Yesterday, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I thought, until a strong wind blew in a gecko from my window sill and I said to myself, alright, is this my cue to move?
Today, I woke up early like any productive Zambian but failed dismally to produce anything tangible. I spent the better part of my day driving around the city with little or no success.
First, it was my quest to get to the little shoprite store in Chilenje where I'd hoped to grab some detergents and soap but lo and behold, I found an entire mass of what I estimated could be 10,000 human bodies squashed in the hot little store buying God knows what! And all I had wanted was a bar of chick, a box of boom and the ever effective carbolic lifebuoy
I quickly left Chilenje in the hope of dashing into multi choice - Kabulonga to pay for my DSTV subscription which, by the way, I last paid for exactly a year ago! And here I was, debating the value of parting with my hard earned 350 pin on a couple of B rated movie channels. I got to 'Multi-Choice' to find hoards of people queuing up to pay for subscription or purchase some decoder on the current Christmas promotion that this ineffective but exorbitant company is running.
I made a quick u-turn and wondered what the fuss was all about... why all these queues? I asked myself? Well, it's Christmas eve, I thought, but what the hell? Must people over stretch their already stretched budgets to create some semblance of a blissful illusion on a day that falls only once a year?
Like any Zambian, I appreciate the symbolic meaning of Christmas, seriously, I do. I do not claim any authority on the christian faith, but I do not think Christ would appreciate such unending excesses in a nation that is already gripped in a quagmire of poverty. What a memorial!!
But then again, Zambians are famed for such excesses!! If only we could turn up for voting in such droves and keep as much as we spend in our savers accounts - maybe we could be a prosperous nation one day! But what do we do? we shop in Game Stores, Shoprite, Spar etc (owned by South Africans), Melissa ( Greeks) drink at Portico (Italians) Times Cafe, 101 (Greeks) Rhapsody's, O'Hagans (South Africans) ... need I say more??
Tonight, am going to Mayela Bar in Kalingalinga, at least it's owned and managed by Zambians! I will be sipping on my Mosi (well, kinda brewed in Zambia) and I will be grooving to Shansha, Chipute... Zambian made...
I guess Zambianisation gets the better of me all the time! And despite all the nonsense, I love my country. Tomorrow morning, I will kill (literally) my hangover with Nshima with pupwe and village chicken. Location - Kabwata Market!!
Happy Holidays
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