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!