Diaspoman: Why I think Mfashumwana had disappeared

It’s good to have our good old friend back! I am talking about the one and only real villager from Mfashumwana. This fellow has been away for a very long time – and the last time I sat with him, it was at a drinking joint somewhere in Kimironko. We were not alone. We had companions who, we thought, could one time be called our wives. But I think what ensued some minutes later caused Mfashumwana to disappear in thin air. Apparently, we had come across real guzzlers of real booze! This implied that our poor pockets were going to suffer at the hands of our future housemates. Prior to this meeting, we had been used to ladies who loved a bottle of Fanta. One would ask for a Fanta called Koka, while the other would order for Fanta called “ Orange ”. As to me, I always got confused as to why they referred to Koka as Fanta instead of the good old Atlanta based Coca Cola! Anyways, this time around we were in for hot soup. We were sitting with the types of ladies who beckon the waiter and place an order. Instead of ordering for a bottle of mineral water or indeed koka ikonje, the ladies proceed to spell out a name of a drink which sounds very Russian. In the middle of her sentence, you may pick out words such as; cocktails, Beringer Blass, Wolf Blass, Yellowglen, Jamiesons Run, Castello di Gabbiano and many more different tribes. By the time she is through with her mini speech, you find yourself sweating profusely. You are not sweating due to hot temperatures. You would be sweating due to a severe pang of panic as a result of your weeping pockets. This is the type of ladies that Mfashumwana and I happened to hook up with at Kimironko. But since God was on our side, he redeemed us from trouble. The redeemer was in form of the waiter. After listening to those Greek words from the ladies, the waiter proceeded to give these following wise words; “Madams, we do not sell such drinks here.” Wow, as we rubbed our hands in glee, the ladies came up with more demands. This time, they turned their attention to some nosh. Instead of asking for a stick of brochette and chips, the ladies looked up at the waiter and proceeded to ask this question; “Would you please bring us a plate of rice and prickles, some dried udon noodles plus noodle broth? Also add a deep fried pan with chicken in Basil cream sauce.” Now at this point, I could gauge Mfasha’s expression on his face. I could immediately tell that he was on the verge of wetting his pants. Once again, our good old waiter eyed the ladies in a fashion to suggest that they had come from another planet! At this point, he politely told them to go try elsewhere as they never served such dishes. “Madam, we serve chips and fish and sometimes ubugali”. The ladies looked at the waiter in a disgusted manner and proceed to the next sensible thing that anyone would do. They picked up their bags and walked out on us citing that they had never seen worse villagers than the two of us. It was from that moment that I lost touch with Mfasumwana – good to have you back bwana Villager! diaspoman@yahoo.com