Maggie Sapatu story proves that critical thinking in Zambia is dead

As widely reported in the press and social media, a 52 year old woman, Maggie Sapatu, walked on foot to Lusaka to attend the inauguration of Hakainde Hichilema as president. I did not think much of it initially, although at the back of mind, something seemed odd. When I learned that she supposedly walked from […]

As widely reported in the press and social media, a 52 year old woman, Maggie Sapatu, walked on foot to Lusaka to attend the inauguration of Hakainde Hichilema as president. I did not think much of it initially, although at the back of mind, something seemed odd. When I learned that she supposedly walked from Mwinilunga to Lusaka, I could not believe what I was reading everywhere.

The distance from Mwinilunga to Lusaka by road in a car via Copperbelt is 859km and via Western Province 903km. Even if you draw a straight line from Mwinilunga to Lusaka through a dense forest passing near West Lunga National Park, that is still 584km. Now, are you telling me that a 52 year old woman carrying a red backpack and 2 chickens realistically walked any of these distances within 18 days?

It is safe to assume she did not walk in a straight line through a dangerous bush with wild animals and had no compass or expensive GPS navigation gadget. So 859km in 18 days via Lumwana and Chingola means 48km per day! Pause and think about that. 48km is about the distance from Lusaka to the Kafue River. Can you imagine walking that in one day? At an average normal human walking speed of 5km/hour with resting in between, that is over 10 hours every day for a 52 year old woman!

Walking such long distances would mean she would need to double her daily food intake during the trip. Did she pack many kilos of nutritious food (which did not rot or go stale in the hot sun) in her red backpack to last her 18 days? Or did she happen to just conveniently find someone selling food by the roadside whenever she needed it?

Where did she sleep for 18 days? Did the villagers along the route give her free accommodation? What about bathing, changing into fresh clothes (while washing and drying used clothes) and toilet activities? How did she feed 2 chickens that were maybe 4kg in total and carry them in her hands for 18 days? What about dangerous animals along the route which passes through forests? Where did she get plenty of clean drinking water while walking for 18 days in the hot sun, mostly in rural areas?

Biology says an average fit human can only safely manage walking about 30km per day. A 52 year old woman would be around 20km, meaning taking 43 days to walk to Lusaka, not 18 days. The huge physical extertion and friction would introduce blisters and broken skin in her feet by day 2 and possibly muscle cramps. Painful skin infections would follow. The joints in the legs would suffer damage and bones would begin wearing away as they developed minute fractures that would compound over the days.

If you try to walk 48km for 10 hours daily every day, your body will rebel and begin wasting away because there is no time for the body to repair itself sufficiently since you are stressing it so much. Your muscles will stiffen and begin breaking down, getting weaker by the day and you will lose weight. You are likely to suffer from exhaustion or heat stroke and collapse in the hot sun.

Even people who are fit and do these things for charity spend about 3 months getting the body ready in advance of the long walk and they limit the distance to around 25km per day. They do not start from zero walking 10 hours per day for 18 days. They rest a day or two in between batches of several days, otherwise they will be in serious pain.

It is very disappointing that this tall tale is being believed and repeated without question by almost everyone. What happened to critical thinking and analysis? Many Zambians also believe that someone can steal a man’s private parts using witchcraft and an innocent woman in Kalumbila in North-Western Province was sadly murdered because of these foolish beliefs in the supernatural. It seems all our education and exposure to Science has been of no effect.

If we can believe these obviously false stories, next time someone will claim they swam across Lake Mweru within 1 day and we shall believe it without questioning and reward them with a brand new car and phone. As for Jeremiah Tembo who supposedly cycled over 500km from Lusangazi in Eastern Province to Lusaka, that is a story for another day!