The journey between Lusaka and Chipata was a long one, but the road was better than expected and our progress was good. At lunchtime we pulled off the main road at the sleepy little town of Sheswe. We were hungry. Traditional mud houses on one side of the street, a petrol station and row of shops on the other, a bakers proudly, and interestingly, pronouncing itself as ‘al halal’ beside a small general store and a couple of doubtful looking take-aways. Stepping from the car we greeted the small group of smiling, barefooted children who looked on curiously as we crossed towards the shops.
A determined, rather manic looking middle-aged man approached us, torn trousers and tea shirt, a white plastic banding strap (the type used around cardboard boxes containing hoovers and microwaves) hung incongruously around his neck. He carried a small wooden box from which he took a crumpled and dirty brown banknote. This he held towards us, repeating words we couldn’t understand. We continued across the street. The man persisted, his manner agitated. We hurried on.
The take aways’ wares had been taken, so we moved along the row of shops to the general store. As we entered, the man with the banding hesitated to follow. The children stood open mouthed eyeing the deep fried doughnuts, each covered in bright pink icing as we decided what to buy. I watched as another customer entered. He handed a brown banknote to the shop keeper, who in turn handed back a single cigarette from an open packet on the counter. In that moment I understood.
I turned just as the banded man entered the shop, desperation in his eyes. In one hand a match box held high, jabbed frantically with the index finger of his other. All in a second the man moved towards us, the shopkeeper shouted harshly, a smartly uniformed security guard rushed in, raising a stick four feet long and as round as your thumb, above his head. The man continued his desperate gesticulations, but the raised stick was no idle threat. The banded man tried to turn, tried to jump ahead of the blow, but the stick came down with all the guards might, a terrible crack against the desperate man’s thigh, a crack which seemed to echo around the tiled shop interior. The shop keeper smiled, laughed nervously…
As the children ate their doughnuts I stood beside the petrol pump attendant as he finished filling the tank. It started to rain, all who were outside rushed inside, for rain can be heavy in Zambia. Quickly I counted out the bank notes and jumped back into the car. The rain was torrential now. I hit the wipers as I pulled away. Fifty feet ahead, stood the man with the band, drenched and motionless, the small wooden box in the mud at his feet. He starred directly at me. But there was no more determination, no wildness, no more desperation, nothing but a helpless resignation. I drove on.
Over Christmas we stayed at Flatdogs Camp by South Luangwe National Park. It’s a remarkable place where elephants wander under your balcony and hippos cross your path as you walk back from the bar. On Christmas eve all the local lodges join together for a carol service in the bush. Two hundred lodge guests sipping wine, eating canapés and singing carols along with the fabulous staff choir under the spreading branches of an enormous sausage-fruit tree. Although we sang heartedly about them, contrary to your experience, our frost was not cruel and the mid winter not so deep! As we drove back to the lodge, Eilidh looked at me through tired eyes. “Dad” she said “Why did that soldier hit that man?”…..
On the Sunday after New Year we battered down the tarmac from Kasane to Maun, past huge solitary elephants and wonderfully graceful giraffes. We would have stopped each time but we had time and distance to make up. All went well until slowing to pass a small heard of cattle, a suicidal cow turned and jumped in front of the car. Swerving and braking hard we managed to avoid the beast but a loud crack and the brakes failed completely. Earlier heavy driving in Choebe National Park had taken its toll and a damaged brake hose had given way. It could have been a lot worse. Just two hundred yards along the road was a lay by, in which I could safely view the damage. There would be no Hobbett bodge job here! We limped along to the next village, Gweta, just five miles and where we knew from the map that there would be a petrol station, the only one for a hundred more. Trying to maintain our spirits and knowing that spare parts can take days, we joked that what we needed was a Mr JLB Matakoni, the respectable owner of Speedy Motors in the wonderful television series The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
Arriving at Gweta I went into the petrol station shop. There were plenty cans of beans, packets of Maze flour, mops and buckets but nothing in the way of spare parts. I stood by the counter looking at the cans of motor oil. A middle aged man stood chatting to the cashier. He opened a sachet of indigestion powders which he poured into his mouth and washed down with a can of coke. “Hello Ra” he greeted me in the traditional way. “How are you?” “I am well, thank you Ra” I said returning the greeting “but I am afraid my car is not. Would you know if I could find a mechanic in Gweta, Ra?” “But Ra” he responded, the car’s life is not your life. Provided your life is good, that is all that matters.” “I think you are right, Ra” I said. The man smiled. “And besides” he said “I am a mechanic”
In less than an hour we were on our way, Mitre turned out to be a fine mechanic indeed and his young son an avid apprentice. From his own scrapyard of crashed and abandoned cars, Mitre found just the right part and charged a very fair price indeed. As we drove away we looked at each other and laughed….
Alan
No comments:
Post a Comment