Brother, We Have Learned to Wait

 [Sunday Times: 11 November, 2012]

Brother Jordan, with surprise you asked

through the letter written by Sister Hussein

why we are always not enthusiastic

but rather that we appear pessimistic

when the subsequent present gods

saintly and mightily make flight

of angelic words, and a bright world?

We have, through hard ways, learned to wait,
for although these new gods might not yet
rant a dark discourse or rave a dim discord,
a full load of same old and lethargic lexis
of fluffing and frothing in this matrix
will surely soon start to strongly stroll,
robustly roll, or brutishly  blow
during the day, in broad day light,

or in the pitch of dark, right at night.
Brother Jordan, their piety might crescendo

this time but we have learned to wait,
as current cherubic accents will diminuendo;

baring open barefaced dictators’ minds
that rise and that ricochet in magnitude;  
despotic minds, seasoning a tyrant attitude
slowly and lowly strolling; rolling and blowing.

Suddenly the promising bright day is night of fright
the day light is rubble; now all you see is trouble.

the gamblers

[Malawi News: 10 November, 2012]

Saturday: 18:00hours

“Have a seat, Mr. Mauro.”

“Thank you, Asilo, I mean Mr. President.”

Asilo, the new president, grinned flirtatiously. “I called for you to give my sincere thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

                                                                                                                    

‘I’m thrilled you realize it,’ thought Mauro. “Oh, don’t mention it Your Excellency.”

“Don’t play the humble. You put up a rigorous campaign in selling me out. When we’d just started, the opinion poll was twenty-one in my favor, and…”

“…forty-one.”

“Whatever, and somehow you turned public opinion around.”

“Our monopolization of the state-machinery and our huge financial muscle truly helped our team. With such an uneven playing field, I knew the opposition stood no chance,” Mauro put in.

“We all know how diligently you put up a detailed fight,” the President ignored Mauro’s modesty, “and I was thinking of appointing you my chief political advisor.”

“I’ll think about it,” stunned, Mauro huffed, trying hard to conceal his disappointment.

“No, I want you to take the job,” the President insisted with an air of finality, disregarding Mauro’s tinge of frustration.

“I’ve to think about it,” Mauro grumbled.   

“Okay, as a matter of fact, yes, you have to,” the President said, checking his wristwatch, “well, thanks again,” he said, showing Mauro the exit. Mauro openly frowned, frustration and madness chewing him. He mechanically got up and trudged out. His bodyguards came to rigid attention. He mumbled acknowledgement.

The reality that he might have made a wrong gamble slapped Mauro hard as painful thoughts of what transpired in the room he was just leaving ran in his mind, starting with how Asilo just produced a handshake when he had arrived. He had anticipated passionate hugs for a job well executed. Even earlier on Mauro was shell-shocked when he was phoned by the President’s secretary to travel and meet the President for the talks. He expected the President to do the traveling to his private residence and hold the talks. After all he was the chairperson, the most senior position in the party. And even more disturbing was that the meeting was just hours after the general election results were announced. Mauro expected the two to hold the talks after the inauguration. In short, Mauro wanted to run the new government behind the scenes. That was his sole ulterior motive behind choosing and bulldozing Asilo as the presidential candidate when he had failed to cling on to power after serving his three seven-year-constitutional terms. But it showed the plan had tumbled, especially with that offer of an ‘insignificant’ position of political advisor. Nevertheless, some voice told him to stop reading too much into things. “Wait after the inauguration.” It reasoned.

Sunday: 05:01hours

“I’m going to need money.”

“No problem.”

“It’ll cost us a huge…”

“…I don’t care how much it costs. Get it done.”

Sunday: 20:02hours

Beatrice, a widow, was more than determined to try her gamble. She drowsily looked at her eleven-year-old daughter sleeping peacefully, and beautifully smiled.

Sunday: 21:03hours

Mauro sat relieved. Fully knowing he could not secretly sponsor some overzealous election losers to seek court injunctions since the results by design were announced on a Saturday when courts were closed, he opted for extermination, the gamble he did not want to fail at all cost, quashing those feelings to wait for things after the inauguration. That was why when Tuntufwe, the assassination chief strategist, had asked for a cool twenty million he had doubled it. He was now pleased that an assassination plan had been devised. ‘I put him there. I’ll remove him.’ He thought, emitting a crooked smile.

Sunday:  22:04hours

The President was woken up by persistent ringing on his private number. After going through inauguration preparations he was deadbeat and the last thing he wanted was a disturbance on his sleep. But with his wife beside him the only other person with that number was Lino, his chief intelligence officer, he could not ignore. He picked it, listened attentively for minutes. He was stunned. When he gambled to overlook Mauro in order to stamp his authority, Asilo did not fancy things could reach assassination attempts on his life. He, however, quashed suggestions by Lino to postpone the inauguration. To do so was to admit cowardice, the very last thing he would do as president.   

Monday: 07:05hours

A sophisticated flower bomb would be presented to the president by a girl at the inauguration. Unexpectedly Tuntufwe got information by informants that there would be no flower presentation. He tensely phoned Mauro.

“What is it?”

“There’s a problem sir,”

“If forty million can’t fix your problem, go hang.”            

“But…”

There was a click. Tuntufwe took the phone away from his ear and looked at it. His boss had already hung up.

Monday: 07:06hours

Amidst tight security Beatrice and her daughter made it into the freedom square and sat close to the inauguration platform and nervously waited.

