. Mbewe

By PASSY HAACHIZO –
ROCKED by desperation down there, the 68-year-old Aaron Mbewe has a case of double trouble which denied him happiness for fifteen years.
A hit and run accident which happened on Katima Mulilo Road left him confined to his sick bed.
The accident which happened on a fateful afternoon after Aaron had knocked off from work was the beginning of a prolonged period of suffering as he became an ailing man.
Aaron says he was left with a dislocation in his left leg after the accident.
Since then, the leg has never been properly put back in its place in spite of him making countless hospital visits.
Aaron says the referral hospital medical personnel in charge at the time of the operation appeared ignorant in the way they handled the dislocation.
Aaron narrates that for ten years he had been to hospital requesting the doctors to reconsider working on his leg. But his pleas for
assistance have fallen on deaf ears.
“I was working for Ban-bum College as a foreman but after knocking off from work on  January 8, 2000, I was involved in an accident.
“The following day when I came back to my senses, I realised that I was in a hospital ward,” Aaron narrated.
Fighting back a flood of tears, Aaron  recalls his youthful days when he used to run while taking care of goats in Petauke in Eastern Province.
At a tender age, he left Chikiluko Village in Petauke for Lusaka’s Chilanga area where he attended sub-standards three to six and finished in 1953.
He then went for a night school up to form two before relocating to Chingola where he did odd jobs to raise money for his sustenance.
Aaron narrated that after some years that he spent in Chingola, he returned to Lusaka and in 2000 he was at Ban Bum College.
He met his fate when he knocked off from work and the accident has left him incapable of performing working anywhere.
Aaron now lives a miserable life  as a result of the death of some of his children who used to give him solace in time of distress.
He says all his children died except for Mary, the only daughter who has given him six grand children.
Aaron has no source of income. He depends on his orange orchard and the tomatoes he sells from his garden.
“I depend on a garden which has tomato, onion plus the orange yard left by my deceased elder brother before he died,” he says.
He is now looking up to well-wishers to help him with a machine for watering his oranges.
“Only if I could be assisted with things like a machine for watering my orchard and garden to help me continue living, I can be very grateful,” he says.
He narrated that life for him was unbearable after he suffered from a stroke early this year. The stroke impaired his hearing.
He says if doctors attended to him, some of the problems he is going through could  have been avoided.
According to John Mason in his book “The Impossible is Possible” many people are not moving with God today simply because they have not been willing to take the small steps he has placed before them.
Surely, it is up to every one of us to see to it that the man who returned from death while lying on bed 21, Ward 21 on January 8, 2000 is helped and the beginning is now.