Army Worms Take Over

Army Worms Take Over

            ‘Will you not have a drop yourself?’ I asked Sishuwa Sishuwa, as I poured myself another stiff brandy.

          ‘I’ll stick to the water,’ he replied, as he nibbled on a dry biscuit. ‘I have to maintain absolute clarity of thought.’

          ‘Good gracious,’ I gasped. ‘Why?’

          ‘Because I’m preparing a paper for a conference in Oxford next month,’ he explained. ‘My topic is Army Worms and the Destruction of Democracy in Zambia.’

          ‘Ha ha,’ I laughed, ‘that should entertain them in Oxford, I know they always enjoy amusing tales from the colonial periphery. Of course it wouldn’t be so entertaining for us if it actually happened.’

          ‘It is happening!’ he retorted, as he snapped a dry biscuit with carefully controlled ferocity. ‘These army worms are not just biological and agricultural. Like everything else in Zambia, they’re politically motivated.’

          ‘Come come,’ I sneered, ‘You’re getting drunk on that water while I remain sober on brandy.  Or maybe you’ve been drinking muddy water?’

          ‘Have you seen the pictures of these worms on the TV?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen how they move? The front and back legs come together as the body of the worm comes up in the air. Then the front legs move forward as the body comes flat. In this way the body of the worm moves up and down, up and down, up and down.’

          ‘So what?’ I laughed. ‘Are you reading too much into this? Are you over-theorizing?’

          ‘Don’t you see?’ he screeched, as his thin body trembled with intellectual excitement, ‘They’re Up and Down worms! The Up and Down party has recruited its own army!’ So saying he leant forward and treated himself to the luxury of a small sip of water.

          ‘Are you seriously suggesting that the Up and Down Party is employing these Up and Down worms to destroy the next maize crop in order to undermine the government?’

          ‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Sishuwa, his foot twitching up and down with excitement. ‘The Up and Down party has been Down for so long, but now at last it has found a strategy for coming Up, using the Up and Down worms. Never mind the maize crop, an army of worms can destroy all the institutions of the state!’

          ‘Poof!’ I scoffed. ‘I’d like to see it!’

          ‘It’s already begun! Why d’you think GBM and all his generals with all their binoculars could not find a single member of the Barotse Liberation Army in Western Province? Because they were looking for men, and failed to notice the millions of worms all around them!’

          ‘If the worms eat all the maize, the government will just import from abroad. Such things don’t bring down the government.’

          ‘That’s only part of it,’ said Sishuwa. ‘Having feasted on the maize and multiplied, the worms are now invading government itself. Why do you think GBM’s belly has grown so gross? It is full of worms! Why do you think Splinter Kapimbe’s behaviour is so strange? Worms got into his ear and ate his brain. The worms are taking over the government!’

          ‘So does the government know what is happening?’

          ‘The Shushushu,’ said Sishuwa, ‘have been telling the government, but they won’t listen.’

          ‘Why not?’

          ‘Don’t you see,’ explained Sishuwa, getting agitated, ‘Worms have no ears! When you are taken over by worms, you cannot listen to anybody!’

          ‘Even you,’ I sneered, ‘I wonder if you are listening to me. Your theory seems immune to my objections. And what about Cycle Mata, is he also infected?’

          ‘According to my high level sources, he’s still alright. But this is why he is holed up in State House, trying to keep away from everybody. That’s why there are no press conferences, no cabinet meetings and no explanations on these strange goings on. He’s being kept apart in a sealed room, so he has no idea what’s going on in the wider world.’

          ‘Can nobody do anything?’

          ‘The Minister for Botched Deportations, Eager Bungle, signed a Deportation Order for all the worms to be deported because they’re foreigners. But the Up and Down party got the order overturned in the High Court, which ruled that all the worms were born in Zambia.’

          ‘Can’t the police take action?’

          ‘All they did was to declare that the worms need a permit to assemble, and then arrested Pastor Mumbo Jumbo on the grounds that his party is just one big can of worms. The evidence increasingly suggests that the police have also been corrupted by worm infestation, because all their actions seem calculated to make the government look foolish.’

          ‘Couldn’t the ACC take action if the government is being corrupted by worms?’

          ‘They did open an investigation, but they hadn’t realized that Splinter Kapimbe was already infected, and he sent an army of worms to take over their building.’

          ‘I don’t really see,’ I said, ‘how all this will cause the government to fall. Previously governments have been corrupted by money, but they didn’t fall on that account. So how will being corrupted by worms bring about any different result?’