Monday: 11:07hours                                                                                                              

Asilo had just taken oath; suddenly an eleven-year-old girl hurried forward, a paper in hand. With rumors rife that a girl was to be used to assassinate the president, the president’s security detail gambled to eliminate the suspect before reaching the president. They took her down within steps from Asilo. Chaos followed. Shouting and crying was all over. But the girl and her paper lied harmlessly on the podium. Asilo managed to steal an eye on its contents amidst the pandemonium. He cursed. The paper innocently requested for money.

                                                                                  

The Phone Call

[appeared in the malawi news of 13 october, 2012]

When only a week remained to the wedding of my family friend, Andisen, did preparations move at a record breaking speed, now that the dead seriousness of Andisen really wanting to marry finally settled down in us. When Andisen had announced to the world that he would like to wed Beatrice, his new love catch, in two years time, many of us were wholly skeptical. We laughed our lungs inside out at the ‘joke of the century before us’. We believed ‘it was easier for a camel to go through a needle’s hole than Andisen getting married’. Andisen would surely find an excuse to abandon Beatrice, we all foretold.

Andisen had dumped many girls we had lost count of, sometimes even for flimsy reasons, such that many who knew Andisen and happened to come across Mateso Kazembe’s short story entitled ‘Compromise’ would have thought the piece of art was a replica of Andisen’s love expedition. Andisen was a facsimile, or even more, of the gentleman in the story, who always found one excuse or the other to break girls’ hearts. And moreover Andisen had found the faults sometimes within days or months of dating out. ‘What more with a two-year-period?’ We all doubted.

Nevertheless, it gradually started to settle down in us half way down the line, particularly when even stanch skeptics such as Lino, my father, who once labeled Andisen as ‘a dangerous species to girls in the world of love’, accepted wholeheartedly to be Andisen’s marriage counselor.

And questions started to drizzle down amidst the acceptance of Andisen’s ‘miraculous’ marriage determination. What was it with Beatrice that Andisen’s lax approach towards matrimony be incinerated? We all wondered. Was it her stunning face that glowed with salmon-colored effulgence and her soft and smooth kissable lips that knocked Andisen out? Or was it her sexy brown eyes that were full of kindness, but yet seductive in a special powerful way that did the magic? We pondered on. Was it her full succulent breasts that bobbed up and down seductively and captivatingly in accordance with her engrossing soft inhaling and exhaling? Or was it her killing smile? Or could it be her gripping hips, absorbing bum and riveting legs that finally tethered him to the pole of marriage? But Naomi, the girl my friend Andisen, left for the reason that she was ever-smiling, was equally beautiful. We all reasoned.

And good manners of Beatrice we also countered out. Definitely, that could not be the reason that got Andisen on the leash. Because even Ireen, the girl Andisen unceremoniously kicked out for being bow-legged, was better mannered than Beatrice.

‘Well, everybody has reasons for taking final paths of actions, so is Andisen. Someday we would come to know and understand the reason or reasons for choosing to settle down with Beatrice of all girls’. We finally said.

Now with only two days to go this afternoon I saw Beatrice, my in-law to be, coming towards my shop, one of the rarest things to happen, with an obviously somewhat craft fallen face. I instantly smelt trouble and my heart skipped a beat. My mind was now a field of racing thoughts, and this nagging notion that Andisen had terminated the affair kept hitting my mind, no matter how hard I tried to purge it out or to play it down. I said ‘a God forbid’ silent prayer, as I watched her making final strides towards my place of work, the place where I eked out a living through servicing electrical appliances and other gadgets such as phones.  

But moments later I was totally relieved to hear that Beatrice’s hitch was that her phone was not producing any sound when receiving a call or when playing songs. More than willing to assist her I gladly received the gadget and sooner than later I established that the problem was to do with the speaker. I assuredly told her to wait for only five minutes as I fixed the problem. She later excused herself and left for a Metro shop that was nearby to buy Kamba. ‘Girls’, I said in my heart as I watched her leaving.

I quickly sprang into action, as all good in-laws to be would do, and started to look for another speaker. Beatrice had hardly receded round a corner of a nearby building when her phone indicated there was an in-coming call. I casually peeped at the screen and I was about to call her back.

‘Darling!’ the caller’s identity indicated. ‘Andisen,’ I thought. I instantly quashed the idea to call Beatrice and excitedly picked it up more than eager to tell my friend that Beatrice’s phone had developed a fault and I was the one servicing it. I had just pressed the okay button when breath was momentarily knocked out of me. I audibly prayed that I should be dreaming. But the tangible quizzical looks of people in the shop made me realize I was not. I quickly removed the gadget from my ear like a hot potato burning my skin, and cut the call and checked the number. It only worsened my condition.

The words: ‘darling, meet me at our usual rest-house’, from the other end were not necessarily the ones that sickened me, but the caller. I could not miss the voice, and even the number. The caller was my father!   

The Hunt Down

[Appeared in the Malawi News of 25 August 2012]

The operation Asilo, together with four friends, had planned for months showed had klutzily gone wrong; it indisputably showed they had targeted a very wrong person. The operation clearly portrayed that businessman Awong’o, whose van they had ambushed, was some big fish, probably with connections in high places, and was about to have even him swallowed. The passion of the police in hunting him down vindicated it all. How would he not discern when now even accomplices in the police showed unmistakeably real zeal to have him captured? In the past the accomplices had executed hunts but for two reasons: wanting their palms to be greased, and to be seen that they were doing something about the chaotic security situation in the district. And Asilo and his gang did not disappoint in the palm greasing. Their constipated bank accounts always ‘talked’, sometimes even reaching the extent of their police accomplices providing guns to them to use in their robbery operations. They were bank accounts that had helped to fool the long arm of the law. And indeed the long arm of the law was on numerous occasions caught napping. They had wrong footed it when they had robbed businessman Vibula. Even when they had attacked a clearing agency van ferrying millions of kwachas to the bank, their money had talked. But not this day; by all indications the money would not do the usual ‘talking’.  

