Zambia World Wide

After returning from our trip to the falls we spent some time at home and only went for odd days out locally. We continued to have the odd day out at the fishing club where we would spend a day fishing, also the 17 mile dambo but we had heard of other places which we wanted to see. One of those places was Rodwins (some knew it as Lake View). It was situated just off the Kitwe\ Mufulira road about 45 minutes drive from Kitwe. It was a small private lake surrounded by trees and a popular spot to spend a day or a weekend. There were braai areas, a small children’s playground and paddling pool. It was also possible to hire canoes which were one of the main attractions for us. Although Gary was only 3 years old he was quite a good swimmer and loved canoeing, Craig was only 6 months old but still enjoyed being there. We would normally go with a group of friends and have a braai, it was a great place to go and relax with the children. It was about this time that I changed jobs yet again, a vacancy had come up in the transmission line \ township electrical section. I was asked to move across as assistant foreman. At first I said no as the transmission section was known for the trouble that could arise without warning. I should add here that many of the linesmen had at some time been in prison for various crimes such as murder, grievous bodily harm and other violent crimes. I was then asked if I would take the job for 3 months trial, after which if I wanted I could have my old job back. To be honest once I got to know the men and they got to know me, I didn’t want to give the job up, they had a reputation they did not deserve. All they asked for was to be treated properly and not as misfits. We got on well, I treated them in the way I would treat any other person and they responded to that. Since we were constructing and maintaining transmission lines throughout the Copperbelt, it gave me the opportunity to meet a much wider variety of people. It also meant that I had to visit towns and copper mines throughout the copperbelt which gave me the chance to buy essential goods that were not available in Kitwe. Apart from this aspect I enjoyed the work, which interested me as I had never had the opportunity to work in this field before. One problem that was ongoing were copper thieves, even now I find it hard to believe that these people would steal copper from live 66kv transmission lines. The method they used was quite simple, although a little dangerous. They would climb to the top of a suspension tower and cut through the eyebolt holding the top insulator to the tower. The conductor would then fall to the ground and trip on earth fault protection, if the fault was still there after 30 seconds the line would lock out. The thieves would wait for the line to lock out. They would then cut the conductor into short lengths and disappear into the bush. On many occasions we tried to catch them but by the time we could get there, they would be long gone.