          ‘The end will be swift and terrible,’ explained Sishuwa grimly. ‘In the end, the worm always turns. As these ministers turn into worms, they will begin to turn on each other. Each worm will try to worm its way to the top by eating all the other worms on the way. They will destroy each other, and that will be the end of them!’

          ‘And how do you know all this?’

          As he looked at me steadily, I saw a little worm wriggling out from the corner of his eye.

_______________________

          ‘Aaarrrghhh!’ I screamed, as I sat up with a jerk.

          ‘There there,’ said Sara gently, ‘you’ve had another bad dream.’

          ‘I dreamt!’ I shivered, ‘that I was going to be eaten by worms.’

          ‘Another of your prophetic dreams,’ she laughed. ‘We’re all going to be eaten by worms.’  

             

[Kalaki is taking a break for the pagan festival of Yuletide, but hopes to return to Kalaki’s Korner on 9^th January 2013, unless he gets eaten by worms.]

National Fire Drill

National Fire Drill

            Yesterday evening Sara arrived back from Addis, where she had been working for women’s rights. ‘You should try to do something about women’s rights in Zambia,’ I laughed, as I brought in a tray of tea.

          ‘Here we have the Ministry of Gender,’ she declared solemnly.

          ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that’s the biggest obstacle.’

          ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what’s been happening while I was away? Anything amusing?’

          ‘Absolute farce!’ I laughed. ‘Yesterday Lusaka was like one big theatre, with sirens blaring, flashing lights, ambulances speeding, C5 driving recklessly on the wrong side of the road with guns blazing, police motorcycles crashing, and so on.’

          ‘Where? In town?’

          ‘All up and down the Great East Road. It was like one big circus. Everybody came out to watch!’

          ‘Did you find out what was happening?’

          ‘Well, the rumour was that there had been a big crash landing at the airport. Some people said GBM has crash landed after falling out of an aeroplane. Others said that an Emirates jumbo had crashed on take-off because GBM was too heavy for it. Others said that hundreds were dead and GBM was the only survivor.’

          ‘Very sad news,’ said Sara.

          ‘Don’t be sad,’ I laughed. ‘When we turned on the evening news we found out that there never had been a crash! It was all just a spoof! A scam!’

          ‘What! Just for public entertainment?’

          ‘Not entirely. Apparently the emergency services were doing a practice drill, so they’ll be ready to act if there really is a crash landing! So when the whole thing was over, all the dead bodies just stood up and walked away!’

          ‘A miracle!’ laughed Sara. ‘A mass resurrection! Praise the Lord!’

          ‘Probably staged by the government,’ I said, ‘to take our minds off the corruption allegations.’

          ‘It’s already seven o’clock,’ said Sara, as she took another sip of tea. ‘Turn on the news, they may have more entertainment for us!’

          As I turned on the TV, the lugubrious face of Kenneth Maduma filled the screen. ‘Today,’ he began ‘the emergency services continued with their national fire drill, with an emphasis on how to deal with an attack upon state institutions by enemy insurgents.’

          The picture now turned to the building of the Anti-Corruption Commission, where gangs of thugs in green shirts were seen chasing the Commission staff, and throwing documents out of the windows, as the surrounding mob raised their fists and cheered.

‘If democracy itself were on fire,’ intoned the doom-laden voice of Madooma, ‘would our emergency services be able to cope?’

          Now the news picture came to the next clip, showing thick black smoke billowing from the ACC windows, and frightened staff on the roof. But then we saw the firemen come with a long ladder, and one by one the staff were taken down.

‘Don’t worry,’ the voice of Dooma reassured us, ‘the ACC is not really on fire. That is just fake smoke.’

‘Not only that,’ Sara cackled, ‘it is a completely fake commission.’

Now the Face of Doom again filled the screen, and the Voice of Doom continued to read the news. ‘The Office of the Acting Vice-President, which is responsible for all disasters, has announced that the fire drill at the ACC was a complete success. The only casualty was a fireman who fell off a ladder because of his fear of heights.’

‘I hope this really was just another spoof,’ said Sara.

‘They have to make it look realistic,’ I explained.

‘Although we were only able to show you the exciting events at the Anti-Corruption Commission,’ continued the Voice of Doom, ‘this national fire drill has been taking place all over the country. The Supreme Court was easily and immediately evacuated when they saw the mob of green shirts coming, and all is now peaceful there. The Acting Temporary Retired Chief Justice, having anticipated the event, has flown to Malawi for a holiday.’

‘That sounds suspicious,’ said Sara.

‘Don’t worry about her,’ I laughed, ‘she was too old for the job anyway.’

‘In Kitwe,’ continued the relentless monotone  of Doom, ‘the President of the Movement of Many Defections sought refuge in a police station, thinking that the green-shirted mob of thugs were after him. So the police had no option except to lock him up in protective custody.

