Not so simple to me

With the exchange rate for the Kwacha being volatile as it has been for a while, DSTV subscription prices have been sky rocketing and that means it is time to down grade on the bouquet option, consequently having access to fewer channel options. On the spin side, it means I have more time on my laptop to do what I love the most–writing!

Unfortunately, the effects of a weaker Kwacha have been far greater than just restricting my TV choice options but also restricted my internet bundle purchases for my chrome book. That means I can’t log onto the internet and update my Blogsite at will. So I have taken to exercising as yet another activity to keep me preoccupied when I am not working. 

The first thing I did was go and buy two skipping ropes, one for my wife and the other being mine. The first day we set about skipping, my wife was surprised to learn that it is one activity I never really learned while growing up.

She was surprised because for all she knows, I am a fairly ‘sporty guy’ who has played different games. As a matter of fact, I am reasonably competitive at volleyball, table tennis, lawn tennis, badminton and even basketball. In addition, I have on many occasions played other games like football and squash even though I never developed any skill of note at both. In a nut shell, I seem like a sports enthusiast hence nobody would have expected that the one thing I can’t do is use a skipping rope.

The truth though is that as simple as skipping might be or seem to be, I just never learned how to do it. Moreover, skipping is not the only thing that eluded my learning process. I was shocked recently when I listened to my 5 year old son whistling to a popular Airtel money advert that was playing on TV. I was surprised by the act because I myself have never learned how to whistle. How is it possible that a fully grown up man cannot be able to make any meaningful sound when whistling but a five year old can do it with relative ease? To escape the ridicule of friends, I have always easily brushed it aside by saying that whistling is for cattle herders and I have never been one.

The excuse is as lame as any that you will hear. The truth is simply I just never put enough effort to learn. The same way I never tried to learn how to use a skipping rope is the same way the virtuosity for whistling eluded me. One other thing that I’d also say that I never really grasped is the technique to execute any meaningful swimming. In my younger days I tried learning how to swim but all my effort was to no avail as to date I cannot claim to be a swimmer even by the lowest standards. My greatest attempt at swimming can only see me on the shallow side of a swimming pool.

However, my younger days were full of adventure and swimming is one adventure I once embarked on. My memories go back to the late 1980’s before I was even a first grader. Mulamba river which flows into Mongu town is a tributary of the great Zambezi river and has always been a hive of activity since I can remember. In the rain season when the Barotse flood plains are full with water, the banks of Mulamba tributary burst and there are larger areas for different kinds of activity other than the main harbor. So many people, children included find spots for many activities among which is swimming.

Mulamba, with maunyamo settlement now a permanent feature of the habour 

Against the wishes of parents and elders we would sneak out for an afternoon of swimming at the Mulamba harbor. I remember sneaking to the harbor on quite a lot of occasions but on all those times I quite never mastered the technique for swimming. On a sad and regrettable note, one afternoon’s visit to Mulamba harbor proved costly as one of our friends drowned and died there and then.

As the naive kids that we were, we ran back home and none of us said anything to older people, another costly mistake as reporting early enough could have helped save our friend. It was only later in the evening when one boy we called Sigumbuli (still can’t recall if that had been his real name or nick name as Sigumbuli means container), could not hold it and mentioned to the elderly what had happened. What followed were massive police interrogations for 5,6 & 7 year olds while a search for the body of our deceased friend was started at the harbor. To this day there have been times when I look back and wonder what could have been of our friend if he were alive today. It was the first time in my life that death came close to home.

It could be the episode at the harbor at such a young age that subconsciously engraved in me how the implications of me swimming could be dangerous and life threatening, consequently I never ever learned how to do it to this day. The incident at Mulamba harbor was a very sad episode in my growing up and despite being quite young, the memories of that day remain very vivid in my mind.

Skipping, whistling and swimming are activities I have mentioned above that I find challenging, but these are not the only tasks I execute with utmost difficulty. My wife couldn’t keep herself from laughing following my reaction when one day as we were driving to our new home we found a snake crossing the road. My first instinct was to drive over it and when I had passed, I made a u-turn and as I came back, I found the snake had also turned and was now going the other direction and I drove over it once more. When I made another u-turn to face the direction of home again, this time the snake was not in sight.

We drove home believing it had gone into the shrubs on the side of the road. When we got home and I needed to disembark from the car to open the gate, my wife asked me if really the snake had gone into the shrubs to which I answered in the affirmative. 
“What if it had just wriggled itself in the rim as the tyre rolled over it and it is now injured but underneath the car?” she had asked.

