Entering Bimbe Basic School, I was greeted by numerous voices chanting in unison: “Education is knowledge, knowledge is power and I want it”. Following the chants, I entered a classroom with 20 enthusiastic students, ravenous to learn. It was as if the Zambians, still burdened by the gross inequalities of colonialism, were responding to the former colonial axiom: “If you want to hide something from the blacks, put it in a book”. I joined 10-year-old orphan Shikha reading an English book....