‘At the National Assembly, parliamentarians were more co-operative, so there was no need to send in the green shirts. In a show of national unity, members of parliament all agreed to put on green shirts and set fire to the place themselves.’

‘And then,’ I laughed, ‘the fire brigade ran out of water.’

But as I was laughing, the face on the TV screen had changed, revealing the curling lip of the dreaded and all-powerful Splinter Kapimbe, Acting President of Vice, Minister for Destroying Justice, and Secretary General of the Punching Fist.

‘Fellow citizens,’ he began, ‘I have a brief announcement to make. Following the divisive, violent and treasonable activities of opposition parties, the Ruling Party has had no choice except to take over all the state institutions that were being manipulated to undermine legitimate government. In other words, the one-party state has been restored in the interest of peace and national unity. I can assure each and every one of you that everything is now under the control of the Ruling Party, and the Party is Supreme. That is all for now. Further bulletins and decrees will be issued in due course. Goodnight.’

‘It seems,’ sneered Sara, ‘a rather a heavy-handed way of avoiding a corruption investigation.

‘Cycle Mata is going to be very annoyed when he hears about this,’ I said.

‘He should have seen it coming,’ said Sara, ‘as soon as they started building his retirement home.

   

             

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Who Let the Dogs Out?

            I was sitting having a peaceful breakfast when Bang Crash through the front door came two large grandsons. ‘Hello Grandpa!’ they laughed, as one ruffled my hair, and the other emptied a pile of cornflakes into a bowl, ‘You’re very lucky this morning, we’ve come to join you for breakfast!’

          ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘But was there no breakfast at No.6?’

          ‘Very sad,’ sighed Khoza. ‘The cupboard is bare.’

          ‘Why’s that?’ I wondered.

          ‘Who knows?’ sneered Kondwa. ‘Perhaps we’ve been affected by the civil war in Syria.’

          ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘this gives me a chance to have a little talk with both of you. What are you planning to do when you grow up?’

          ‘Is that all you can ever ask?’ laughed Kondwa, as he emptied the bowl of sugar onto his cornflakes. ‘What about you Grandpa? What are you going to do if you ever grow up?’

          I turned away from his insolence. ‘What about you, Khoza?’ I asked. ‘Have you applied to Yunza?’

          ‘Yunza!’ he cackled. ‘Four years of study and then find myself unemployed? Ha! You must be joking!’

          ‘But if we could just find connections in government,’ said Kondwa,  ‘then we could easily…’

          ‘We haven’t got connections in government,’ snapped Khoza. ‘All we’ve got is Grandpa in Watchdog.’

          ‘Just as well,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t want you getting into wrong company.’

          ‘I’ve already decided what I’m going to do,’ declared Khoza. ‘I’m going to be an entrepreneur. Under the new government policy there’s lots of opportunities for youths like me!’

          ‘Doing what?’ I wondered. ‘Model aeroplanes for Barbie dolls? Curly hair for the Chinese? Mealie meal for Kitwe?’

          ‘Militia,’ said Khoza.

          ‘Militia?’ I said. ‘You mean toy soldiers for apamwamba children?’

          ‘Real soldiers,’ he declared boldly. ‘I’m going to establish my own army with their own lovely crimson uniforms.’

          ‘You’ve been watching too many films about Sierra Leone,’ I laughed. ‘Where will the money come from to pay your soldiers?’

          ‘Poor old Grandpa,' he laughed, 'you’re way out of touch. Nowadays rich politicians have to hire militia to defend themselves from their opponents. So they’ll hire me to them to deal with opposing parties, as well to squash rebellions and splits in their own parties, and also to help them defend their electoral territory during elections. It’s good business!  Militias are the latest thing in politics! Get with it Grandpa!’

          ‘I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong,’ I said sadly. ‘This present chaos is just a temporary aberration.  The police will soon restore order!’

          ‘The police!’ laughed Khoza. ‘They are just another militia working for the ruling party!’

          ‘If that were true, which it isn’t,’ I snorted, ‘they would nonetheless arrest the opposition party militia and order would be restored!’

          ‘My poor old simple Grandpa,’ sighed Khoza, ‘it’s not that simple. ‘Some of these opposition militia are actually in the pay of the ruling party, working behind enemy lines, to destabilize the opposition. So the police don’t even know who is on which side, or which militia to arrest.’

          ‘So according to you, what is the job of the police?’

          ‘Their only remaining job,’ laughed Khoza, ‘is to use the Public Order Act to arrest ordinary citizens who protest against the party warfare.’

          ‘They’re right to protest!’ I protested.

