Katowera, the Hunter

[Published in the Malawi News: 5 May 2012]

Katowela wearily lifted the gin-trap and with concerted effort expertly inspected it again, his eyes darting in his balding cranium. The eyes were bloodshot and felt sore from the smoke of smoldering embers. He wiped his running nose that had now become a nuisance. He shivered in the chilly winds of dawn now blowing forebodingly from Thambani Game Reserve. His knees, genuflecting on a dirty ragged sack, ached from prolonged bending. Nonetheless, he did not allow the chillness and the pain to distract him. He again sharpened the spiked teeth of the gin-trap. The teeth glinted. Katowela smiled, satisfied with his handiwork. Minutes later he diligently left his house, the trap held firmly but careful in his right-hand. The chill winds assaulted him in full and he shuddered to the bone. He cautiously peered in all directions. He saw nobody, and his ears picked no noise except a distant shout of the village crier, informing the villagers of a meeting that morning with government and wildlife officials. 

“Another waste of time,” Katowela ridiculed a bitter edge in his voice. He knew what the meeting was all about: a plea that villagers should stop illegal killing of animals in Thambani Game Reserve.

“In their dreams,” he mocked again under his breath. “Not with the same government officers being my big customers and with the higher price bush meat fetches.”  

He determinedly walked on, and that cold dawn did so for a different reason altogether other than money. His wife, Beatrice, visiting her parents in a neighboring Dzilima village, was long at last pregnant and he wanted to catch and present her a gift of a whole wild game. It had taken Katowela ten solid years to have his wife in that condition. Ten solid tormenting years he had endured and tried almost everything; from visiting famous prayer houses, famed gynecologists, to renowned witchdoctors, with nothing happening. The period he was enmeshed in raw ridicule, in which insults like deadwood, dry stone or little boy were spat at him. But Katowela was now enjoying the show and he vomited insults back not only at those who insulted him in the ten years but every villager. And he wanted to thank Beatrice for giving him this voice.

He finally made his way into Thambani Game Reserve, routinely walked for some distance, and then knelt down. His knees still ached and his back felt lumbago. He skillfully placed his right ear to the ground and intently listened for some minutes. He heard nothing. He picked his trap and stood up. Katowela had hardly got to his feet when he saw the game reserve rangers, who had been hiding nearby, tearing towards him. He blindly started to sprint with a speed that even Usain Bolt would envy. After racing for minutes he saw the opening in the reserve fence which he hurriedly used to exit, the rangers still hot on his heels. Katowela found himself in the bushes of the outskirts of Dzilima village. He continued his run, even zigzagged his way, and did not only manage to lose the rangers, but also his gin-trap when it got caught in thickets. He did not stop though but continued his hurtling, hurtling to his village.

Katowela used the wildlife meeting to eavesdrop news, if any, about his escapade that might seep through to the gathering. As usual the speakers, especially, Awong’o, the Government’s head of wildlife in the area, lamented the continued killing of wild game in the reserve despite efforts to curb the malpractice. Katowela chuckled heartily at the hypocrisy on display; Awong’o was his biggest customer. The meeting ended late in the evening with nothing about him being said. Relieved, he went straight to his house afraid to go and look for his lost trap.

He was awakened by touchy crying, in which gin-traps were being roundly censured. He became totally awake as his heart cruised. The weeping stopped at his house. ‘Why are they stopping here?’ ‘Had my trap injured someone and had it been recognized that it’s mine?’  He worriedly thought as he went out with a battered composure. He was however welcomed not by censure but sympathy. Confused, Katowela wanted to writhe some explanation from the people but momentarily felt sickened to the soul when he recognized the person on a makeshift stretcher, with a gin-trap he instantaneously recognised as his, dangling on the right-leg. It was his wife! From the people gathered Beatrice, who seemingly was trekking back to the village from Dzilima village, was discovered by herd boys who heard her shouting when she was caught by the pointed teeth of the gin-trap, and went to inform people. But by the time they came to her rescue she was already dead having lost a lot of blood. Katowela convulsed in uncontrollable fits of cry that prompted rowdy yelling from women.

But moments later the grieving was disrupted by an uproar emanating from Asilo’s house, one of the neighbors of Katowela. Some inquisitive villagers rushed to find out and came back to inform the people about a fight between Asilo and his wife, who had just left the bereavement house. She had caught Asilo red-handed crying in the bedroom for his baby Beatrice was carrying. Katowela saw his world nose-diving; his pride shredded. Beatrice had double crossed him!

