MANY times, men leave their home towns in search of employment. Some of these men have worked for some companies before but due to unforeseeable circumstances, they have lost their jobs either through retrenchments, dismissals or because the companies they had been working for had folded.
Since they were married and had families to care for, they could not afford to stay without any source of income.
Fortunately enough, many people in Zambia acquired homes which they bought when the late second republican President, Frederick Chiluba directed councils to sell the houses to sitting tenants.
Those who were not lucky enough to buy council houses were accorded the opportunity to acquire plots on which to build their own houses.
Although they had lost their employment, they at least had shelter and some of them had small businesses while others had their wives selling at markets and that way, life went on.
After many companies closed down, the MMD government, under the leadership of late President, Levy Mwanawasa opened up North-Western Province which was a previously referred to a cinderella region. There was no hope that North-Western Province, which is rich with mineral resources, would some day become one of the country’s mining giants until a number of mines were opened there.
A lot of people, especially those who had lost their jobs in the mines which had closed on the Copperbelt, flocked to the province, especially Solwezi, where new mines had been opened to find jobs.
Normally, when men find employment away from the places where they had settled, they shift together with their families to start a new life.
While many people have found employment in the newly-opened mines in North-Western Province and have shifted there with their families from different parts of the country, there are a lot more who have left their families behind and they only go to visit them once in a while when they are off duty and this has been the order for many years.
Recently, I was in Ndola’s Pamodzi Township where I had gone to visit a long-time friend, let us call him Mr Mulenga.
I found Mr Mulenga’s wife who allowed me in the house as her husband had just come out of the bathroom.
Shortly, Mr Mulenga came from the bedroom after dressing up. I was explaining my mission to him when someone knocked on the front door and Mr Mulenga’s wife opened.
A young woman whom I guessed was in her early 20s or late teens walked in.
After she greeted us, my friend introduced her to me as his sister-in-law. She was his wife’s younger sister.
After introductions, Mr Mulenga’s wife and her sister walked to another room, may be the kitchen, and only came back after 15 or 20 minutes to join us.
Having explained my mission to Mr Mulenga, I said I was leaving, but his wife announced that food was almost ready and asked me to wait.
Before I could answer, a young girl with two bottles of Castle Lager walked into the sitting room. There was no way I was going to say no to both the food and the beer, after all each time Mr Mulenga came to my place we ate together although we did not drink beer as I don’t stock beer at home.
It was while we were waiting for the food when Mr Mulenga asked his sister-in-law about her husband who was in Solwezi where he was working at a mine.
The young woman told my friend that her husband was fine.
“In fact, I have come to say farewell to you and your family. I am here to tell you that I and the children are going to Solwezi to join your brother after he has stayed there for over 10 years since he got employed without shifting the family,” said the young woman.
My friend looked surprised and said: “You are going to join your husband after all these years? Has he now agreed that you follow him?”
The young woman shook her head negatively and said: “No. He has not agreed that I follow him. I have forced him to agree after I talked to his boss that we have stayed separately for too long and I requested that the company gives us a house so that we as a family could shift to Solwezi and stay with the man unlike the case is now when he only comes to see us once in a while when he is off duty.”
I thought this was interesting.
The man has been working in Solwezi for the past 10 years and only visits his family in Ndola once in a while!
To make it more interesting, the woman requested the company to give them a house so that the family could shift to Solwezi and stay with the man!
According to the young woman, she and her husband were staying at her uncle’s place in Chifubu Township and had two children together until her husband found employment at a mine in Solwezi in 2005.
The young woman said after her husband found the job, he promised that they would shift to Solwezi, but it was now 10 years later and he kept telling her that there were no houses in Solwezi and he was squatting with friends.
She said she was surprised that her husband could not find a house in Solwezi when all his friends he was staying with in Ndola and got employed at the same time had acquired homes and were joined by their families.
She explained that a few months after getting employed in Solwezi, her husband managed to buy a semi-finished house in Pamodzi Township and since he was building, the man used to go to Ndola each time he was off duty until the house was completed and the family shifted in.
“After moving into the house, my husband stopped coming to Ndola each time he was off duty. I thought Solwezi was far from Ndola and that could have been the reason,” said the young woman.
Seeing that years were getting by without her husband showing any sign of having his family shifting to Solwezi, she thought she should do something.
“Last month your brother came home and gave me money for food and other essentials. I bought everything for the house since there were people including his relatives staying with us.
“I told him that although I had bought the food, we would go to Solwezi together because we could not continue staying without him for such a long time but he refused, telling me that he was keeping up with friends,” explained the young woman.
Since the man had gone to Ndola using company transport and there were his workmates, she told him she would go by bus and he would find her in Solwezi.
She was not joking!
The following day, she boarded the bus to Solwezi and she was there before her husband.
She explained that when she got to Solwezi, she went straight to the offices and saw the human resources manager and expressed her disappointment at the company’s failure to provide her husband with accommodation when all his friends who started work at the same time with him and those who came after were accommodated.
“The human resources manager expressed shock because my husband had never approached management for accommodation. He told me that there were a lot of houses for the workers especially those with families.
“He said that the three-bedroomed and two-bedroomed houses were finished and only one-bedroomed houses were remaining,” explained the young woman.
She said when she told the human resources manager that a one-bedroomed house would do in the mean time, he told her to ask her husband to go and collect the keys the following day.
She narrated that after the incident, her husband had become so bitter with her and they were not on talking terms for a month or so.
However, what she discovered was that her husband was reluctant to shift and preferred to squat with friends who did not want to bring their families because they were flirting with other women and sex workers who were so many in the area.
“It is good you brought this up. There are so many workers here who do not want to bring their families because they enjoy life by picking other women and sex workers.
“When a bigger house is found, we will give you first priority to have it,” the young woman explained what the human resources manager assured her.
Mr Mulenga smiled and commended the young woman for the initiative she had made.
How do you neglect your family all in the name of womanising?
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