Zambia World Wide

Some of my pioneering activities.

A) Constructing open wire routes in Kasane

Kasane was served with a farm line also known as a party line from Zambia. A party line is a single telephone line serving normally a maximum of ten subscribers. Only one subscriber at a time could be connected to the manual exchange. With business subscribers in Kasane plus the immigration and customs post in Zambia connected to the one line led to a lot of frustration. The worst was that there was no privacy as any one of the subscribers connected to the line could listen in on your conversation. There was also the continuous ringing as all the phones rang with incoming and outgoing calls and the termination of calls. Code ringing was used for each subscriber. The Zambian Border Post officials would disconnect Kasane if they wanted to use their phone and the line was in continuous use. They would normally reconnect Kasane after they had made their call. Then there were the times that they would forget to reconnect Kasane and I had to travel from Francistown to Kasane via Buluwayo and Victoria Falls a round trip of approximately 1600km just to replace the fuse at the Zambian Border Post. I would however make use of this visit to Kasane to do some routine inspections. When building construction started on the Chobe Lodge in the Chobe National Park it was decided to connect Kasane to the Rhodesian telephone system and then to Automate Kasane.

A1) Malaria

Open wire routes from Kazungula to Kasane and from Kasane to the Chobe National Park to serve the Chobi National Park and the Chobe Lodge had to be constructed. My biggest fear during the construction was the snakes in the long grass near the Chobe River. The mosquito however proved to be our biggest enemy. Pauline and some of the crew really had malaria in a bad way. There were no doctors in Kasane but the nursing staff certainly knew how to treat Malaria.

A2) Gang violence

To clear the bush for the open wire routes I hired some of the locals. I soon realized that these guys were not pulling their weight. When I approached them I knew I had a bunch of trouble makers. After warning them I went to see Kingsley Sibele the District Commissioner and cousin to Sir Seretse Khama and informed him of what had transpired. The next day it was decided that the permanent crew finish off a section of their work and then go and assist with the bush clearing. After completing the section I went ahead of my permanent crew leaving them to clean up. Arriving at the temporary workers I found that very little progress had been made and in fact some of them were missing. When I told them that they were all fired in no uncertain terms I was confronted with an angry mob wielding pangas. I knew one wrong move and it was all over as some of them started crowding me. I kept up a bold front and shouted back at them as loud as I could and at the same time praying that my permanent crew would arrive soon. When they arrived they armed them with anything they could lay their hands on like picks, axes spades etc. The temporary crew was taken to the District Commissioner. After hearing both sides he told the temps that they were a disgrace to Botswana and that he endorses my decision to fire them.

B) Installation of the first automatic telephone exchange in Kasane

In between the construction work I started with the installation of an automatic exchange. I had to modify a P.A.B.X. to function as an automatic exchange. I was not happy with the equipment used as I knew that its selectors required regular maintenance. The automation of Kasane was however accepted as a vast improvement. The Chobe Lodge prior to opening wanted the Chobe Safari Lodge in Kasane to swap names. They felt the name Chobe Safari Lodge was more applicable to them as they were in the Chobe Nat. Park. Their request however went unheard.