The Car Robbery

[Published in the Malawi News of 19 May 2012]

I was home after rotting in jail for two years but people refused to re-accommodate me, and oddly enough my pastor Naomi led the way. By the look of things it seemed they heatedly rebuffed me because they felt irritated with my unrepentant attitude, claimed to be truly convinced that my confession for being sent to prison was nothing but a blue lie, cooked by a self-righteous robber. And my pastor was more agitated for she believed I had refused to heed her divine advice to see goodness in all when my plans for survival started to appear to have conspired to nosedive every time I tried one.

It all started when redundancy glared its ugly face at me. But with my retirement package I ventured into sorts of small scale businesses for months, but somehow things never worked until nothing remained. People, especially my pastor, had rushed in not with financial cushions by with psychological cushions of encouragement, telling me my predicaments were just trials for a better future testimony for things would normalize in due season. Who would rush with physical cushions of monetary terms anyway with these hardships pounding homes nowadays?

But I did not wait or as I waited for that due season I sold cattle I had inherited from my late parents being the only child. With the money I purchased a second hand Toyota Cresta and plied it as a taxi. Nevertheless, I realized barely few months later that the taxi business was also a non-starter. The economic adversity forced many probable customers to prefer walking or taking a minibus to boarding a taxi. Meager take-home packages resulted. And if that was not enough fuel was scarce and the price on the black market did not help either. It was erratic and on the higher side, and mostly the fuel writhed would be mixed with paraffin or water, a thing that knocked off my car frequently, which meant digging dipper into already ‘malnourished’ pockets for servicing. And to add salt to injury the traffic police on the roads were just harsh. They really made a deliberate effort to squeeze the already depleted pockets through copious insensitive fines. If the fine was not for questionable worn out tyres or debatable faulty parking lights then it was for arguable faulty breaks or dubious speeding or for unexplained unfit vehicle or controversial wrong parking. I ended up being ‘smoked out’ of the roads and I put my car for sell.

However, months passed without finding a buyer, even a not serious one. I started to give up until I met Lino. He was a handsome innocent looking man in spectacles that made him look priestly. And that day I made sure we talked serious business and big business we talked, here and there interrupted by phone calls he made. Our discussion ended up needing us to travel to town to get money from his uncle. We left immediately, in my head rapacious plans chasing each other, that it drawn on me too late when Lino was telling me to stop at a certain bank, that I had failed to even suspect that the phone calls Lino made might have been communications to accomplices planning to rob me, and that our purported travel to meet his uncle was actually a drive into a trap. ‘The important thing is nothing has happened; I would be more careful next time.’ I told myself

We waited for 10 minutes, which seemed eternity for me, when a red high-tech BMW pulled up some 20 meters away. An elegant gentleman got out and entered the bank. Abruptly Lino told me the gentleman was the uncle. He left me and followed him in the bank to collect the money, but within minutes Lino was out, car keys visibly in hand. He convincingly told me that his uncle had told him to find us at his house in Nyambadwe. I felt some disappointment. ‘Please hang on.’ I encouraged myself. He took a few steps towards the BMW, telling me his uncle had instructed him to take the BMW as he would ride home with a friend he had met in the bank, before retreating and completely surprised me when he offered me to drive the automated BMW. I was speechless; me driving a stylish BMW?

“That’s if you don’t mind. I just want to have a feel of the car I’ll buy,” Lino confidently told me after suspecting my quietness for suspicion.

“Eh, no– no problem,” I stammered.

He handed me the keys that talked everything of being of a BMW. I got out and self-importantly strode to the classy auto looking at people, especially women, wanting their attention as Lino drove off in my car. Out of excitement I went straight to the BMW and again unthinkingly inserted the key on the door lock. Suddenly an alarm blared off. I was startled but felt more panicky when shouts of ‘robber’ started to pierce my ears. Now the realization that I was facing double disaster caused more pangs of terror in me. In utter panic I started to run after my car. It only complicated matters as people understood it otherwise; I was trying to flee. A resounding brawl crushed my face and uncompromisingly sent me tumbling full length to the ground before some policemen came to my rescue…And as they say, the rest is history; and here I was, back in my society that was wrongly rejected me.