HOW MWANAWASA SURVIVED HOUSE FIRE ACCIDENT AS A SCHOOL-BOY
In 1956, Mwanawasa went to Mufulira Central School for his primary education. He was so young that he could not remember who his classmates were. However, about 2005, an old man telephoned him:
He said he was my teacher at Mufulira Central School. He mentioned some names of my classmates. Among them Lusaka lawyer Mumba Kapumpa. But I can’t remember that. I only remember Mumba Kapumpa from our times at the University of Zambia. He was two classes ahead of me.
He must have gone ahead of me because shortly after I started Sub A, I was involved in a fire accident and I lost two years of learning. I had to be taken to the Democratic Republic of Congo because medical facilities there were better. By the time I was coming back I had missed one complete year and I had to start afresh. So I had to repeat Sub A.
But this old man who phoned was reminding me of our school days. He said he asked us what we wanted to be in our adulthood after school. He said I said, ‘I [want] to be a big solicitor.’ He said he asked why I wanted to be a big solicitor and I said, ‘Because I [want] to serve people and I would like to become a big politician.’
Mwanawasa now recalls the fire accident:
What happened was that my elder sister, Violet, and I decided to go and visit our grandfather who was visiting in a home some three kilometres away from where we were staying in Chibolya compound. We found my grandfather and we played around. By that time Violet was in Sub B.
After we played for some time, Violet said, ‘Let’s go back home, it’s late.’ I said, ‘No, I am not going back. I will come later.’ She insisted that I go back with her but I refused.
So Violet left without me. After she left, my grandfather started cleaning his suits using benzene. I don’t know what happened but it would appear that some of the benzene spilt on the brazier and then the whole house caught fire. The benzene was in the bottle and he was cleaning the suits using a brush.
I suspect that as he was doing that, some of the benzene spilt on the fire. Some flames…caught up with the benzene in the bottle and the whole house was on fire. I was a small boy so I didn’t know where to go. My grandfather managed to come out and I was left there burning. The neighbours asked, ‘What about those little children who were playing here – where are they?’ My grandfather was now confused. He said, ‘They have gone.’ But at that time, the neighbours heard me cry inside the burning house. They said, ‘How can they go when there is somebody crying inside the house?’
So, one of them decided to go inside the house to pull me out. By that time, I was on fire…Fortunately, there was sand nearby. I was splashed with sand. I was burning all over the body—the head, the hands—all over. I used to have a very big scar on the abdomen. For quite some time, they thought that I had lost my eyesight.
As a result of that accident, Mwanawasa was rushed to Ronald Ross Hospital in Mufulira. He was very badly burnt. When his father returned from Lake Mweru, where he had gone to buy fresh fish for sale, he said, ‘We have to take this boy somewhere else. If we keep him here, he is going to die. Let’s take him to Sakanya [in the Democratic Republic of Congo].’
They took Mwanawasa to Sakanya, where he remained in hospital for three months. When he was discharged, he had scars all over his body. Some people would say he had fallen into the fire because of epilepsy, hence the scars.
‘That’s malice. I am not epileptic. I was just involved in a fire accident. That’s why I have these scars’, Mwanawasa would retort. Because of his severe burns, Mwanawasa was not in a position to go back to school for that year and part of the following year.
An excerpt from the book: LEVY PATRICK MWANAWASA, An Incentive For Posterity; Pages 6 – 7. By Amos Malupenga (2009).
Picture caption: Mwanawasa as a young man. Picture courtesy of family album.
Source: Conversations with Memorable Personalities