After that question, I was immediately gripped with fear and even though that theory seemed most unlikely to me the possibility was always existent. To get out of the car to open the gate, I had to jump a meter away and thoroughly inspect underneath the automobile. That episode sparked a teasing laughter from my wife who questioned how I would protect my household if a snake happened to stray into our premises when as a man of the house I had exhibited such kind of fear towards the reptile while I was in the comfort of a moving automobile.

In short, I am a grown-up man with a great fear of snakes. Americans would refer to me as a grown-ass man. While growing up, I lived in places where snake-human conflict was always inevitable. If one lives in such areas where snakes are bound to every now and then leave their confines in the shrubs and cross borders into human territory in the housing zones, then the art and courage to kill snakes must be acquired. In such housing areas survival means being able to strike first before a snake gets close enough to release its full wrath through its mighty venom.  

Without any known policy on snakes by Zambia Wildlife Authority, most of the time snakes are mercilessly killed in the hope of protecting human life. When I lived in Mt. Makulu, there were many occasions when we would be relaxing home and suddenly a snake squims its way into the housing perimeter and we had to scamper for safety or to find sticks stones or whatever weapons to try and eliminate the trespassing serpent. The same was the case when I lived in Mongu at St John’s secondary school teacher’s compound.

Despite the many encounters I’ve had with snakes, I do not remember ever being able to personally kill a single snake. I may have been among a group that killed a snake here and there, but never been the one to deliver the last blow that killed a snake. Snakes just really freak me and I try to keep my distance. I even freak out at snakes on TV even though the TV screen remains the nearest I can ever willingly get to a snake. On TV, I can even freak out when I watch one of those national geographic channel guys who want to treat snakes like pets.

Many a time these national geographic guys will give statistics of how most unlikely it is that a snake would attack humans. I don’t believe them most of the times even though I stay in front of the ‘tele’ and watch on. Could it be possibly true that there is no recorded case of an Anaconda swallowing a human? Or that pythons have never swallowed a grown human or animal except for the smaller animals? ‘Playing’ with snakes may seem simple to most of these guys on national geographic but that won’t give me any motivation to get near a snake. 

I may not be in the most extreme bracket, but I am definitely Ophidiophobic. To me, snakes are creepy creatures and I have no business near one. They are just serpents. In fact the devil himself.

I keep my distance from snakes, I will not be in any close proximity as that's just one more thing that's not so simple to me.

Shock and Awe – Bad politics.

A three hour wait at O.R. Tambo International Airport, for a connection flight, has given me time to update my blog.

First thought that come to mind every-time one is at a foreign airport is comparing infrastructure to what we have back home at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (KKIA) in Lusaka.  We should have an airport with infrastructure at the level of O.R.Tambo. This would only be possible if my nation didn’t put resources on bye-elections. Politics – bad politics. 

An African country with average 8% GDP the last ten years must surely have such infrastructure or even better. This infrastructure at this airport! It doesn’t look anything like my home. They are doing something right. They may have problems in Parliament regarding the conduct of EFF MP’s but they are generally doing good politics and results do show.

Politics in general is ludicrous most of the time. But, as politics is about the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, it must be for the good of the people , thus must not be nonsensical in any way. It must be serious business. Zambian politics on the other hand doesn’t seem to be any business that is serious.

Take for instance the rise to stardom and fame of Alex Muliokela. He is not the only one. There is Cosmo Mumba too. I can fill a blog post just naming politicians I’d classify as those lacking seriousness. In my country this species of politicians is on the rise and they are thrust onto the limelight at the expense of serious political discourse. For more than 50 years Daniel Munkombwe had occupied one political position or another and when he was recently interviewed, he told the nation that he was in politics ‘to eat’. According to old Munkombwe, his political ideology was ‘politics of benefits’ and ‘the belly’.

Political actors in Zambia are definitely in a world of their own. You are better off observing Zambian politics from a distance as a means of comic relief. But this status quo shouldn’t be allowed to continue in perpetuity. Some things must change.

A UPND official in Lusaka’s Mtendere compound, Grayzer Matapa was attacked and killed in what was immediately believed to be a political attack. In the days prior to his death Grayzer had apparently expressed great fear for his life and property due to the hostile political environment he was living in since the UPND lost elections of the polls held on 20 January 2015.

If his death had truly been politically motivated, and executed by rival political officials, then this is the most barbaric kind of politics we will ever see. In a country that preaches and boasts to have a multi-party democracy, how can one be killed for espousing a different political ideology from another?  This is Boko Haram style of politics.

The killing of poor Grayzer came hardly a week after the beating of a Lusaka woman and her two children at Lusaka’s Soweto market for allegedly belonging to UPND. The woman whose husband was injured in a road accident and immediately catapulted to bread winner had apparently named one of her attackers as a PF Soweto branch member but immediately the PF party media spin doctors came to his defense and in turn accused UPND members of masquerading as PF and causing terror.

