BURIED Alive, a 2020 song released by Jamaican superstar Buju Banton resonates very well with popular Marondera well digger, Collin Kaseke.
For 55-year-old Kaseke, however, the song refers to his own ordeal on July 17, 2019 when he was ‘buried alive’ after a well collapsed on him while he was 11 meters deep.
Residents gathered at the scene and concluded that Kaseke,
popularly known as Mudhara Vibes, had joined his maker.
"I cannot forget that day, I always relive what
happened. I cannot believe that I am still alive. It was by the Grace of
God," he told NewsDay Weekender recently in central Marondera.
He said the rope he has used to lower himself into the well
probably saved him from suffocating, making the opening that supplied him with
oxygen.
"As I was going up using a rope, the well collapsed.
Sand pushed me down, but I did not let the rope go. I was facing downwards, I felt as if I was
lifting the world. As people tried to pull the rope thinking that I was dead, I
pulled it back signalling that I was alive. That created an opening that
supplied oxygen," he recalled.
The accident left him with permanent injuries.
"My left hand
is now paralysed; it is because I held to the rope for too long. I now survive
on doing menial jobs," he said.
His brush with mortality has changed his outlook on life
and he is now a devoted church goer.
"While trapped, I observed that my ancestors who are
buried underground were sleeping. I was under the earth and they did nothing. I
had to look up and the one above (God) saved me. I am now a member of the Grace
Bible Academy," Kaseke said.
Although he has found new faith, Kaseke still struggles
with doing away with long time habits of smoking and drinking but reasons that
becoming a devout Christianity is a process, and that he will get there
eventually.
Kaseke he lost hope of surviving as he endured long in the
belly of the earth and the Marondera’s Fire Brigade team who eventually pulled
him out thought they were retrieving a ' dead body'.
"I started feeling that the weight of the sand was
decreasing on me. Hope was renewed. One of the rescuers grabbed my hand and
when he discovered that I was alive he dropped it and fled. He couldn't believe
that I had made it. They retrieved me after a caucus," Kaseke said.
Having dug hundreds of wells in and around Marondera, but
he quit job, but the trauma hits him regularly, reminding him of his miraculous
escape.
"Digging wells is all I had known, but I had to quit.
Life is precious," he said.
He listens to Buju again: Now, I am alive; There must be a
reason;
I was given one more chance; My heart's still beating.
Tears well up in his eyes and begins to sob softly. Newsday
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