“In a Case of Look Alike”

There are many times when we perceive wrongly or fail to perceive things totally. At one point in time, I had a near to look alike, this guy was attending the same secondary school with me; the only difference was that, he was a class or two bellow mine. As I would say, he was still a “dog” when I had already upgraded to another level. At St. Leo’s College, a senior one student was referred to as “embwa” (dog) a.k.a. LOBO. Word has it that, the name LOBO was derived from a film that the Brothers (Holy Ghost Brothers) had brought to school, in the film, there were several dogs but one was so lousy and amateurish that it always failed in all errands; that dog was called LOBO and from that moment on, the S1 students earned their name! As I was saying, the “look alike” was a Lobo and yet I wasn’t one! This guy known as Filipo was a real “tanker”, he always swallowed all types of liquors and ended up fighting. One evening, after he had too many drinks and having split one of the villagers’ head, he fled to school; the villagers came in pursuit, when they saw me, they began shouting that, “niiwe atutiire” (that’s the one who bashed us), within no time, the headmaster, Mr. Austin Mulengwa was on my case! I was saved by one teacher who had cut classes during the day and had decided to compensate in prep time! Eventually, when Filipo was apprehended, he could not defend himself in English because he did not speak English but a language similar to it! Talk of similarities, there is this talk that, in the olden days, during the reign of Francois Miterand, as the French president, there was a Francophone African minister that visited Paris on a state visit. While in France, the minister was hosted to a state banquet. There was plenty to eat and drink, French wines, snakes and ladders, frogs, etc. The guy ate and was completely satisfied. As is the culture, “nta nzoga zitagira ijambo” (no drinks without a word), the minister asked for “ijambo” (vote of thanks), his wish was granted. He rose up and began his speech, going through all the niceties he had had and how happy he and the home republic were for the hospitality accorded them by the French, blah, blah, blah! After he had finished his speech, the hosting French minister also stood up and gave a word of thanks to his African “Frenchman” counterpart and his entourage. The French minister affirmed the French’s commitment to the African nation and its people. He even declared that, there was no need to call them foreigners because, (in his own words), the African minister’s mother tongue was similar to French! Whereas the African minister thought he was speaking the French language, on their part, the French men thought he was speaking an African dialect and were amazed as to how much alike it was to the French language! Is this a case of mistake or look alike? Maybe so, maybe not. Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm