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From the Horse’s Mouth
For weekend blues cannot be compared to the Monday drooze, so goes the booze saying. Coming from a weekend of merriment and blasts from the Lomwe welcome party and the scratch-rat turntable of Professor Longa, the multi award winning South African D.J, whistling and chanting to songs like ‘Jezebel” and ‘Lento’, I embarked on my morning marathon, negotiating dumpy short-cuts of Gulliver down to the bus stage in readiness for a rafter packing with the annoying fuel shortage.
After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, a maroon Toyota Hilux Surf 4×4 alighted from the opposite direction, and two passengers dropped of providing room to some of us to the comfort of this machine.
Something quickly hit my mind, the face of the driver; it was an obvious drunken familiar face which reminded me of the host of a morning breakfast show on the state owned radio station, the hoarse, husky voice that used to man the airwaves with satirical conjectures and innuendos.
Having won a few awards in the so to say recycled Entertainers of the Year show, he opted to contest for seat in parliament with the thought of being catapulted into the August House with the fame gained from the airwaves.
I banged the door shut having been the third person to get into the car, but suddenly “amakwana folo (4) kumeneko” (the back seat seats four), a husky voice shouted from the front. Unwillingly I opened the door making room for the fourth passenger to squeeze and pack us to the rafters. We embarked on our journey into Lilongwe Town. In the front the gentleman driver was accompanied by a nurse in the passenger’s seat dressed in the usual white gear from top to bottom. Their conversation seemed hearty as the nurse saved her mobile phone number into the gentleman’s I-Phone while exchanging sweet little nothings.
We proceeded on with our journey using the “Zalewa route” that connects to the Kaunda Road from Mchinji. In the background was playing the Zambian Yellow Man’s song ‘Mtima unasankha’, as we enjoyed riding in the comfy surf.
As we approached the Petroda filling station close o the area 9 flats speeding towards Crossroads roundabout, “titsikanawo Pa Petroda,” (I’ll get off at Petroda filling station), a man sitting on the far end sounded. At this moment I thought this gentleman driver was one of the rare generous men, a Good Samaritan from Area 25.
“Lipilani kaa” (pay then), sounded the gentleman in his native Chewa accent.
It was then that I concluded that the fuel scarcity hasn’t spared any soul, to the extent of prompting such men of high calibre to stoop so low as to turn their comfy private rides into public service charters in exchange for K100 notes.
Some simple mathematics was not adding up, we in the back seat paid up our fares whilst our fellow nurse passenger in the front seat never paid a penny. Lucky for her, she was in the front otherwise my concentration was on the badge protruding from her pointed breast; which bared her name. Secondly, the two in the front seemed to be in a totally world of convincing and smiling. “Could it be good friends on a mission else the start of a new fresher chinkhoswe” I wondered.
Though being a Monday morning, I enjoyed the environment of which I was privileged to have been in; I longed for this ride to go on and on but I had to get to my destination; Bwaila stage.
I requested to disembark whilst trying to decipher the name and face of this gentleman. As I dropped off the time on the dashboard clock registered 08:16 am, with pregnant curiosity of the comfy model my eyes reached for the registration number of this maroon 4×4 that was LA…. my eyes escorted the vehicle with now a clear mind and conscious of who this gentle was.
Yes, yes! He was really the one, the former radio presenter now Member of Parliament, yes it was him J…. K…….
A member of parliament who benefits MK100s from the constituents he represents under the pretext of fuel scarcity riding on the bandwagon of service. Yet with little knowledge of whom they have picked in their comfy.
These are such men whose motives clearly define greed of heart and soul, but also with libido for any skirt deemed vulnerable.
Such was my morning therapeutical ordeal as I had a life chance which I never dreamed of riding in a car of a member of parliament. But as I proceeded to my destination my focus was on the nurse in the front seat.
“Where did she drop off, and when will they meet again?” Loud thought boiling in a cauldron of a common rat’s mind.