However, a prospect of a life sentence if caught made Asilo shudder. He was not yet ready to languish in jail. Asilo had just purchased a brand new car and a mansion. It was time to enjoy, not rotting in some murky place, so he was more than determined to give the policemen a good run for their salaries. In his flight he took every precautionary measure possible to avoid being maimed or killed by the police, as instructor Lino had tutored during drilling, ‘When pursued by the police,’ he had inculcated, ‘Never make the mistake of attacking them, but let them see you abandoning your weapon. Abandoning your weapon would also make you flee unhampered. Otherwise you might get killed.’ And getting killed were his friends who had joined armed guards in Awong’o’s van in shelling; guards who had bizarrely opened fire at the police patrol car that abruptly appeared at the robbery scene. Within minutes they were all dead.     

Warning shots and heavy footsteps rumbled behind him as he apprehensively continued to gallop blindly in Savannah thickets. After tearing down for minutes he slowed down for seconds to concentrate. He could not go blindly like that for ever; it was suicidal. He needed to think. He swiftly spied the vicinity. Chididi hill lay to his left. To his immediate right was Nchotseni residential area. And in front, were cultivated slopes of Mwanza River. He could hear its thunderous roar. In a split-second he thought of his escape options and immediately rejected two. The bare Mwanza River slopes, although might enhance his speed, provided no cover; a professional shooter would easily disable him or take him out. The other was the residential area. It could provide instant cover, but the risk of being caught by a mob was too high. He remained with Chididi hill. Although tough to climb, their thick evergreen foliage provided an ideal cover.

Asilo dashed into the forest and disappeared as he heard shouts he could not pick out their meanings. But moments later he heard a hasty shout announcing that he had not taken the riverbank way. That was a mistake; an amateurish move. The officer should have communicated through gestures. Relieved that he had not been spotted he stopped briefly and listened intently. There were shouts indicating his pursuers were taking the residential area, when suddenly a loose stone he had stepped on moved and started to roll down the slopes. It generated enough noise to attract his pursuers. There were frantic shouts as the policemen made desperate u-turns. Asilo instantly started to hurtle uphill, branches slapping his face and body. He felt pain all over. His escape was proving a struggle, and his pursuers were gaining ground than he imaged. Suddenly there was an explosion of gunfire as he was spotted. A bullet struck a tree nearby. Asilo lunged to his left, leaped over a dead log and somersaulted into a nearby bush. He quickly tried to think of his next move. But there was no time for that as heavy footsteps closed in. He was quick on his feet and started to run madly again. Gunfire exploded again. Bullets hit the ground and trees near his feet. He quickly spun to his left, trying to be out of the line of fire. But he felt stabbing and paralyzing pain on his left calf. He was hit! He let out a roar of pain and lost his footing. Seconds later he was surrounded by heavily armed policemen. Moments later he was whisked away to the hospital.

“Thanks for helping us to burst into a nefarious syndicate that gave us sleepless nights.” Asilo, now on a hospital bed, could not believe his ears as the district police officer-in-charge spoke. “That van you attacked carried cooler boxes full of human private parts. All we wanted was for you to tell us the owner.” Asilo did not know whether to laugh or cry. Had he known?

Dear God Almighty

[Appeared in the Malawi News of 1 September 2012]

Oh, dear God Almighty,

We seem to have celebrated too soon

Your opportune coming on the scene

When you booted out that simmering sin

That spat profanity like Herod of old

And ended up gobbled by livid worms

For the blasphemous sadism flames

Seem to be sadly slowly crawling back:

Disturbing, consuming, stabbing flames

Wounding our fabric, mind and heart

The gold you wanted, God, is at all not

As these songs and dances churn out.

It is a distorted picture, not the clean one

As you wanted it all to be in play when

You arbitrated in our case, for our course

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

[Appeared in the Malawi News of August 4 2012]

‘This is totally unacceptable.’ Asilo sulkily thought again as he had done for the past seven days. He was walking passing the house of Lino, his immediate neighbor, whose abusive shouts aimed at Irene, his wife, glaringly hit and pierced Asilo’s ears. They were daily insulting outbursts, even threats of murder, which Asilo had categorically refused to ignore as he had disturbingly discovered to be the case in that locality he had settled a week earlier. But he could not keep quiet about that distressing disorder. Not with a natural hatred for domestic violence and finding Lino’s marriage an abusive relationship defined and described. Yes, he could not ignore that pure portrayal of abuse glaring him right in the eye. Not with a clear-cut categorization of Lino’s marriage as a precise descriptive of a violent marriage. Indeed Asilo could not fail the labeling. Not with a Degree in Eco-Feminism and Applied Feminism to his credit. For sure Asilo could not; how could he with what he had learned and had read in college, and had observed from a distance about domestic violence, manifested in the form of verbal, physical, psychological, sexual abuses, among others, now right there under his nose? What with Irene, a much deserving human being as Lino, not a non-feeling stone, but as him equally born, being demeaned day and night through awful assaults, dreadful names and disheartening insults. Names vilifying and haunting, taunting, tormenting and traumatizing; insults degrading and depressing; dreadful and horrid abuse that engraved chronic nightmare and scarily psychological scars, leaving her reputation in shreds. What with Irene, being a full human being as Lino, full of emotions and feeling of pain, not a dead rotten dog or a maggot-infested log, being gruesomely and savagely battered; sometimes mercilessly and ghastly bludgeoned as if some moldy rubbish for which even the devil shed tears.      

