Zambia World Wide

First Aid

A foreman and anyone acting in his place were given a bonus if they were in possession of a First Aid Cert. Being in the acting position I decided to do the first aid course. Eidon Davies the Engineer decided to join as well. After the first few classes I told Ramsey Roberts our First Aid officer that I wanted to call it day. The reason being that I was convinced that the locals were going to embarrass me come exam time. When questioned during classes they would rattle off the answer as if they were reading it from the book. Ramsey bet me that more than half of those writing the exam for the first time would fail. Ramsey believed that some of them had difficulty in understanding English and relied on a well-developed photographic memory. He also advised me to take small change with me when doing my practical. The locals on whom we performed our practical were all qualified First Aid members and if you did something wrong they would only help you if you put some cash in their open palm. Ramsey was right with his assumption. The reason for this probably was that the exam questions were not based on recall for example what are the signs and symptoms of say shock. They would for example give you a few signs or symptoms and you had to determine what the problem could be. Once you had given your answer you had to give other signs or symptoms you would look for to endorse your answer. To stop any further guessing I must admit my practical exam cost me a few shillings.

Ramsey made up an ointment that he applied to all the wounds he attended to. The results spoke for themselves. When I left in 1967 he gave me a large jar of his Muti. Forty-four years later and I am still using it only for emergencies with the same amazing results.

Sad days for many Ex-Northern Rhodesians.

. With the election of 1964 we had to vote for two of the three parties. After negotiations between Harry Nkambula and the Fed. Party it was accepted that they would form a coalition. With a coalition the Federal Party would have a good chance of remaining in the driving seat. Federal Party members helped Harry and his party with their campaign. On collecting him on the Kitwe runway when he was scheduled to give his election speech at the Kitwe T.V. studio it was obvious that water was not the only beverage consumed. Celebrations at Coronation square as the election results were coming in were short lived when we sadly learnt that Harry had decided to go with U.N.I.P.

Before getting T.V. around 1963 the children would play in the open field opposite my house in 11, Washington Ave. until dinner time. With the installation of T.V. children were seldom seen outdoors in the afternoons. . They were all at home watching T.V. Grown ups were just as bad. There was a notable increase of power consumption with every advertisement break when kettles etc. were quickly switched on.