This is the part that irritates me the most. The part where these Zambian political players take us for fools. If someone who is beaten names a certain official as the person that beat them up, I believe it is up to that person to defend themselves at the police and not these counter accusations done by a third party. This is absurd. These politicians really must take us for fools. This is bad politics. If the Soweto market issue had been precisely dealt with, the Mtendere death would have certainly been avoided.

Sadly, Zambian politicians are not moved even by the death of a poor soul. On the burial day for poor Grayzer Matapa, the UPND cadres in their full wisdom chose to march around town with the casket of the deceased which action instantaneously attracted police attention. The police immediately tear-gassed the cadres/mourners who scampered in all directions and dropped the coffin which broke into pieces. A new coffin had to be bought and in the end the entire burial programme was a parody of a sending off of a beloved departed comrade. I don’t know what he really meant to them if all they could give him was a travesty of a sending off. Bad politic.

Dropping caskets at burials is slowly becoming the way of things though as recently the same had happened at the funeral of talented young Zambian musician, P-Jay. The only difference was that P-Jay’s body was not dropped after police fired tear gas canisters but as a result of over excited fans. As for the fracas that characterized the burial day of Grayzer Matapa, my opinion is that the biggest blame should go to the Police. Why tear gas mourners? In societies where people are serious about their politics, the officer who was in charge of that operation would have faced an inquiry.

To the best of my knowledge, no officer has been questioned for the actions of the police on that burial day. At least nothing has been announced to that effect. But it seems our politicians don’t care about the lives of the people they aspire to serve. What are they in politics for then, if not for the welfare of the people and society? In 2011, the PF stood on political platforms and condemned the MMD government under Rhupiah Banda for police action in Mongu where a group of youths were shot at and in the process losing two lives. The youths were short at by police following an aborted peaceful assembly to explain to mainly the youth, contents of the Barotse 1964 agreement.

During the reign of late President Michael Sata he was captured on state TV telling the army to go to western province to shoot at people allegedly forming a parallel army. I don’t know what intelligence the president got then, but he could have asked the army to quell such an uprising (if it existed) differently. But the instruction he gave were; “go to western province and deal with them. If they say eni sha… shoot, if they say fale… shoot”. This is a sheer lack of regard for human life by the ruling elite. Bad politics.

If you do this, you should be cast to one side as a clown, never to take any political center stage. Regrettably, then PF secretary general Wynter Kabimba appeared on ZNBC TV’s Sunday interview to defend those words. More bad politics. Today Mr Kabimba who is leader of the newest party in town, the rainbow Party, is being touted as the only party leader with a clear political ideology for his socialist policy. No way. This man must see the end of his political life unless he can apologise to the people for the arrogance and ineptness which he exhibited when he had political power.

Alas, today Wynter enjoys headlines everyday as propaganda for his political comeback concealed in socialist policy verbiage. Socialist, democrat, capitalist, or any other ideological inclinations, protection of life must come first. That is good politics. Politicians must prove to us that they will protect lives first before we think of giving them votes.

The current PF secretary general has also taken the position of defending everything even the wrong things. I don’t believe that this is the job of a secretary general as CEO of a political party. The best the current SG can do is disassociate the party from the violence and call upon the police to do an impartial job and deal with offenders regardless of their party affiliations. Defending wrong things never got anyone anywhere. Soon one will have to answer for those wrong things.

It is bad politics to come out and defend wrong things even when eye witnesses have named some or one of your members as having beaten a defenseless woman at Soweto market or wherever else. The nation knows that some bad seeds do exist in the PF, UPND, MMD and many other political parties so there is no ducking but when some outrageous crime is committed by the bad seeds, let them face the law. Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done too.

We know that half the time our politicians do experience some sort of ‘tongue-stroke’ condition and engage in loose talk but they should know that they will be held accountable not only for their actions but words too. Whatever it is that these political party CEOs are told to say and do on behalf of their ‘clubs’, whatever it is they call the jumble of ‘mouthfarts’ that come out as policy, they must learn to tame their tongues. We are not fools.

If they are going to govern oblivious of the people’s needs for improved social welfare and protection then they are just the same as Boko Haram. The same way Boko haram leaders have shown a total lack of regard for human life is the same way our politicians are allowing innocent lives to be lost – in the name of politics. Bad politics.

But they probably don’t know even just how to pronounce Boko Haram despite daily international news updates. At least that is what I make of one politician who struggles to say Boko Haram. She is on record as saying; “In the name of Islam – the Barako… Barako… Barako Oba… ah whatever, they will not abduct our children.”

Learn to do good politics and move the nation forward, or you may be taken to be the same as Barako Oba… Whatever! No. Not whatever, Ya’ll be just like BOKO HARAM.