‘I must do something’. Asilo vowed as Lino’s crazy and maddening outbursts continued. ‘Let my sick-minded neighbors look the other way or vilify me, but I’m reporting this fool to police.’ He said feeling sickened to the bone, not dissuaded by even what happened four days earlier when he had intervened in a heavy trouncing of Irene. That day his incurious neighbors had heavily censured him for getting involved in family matters they downright said did not concern him. It was censure that showed they emphatically took the battering as a petty domestic issue, totally deserving no outside intervention. And being a bachelor just worsened matters. The people, with pugnacious frowns, went on to firmly spat insults at him that he was a ‘boy’ who did not understand an ounce about marriage life, so he could not solve marriage problems, if what he got himself involved in were problems at all. Asilo was left feeling distraught, and like a preposterous crown.

‘Why not just abandon this hell?’ A subject whose probable answers he had perused in books suddenly ricocheted in his mind. At college Asilo had read some write-ups that disputed the messages that hypothetically tell abused partners to leave violent relationships for being easier said than done. ‘But it can’t be the reason of wanting to save reputations; Lino’s family isn’t that of the prominence in this neighborhood.’ Asilo thought as he walked on. ‘But why doesn’t she leave the hell?’ He really wished he knew. ‘Is it for the sake of their five children? Or was it inferiority complex; thinking no other man would propose her if she left Lino?’ The thoughts madly chased each other in his head. How he wished he knew. But knowing or no knowing he vowed again to do something that day or otherwise Irene would leave the marriage in a casket. He almost stumbled, pain eating his heart, as he hit the main road.

But minutes later Asilo discovered his too much engrossment with Lino’s issue made him forget his mobile. He quickly retraced his footsteps to more welcome of Lino’s abuse.  He was unlocking his door when he heard Lino shouting, “Bye!”

“Please, don’t do that. Think of the children!” Another shout followed, unmistakably it was Irene’s.

“I said bye…” the shout was cut short by desperate shuffling of feet and touching pleas of ‘please don’t do that’.

Asilo’s heart skipped a beat before resuming to pound aggressively. He was jolted by banked fury upon being hit by a realization of what he understood was about to happen. He felt a violent gush of blood to his head. Lino was about to kill his wife; a wife now desperately fleeing. Asilo was totally convinced! But he would not stand there and watch as his sick-minded neighbors, even if it meant heaven itself against him. He rushed into his house and took his 14-pound hammer. Within seconds, Asilo, the Good Samaritan determined to save a life about to meet a brutal end, was out. With all his might he pounded Lino’s door he found locked using the hammer. So huge was the impact that it sent the door flying. But seconds later what Asilo realized his rescue mission had resulted into was beyond surprise; the shock he experienced was deep, stunning, taking his breath away. He was stunned to the point of momentary speechlessness. The door had knocked down Lino who was about to unlock it having decided to leave the marriage. He now lay dead cold!   

Kubwera kwa Azungu

[translated from the Chichewa by Allan Kazembe]

One afternoon some of our parents were in slumber

Those awake suddenly saw black men, four in number

Laboriously, carrying a stretcher made of cloth

And they saw red like color illuminating from there forth

Others became jubilant and shouted, “Friends, today pork we’ll eat.

“Those men are carrying prepared pig-meat!”

But on closer look, they realized the men carried a man

They became afraid and lamented in a real mourn

“Friends, look! What horrific people these men are.

“They are carrying a skinned man from far.

“They have prepared him as pig-meat;

“Does it mean dead people they eat?”

But upon another closer look, they all said:

“The skinned man is alive and not dead.”

Then the skinless man got out of the stretcher

Some of our parents said, “He is a ghost. Look at his nature.”

Our parents looked earnestly in disillusionments.

They saw more strange things and started to utter vexed statements

“This year the moon has come with a strange bag;

“Will we live longer?” they marveled with a shrug.

“These things have exhausted all curiosity surely.

“We must sleep with our heads listening to the door, squarely;

“Let us be very cautious, like shepherd-less sheep

“Sudden comings of this nature should make mother ear not sleep;

“All of us nuts under the ground, we will sleep in puzzlement.

“Look he only eats eggs!” continued our parents in amazement.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” they again shouted, “these people are crippled;

“They have no toes. May be they had leprosy,” as his steps rippled.

“Hah! We have seen no such things. Just look at his feet

“Only bones make of them, making the ‘goh’ sound as the soil they meet

“Sleeping, he sleeps on a dead man’s stretcher;

“He has such a scary and deathly nature.”

Then rumors started to sprout and spread;

Our parents heard that many such people, with skin color, red

Were almost everywhere; our parents heard they were found

At Kabula, at Bandawe and also at Mvera and Dowa, they were found

They then heard some were called Sir Hetherwick, Sir Doctor Livingstone

Dr. Laws. And that not all these were alone

But with some who piled trade, such as Sir Fredrick Moi

and also his blood brother called Sir John Moi

Those were some of the strange names

That had invaded the land of the flames.

