Political gambling rages on…
AS Lazzo hurried down a slope towards the watering hole, he stumbled on a skirmish.
An unsuspecting member of the hood was wearing a colourful t-shirt with the party’s name inscribed on it.
Criss-crossing the narrow footpath, a duo approaching the opposite direction confronted their seemingly naive victim.
“Who gave you this t-shirt?,” the other man asked the wearer of the garment with a somewhat aggressive tone.
The other man timidly replied that he had been given by his boss at his place of work.
As Lazzo arrived on the spot, he tried to mitigate the aggression by advising:”But by wearing this t-shirt, the young man is in fact campaigning for you!”.
The plea fell on deaf ears as the intimidation of the t-shirt wearer continued. “No, I know this man. He is a member of the Mwatipeza Political Party (MPP) and now he is masquerading as one of us!,” retorted the probing political activist.
The reviled man saw the need to be cooperative rather than heighten resistance because he had lived here long enough to know the beginning and the end of strife.
The intimidator who was accompanied by a few friends told the ‘offending wearer’ of the t-shirt to accompany them.
They made it clear that they would give him a different shirt to wear while he surrenders the t-shirt he was putting on.
At this point, Lazzo thought the matter had crossed the Rubicon and was leading to the ‘daggers drawn’ stage. This means the phase at which ‘daggers are drawn’. A dagger is like a sword!
He turned another bend and met another procession of women retreating from some meeting in the hood.
They were clad in another set of t-shirts with a head-and- shoulder portrait of their leader emblazzoned on it.
Lazzo’s mentor made an observation as they crossed a newly constructed concrete drainage:
“Of all these t-shirts that have come our way, I noticed that the controversial one has not yet come into sight,” he said as they hurried on towards the watering hole,”In fact, Lazzo, you cannot move a few metres and your t-shirt would be torn to shreds! You must be very courageous to wear that one especially near the marketplace,” he concluded as their journey became more brisk.
The walked at faster pace like a pair hurrying towards a wedding feast and hoping to strike while the iron was hot but only this time it was the exact opposite of bells ringing.
If they delayed, they would find all the chilled lager bottles snapped up!
The implication was that it would take another one hour for the fridge to be replenished during which time patrons would feast on somewhat lukewarm drinks…
Knowing Zambians, none hardcore imbibers ever relished the lukewarm drink but across the border to the east of the frontier.
The slantforehead man who hailed from there once explained wondering what influenced local people to fervently strive for ‘cold lager’!
He did not know whether it was the chilling sensation a typical patron experienced as this liquid slithered down their intestines or the theory that the colder the beer, the more potent!
In the eastern frontier which proved humid, many patrons preferred lukewarm drinks which they described as ‘ya moto’and in Swahili meant ‘lukewarm’ while the opposite was called ‘ya baridi’ (very cold).
Arriving at the watering hole, Lazzo and his mentor were just in time to see a few ‘chitenge cloths’ adorned by some women and a few men trying to be miscellaneous as they made an occasional typical head dress knots.
Lazzo noticed that the electioneering euphoria had brought about a new breed of gamblers.
They were what English folks may describe as ‘folks sitting on the fence’ when they were in fact pretenders and were being very sly about the whole business of choice!
In the corner of the watering hole was a group of women who had just attended a meeting in the hood.
They appeared contented and it was like the man seated at the far end of the counter was at the helm of distribution business.
At the click of a finger, the drinks and sachets of opaque brew headed towards the predominantly female gathering.
But one distraught female activist seemed ‘dissatisfied’ with the way ‘rewards’ had been dished out’ as she put on a somewhat displeased facial expression as a friend explained to her what had happened.
The ‘rewards’ had been entrusted to the man who was now calling the shots while seated and leaning on the counter with one elbow while the other one rested on his thigh.
One of the ‘satisfied’ women was heard to declared that she would go flat out to join any group that gave her ‘rewards’ a ‘chitenge’ (a piece of printed cotton cloth often worn to cover a short skirt or ordinary dress) cloth and t-shirt.
But still, many appeared sceptical about wearing a particular colour which was not very popular in the hood. Wearing this one opened one to ridicule and possible hostility.
Perhaps, this rare colour was popular elsewhere but not in the hood and one had to devise a way to go about with it peacefully…
But the whole scenario had somehow become a ‘cat-and-mouse’ affair.
Lazzo also observed that with the advent of gender parity, it was getting tricky to talk down to the female species about who to support and what to wear!
However, he had noticed that the voter’s provisional register recorded more than average female voters in various constituencies countrywide!
Lazzo also saw that for last one hour, women some of whom had their ‘chitenge’ cloths tucked away in their handbags but having a field day with alcoholicdrinks.
It was evident that their spouses were in the dark about their wheareabouts in the hood.
It was getting dark and a new turn of nocturnal life was emerging as various lights flickered on elsewhere in the city sending a message of a merry-go-round evening.
By the time Lazzo looked up and made a realisation, the watering hole was becoming depleted of patronage as the usual curtains-down syndrome took effect.