Another Adventure

We set off early Friday morning to visit a struggling congregation at Mpeepo in northern Zambia. Two Zambian co-workers, Joseph and Cosmos, traveled with us, planning to stay a few extra days to do some leadership training with the church members.

We spent Friday night at a lodge on the way and arrived at Mpeepo Saturday afternoon. A local church member offered his yard for our camping spot, so we set up a tent for Joseph and Cosmos and then set up our "tent" for the night on the back of our Toyota. At about 7:30 that evening we were sitting outside with several of the men from the local congregation when we heard an explosion and saw a bright flash across the highway from where we were sitting. "Something hit the electric tower," our friend Moses said. David and some other men got their flashlights and headed out to investigate. (Even though we were 100 yards from the electric tower, there was no electricity in our host's house.)

It turns out that a 20-year-old young man high on the local variety of marijuana had decided to climb up the metal electric tower to steal a length of barb wire. He was about 10 feet up when he grabbed the wire and was electrocuted. The jolt tore open his left leg from the thigh to the calf, and the fall from the tower gave him a possible head injury. David warned the villagers not to move the victim, but eventually the man sat up and the villagers carried him to the nearby health clinic.

As it turns out, our vehicle was the only one in this community of 3,000 people. David volunteered to take the young man to the hospital as soon as the clinic officer had him stabilized. Since we would have to use the back of our pick-up, we hurriedly took down all our camping gear and stored it in Joseph's tent. At 9:00 the word came that he was ready to go. We wound our way over one-lane paths to the clinic--a large building in total darkness except for a candle burning in one office. The young man was carried out on a mattress and placed in the back of our pickup, along with his father who would be needed to care for him in the hospital. In the cab with us were Joseph and Douglas, a community member who knew the way and had the necessary paperwork to deliver to the hospital. At 9:30 we set off in the inky blackness of night on the road to Mpika.

We were breaking our rule about never driving at night in Zambia. Thankfully, the traffic was extremely light with none of the usual large trucks or wild animals on the road that make night driving a nail-biting, heart-pounding experience. Of course, that's easy for me to say since I slept most of the way, as did Joseph and Douglas. We pulled into Mpika at 11:00 and found the hospital. The patient and his father were unloaded, and we headed back for Mpeepo. I think David said we met a total of three cars on the hour and a half drive back to our campsite. We pulled in at 1 a.m. and then had to set up the camper tent again before collapsing into our sleeping bags.

To be continued . . .