Africa is Beautiful

Smith, a Westerner, sat enthralled and stunned on a felled Kachere, a stone’s throw away from the village ground. He listened to mesmerizing traditional songs by some gorgeous girls. The songs were authentic, seasoned with skilful hand-claps and hollow strumming drumbeat. The throbbing tom-toms vibrated under skilful and powerful hands of energetic young men.

“Africa is beautiful,” he earnestly admitted, completely disbelieving the beauty he saw.

He desirably watched the girls’ stunning faces glow in the evening sunshine with salmon-colored effulgence. Their seductive succulent breasts bobbed captivatingly in accordance with the engrossing rhythm of the songs and effervescent drumbeat. Involuntarily his legs moved. They patterned the alluring beat as he felt the rhythm move powerfully in his veins.

Still gripped, he reluctantly switched his stare from the intriguing dancing to the charming Shire valley a distant away. He watched in marvel the Shire River gigantically meandering; its waters, in the late evening sun, dazzlingly sparkling like pieces of diamond. He later just sat spellbound and watched an evening fiesta as the pinked ball of the sun sank slowly and dramatically beyond distant hazy hills.

‘This can’t be,’ still stunned, he thought. In his country, Smith knew Africa as the land of blatant misery. The news that made rounds was of tribal wars, famine, drought, and all sorts of wretchedness. There was scarcely anything positive like what he saw.

He had feared visiting Africa for its ‘misery’ several times. It was only after managing to ‘wrestle’ some positive information among the myriad negative reports that he had dared to travel. However, what he now witnessed was the opposite. Starting from the uncompromising hospitality accorded to him by people he met for the first time, through the peace he saw prevalent in the communities, to the beautiful scenery he now witnessed, it was just exceptional.

When the absorbing dancing was over, Smith, yearningly, watched Nyamiti, daughter of his host, stroll seductively towards him.

Even this girl is just beautiful. Smith observed. She has sexy eyes and kissable lips on a stunning face.

Even her body, mesmerizing; talk of her hips, bum and legs they are all gripping. Smith continued to survey Nyamiti now in front of him because of the narrowness of the trail they had used as they ambled to the interior of the village.

Smith then grudgingly switched his stare to the surrounding. It was evenly splendour: indigenous sumptuous forests swayed in the evening cool zephyr wafting gently. He watched tropical birds jovially croon madrigals as they hopped magnificently from one swaying luscious branch to another of the upper branches and hanging tropical foliage.

When they arrived in the village, more grandeur welcomed him: fires glowed at each compound, beautifying the nightfall. Evening thrilling and relaxing drumbeat started to pulsate. Moreover, talk of the supper he later took; it was naturally very yummy and tasty, not some chemical contaminated genetically modified provisions rampant in his country.

He retired to bed late in the night after watching breathtaking traditional dances like Utse under bright moonlight. That was after listening to sensational folklores told by skilful master-story tellers by firesides.

In bed, Smith could not help it but ponder why Africa is unfairly tainted land of misery.

‘One or two problems might be there, but there are many beautiful things about Africa now I understand are calculatingly ignored,’ he thought, ‘The West has its fair share of problems. Talk of rampant divorce, homosexuality, suicides, child-molestation, obesity, pornography, immorality, abortions, they are all there.’ He felt some anger rise in his heart for the injustice. ‘If these very same problems were in Africa, I believe they’d have been systematically blown out of proportion’, he pondered and pondered until he slept.

When he woke up the following morning, he was more mesmerised as soothing drumbeat welcomed him. He got out and watched the orange sun majestically pulsate above eastern verdure foggy hills.

Later that morning when he was in a train, leaving to the other enthralling places like striking Lake Malawi and Chengwe’s Hole at Ku Chawe Inn on Zomba Mountain, the locals had told him about, he again watched in amazement the greenery hills, and falls of streams flowing sparklingly and beautifully from hilltops.

“Africa is beautiful,” he sighed peacefully, feeling his other part remaining in Nyachikadza village. 

De Jure

When I do finish not on time

I am slow.

But when my master does the same

He is thorough.

When I do not perform a thing

I am lazy.

But when my master fails the testing

He is busy.

When I do something but not told

I am trying to be smart.

But when the big man does the untold

He is an initiative nut.

When I please my boss

I am sucking up.

But when he takes the dose

He is cooperatively sharp.

When I do something good                                                                                                                              

He does not remember.

But when I do something bad

He is a never forgetting member.

Even Brutes Cry

[Published in the Malawi News of 24 December 2011]

The sun had just risen. However, Awong’o’s beer-drinking place was already bustling. Blaring music to which some drunkards wobblingly danced, punned from an aged quivering galamu. It was quacking music that was mixed with racketing talking and singing the drunks’ filthy mouths spluttered. However, a stone’s throw away from the drinking shed quietly sat a stout man called Asilo.

Nobody minded about him for he usually drunk alone. However, a closer look would have revealed that he was not drunk. That was unusual. Asilo was the most gifted drunkard who knew the social science of beer swigging the entire village, exceeding the fish itself, and would always be just drunk by that hour. 

