A Wedding in Katete

Don & Sue Bethune
September 2006

In September 2005 son Robert, girlfriend and fellow medic Laura started work at St Francis Hospital in Katete. An amazing experience for them both, Robert in surgery and Laura, a GP, in medicine and paediatrics, within a few months they had decided to marry and arranged the timing to coincide with our visit in May this year. We had become involved raising funds for St Francis and found that people in this country were delighted to give to an identified and defined project where the aid would reach its target without funding layers of bureaucracy.

We arrived in Lusaka a week before the wedding and spent a night in the Taj Pamodzi hotel. Laura and Robert joined us there which solved the problem of transport to Katete. We had contemplated the bus or a taxi but in the event had an exciting ride in their Isuzu pickup along the Great East Road.

We stayed for the first week with Robert and Laura in their house in the hospital grounds where Robert had created a wonderful vegetable garden. Staying there gave us plenty of time to visit the wards, theatres and pharmacy. We both felt sad that we were not able to spend time working there ourselves. The wards brought back memories of the Nightingale design we knew in the 50s and 60s. The theatres were excellently managed, with more stringent control to prevent theatre clogs becoming contaminated than in most UK hospitals. The anaesthetic equipment was ideal for the setting. It is similar to the simple emergency system used by the UK armed forces. It is an ideal concept for situations where compressed gas supplies and sophisticated intravenous regimes are impracticable and unattainable. Inevitably there were ‘developed world’ anaesthetic machines in the theatres: expensive and impressive to look at, but only used as a shelf! 

We visited the Jersey School on the Hospital campus, and found the children incredibly courteous and happy in their green uniforms with big white collars: the boys with smart ties. We were amazed how many children could be packed into a small classroom. It is sad that it was only for those who could afford to pay, but the school is self supporting.

Each evening that week there was a rehearsal at Mrs. Seya’s house; she is the Hospital Matron and was the Matron of Honour for the wedding. The bride and groom had to learn to dance for their entry into the church and reception: the student nurses practised their dancing to accompany the bride and groom and the hospital choir perfected their a cappella singing.

We were impressed by how many of Robert and Laura’s friends travelled to Zambia to support them. In all there were twenty five from the UK. As more of the guests arrived we moved into Tikondane, a community centre about half a mile from the hospital. This is a wonderful place, set up by Elke Kroeger-Radcliffe as an educational resource. She originally arrived at Katete as a nurse tutor but became involved in adult education after the hospital engineer said that many of his staff could neither read nor write. This interest expanded into general adult education and Tikondane received a certificate of registration in 1999. Tikondane relies on support from overseas and as a result, when we visited, was suffering from the strengthening of the Zambian Kwacha following “Debt cancellation”. The activities include free education for children and training in craft skills and education for women. The community centre is making strenuous efforts to be self sufficient and the accommodation we stayed in provides part of the income. The impact of the teaching and support from Tikondane was very apparent when we visited the nearby village of Kachipu, beyond Greya village.

Two days before the wedding most of the wedding guests had arrived and together with friends from the hospital we all had a Zambian meal in Tikondane which was prepared in Kachipu and delivered by ox cart! The evening before the wedding Mrs. Seya hosted a hen party and the men treated Tikondane to the spectacle of an English stag night.

Saturday 20^th May: the wedding morning found us helping the Tikondane staff prepare tables, decorations etc. for the “English” style reception. We then walked, in our wedding finery, the dusty half mile to St Francis Church – the locals were obviously amazed at this sight. We all fitted into St Francis Church with the Mothers Union choir, the hospital choir and local friends. The bride arrived on her father’s arm, both dancing into the church led by Mrs. Seya in a gold dress with exquisitely braided hair and an escort of dancing student nurses. A very African wedding, the first that Father Rogers-Banda and Father J Phiri had conducted in English. It was a long service with marvelous singing from the two choirs.

We were led by the choirs and the dancers to the reception in the Nurse Training School for the African/Hospital reception, lots of dancing and drummers and a few hundred guests. There was an impressive solo dance by a young girl brandishing the cake cutting knife after which cake, Sprite and beer was distributed.

The bride and groom went to the Tikondane reception in an ox cart followed by a huge crowd including many local children. The reception was outside and while it followed the conventional English format with speeches and toasts, it was unique in having a crowd of local villagers watching. The groom gave his father-in-law a dowry of two goats, which then went to the local community. This really was a day we will all remember; Rob and Laura were particularly pleased that all the expenditure, including the making of her dress and the suits for the groom and best man, had gone into the local community.

The following morning twenty three of us left for the “honeymoon” at Mfwue Lodge in the South Luangwa National Park. An incredible contrast with our week in Katete.

Our lasting memory of Zambia and Katete is happy smiling faces from all the Zambians we met and of contented babies being carried on their mother’s back. We also retain an enduring memory of a hospital community that is providing excellent and appropriate care for the Zambians of the Eastern Province, fulfilling a vital function for the Zambia as a whole by being one of the three post graduate teaching hospitals in the country.