TELL ME, JOSEPHINE

The ""Dear Abby"" of Northern Rhodesia is named Josephine, and her advice to the love-laden, love-lorn and socially questioning in the Copperbelt range from practical to pert. Here she responds to those with too many or too few loves; to hose worried over looks, or the more involving troubles of tribal mores and the ayment of lobola, the remove from village to city with its attendant love problems (many people take half wives, leaving their legal ones far away in the village), and the lure of the beerhalls. Before question and answer come brief explanatory essays on the nature of life in the Copperbelt which are quickly if superficially revealing of the transition between old and new ways, the standard of living, etc.. Still, this is more of a curiosity than a commentary.