sent a photo of us addressed ‘Dr Kenneth Kaunda, Founding President of Zambia, The State House, Lusaka, Zambia.’ I received a handwritten thank you letter, and he sent one of his grandsons to be placed at a UK university. It was a wonderful moment to talk to such an iconic man, and he was the last remaining champion of the first Africans to achieving majority rule in the ‘60s. I recall above all his very gentle and unassuming manner and how willing he was to talk to a total stranger; when we parted, I felt as if I have always known him and that I have made a friend for life in a 30-minute chance encounter.
