Reflections on sunday: Wishing you quick recovery, President Mwanawasa!

I think we should celebrate false tidings sometimes, especially when they involve death. Last week such news sent shock waves through the African continent, when it was reported that the president of Zambia had succumbed to a brain haemorrhage. We heaved a collective sigh of relief when later it emerged that President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa was safe and sound. He is said to be in stable condition, only undergoing a few surgical corrections to his predicament. There is no doubt that he will come out prim and pretty, and Zambians will see last week’s episode as another sick joke. The sixty-year old president is no stranger to such jokes. Before he joined active politics, Levy Mwanawasa always courted controversy, as a lawyer in private practice. It is because of his activism and his knack for law, for instance, that one time he was known as “Mr. Injunction” or “Mr. Arrest Them”! When he joined politics, however, real trouble began to stalk him. Just after being named Vice-President of Zambia in 1991, he began to raise the rubble about corruption and mismanagement. On December 8, 1991, he was involved in a nasty road accident that left his aide dead and confined him to hospital for three months. From there, he earned the nickname “Mr. Cabbage”. To this day, if you go to the market and order “a fresh Mwanawasa” in Lusaka, the market vendors will obligingly offer a beautiful and healthy-green cabbage! Still, his peers could not rein him in, and he resumed his lone-ranger stance, resigning in 1994 as Vice-President to go back to his legal practice. When he came back into politics, it was to campaign for president and on January 1, 2002 he was sworn in as the third president of the Republic of Zambia. He is married with a son and a daughter from a previous wife, and four children with his second and current wife. Interestingly, First Lady Miriam Mwanawasa has been de-flocked by her Jehova’s Witness clergy for being active in politics! Let us all wish President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa quick recovery. Talking of Mwanawasa reminds me of “the nine lives of a cat”! Who gave this fluffy feline fellow nine lives? The Englishman has many queer inventions to his name, but I have never understood what gave him the odd notion that he could ascribe an extra number of lives to a cat. And the huge number of nine, at that! As you and I know, the ripest age that a cat can attain is only twenty years, twenty-five if really well minded. We also know that, cats used to live mostly in the wild, and that hardly any of them could outlive fifteen years outdoors. So, who in their right senses could think of nine lives, leave alone cats and dogs falling from heaven when it rained? But I’ve watched cats and am simply amazed at what they are capable of. If you think I am ‘cat-merised’, pick your favourite feline, climb to the top of Centenary House, and let her/him go. Forget about our beloved boxing legend, Muhammad Ali, and his “floating like a butterfly”! The graceful acrobat that the cat is, she/he will spread legs into an umbrella shape and elegantly glide down to the tarmac below, if she/he does not perch on top of a passing ‘yellow-line’ (commuter minibus taxi, ‘twegerane’). I’ve been told that as the cat falls, it goes through a series of manoeuvres to lessen the impact. Cats, it seems, have an instinct for physics. As they fall from heights, they re-adjust their heads, backs, legs and tails to create an amazingly soft landing. That, however, is no reason to let your cat jump off the garden fence, for it will come back to the house limping, bruised or fractured because of a badly timed fall! And that’s not a paradox. When they fall short distances, cats have no time for those gymnastic manoeuvrings that enable them to land on their soft paws. The distance, I’m told, is crucial. Too much (twelve floors and above!) and the cat will splat, just as we non-feline mortals would; too little and the cat doesn’t have time to correct itself. For its grace and agility, therefore, the cat, more than any other animal, has colonised the English language idioms and idiomatic expressions. So, there is a cat among the pigeons (disturbance), cat and dog life (life of arguments), a cat burglar (a skilful thief) and if a cat has got your tongue, it means you are not speaking when you are expected to. A cat nap is a shorter nap than you’d usually take during the day, a cat’s lick is a quick wash and when you are in a cat’s pyjamas, or wearing a cat’s whiskers, it means you are in excellent condition! As any one would tell you, however, every language’s ubiquitous cat’s expression is “the cat and mouse game”, to mean one party deliberately taunting another. You may remember the expression in the classic example of President Micombero of Burundi (in office from 1966 to 1976) and his minister. Frustrated by his president for not getting clear directions on what he was supposed to do, the hapless minister politely complained: “But, Your Excellency, we seem to be involved in a cat-and-mouse game!” The President considered his minister for a time and then coldly asked: “Uhm! And who is the mouse?” Minister: “Me, Your Excellency!” President: “And who is the cat?” Minister: “Me, Your Excellency!” President: “So, why complain? Why don’t you continue amusing yourself by playing with yourself?” President Mwanawasa, may you recover soon and enjoy a cat’s whiskers! Contact: ingina2@yahoo.co.uk