King Chumbu

King Chumbu

          ‘I can’t understand,’ said Thoko, ‘why people keep voting wrong leaders into government. We always finish up with people who told us they would work for us and make our lives better, but as soon as they get into office they start filling their own bellies and leaving the rest of us to starve!’

          ‘That’s how humans behave,’ I replied sadly. ‘There’s nothing to be done about it.’

          ‘Except to throw them out when their behaviour becomes intolerable!’ suggested Thoko.

          ‘Even that doesn’t help much. You can be sure that the next king will become insufferable within 90 days.’

          ‘I sometimes think,’ said Thoko, ‘that we should elect a complete simpleton as king, some half-wit just to hand out the medals on Independence Day, kick the ball to start each cup-final, wear a silly gown to open parliament, and otherwise be harmless.’

          ‘You have to be careful with that sort of thing. Idiots can be even more dangerous than clever people.’

          ‘Then why have people at all?’ laughed Thoko. ‘We could just choose a dog or a goat, and dress it up in chitenge and gold chains, to be our national symbol on ceremonial occasions.’

          ‘That reminds me,’ I laughed, ‘of the story of King Chumbu, who ruled the Land of Zed a thousand years ago.’

          ‘Really?’ said Thoko. ‘My History teacher has never told us about any King Chumbu.’

          ‘I’m not surprised,' I cackled. 'Some bits of history are best forgotten.’
          ‘So what happened?’ asked Thoko.

          ‘It was election time,’ I explained, ‘and it was time to elect the next king. At the first big election rally a joker stood up waving a large lump of sweet potato, shouting Let’s elect this sweet potato!

          ‘And the people responded enthusiastically, shouting in reply Yes, let’s elect the sweet potato. All the other kings have been sour, this chumbu is sweet. All the other kings have been pompous, let us have a humble sweet potato. Instead of the king eating us, we shall eat the king! Everybody likes the sweet potato! Chumbu for king!’

          ‘So was the chumbu elected?’

          ‘Oh yes. He was elected by a big majority, and became King Chumbu.

          ‘And was he a sweet and humble king?’

          ‘Within a day of taking office he started to swell with pride, declaring that he had been appointed by God. This came as a terrible shock to everybody!’

          ‘Because they thought they had appointed him, not God?’

          ‘No, because they didn’t think the potato could speak. They thought that they had elected a king who would remain mercifully silent. But now this one was babbling continuously in a language spoken only by other sweet potatoes, a language called Chichumba.

          ‘And the worse thing was that all the time he was babbling, he was giving orders. He ordered that all the schools should teach Chichumba, so that all the children would understand what he was saying.’

          ‘And what was he saying?’

          ‘He was saying that all the people who didn’t like sweet potatoes should be locked up for insulting the king. He was saying that there would be no more fertilizer or seeds given for growing maize, rice, cassava or sorghum. Instead everybody had to grow sweet potatoes.

          ‘He declared that God was a sweet potato, and would favour only those who were made in his image. A picture of King Chumbu had to be on every wall, every chitenge and every coin. He changed the name of the country from Zed to Chumbia, with a national motto of One Chumbia One Chumbu.  At the big state occasions people no longer marched up and down, but now had to roll on the ground as if they hadn’t got legs, pretending to be sweet potatoes, and groveling in front of the Great Chumbu.

          ‘How ridiculous!’

          ‘State occasions are always ridiculous.’

          ‘And did people resist all this nonsense?’

          ‘Thoko, you know how people are. They just want to fit into the system, and get jobs by flattering the appointing authority. They began to eat plenty of sweet potatoes to fatten themselves into shapeless lumps, so that they looked more like the king. The more successful of them actually became sweet potatoes.’

          ‘Didn’t some people resist?’

          ‘A few people held meetings to discuss whether the end of human civilisation was a good idea. They were arrested and imprisoned for holding secret meetings without a permit, and for sedition and for treason.’

          ‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Thoko. ‘Didn’t that contradict their right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression?’

          ‘King Chumbu had confiscated their constitution and instead written his own constitution on a single leaf of kalembula.’

          ‘Wasn’t that a bit small for writing a constitution?’

          ‘Not really. It just read Never offend King Chumbu. He is the law, the judgment and the imprisonment.’

          ‘He wouldn’t listen to any discontent?’

          ‘A chumbu has no ears to listen. No way of bending without breaking. He is chumbu mushololwa. A perfect choice for a dictator.’

          ‘So how did it all end? How was the Land of Zed restored to us humans?’

          ‘It was after the king had flattened the Zambezi Forest Reserve and in its place put the King’s Chumbu Plantation. That was the year of the Great Plague. A terrible fungus called Chumbu Catastrophicus wiped out all the chumbu in Chumbia. Within three months there wasn’t a single sweet potato left in the land.’

          ‘The human’s returned?’