          ‘Nonsense,’ scoffed Khoza. ‘It’s really nothing to do with party warfare, it’s really about capturing and holding state power. Even if there were no opposition, the ruling party would still need its own militia.’

          ‘Poof,’ I scoffed. ‘Give me an example.’

          ‘Suppose the Asinine Corrupt Commission were asinine enough to try to investigate a government minister for corruption. This would be a direct threat to his power. So he would need his own militia to go in there and sort them out! They would need to feel the firm smack of authority!’

          ‘Didn’t you learn anything in school about the constitution?’ I wondered.

          ‘In school,’ said Khoza slowly, ‘I learnt about the power of the cane and the whip to trample all over our human rights.’

          I turned now towards Kondwa, hoping for a better prospect. ‘What about you, what are you going to do when you leave school? Do you have a better idea?’

          ‘Much better,’ he replied confidently. ‘Khoza wants to work for the upper class. But I want to set up my own business.’

          ‘An independent business?’

          ‘Of course,’ replied Kondwa. ‘I would set up my own militia as a private enterprise, controlled only by myself. Do you know, Grandpa, if I were to set up my own roadblock on the Great East Road, I could collect more money in a morning that you get from your pension in a year.’

          ‘Oh dear,’ I sighed. ‘Do you have no better ambition?’

          ‘I have much bigger ambition,’ replied Kondwa calmly. ‘I shall use my militia to invade and take over the Office of the Chief Registrar, and then use my position to deregister all parties, institutions and authorities. When I have removed everybody else from power, I shall of course automatically take over as president.’

          ‘Does neither of you believe in the rule of law?’ I cried, as tears came to my eyes.

          ‘Look Grandpa,’ said Khoza, putting his arm around me, ‘we young people have to live in the world as we find it, not as you imagine it.’

          Just then Sara came sailing in through the door, then stopped and looked at us. ‘You boys,’ she shouted, ‘have you been upsetting Grandpa again?’

          ‘We were just trying,’ said Khoza, ‘to introduce him to the real world.’

          ‘Well stop it immediately,’ she shouted. ‘He’s far too old for that!’

  

The Rise and Fall of King Atas

The Rise and Fall of King Atas

          ‘Thoko,’ I said, ‘What are you learning at school nowadays? Anything interesting?’

          ‘It’s all so boring,’ she sighed. ‘Especially Civics. All this stuff about the constitution, the executive, parliament, judiciary, and so on. I’m beginning to think the whole thing was invented just to make the Grade Nine exams more difficult!’

          ‘So how would you make things more simple?’

          ‘I’d just put a king in charge of everything. Or better still, myself as queen!’

          ‘But hasn’t your teacher told you the cautionary tale of King Atas?’

          ‘No, who was he?’

          ‘King Atas lived long ago, when it was quite normal for the country to be ruled by a king. In those days they didn’t bother about a parliament or ministers or anything like that.’

          ‘So there was only one person to steal money from the people?’

          ‘Exactly,’ I agreed.

          ‘Ha ha!’ she laughed, clapping her hands. ‘Now you see why a king would be better!’

          ‘But in those days,’ I cautioned, ‘everybody had to do exactly as the king said, because he held all the power.’

          ‘But wasn’t it the people that gave him that power?’

          ‘Good gracious no,’ I said. ‘The power was given to him by God. Therefore the king’s word was law. His judgement was final. His power was absolute.’

          ‘And was King Atas a good king?’ Thoko wondered.

          ‘He started off alright,’ I admitted, ‘although rather annoyingly noisy and bossy. When he banged his spoon on the dining table and shouted Bring me more ice-cream, a servant had to bring it quick, otherwise he’d be fired, with immediate effect.

          ‘That’s just how little Nawiti shouts for ice-cream,’ laughed Thoko.

          ‘But it’s a much bigger problem when the king does it,’ I said.

          ‘There was nobody to control him,’ laughed Thoko, ‘because he was the one in control of everybody else.’

          ‘That’s not the only problem,’ I said. ‘A king is always surrounded by a coterie of flatterers and sycophants, who incite and encourage him, saying You can order anything O King, Your word is law. One day King Atas went so far as ordering an elephant to be brought to him, even though elephants are notoriously difficult to catch. When no elephant was brought within five minutes, he sacked all the game rangers.’

          ‘With immediate effect,’ suggested Thoko.

          ‘Of course. Another time he ordered the rain to stop, and when it didn’t, he fired all the meteorologists.’

          ‘Did he ever have any successes?’ laughed Thoko.

          ‘Oh yes, King Atas will always remain famous for his miracle of restoring water to the Holy Well at Ultimate Termination House.’

