When I say that I have ambitions of running for president of this nation,
people think that it is the frothy liquid in my brain which is talking, but with the current financial situation of this country, I think time is nigh.
I cannot understand how a fellow spotting a bald head and a healthy potbelly like yours truly, and who happens to be the father of several children and a
husband of a warlike woman, can walk around with an empty wallet in the streets of Dar es Salaam.
I have all the reasons to believe that if it happened that I took over from Mama and become the main prefect of this glorious nation, then things will be very much different.
I imagine children being driven to kindergarten in flashy cars, bar maids owning several prime plots, and criminals retiring in disgrace because they have no reason to steal.
I also imagine getting rid of the hassle of getting your weary self home after a drinking spree with the boys, and instead of calling out for a bajaj to take you home, you just drink from the comfort of your house.
People will be drinking from their houses because I will make sure that my government enters into a handsome contract with beer companies in the country so that they can install into every household taps which produce clean, healthy beer.
I know this sounds like a pipe dream, and I have to agree with you, but the reason why my mind is running riot is because for several days now (actually almost a whole week!) my system has not tasted the frothy liquids from Ilala.
This, believe me, is not because I am a religious fellow who is heaven bound with a Bible the size of a briefcase, but it is simply because I am too broke to show my face in any decent bar, and the fact that the proprietor of my local watering hole in Manzese has denied me credit does not help any.
Mzee Zakayo, the owner and proprietor of Zakayo’s Pub in Manzese, has warned all his girls not to serve me with any kind of liquid until I cough up enough genuine money to pay for the amount of brown bottles I have swallowed on credit.
The mother of my small clan, mama Boyi, is making the situation worse at home, because I can see from her happy face that she is having a wonderful time watching me undergoing this torture of living with a dry throat (I can swear a few minutes ago dust spewed from my mouth when I coughed!).
“Baba Boyi, if you stop drinking for even one month, do you think that the gods of beer will be mad at you? There is plenty of water in the house, if you are too thirsty, you can help yourself to as many liters as your tummy can swallow,” she said one day with a very wicked smile on her face, because I know that she knows that seditious talk like that always makes the situation worse in my throat.
I called Jatello, my friend from the lake zone, who always comes in handy in situations like this, and the fellow swore upon his mother’s skirt that there is someone in uswahilini who has gone to a powerful
witchdoctor to ensure that money does not pass his way.
“Omera, it is exactly seven years to this day since I was broke like this, in fact I called my cousin Obama and he said that I should consult the elders, that is why I cannot believe that this is a natural calamity or coincidence. I strongly suspect that old man who moved into the next house last
week!” he said.
He however told me that if my throat was in critical condition, I should go over to his place because one of his cousins from USA brought him a bottle of wine which according to him, was 60 years old… “and still counting,” he told me.
I surrendered myself to the fellow, and we literally did justice to the bottle, and I can assure you fellows that the Americans can really brew lethal stuff, because after we swallowed the whole bottle, Jatello told me that we should go to a neighbouring bar where they were playing live music.
He told me that in his pocket he had only 5,000/-, but assured me that it was enough to buy several tots to irrigate our throats for several hours.
When we reached the bar, we found the music was lively, and when Jatello approached the band manager and requested for a song, I was right behind him, and when he told him that we want to sing the song, the liquid in my head gave me full support.
The first song was ‘Karubandika’, and we belted the tune as if we were the original composers of the song, and the shouts from the patrons urging us to repeat the song assured us of a flow of frothy liquids from then onwards.
They say that alcohol can make you become anyone you want to be, and in our case it made us believe that we were veteran musicians, and by the time we belted the tunes of ‘ukimuona mtu mzima akilia….’ by Msondo Ngoma, we actually shed a few genuine tears.
By the time I staggered home in the wee hours of morning, my throat was hoarse, and a few hours later, it was mama Boyi who unceremoniously woke me up after she found enough pieces of paper scribbled with telephone numbers with female names on them in my pocket.
One of the pieces of paper had a message “Kaka nimependa sauti yako na kitambi chako, please call me so that we can organise a private concert in my house!” This woman claimed that my voice and my beer belly drove her crazy, that is why she requested for a private function in her house.
I can still feel the impact of the frying pan on my bald head, and this is after apart from the pieces of paper (including toilet paper) with telephone numbers, she found traces of lipstick on my shirt!