That was mean
Lusaka City
By Patrick Sikana
Have you ever found yourself at a road junction? Like that junction between Burma Road and Independence avenue in Lusaka, sitting in a ribbon of traffic that isn’t moving, and there is a car on your left that wants to come onto the road and you have an opportunity to let them in because it’s not like you are in a mighty hurry? It’s not like you are rushing to the Intensive Care Unit at UTH to donate a kidney to a child having his last gasp. You are really not in any hurry. You are probably just going to the office to reply to a few dull emails that you won’t even insert a smiley in. Just another lazy email that ends with ‘Kind Regards, Patrick.’ After that you will skim through those ones you’re cc’ed on and spend the rest of the day Facebooking.
Yet you refuse to let the car to your left join your lane. You inch forward and block them, then the traffic jams. So you sit there, in your car – which, by the way, doesn’t have tint – stewing in your selfishness and you can feel (and hear) them looking at you. Of course you obstinately refuse to turn and look back at them. They are now officially your nemesis, until the convoy moves again at least. So, you stare ahead. But the same way serial killers always go back to the scene of their crime in, what’s that TV show again, Crime and Investigation? You soon succumb to your ill manners and turn to look at the ugly result of your mean handiwork.
The motorist on your left turns out to be this ageing woman in thick spectacles driving some sad, tired, blue Datsun vannette. I mean, do they manufacture Datsun anymore? My former Headmaster at Mwanachilenga primary school (Mr. Peme) had one. But that was in the 70’s. Datsuns are like the polio of cars. Yet you blocked her. Maybe she works at a mission in Kasisi running an orphanage and she came to town to beg for funds to build a new kitchen for the growing number of orphans. Funds she didn’t even get. So on top of not getting funds she doesn’t get to join the road because you with your car registered BAD 246 refused to allow a poor old woman with no kitchen to join a road.
This is not even how you were raised by your mother. You were raised to do better, to say “please” and “thank you.” She said to clear the table after meals and to stand up and let older people sit in minibuses. Today you failed your mother and you failed the children of Kasisi. And you failed humanity. It’s a sad day.
Has that ever happened to you, though? When you do something you absolutely didn’t have to do? Well, it has happened to me many times. Or more truthfully, I have done it many times. But really, sometimes our reactions are uncalled for. Humanity would be so much better if we paused to think. Before you put someone in their place, try putting yourself in their place. Before giving someone a PIECE of your mind, remember you could just end up losing your PEACE of mind for nothing. A little courtesy goes a long way. Be a blessing to others. Blessings given out tend to multiply before they come back to you. Be a channel, not a resevoir.