          ‘What sort of house was that?’

          ‘It was the most important place in the land. The UTH was where everybody went to die. The Holy Well contained the Holy Water for the Holy Sacrament of washing the bodies of the dead before being taken to Heaven. So a shortage of water would have been an insult to God.’

          ‘But King Atas managed to restore the water?’

          ‘The miracle is recorded in the scriptures. He just stood in front of the well and said In the name God and the King I order this well to supply water! Immediately there was a loud gurgling noise, as water rose up in the well and overflowed onto the ground. Whereupon the assembled crowd fell to their knees and raised their hands to Heaven.’

          ‘So now people had confidence in the king’s power?’

          ‘Exactly. And even the king himself was now confident that he could successfully order anything. The very next day he ordered six palaces to be built throughout the country, so that he could visit all his people and perform more miracles. But the people murmured that they needed food and not palaces.

          ‘The next day King Atas ordered a huge 40,000 capacity football stadium to be built in Shang’ombo. But there were murmurs that there were only 4,000 people in Shang’ombo and they didn’t even have a football club.

          ‘The next day King Atas ordered that an Atlantic cruise liner to be brought up the Zambezi, so that he could travel in a suitably regal style when visiting the remote and neglected Western Hinterland of his vast empire.’

          ‘Why couldn’t he travel by road?’ wondered Thoko.

          ‘In those days, long ago,’ I explained, ‘there were hardly any roads and the horse had not yet been invented.’

          ‘The next day King Atas ordered a university to be built in every village, so that the next generation could all become doctors and lawyers so that they would never have to be farmers like their unfortunate parents.

          ‘And the very next next day King Atas ordered a tall tower to be built at his palace, so that he could stand on top to inspect progress on all his new development projects. But when he climbed the tower he found that he could see no further than Kalingalinga.  Then his flatterers and bootlickers encouraged him, saying Just fly over the country, O King. Flap your arms and fly! You can do miracles! You have the power and glory of God! You are the King!’

          ‘And did he manage to fly?’ asked Thoko.

          ‘Oh yes,’ I replied, ‘He flew straight to Heaven.’

          ‘So after that,’ said Thoko, ‘did the people decide to have a constitution?’

          ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They introduced a new system, with a parliament to control expenditure, a judiciary to control the executive, and a church to perform miracles.’

          ‘And did it work?’ Thoko wondered.

          ‘That,’ I admitted, ‘is another story.’

             

         

             

          

Flushed!

Flushed!

            ‘The news is over, switch it off!’ said Sara

          ‘Half a minute,’ I said, ‘something else is coming up!’

          ‘The screen is completely blank,’ Sara sneered.

          ‘No,’ I said, ‘I can definitely see something. Look carefully. I think there’s a woman in a red dress sitting in front of a red wall hung with red pictures and red curtains!’

          As Sara peered forward, a notice appeared at the bottom of the red screen saying The Honourable Ms Emery Chimbusu, Minister for Local Government and Toilets. ‘You see!’ I cried in triumph, ‘There is somebody there!’

          Sure enough, to prove me right, a set of white teeth appeared in the middle of the red wall, and began speaking. ‘I am pleased to inform you that tomorrow this nation will be taking part in the global commemoration of World Toilet Day.’

          ‘Poof,’ sneered Sara, ‘this is just a load of sh…’

          ‘Shush,’ I said. ‘This is a crucial aspect of developing our great nation...’

          ‘No house is complete,’ began the Honorable Ms Emery Chimbusu, ‘without a toilet. This is a matter on which we must all take action. Do not sit idly in front of your TV this evening. Jump up now, inspect your house and find out if your house has got a toilet!’

          ‘I’ve always wondered,’ I said to Sara, ‘about that big white vase where we planted the geraniums. Maybe that was supposed to be a toilet?’

          ‘Surely not,’ Sara laughed, ‘A chimbusu should be flat on the floor, not sitting up like a big flower pot.’

          ‘It’s a great pity,’ I said, ‘that the Minister didn’t think to illustrate her little talk with some pictures and diagrams, so that we might know what she’s talking about.’

          ‘If you cannot find a proper toilet in your house,’ the Minister for Toilets announced sternly, ‘this almost certainly means that you have been answering the call of nature in a wrong and unhygienic place. Some negligent and uncaring people are even known to be using plastic bags or cooking oil containers, with a view to emptying the contents over their political opponents and without police permission.’

          ‘That’s why we need the Public Order Act,’ I said, ‘to prevent all this shit flying around.’

          ‘That’s why the police have to wear helmets, visors and rubber boots, and hide behind those huge transparent shields,’ said Sara. ‘They have to protect themselves from flying lumps of cholera.’

          ‘Other furtive defecators,’ explained the Minister, ‘travel long distances to secret places to answer the call of nature, thereby exposing their most tender and vulnerable extremities to the depredation of wild animals, or even worse, to members of the opposition. This is most unhealthy.’

          ‘I am now beginning to understand why the police have to ban these so-called political rallies,’ I admitted. ‘These unfortunate social misfits are actually large congregations of nomadic crappers, looking for a site where they can unburden themselves, with the unintended consequence of spreading cholera instead of political ideas.

          ‘But the normal human function of defecation,’ continued the Minister for Toilets, ‘is supposed to be a moment for private reflection rather than public entertainment. That is why, under the government’s privatization policy, each individual householder is encouraged to build their own private facility.’

          ‘There’s privatization policy for you,’ said Sara. ‘The government won’t build public toilets.’

          ‘If people get together in public toilets,’ I suggested, ‘they might crap all over the government.’

          ‘Figures from the 2009 Demographic Toilet Survey,’ continued the minister, ‘indicate that we have only 762 toilets in a population of 13 million people.’

          ‘And half of those toilets must be in State House!’ I suggested.

          ‘Why do you think that?’ Sara wondered.

          ‘Because,’ I said, ‘the ruling class have to endure so many banquets, causing them to visit the toilet ten times a day, or even more frequently after feasts provided by the Indian High Commission. But your average villager, with starvation and constipation, only needs to go twice a year. The villager’s main expense is funerals, not toilets.’

          ‘We must realize,’ intoned Ms Chimbusu solemnly, ‘that the politics of toilets go back to the very beginning of the demand for social equality, and to the popular rallying cry of the freedom movement, One Man, One Toilet!’

          ‘She means One Person, One Toilet!’ Sara shouted.

          ‘Oh no she doesn’t,’ I hooted. ‘She means One Man, Four Wives, Thirty-five Children and One Toilet!’

           ‘Or Forty Prisoners and One Bucket!’ Sara hissed.

           ‘So I hereby declare,’ announced Ms Emery Chimbusu, ‘that my government will commemorate World Toilet Day by building a million toilets. The government will make toilet building grants available to all householders and will also expand the sewer system nationwide. In line with our action oriented approach, my government undertakes to complete this programme within ninety days!

          ‘Furthermore,’ announced Ms Emery, ‘this new National Toilet Initiative will provide a new means for distributing information on government programmes. By tomorrow, a copy of my speech will be hung on the wall of every toilet in the nation.’

          ‘Emery paper in every toilet!’ laughed Sara. ‘How abrasive! How irritating!’

          ‘Ha ha!’ I exclaimed, ‘this new programme will immediately be flushed down the toilet! That will make it a first!’

          ‘No it won't,’ said Sara. ‘It will make it a fourth!’

          ‘A fourth?’ I frowned. ‘Which were the others?’

          ‘First the Manifesto went down the toilet, and after that the Freedom of Information Act. As we speak the Draft Constitution is already going the same way. So the Toilet Initiative will be the fourth!’

          ‘No, it’s a first!’ I declared, raising my arms in triumph. ‘This is the first time that the toilet has been flushed down the toilet!’

       

Christine explains everything...

Christine explains everything…

     It was Sunday afternoon, and Sara and I were having a quiet cup of tea on the veranda when we heard a voice behind us. ‘Have you got a cup for me”

     ‘Christine!’ exclaimed Sara, rising to give her a hug. ‘So you really did get out of there! Congrats! Good on you my dear! Long overdue!’

     ‘Had a row with Michael?’ I wondered, as I poured Christine a cup of tea.

     ‘No no,’ she said, as she made herself comfortable, ‘there was nothing like that, Michael never misbehaves. He washes properly and always irons his own shirts. He’s such a sweetie. He’s my darling.’

     ‘That’s not what I see on TV,’ I laughed. ‘He’s always scowling and growling, huffing and puffing, hiring and firing and hissing and dissing.’

     ‘By the end of the day he’s exhausted ,’ Christine explained, ‘so by the time he gets back to me he’s a pussy cat. The problem is not Michael, the problem is State House. When we were in Rhodes Park it was just us and the children, but State House, it’s like living in a railway station. People tramping in and out all the time. Sometimes they even trample on me and don’t seem to notice.’

     ‘They’re not very nice people?’

     ‘That’s another thing,’ said Christine, as she plastered her scone with strawberry jam, ‘he’s got such a peculiar bunch of friends. It was alright when he met them in the National Assembly Motel Bar, but now they’re in my house!’

     ‘And in the government,’ I said.

     ‘I can’t stand that awful GBV,’ said Christine, ‘he’s a real menace.’

     ‘You mean GBM,’ I suggested.

     ‘I know what I mean,’ she replied grimly. ‘I used to work at the hospital.’

     ‘But surely you must like poor old Dotty Scotty?’ I suggested.

     ‘He seems quite harmless,’ admitted Christine, ‘but he’s a terrible nuisance. Once I found him weeping in the toilet at three o’clock in the morning. Apparently he’d got lost and couldn’t find the way out.’

     ‘But surely you must enjoy all those big parties,’ I said. ‘Like Heroes Day when they bring out all the dead heroes and everybody gets drunk.’

     ‘Party cadres belching and farting and vomiting everywhere. After the last one we had to go to Japan for a couple of weeks while the place was being fumigated.’

     ‘My God,’ I said, ‘then I’m not surprised you ran away.’

     ‘Oh no,’ laughed Christine. ‘That’s not why I ran away! I’m a tough lady!’

     ‘I knew it!’ I cried in triumph. ‘The Watchdog was right! Your darling sweetie Michael was cheating on you! You had to leave him!’

     ‘What!’ laughed Christine. ‘Michael has never cheated on me! My dear Michael! Never! Michael is not a womaniser! He’s not even a polygamist! He’s a serial monogamist!’

     Sara scowled at me. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you please just be quiet and listen to what Christine is trying to tell you?’

     ‘I believed all these rumours,’ I persisted. ‘I really thought you’d run away from Michael!’

     ‘Of course not!’ she laughed. ‘I would never run away from Michael! I’ve run away from State House!’

     ‘But why?’

     ‘I couldn’t stand being First Lady,’ said Christine, as her lips trembled and a tear ran down her face. Sara handed her a handkerchief.

     ‘There there,’ I said, putting my arm around her. ‘We all know it’s a silly job. But it’s a national duty. Somebody’s got to do it.’

     ‘All that opening of workshops,’ she sobbed, ‘attending traditional ceremonies or gluttonous banquets for indigestible dignitaries. It’s all so mindless, irritating and boring.’

     ‘Dotty Scotty doesn’t seem to mind,’ I said soothingly.

     ‘He’s an old man with nothing else to do,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m a young professional with promising career prospects! I’ve got a mind of my own! But I’ve been spending half my time reading speeches that I haven’t written, saying things that I don’t agree with, to people who aren’t  listening. I’ve been spending all my time smiling at people I don’t like.’

     ‘You have to support your man,’ I said.

     ‘Christine’s right, of course,’ Sara declared firmly. ‘As First Lady she had position without power. Her job was merely to glorify the power of the husband and the subordination of his wife. He was the master and she was his servant. She did not represent us women, but instead was made to represent men’s view of womanhood. She was purposely disempowered in order to make an example for the rest of us. An example of how to accept being downtrodden.’

     ‘Sounds very eloquent,’ I sneered, ‘but all Christine has actually done is to run away from her husband!’

     ‘Nonsense,’ snapped Christine. ‘My next project is to help my beloved Michael to also escape. He is trapped in there by a bunch of sharks and criminals, even though he’s well past retirement age. So next Tuesday I’m going back to State House under the pretext of receiving a donation of useless books, then I’m going to get him out through the tunnels.’

     ‘Have you thought this through?’ I sneered. ‘Do you realize that if you rescue our dear Michael from State House then the gang of sharks and criminals will take over, and the nation will plunge into rack and ruin?

     ‘Of course we’ve thought of that,’ snapped Christine. ‘Plans for the transition are well advanced. We plan to make Sara the next President and you, Kalaki, will be her First Gentleman!’

     ‘But,’ warned Sara, ‘don’t write about this in the newspaper!’

     ‘Doesn’t matter if he does,’ laughed Christine. ‘Nobody believes a word he says!’

 

Ukwa in Mufumbwe

Ukwa in Mufumbwe

            Monday evening, and Sara and I had settled down in front of the TV. ‘We now take you over to Mufumbwe,’ said Master Chambala. ‘Sensitive viewers should turn off their TVs.’

          ‘Ooh, I do love the Freak Show News,’ I declared. ‘They bring us such horrible stories.’

          ‘My God!’gasped Sara, as the TV picture showed the main street of a small threadbare town in the middle of nowhere. ‘That place can’t have changed since colonial times!’

          ‘It’s changed a lot,’ I laughed. ‘Fifty years ago it had bright shiny steel roofs, but now they’ve all gone rusty.’

