In my last article, I told you about the “Mchaka Mchaka” system of political education. I don’t give a damn what it is called, but all I know is that I was compelled to attend it. No regrets whatsoever! As the English say, “pressure makes diamonds,” you know very well that, some of us are made up of real solid substances, or else, how would we have survived what we survived? These days, it is common to hear children begging their parents for “Twegerane” to move from Kacyiru Iposita to King Fisal Hospital junction! During our time, we used to “Footsubitsh” thirty kilometres from the village to town, then another thirty back home! With such vast “knowledge” of hard knocks, not even the feared “Mchaka Mchaka” would dampen our spirits. The course was conducted in an environment similar to our home; we felt at home. We quickly rose through the ranks because of our aptitude to adjust. I was made an “Afande” in a matter of days for the reason that I had constructed the best “mama ingia pole” (madam enter carefully); a term used to describe the huts in which we lived. Others simply called them “manyatas” which term they borrowed from the nomadic Karamajong and Masai cattle keepers. Since some of us had perfected the art of “kuragira” (grazing), we used to construct the ‘manyatas’ in the wilderness to protect us from the harsh pangs of nature like rain and sunshine. All this was many years back and the “comrades” who used to address me as “Afande” were a very rare breed as we had all dispersed and each and every one of us went his or her own way. Those days, we used to drink different “tribes” of beers from bottles, cans and even sachets, or may I call it guzzling them as if the BRALIRWAs of this world were going to close and there would be no more brewing! Nearly true to that line of thinking, many “tribes” of those beers have disappeared from the shelves of the Rwandan bars, and I may be right if I call them “endangered species.” By the way, many of these beers needed protection from becoming extinct but the authorities forgot that! Today, the likes of Holstein Bock, Castle, ah! what else? I can’t even remember them yet I used to empty dozens of bottles and cans. What a poor memory I’m developing! It’s not my fault anyway; just blame those who led to their extinction.Fridays were like Christmas in Kigali and the entire country. People drank themselves off until their pockets fell empty to the dark night of sleep, only to give birth to a new day! Those are the days, my host, my Gafa (Gafaranga) would take me a long way to most of the popular Kigali night spots; I was a sort of a “scavenger” on him. What else would I have done? I was a fresher in Kigali with no means of minting these elusive pieces of paper you call “AMAFARANGA Y’URwanda.” As time turned around, I acquired my own natural instincts to survive and buy my own beers. As we grew smart and learnt how to survive, others were also plotting on how to survive on us. Such is the game of survival where a rabbit eats grass and in turn, the dog may eat the rabbit, then a leopard also eats the dog etc. To cut the long story short, one evening as Gafa and I were busy doing justice to the contents of some green cans from the Deutschland, a guy approached us and profusely hugged me and began calling me “Afande.” He told me of how he admired my courage in the battle field and that he was in my coy (company) for several weeks. He praised me so much that, every body around began looking at me as if I was the bravest soldier south of the Sahara and north of the Limpompo. With this so called friend, the guys around decided that, booze would be on them for as long as “Afande” chose to drink. We really tanked and tanked, I did not want to question the “stranger’s tale,” lest the truth would be known and we would be thrown out of the pub! I left pie as pie (as we used to say in mathematics) and the rich guys of Kigali were busy emptying their pockets just to befriend “Afande.” When I had done enough justice to the bottles, I decided to call it a night and excused myself so that, when the real “Afandes” came, I would not be put to task. That was an eye opener; the guy had spotted the loaded guys and decided to use me a perfect stranger to ‘detooth’ them. The days and weeks that followed, I decided to steer clear of that pub, in fear of the guy re-appearing to use me for his own ends. Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm
