Even if I am a terrorist, leave my tummy alone

There is an old Tanzanian saying, ‘Mgeni njoo mwenyeji apone’, which literally means that when a visitor comes to your home, the inhabitants of that home stand to gain from the visit.

Recently our country had a high profile visitor in the form of the US Vice-President, Kamala Harris and from what I have gathered, the country as a host nation reaped some major benefits from that visit.

Although in some cases the arrival of certain visitors tends to spell disaster to the hosts, like the family of my wife visiting my humble abode in Manzese, because when those guys troop in, it means there will be a serious shortage of almost everything, from food to bathing soap.

The arrival of the US bigwig in Tanzania will benefit the country economically, from what I have gathered, but to be honest, for me this visit saw me being treated like a veteran terrorist.

In the office we had been talking about the impending visit for days before the actual day, and it happens that in our office there is a fellow from the plains of Bukoba who shares the same name with the US dignitary.

That fellow is called Kamala, and being from that part of the country where they grow bananas as if they were told they will become extinct soon, he told us that the US bigwig happens to his long lost sister, telling us that before she visits the big white house in Magogoni called the State House, she was planning to go to Bukoba to see her relatives, which in this case includes him.

“I assure you guys, I just talked to her a few days ago and she vowed on our ancestor’s garments that there is no way she can visit Tanzania without going to Bukoba to enjoy our local bananas,” he was telling anyone who was interested to listen.

But the rantings of this Bukoba fellow and his long lost sister had nothing to do with the fact that I was frog marched by fellows who look like prize bulls simply because they suspected that I was a terrorist who was planning to assassinate the US second in command.

You see, the relative of the Bukoba fellow arrived in the country at night, and we were informed that the next day she was supposed to hold talks with the Head Prefect of our country, our beloved president Mama Samia, not that it meant anything to us.

That day a few hours before her massive plane landed on our soil, I had surrendered myself at a certain joint to irrigate my parched throat after a long day at work.

I was not worried of the time that I would head back home, because for several days my collection of metal which happens to be my car had been behaving like a respectable vehicle, so I knew that by the time I was through irrigating my throat, it would ferry me home without any major hitch.

By the time I was ready to leave, it was heading to midnight, so I entered the junk and started heading home, singing ancient Nyamwezi circumcision songs in a very loud voice.

The car was performing like a formula one vehicle, which impressed me as I stepped on the gas so that I could reach home before the Nyakiusa woman who happens to be wife could start looking for her greasy frying pan.

The empty road was beckoning as I shifted gears, and I was sailing smoothly before the car suddenly released a long, painful wail like a woman in the labor room before it coughed several times like an asthmatic patient and came to a sudden stop, smack in the middle of the road.

If there was a priest or a nun nearby, they would have been shocked beyond words because of the curses that were coming from my mouth at that particular moment.

I stayed in the car for several minutes trying to figure out what could be the problem, because to be honest most of the time that stupid car behaves like a spoiled last born child, throwing tantrums at any available moment.

I stepped out of the vehicle to try and look at the possibility of moving it to the side of the road, because all the efforts of trying to restart it failed, receiving only groaning noises from the engine like a fellow who was in great pain.

At that moment I was thankful that the road was not busy, but little did I know that the reason behind that is because the woman from the land of Michael Jackson was supposed to pass on that same at any moment.

I was standing by the side of the road fidgeting with my phone, trying to locate my long suffering mechanic so that he could tell me what the problem might be, when a massive car flashing red lights stopped right in front of me.

Two heavily built fellows wearing black suits and dark glasses jumped out and before I could yell ‘Mama Boyi!’, my feet left the ground as two hands lifted me like a cheap toy.

My mind told me that the way those chaps were dressed there was no way they could be thugs who wanted to rob me of my few belongings, but before my swimming mind could register on what was happening, I was thrown in the back of their vehicle.

One of them snatched my phone and started looking at it as if it was from another planet while the other fellow went through my pockets as if he was told I was hiding his wife’s phone number.

While all this was going on, the car was doing more than 100 miles per hour, while in the background I could hear the croaks we usually associate with police radio calls.

“Do you think it is a man or a woman? Because this tummy looks like she is a woman who is about to deliver twins,” one of the muscles told the other muscle, who looked at my bald head the way a priest looks at a prostitute.

The muscle on my left poked on my tummy with a heavy finger as if he was trying to figure out what I ate for lunch, before shouting at me and demanded that I should tell them why I wanted to assassinate the US Vice-President.

“Which organisation are you working for! Who sent you to assassinate Madam Vice-President Kamala Harris!” screamed the muscle on my right, and in my confusion, I told them that I left Kamala in the office.