          As we were talking the camera was focusing on a rising cloud of dust in the distance. Suddenly, out of this dust appeared a speeding convoy of Landcruisers with sirens wailing and green flags flying, finally coming to a screeching halt in the middle of the empty street. On the top of a gold-plated Landcruiser was the Royal Pabwata of King Ukwa, and sitting in the boat was the King himself, resplendent in his official ceremonial gold silk Chinese suit.

          The King rose slowly and regally to address the crowd. There wasn’t one. Quickly his coterie of sycophants and goons leapt out of their vehicles and began waving brown envelopes and green chitenges, and a few people began to cautiously venture out from behind their closed doors. In the meantime, the King’s chauffeur connected the battery of the Golden Royal Lancruiser to a microphone, which he then handed to the King.

          ‘This must be the first time they’ve seen electricity,’ said Sara.

          ‘It’ll soon be gone again,’ I sighed.

          King Ukwa was now standing in his Royal Pabwato scowling angrily at a motley crowd of about fifty people, mostly old people and small children, all very thin and wearing rags.

          ‘I have brought you your candidate!’ he shouted. Then, turning to one of his goons in black suit and dark glasses, he shouted ‘What have you done with my candidate?’

          As he spoke, two goons rushed forward dragging a small thin fellow with vacant uncoordinated rolling eyes and a loose mouth which dripped saliva. ‘What’s your name?’ shouted the King.

          ‘Musumbi, O King,’ whined the little fellow.

          ‘Mushula!’ shouted the King. ‘Kneel before your constituents.’

          ‘This is your new member of parliament,’ the King shouted at the sullen gathering. ‘Vote for him and you’ll all be rich! Vote for the other party and you’ll die in poverty! Any questions?’

          ‘Yes,’ shouted an old woman. ‘We’re all dying of thirst! There’s no water in the river!’

          ‘You don’t have to tell me that there’s no water in the river,’ shouted the King angrily. ‘Can’t you see that I had to bring my Royal Pabwato all the way by road because there is no water in the river? I have been inconvenienced far more than you!’

          ‘Why is there no water in the river?’ persisted the old woman.

          ‘Because you voted for the wrong party last time!’ shouted the King angrily. ‘That’s why you’ve got no development here! That’s why I’m giving you a second chance by bringing you this Mushula!’

          ‘Musumbi,’ said the goon.

          ‘His name is Pabwato,’ shouted the King, ‘that’s what matters.’

          ‘He looks a bit simple,’ said a voice from the back.

          ‘That’s why he’s representing you,’ shouted the king angrily. ‘You’re all a bit simple, that’s why you keep voting for the wrong party! That’s why you voted for the Movement for Mental Deficiency instead of Pabwato Fiasco!’

          ‘But why is there no water in the river?’ repeated the old woman.

          ‘You all know very well why you’ve got no water!’ replied the King angrily. ‘You’ve got no water because you live downstream from Chuminga, which had the sense to vote for me in the last election. So I have brought them development. I have built a dam for the Ching Chang rice plantation which will export rice to China. I have built a dam for the Fing Fang Fong Fish Farm and another dam for the Die Soon Crocodile Farm.’

          ‘Is there no water left over?’

          ‘Yes, plenty,’ smirked the King. ‘The excess water has been diverted to the leach plant at Kansanshi Mine, to make copper so that one day I shall be able to bring you electricity.’

          ‘When?’ said the old woman suspiciously.

          ‘After you have voted for Mushula,’ said the King.

          ‘Musumbi,’ groaned the goon.

          ‘Let me explain the situation in simple terms,’ growled the King. ‘Supposing you had only one cup of water left in your house, would you give that water to your own child or to a stranger?’

          ‘We all need water!’ shouted the old woman.

          ‘Development is about choices,’ sneered the King. ‘And the choice is yours. Vote Pabwato and I shall bring you water!’

          ‘Wrong way round!’ retorted the old woman. ‘Bring us water and we shall vote Pabwato!’ But as she was shouting six goons jumped on her and used their batons to beat her to the ground, and the remainder of the motley crowd ran away screaming.

          ‘My God!’ I said to Sara. ‘What’s happening?’

          ‘She’s committed a serious offence under the Public Order Act,’ Sara explained. ‘She’s protesting without a permit.’

­­­­­­_____________________________

          Friday evening TV News, and at last the announcement of the results: ‘In the Mufumbwe by-election the MMD candidate, Mr Stalwart Mulunshi, has won by a stunning margin of 8,549 votes, with the Pabwato candidate, Mr Simple Musumbi, scoring a perfect zero.’

          ‘That means,’ I said, ‘that he didn’t even vote for himself.’

          ‘Perhaps he was so intellectually challenged,’ laughed Sara, ‘that he forgot to register to vote.’