Nonetheless, Asilo on the whole was not famous for that, but his sheer cruelty. He was the village’s most barefaced notorious brute. His name was synonymous with fear and torture. The young and the old knew and talked his cruelty. Crying children would mute to dead silence or naughty ones would be obedient to the bone marrow just at the mention of Asilo. People wanting their enemies beaten to garbage hired him. The chief himself had one of his tooth knocked out by Asilo for ruling against him in a land dispute, a piece of land Asilo had encroached. But of them all, Amikhe, his wife, was the person who borne the raw brunt of his brutality day in, day out. It was torture that had been there since she was forced to marry him because of his fat pocket then; money now brown to the wind because of beer.

You see, demeaning her like a rotten cockroach and beating her to pulp appeared his most liked hobby or favourite sport. He would commit these atrocities without the slightest feeling. It was as if pain never existed in his world the way he was never concerned when inflicting it upon her. He just never cared. He just never bothered. Verbally and physically Amikhe was used, misused, abused, tainted, disfigured, dismantled, deformed, injured, hurt, wounded and abandoned. Amikhe had faced death right in the eye. Numerous times she had tried to bolt the hellish marriage to her parents, but regrettably, they had bitterly sent her back to the heinous union. Tragically, per tradition she had to endure the shocking brutality.

“This hyena now has the cheek to stand in my way?” Asilo without remorse as usual that morning gruntingly scorned Amikhe, the reason for his solemn condition and loss of beer appetite. Her crime to attract his seething rage was to oppose to his appalling plan of giving their eleven-year-old daughter to a fifty-something-year-old man as a third wife to settle a colossal debit; a beer encored debt. Amikhe with all vigour she could muster had told Asilo that her daughter would not be sacrificed before secretly sending her to a friend in another village. Amikhe wanted her daughter educated. She wanted her empowered. She did not want her to face the torture herself was in because of forced marriage.

“How can this baboon dare do this?” Asilo insulted again, yawning in frustration and anger, revealing yellowing teeth, “I’ll kill her,” he vowed, as he got up to expose rickety legs. He started for his dilapidated house that still stood by the grace of God, walking as if he was putting on tight under pants. 

Torture-scarred Amikhe, doing some laundry, was surprised to see Asilo coming home during morning hours. Asilo would always come home from his drinking spree in the odd hours. And even more surprisingly, he was not staggering. She plainly smelt trouble; even more seething torture. She left her washing and limped, a deformity inflicted by Asilo, to the kitchen to get food that was always available for him, prepared, any time, no matter who has eaten or not in the house.

“You frog, come here,” Asilo sneered at her, as he entered the house. She cautiously shuffled after him.

Amikhe saw the heavy resolute punch bulleting towards her and wanted to duck, but she was too late. It caught her squarely right across the face and uncompromisingly sent her crashing full length to the ground. It took her a few seconds to feel the pangs of the devastating fist. She screamed for help. However, she knew her shout was just a mere formality. She knew no soul would come to her rescue. Disgustingly, per tradition such brutalities were petty family issues not worthy outside intervention.

Asilo was on her again, a wicked gaze in his eyes. Amikhe cowered, blatant excruciating pain eating her everything. She weakly tried to gather the last scraps of energy left in her pounded body to flee but she stripped and fell with a thud as another murderous blow whizzed past her. Amikhe heard a deafening noise as Asilo’s fist thunderously rammed the ramshackle cracked wall, and a yell of clear pain instantaneously followed.

She was quickly up on her feet and darted outside with Asilo hot on her heels. However, this time around he was not showering her with debasing names that even the devil envied as would be the case. Asilo was whimpering a plea from a frothy twitched mouth to her to attend to his crackled hand, as mucus scuttled from his nostrils.

[Men and women are different. What needs to be made equal is the value placed upon that difference – Joseph Chunga: 2005] 

CheSaharamo

[Published: Malawi News 18 February 2012]

CheSaharamo had always fascinated me with the way he boasted, a habit that had on several occasions landed him in problems or humiliation, but he never learned. And despite his dreams never coming to pass, he never ceased to pose big about his fake ambitions.

“Just wait, pal. Shortly, I’ll get a good paying job,” he would sometimes roar self-importantly. And I had lost count the number of times he had told me that. 

“I’m the only person the boss likes. When he retires he will leave his mantle to me,” that would be CheSaharamo boring me again in his deep throaty voice though under-qualified.

My friendship with CheSaharamo dated back to primary school years where we used to nurse ambitions of becoming priests. Our childhood dream seemed to be on track when we made it to seminary but we were expelled in form three when we were caught drunk. This was despite CheSaharamo’s assurances after I had raised reservations.

“You’ll be very surprised, pal, how many priests you’ll find at the tavern taking the hard stuff,” he proclaimed, “They can’t catch us. They too have something to hide.” I have been blaming myself ever since for believing him.

Years later I was surprised when I met CheSaharamo at this non-governmental organization where I had come to attend interviews. Since that fateful day at the seminary, I had lost track of his whereabouts. From the look of things, it appeared he was working at this NGO. And just after knowing my reason for being there he was at it again.

“Don’t worry, pal,” he said assuredly, “I’ll influence the outcome of this interview. You’ll make it.” I just nodded at his bluffing. Two weeks later I was called that I had made it and CheSaharamo praised himself that without him I would not have made it.

