COLUMN: FROM TABORA WITH LOVE. Heroics, my son, are done without eggs

DAR ES SALAAM: DEAR Nephew Milambo,

Greetings to you, my dear nephew, from this confused and noisy city of Dar es Salaam, where buildings grow faster than trees, people walk as if they are late for meetings they themselves scheduled, and everybody seems to know where they are going even when they have absolutely no idea where they are going.

I greet you in the name of all our great Nyamwezi ancestors, led by the valiant and fearless Chief Mirambo, whose very name was enough to make warriors check whether their spears were still properly tied to their waists. May the spirits of our ancestors continue to watch over you there in our beloved village of Ukumbisiganga, where the soil still remembers the footsteps of our forefathers and the evening breeze still carries stories that the city people have long forgotten.

How are you, my dear nephew? I hope you are doing well and that life in Ukumbisiganga is treating you kindly.

Here in the confused city, we are all doing fine. Your aunt sends her warm greetings to you, and little Neema also sends her greetings. She has been growing quickly and has developed the habit of asking questions that sometimes make adults wish they had remained children.

Your aunt is fine, although I must confess that she has recently been asking me questions about our livestock business with the seriousness of a parliamentary committee investigating missing funds.

And, speaking of livestock, my dear nephew, a few days ago, we received an order from town for twenty trays of eggs.

You know very well that eggs are not like sacks of maize. You cannot throw them onto the back of a motorcycle and tell them to hold on tightly until they reach their destination.

Eggs require respect. They require balance. They require careful handling. Above all, they require a rider who understands that the road is not a circus.

We had bought a motorcycle specifically to help with deliveries. It was supposed to make our work easier. Instead of hiring transport every time a customer ordered eggs, our young man could simply load the trays carefully and deliver them to town.

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Everything seemed straightforward, and the young man was given one simple instruction by your aunt: “Take these eggs to town carefully.”

I thought that was perhaps the easiest instruction a human being could receive.

Even a chicken, if properly trained, could probably understand such instructions.

But, my dear son, there are moments in life when you discover that simplicity is not always the same thing as safety.

The young man set off on the motorcycle with all twenty trays of eggs.

According to people who witnessed what happened, everything was going normally at first. The motorcycle was moving along the road, carrying its precious cargo towards town.

Then, for reasons known only to the young man and perhaps to the ancestors who were watching from a distance, he started doing some unnecessary antics on the road.

You know the kind of behaviour I mean.

Perhaps he wanted to show that he was a professional rider.

Perhaps he had watched too many motorcycle stunts.

Perhaps he suddenly imagined himself participating in a national motorcycle championship.

Or perhaps, as your grandmother used to say, his brain temporarily travelled ahead of his body and forgot to come back.

Whatever the reason, the young man started behaving foolishly with the motorcycle, and then disaster arrived.

The motorcycle lost control. The young man and the motorcycle left the road.

And, with the elegance of a bird that has forgotten how to fly, they landed in a roadside trench.

Now, my dear nephew, imagine twenty trays of eggs travelling together on a motorcycle.

Imagine the motorcycle suddenly flying into a trench.

Imagine what happens when hundreds of fragile eggs meet the hard reality of gravity.

There was no miracle, my dear nephew.

The beautiful trays that had left our place carrying twenty orders of hope arrived at the trench as a collection of broken shells and yellow memories.

When we received the news, I initially refused to believe it.

I asked, “How many trays were broken?”

The person reporting the incident looked at me with the sorrowful expression of someone delivering news of a family tragedy when I asked him how many trays of eggs we had lost.

“All twenty.”

You know how many eggs that represents. And the customer in town was still waiting, so the order had to be fulfilled.

The customer does not want explanations about motorcycles, trenches, stunts or young men whose brains occasionally take holidays.

So, we had no choice my dear son, we prepared another consignment, loaded another batch of eggs and arranged for them to be delivered to town.

This time, however, we treated the delivery like a military operation.

Meanwhile, the young man survived the accident, although he sustained some injuries. Thankfully, his injuries were not life-threatening.

And that is the most important thing.

My dear nephew, as angry as we were about the destroyed eggs, human life is worth far more than twenty trays of eggs.

We were therefore relieved that he was alive and that his injuries were not serious.

But, naturally, we also had to sit him down and explain something that I believe even Chief Mirambo would have understood, that courage is not the same thing as foolishness.

A brave warrior knows when to fight.

A wise rider knows when to slow down.

I told him that the motorcycle was bought to help the business, not to entertain people on the road.

I also told him that every business depends on responsibility. When someone gives you goods to deliver, you are temporarily carrying more than the goods themselves. You are carrying the trust of the person who gave them to you.

If you are carrying eggs, you are carrying someone’s money.

If you are carrying someone’s money, you are carrying their livelihood.

And if you are carrying their livelihood, you must behave as though your own ancestors are sitting behind you, watching every decision you make.

I am sure that if Chief Mirambo had been sitting behind that young man on the motorcycle, he would not have needed to shout.

One stern look from the great chief would probably have been enough to make the rider slow down immediately.

Anyway, my dear nephew, the whole incident has taught us another lesson about life in this confused city.

Sometimes we think we have solved a problem simply because we have bought equipment to solve it.

We bought the motorcycle so that deliveries would become easier.

Please tell our relatives in the village that we are all fine.

Tell them that your aunt sends her greetings.

And you, my dear nephew, continue to take care of yourself.

May the spirits of our Nyamwezi ancestors, led by the mighty Chief Mirambo, continue watching over you, protecting our beloved Ukumbisiganga and guiding all of us through the strange adventures of life.

Give my greetings to everyone at home.