Mr. Kabwe

Tragedy struck Siavonga last Friday in the late afternoon. There was a big, big accident at the Kariba North Bank Power Station located just outside of Siavonga. Even now I’m having trouble separating fact from rumor, but I believe there was some sort of explosion and a number of fires broke out. Many workers were injured and some were killed.

One of the workers that was killed was a former Namumu employee, Mr. Briston Kabwe. Mr. Kabwe was Namumu’s head welder up until only some months ago when he took a job at Kariba North Bank. He had been at Namumu for a few years.

Even though we had not worked together I knew Mr. Kabwe pretty well. He lived close by to Namumu and from time to time he would drop in to check on Vincent, Namumu’s current head welder, his former student. He just wanted to make sure his protege was faring well. He was a nice man.

Coincidentally, I was one of the last people around here to get to see Mr. Kabwe. On Saturday morning, the day after the power station incident, I made a trip to the Siavonga District Hospital with Alfred, Namumu’s driver. The hospital was packed with dozens of men injured in the accident. Family and friends were pouring in to make sure that their loved ones were alright.

Most of the men were in a large general holding area, but Mr. Kabwe was in a separate room. He had bandages all over his body, having been badly burned. He was clearly in pain. Still, he was conscious and talking and appeared to be fine. Two days later we received word that he had been transferred to a large hospital in Lusaka. The next day we received word that he had passed away.

I attended part of Mr. Kabwe’s funeral yesterday. It was just a small gathering of family and friends as his burial won’t be until later this week. It was my second African funeral and it was mostly the same. The men split off from the women and both groups sat around and talked quietly. Or just sat. Or cried. It was terrible.

The worst part was watching Mr. Kabwe’s small children. I believe he had three in total, although I only saw his two small girls, probably only two or three years old. Both were walking around and smiling, clearly oblivious to the whole situation. I don’t think they had any idea what had happened.

It made me wonder when they would know, how long it would take for them to realize the gravity of the situation and how different their lives are going to be from now on. In a relatively impoverished area they were some of the fortunate ones, having had a man with a good job to provide for them. Now that’s all gone. I don’t know, maybe the power company will provide some type of benefits for them. Maybe not. It’s tough to think about.

Siavonga is not a big place, so almost everyone had a friend or family member working at that place. At some point today, please take a moment to pray for those in Siavonga affected by this accident.