“Get lost,” I retorted, “I’ve been considered because I convinced the panel that I’m the right candidate.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

For lack of space CheSaharamo shared his office with his immediate boss who most of the times worked in the field, which accorded him the opportunity to sit in for his supervisor. And every time such an opening would rise, CheSaharamo was not himself. He would change his manner of speaking to boringly nasal accented tedious expressions, punctured by bombastic words. And his bossing relics would not relent there. He would deliberately leave files unattended to or even made sure to carry keys of important filing cabinets and rooms with him when traveling just to make people feel his officious importance. He was even more irritating when found in the office especially for juniors and outsiders. He would bossily make sure to engross himself with anything his mind could get hold on. He would pretend to flick through some important papers or to be too busy reading or writing something very significant to even accord you a peek or vomit a greeting. Other times he would take the office phone that had not been functioning for years and bluff nasally, pretending to be talking to some prominent people, just to keep them waiting.

One evening it was the turn of our office to be introduced to the new country director. That day I spent lunch-hour time chatting in CheSaharamo’s office as we had nothing for a bite. As we chitchatted we heard a heavy knock on the door and two people, a slim lady and a fat gentleman, entered. Both were immaculately dressed. Even the fragrance they brought into the office bared a different story that they were not just another horde of souls. But that did not stir CheSaharamo. He was already in action using the dysfunctional office phone, leaving the two standing as statues. I knew he was extremely cross by the two people’s entry without him saying so, and he wanted to ‘explain’ to them that they might be important wherever they hailed from but not in his office. I politely gestured the two to sit down though, and the way CheSaharamo heaped his disapproving eyes on me showed he would have loved seeing me rotting in hell.

On the phone he was bluffing to a ‘friend’ that he was waiting for the country director to cordially welcome them personally as accorded to him such a dignified duty by the chief executive. I had to suppress laughter. He even started to apolitically poke fun at the two visitors, now in Latin, the subject he sailed best in our class at the seminary. He mocked that lately two ugly souls had arrogantly just walked into his office without being told to do so; one stinky and fat, grunting like a pig and the other one, malnourished and thin, panting like a rabid dog.

“… and the way the obese pig’s sweat is soaking the floor, it will take cleaners the whole afternoon to dry it…” he bad-mouthed, and taunted and taunted, taunts spiced by loud laughter.

“Eh, how do I help you?” he long at last hanged up and bragged with an air of arrogance.

“I’m the country director and this is my secretary. Would you show us the chief executive’s office?” The fat man snapped in fluent Latin. “He told us to wait in his office until he returns.”

You should have seen CheSaharamo the way his stature pitifully shrunk, looking like he was caught sodomising an under-aged boy.

The Confession

[APPEARED IN THE MALAWI NEWS OF 8 JULY 2012]

That Sunday for the first time the Holy Trinity Church was packed to the brim. It was a sizzling day and the inside of the church was equally scorching hot, and humid. But this day the worshippers never minded the torturous state. They were all dressed to kill as if in some pageant. Trendy outfits outdid each other. But they were devoted worshippers gathered in the blistering room for their attire not to outshine each other but were there to mutually seek the face of God. During other worshipping days the church would be electric filled when the people sought God’s face, but the way things were that Sunday many would confess tangibly feeling the Holy Spirit moving inside. The songs and choruses were the sweetest this Sunday, even their prayers the most fervent ever. Men and women beat chests that day amidst crying and shouting. They were supplications done with some of them kneeling down, others prostrating, and some rolling on the floor not minding their immaculate dressing.  

                             

But one person minded his immaculate dressing. He was Apostle Reverend Doctor Mauro, the senior resident pastor of the church, sitting trimly on his cushioned chair. He was in a fashionable navy blue three-piece suit his flock claimed was bought in the United States of America when he was attaining a Doctorate Degree in Eco-Theology and Faith Theory, although some queried the authenticity of his doctorate credentials for they claimed he only stayed in the USA for less than four months. The suit was matched with a classy white pointer shoe and a white tie, and chicly curled panky hairdo. Mauro had tried to outdo everybody particularly when it came to style in the church. Be it in dressing, singing, preaching, talking even laughing, Reverend Mauro put a deliberate effort to outwit everyone. It was a habit that capped an ‘I’m-holier-than-art-thou’ attitude he had, because to Mauro being the pastor he self-importantly believed he was above everyone in holiness.

Nevertheless, by the look of things what appeared to betray his touch of style was his gruff voice which many felt would make him a good politician, an outstanding regional governor in particular. And by all indications Mauro hated his voice. However, the throaty voice complemented the air of seriousness he carried about church dealings that added more to his puffed-up and tasteful attitudes. And he made sure that both the old and the young in the church understood that church business was no joking matter.

It was no surprise therefore that he had stood up with this usual seriousness and self-righteousness when it was time to preach, but this day with a feeling that something special would happen taking into consideration the particularity of the day. He felt it could be in a testimony or a confession or anything, but he felt it was there. And Mauro preached that day in a way never seen before, vomiting many experiences, including a now exhausted episode about a bomb he pronounced ‘bum’ that was planted in a church, which failed to explode because of God’s hand. The preaching was mostly in slang he now regularly used since his return from the USA, in which ‘amen’ sounded ‘amen-aa’ and ‘God’, ‘God-aa’, and words like ‘damn’ and ‘bullshit’ he would remorseless mention as if saying ‘cassava’ and ‘sugar’.

