Childhood Around the World
About Joana Chopamba
My Aunt Joana Chopamba is an inspirational member of our family. She has lived all over the globe from places like Zambia in Africa to places like Australia in Oceania. She is the only direct sibling of my father, John Chopamba. She has two children named Anesu and Rutendo and is in a happy marriage with my uncle Brian. Her life as an adult is fruitful but when we go down her roots and take a closer look at her childhood will it be the same?
Do you think your childhood affects who you are today?
I think there are certain things that I learnt in my childhood. I had a positive experience in my childhood, so there are certain things that taught me to be confident and that have carried through and influenced who I am today. Just in terms of what I learnt around relationships with family. We grew up not quite as a nuclear family because in a nuclear family there would have just been the two of us, my brother and I, but we intermingled with first cousins and we grew up pretty much like extended siblings, so experiencing that allowed me to feel like I was part of a greater, much bigger family. And I enjoyed the different relationships that I was
What privileges did you have in your community?
We lived in a country called Zambia... There were quite a few privileges because we were born into a family that worked in a specific industry, in the mining industry, and where we grew up the mining industry offered quite a lot of privileges for their employees and their families, so we experienced maybe, a lot more privileges than a typical person that grew up at the same time as I did. family unit that is actually very close and to me that is actually sort of culture because of parents back then kept us together, we were quite intermingled as children as I explained earlier and, so we had quite a positive childhood experience from that, so that's one thing I've carried through. There's a lot of things that I have carried through into my idea of actually celebrating something, celebrating milestones and making a big deal of those milestones as a family is something that I've already, that I've carried through as well, because we used to do that as we were growing up we had some certain traditional ceremonies that we used to attend that would mark and celebrate a specific achievement for the family, not necessarily your traditional things like birthdays and so on, but we has cultural traditional celebrations that we used to undertake and I still value the essence of those to this day.
What aspects of school do you remember?
I went to my first school in post-independence Zambia where I was born. So I did like the early part of my school there, before moving to a different country, which is actually my country of origin, Zimbabwe… I loved sport so I remember, I distinctly remember the sort of sport we were exposed to as children. I particularly loved what we used to refer to as rounders, which I think in actual professional sport is akin to baseball. We were also exposed to a lot of swimming and so on. The school also used to hold quite a lot of dance sessions, so we had exposure to different kinds of music and dance, as well as trips, that was one of the things i really loved, going on safari trips and spending probably a week on a safari tour out in one of the game parks.
thought I would grow up to be, because later in life. I realized how much work was involved. Much as I had the brainpower or, you know, the capability to become one. I'm not sure I could sustain the amount of effort that was required, in taking those, the level of training and study hours required in becoming one, so that was my own personal decision. The second bit was, as I grew up, later in life, when I was in high school. IT was becoming a trendy topic and a trendy sort of profession. So I tried it out and I liked it so I ended up in IT.
What would you tell young children trying to achieve their dreams?
I would say that passion is key to achieving whatever dreams you're pursuing. You also need to make sure that the dreams you're trying to pursue are your dreams and not a reflection of what somebody else, either your parents or somebody else around you is trying to get you to do. You also need to be open to what I call 'pivoting', you may have a view, you may have a strong view of being a certain person or taking up a certain profession when you're younger. As you grow up, you will learn a lot more, you will be exposed to other environments that you'll probably not have been exposed to before. So, you’ll need to learn to be open and continually challenge yourself and work hard without what you thought you wanted in the first place is still what you think you want to do.
“Passion is the key to achieving whatever dreams you’re pursuing”
-Joana Chopamba
Did people envy you for these privileges?
I don't feel like people envied us for those privileges, maybe because I wasn't as exposed to other communities that probably didn't enjoy as many privileges as we did. So, I don't know, I'd have to sort of reflect, they may have but I didn't experience anything directly coming to me.
Did you ever get bullied or feel like you were being discriminated against?
As a child, I'd say probably not really, I think I existed in an environment that did have segregation to a limited extent but because we were sort of cocooned in the specific environment we grew up in. Being amongst the mining community, we didn't experience as much direct segregation as probably the rest of the people in other communities.
Do you feel like the school affected your identity?
The school had a way of shaping its students, through behaviors and through etiquette and just exposure to a lot of different experiences. Sport being one of them, music being another and so on. So it created quite a, it tried to ensure that it created a very rich and a certain deeper view of holistic human beings so to speak and by doing that they created a brand and so it was very easy to identify ourselves with each other because of the way of which the school had managed us.
What are some of your hobbies?
I play sports, squash now and I swim quite a lot. I used to play, I loved playing basketball until I got hurt, so I haven't gone back to that sport. And most of my hobbies aren't just playing sports, I love watching sports and I love just spending time at home watching home movies with my children.
Do you feel like there is a specific reason why you enjoy these hobbies?
Well, I guess, I think it's probably because I've naturally grown up a very active and outdoor type of person so these hobbies I feel fit in quite well with my personality. Also, I enjoyed meeting and getting to know new people and, you know, they don't necessarily need to come from my background, I enjoy meeting people that come from all walks of life. So I find that when I'm doing sport, when I'm out there, it's one of the mediums in which I can actually meet and get to know other cultures and other people around me.
When you were a child, what did you think you would become?
A doctor, I thought I would, I was very sure I would probably become a cardiothoracic surgeon... Okay. Yeah, I think for no particular reason, I did not become what I was pursuing. You also need to make sure that the dreams you're trying to pursue are your dreams and not a reflection of what somebody else, either your parents or somebody else around you is trying to get you to do. You also need to be open to what I call 'pivoting', you may have a view, you may have a strong view of being a certain person or taking up a certain profession when you're younger. As you grow up, you will learn a lot more, you will be exposed to other environments that you'll probably not have been exposed to before. So, you’ll need to learn to be open and continually challenge yourself and work hard without what you thought you wanted in the first place is still what you think you want to do.