          ‘The few hundred remaining Zedians escaped from jail. Others returned from the diaspora. Human civilization was restored.’

          ‘So luckily God changed his mind about King Chumbu.’

          ‘I suppose so,’ I replied. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’

         

         

          

The School Bus

The School Bus

            I was sitting on the veranda, solemnly contemplating the first brandy of the day, when round the corner came Khondwa in a dusty disheveled school uniform, and plonked himself dejectedly onto a wobbly cane chair. ‘Hullo Grandpa,’ he grunted. ‘What are you doing here?’

          ‘I was about to ask you the same question!’ I exclaimed. ‘As far as I know you’re supposed to be in Ndola! You know it’s costing your parents a small fortune to send you to that Prestige Faculty Secondary School! So now what have you done? What are you doing back here?’

          ‘I thought I’d get more sympathy from you, Grandpa. Everybody says you’re a bit of a delinquent.’

          ‘Don’t try to soft-soap me,’ I snarled. ‘That’s why your mother was so keen to send you to this PF Secondary School, so you don’t end up like me. What has happened? Have you been expelled?’

          ‘It all started with the school bus.’

‘School bus? School bus? What are you talking about? Did you try to steal the school bus?’

          ‘We don’t have a school bus.’

          I was so irritated I poured myself another glass of brandy. ‘So how did you get into trouble over a non-existent school bus?’

          ‘It all started last term,’ he replied calmly, ‘when we prefects all had a meeting and decided that the school needed a school bus. So we all went to see the headmaster, Mr Chumbu Mushololwa, and told him we had decided that the school should buy a bus.’

          ‘And you were the ringleader?’

          ‘I was elected as the spokesman, if that’s what you mean.’

          ‘So I suppose the headmaster just told you that there was no money, and a school bus was out of the question.’

          ‘Not at all. He said that the PF was a democratic institution, and it was good that we were coming up with our own ideas for improving the school. But the only problem was that there was no money. But he said he would appreciate our help in solving the problem. So he appointed us as the school’s Transport Committee, with the task of finding out the level of enthusiasm for a school bus, and if necessary to raise the money to buy one.’

          ‘But why were you so keen to get a bus? Or was it just a political gambit to show that the prefects had more ideas and ability than the headmaster?’

          ‘What an old cynic you are, Grandpa! Without a bus we had all sorts of problems. The local day-scholars had transport problems and most of them needed a school bus. But worst of all we had no bus for school trips. Our Debating Society couldn’t visit other schools for debating contests. We couldn’t go on educative trips to visit factories or mines or council chambers, let alone development projects. All our lessons were out of the textbooks, but we could never see anything in practice. With our own bus we would be able to take better control over our own curriculum, and find out how the world really works!’

          ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘And did you persuade the other students and their parents that the school needed a bus? Did you manage to collect the money?’

          ‘Oh yes. We launched an enormously successful Christmas campaign. We found that all the parents were very supportive. By the time we came back to school a couple of weeks ago we had collected rather more than K300,000, enough to buy a new 26 seater.’

          ‘So have you bought the bus?’

          ‘That’s where the problem came in,’ replied Khondwa sadly. ‘Immediately we got back to school Mr Mushololwa called the TC into his office and told us to hand over the money to him, since only he could legally buy a vehicle on behalf of the school.’

          ‘I suppose that was true enough.’

          ‘But then he said that buying a bus was merely a recommendation to him, and he would have to put this recommendation to the school’s board of governors, bearing in mind that the school also had other transport problems.’

          ‘So what did you say to that?’

          ‘We said that all of the boys and their parents would be very annoyed if they heard that their demand for a bus was not to be respected, and if all the money we had collected was used for something else. But he told us that according to the terms of reference of the TC, the demand for a bus was a only recommendation to him personally, and if members of the TC leaked their recommendation to other students then this would be a breach of their loyalty to the headmaster, warranting instant expulsion.’

          ‘So did anyone on the TC blab?’

          ‘We were all too scared,’ admitted Khondwa.

          ‘How pathetic,’ I sneered.

          ‘Everything was quiet for about a week,’ continued Khondwa. ‘Then the rumour went round that the headmaster had been given the money, but was refusing to buy the bus.’

          ‘Then there was a riot?’

          ‘Still everything remained quiet. Then two days later, the headmaster drove into the school in his new Mercedes E250. That same night a group of boys gently rolled the car onto its side, and put a match to the fuel line. It lit up the sky something marvelous!’

          ‘So you’ve been expelled!’

          ‘The entire school has been expelled! Now we all have to apply for re-admission.’

          ‘Very good,’ I laughed. ‘Now I see you were right, the school bus has improved your understanding of how the world really works! I always knew that the PF would give you a good education!’

A Stiff Sweet Potato for President!

A Stiff Sweet Potato for President?

Is Father Bwalya right to say that Sata will not take advice the way a sweet potato will not bend without breaking?...