And when he finally stopped after some two hours of powerful preaching the church was on fire and many, for different reasons, rushed forward to be prayed for. One such person was six-year-old Matthews who had followed a neighbor to the church. At first people thought he was in front following a parent or a guardian. But one church elder discovered that he was alone and had tried to send him back without success after hearing that he was there to confess, fearing reprisals from Mauro to the young boy. The elder had hurried and informed Mauro about the –six-year-old. Had it been it were the other Sundays Mauro would with annoyance have thrown the little chap out of church. But to the church elder’s surprise Mauro gave 100% consent feeling impelled that Matthews’s confession was that special occurrence he had felt earlier. A deacon sitting to his immediate right had tried to protest his doubt about the seriousness of the little boy but Mauro had dismissed him with a ‘you-go-hang-for-for-the-Holy Spirit-revealed-this-special-occurrence-to-me’ glance. With sincerity Matthews then faced a dead silent church, pregnant with anticipation after Mauro announced that there was a special case of confession.  

“I want God to forgive me for a sin I committed,” Matthews stated innocently, “I stole seven cattle last week.” Even the doubting church deacon could not help it but shift in his chair and poised his ears to get it all as Mauro looked at him with an ‘I-told-you’ gaze. The church for a moment became even quieter being awash with buzzes of comments of disbelief: a six-year-old boy managing to steal seven cattle? That was nothing but juju. Many concluded.

But Matthews said nothing more. That prompted Mauro to ask him the now obvious thing all wanted to ask: how actually he managed that?

“My friend moulded and left them on a rock to dry where I stole them.” he said harmlessly.

It was the usual serious Reverend Mauro who first let out a ‘Buhahahahahaa’ fit of hitches, with the whole church following.

NEVER AGAIN

[Appeared in the Malawi News of 16 June 2012]

“I’ll never set my foot in this village again!” Asilo uncaringly shouted over and over again at his parents and relatives as he stomped off to his vehicle. Seconds later he furiously sped off.

He left fuming dusts over his relations. They were people in disappointment and resentment being at the receiving end of his fury again, because by nurture or nature, Asilo was a man who hooded fiery temper. It was chiseled on granite for all to see. It had often dwarfed his thinking capability and made him to unleash outbursts of insults or eruptions of fists at souls he perceived were in the wrong, whether he was at fault or not. And his juniors at his workplace bore the brunt of this tactless hurriedness the most; subordinates always at the receiving end of hurried decisions done without properly and thoroughly going through issues, which resulted in rushed judgments, and harsh punishments. And they feared his temper, as did many people, maybe except his wife for word had it that Asilo was under petticoat government.

But by not giving a damn to mind or tame his explosive rage and tacky tongue had also coated him trouble. But of them all two stood out, one evidenced by a scar on his upper lip. It resulted from a heavy punch inflicted a certain month by a tenant. That time Asilo ridiculous arrogantly took a probable tenant trough a tour of one of his rental houses, though still occupied. The reason was that the incumbent had given him one excuse after another for failing to pay up rentals on time. Asilo never cared whether the excuses were genuine or not. The occupant failed to contain her seething anger. She had wreaked a deep cut on Asilo’s upper lip. The second standing out clutter was the one he had lost one of his teeth. That day Asilo had crossly mocked a friend who gave 200 kwacha in a form of 20 kwachas to someone he had refused to help. He had hilariously said that if the friend was licking his fingers to count 200 kwacha then if it were 1000 kwacha he would dip his whole hand in a pail of water. The resulting brawl that had knocked out his tooth had left him in a real seizure of rage, but not more than he was this day he had cruised wrathfully from his parents’ compound.

His car now cruised dangerously on the village dry weather road. Furious crowds of dust rose and chocked pedestrians. Asilo never minded. Even schoolchildren that excitedly waved at him at his former primary school were unceremoniously ignored. He instead pressed more on the accelerator. His car whined a protest for the umpteenth time that day and sped more precariously. It missed a cyclist by a whisker who shouted insults at him. But again he never minded, or he would have minded had he heard the insults. He continued cruising away from the village, the village he had taken close to nine years without visiting, save returning only for funerals.

He had stopped coming when Awong’o, his father, had roundly reprimanded him then when he had called his sister ‘stupid’ for reasons better known to him. But having attained a Master’s Degree in Administration he proudly visited his village again and anticipated a massive party from his father, an owner of herds of cattle and goats. However, Asilo was hugely disappointed. He felt his reception was scrap; only a small gathering where only two goats were slaughtered was arranged. During his speech Asilo self-importantly and irately told the gathered, using every bombastic word he could muster, that he had forgiven their sins for arranging a skimpy party not proportional to his greater achievements. His relatives, his father in particular, did not take that sitting down. He again chastised him, prompting Asilo to discharge heavy abusiveness before speeding off.

He was still fuming when he inconsiderately cruised towards a corner which was before a long stretch that formed part of the boundary between the village and Chididi Game Reserve. Suddenly a car from the opposite direction, doing a reasonable speed, appeared but a head-on collision was miraculously avoided when it was forced off the road. However, as Asilo zoomed passed it he heard the shout of ‘Gorilla’ coming from the other driver.

Asilo’s temper boiled over. He instantly turned towards the other car and within seconds managed to shout vulgarity that even the devil envied him. After being satisfied that he had executed the nastiest judgment on the ‘baboon’ in the other car, he had turned his eyes back to the road. But alas, he was a micro-second too late; just in front of him stood a giant Gorilla that had strayed from the reserve. It drew on Asilo too late that the other driver had intended to warn him of the Gorilla he was about to smash, but since he was insensitively cruising the only warning the other could manage was to shout ‘Gorilla’, which he took as an insult.

Tyres screeched as Asilo desperately tried to avert the impossible. A quarter of a second later so huge was the impact of the collision between flesh and metal. Asilo died instantly. Per his word some moments ago, he was never to set his foot in his village again!