Monday, April 30, 2012

Planned Coincidence

            Planned Coincidence
Her full lips glistened with lip gloss, and all this gentleman could think of was removing it with his own mouth later that night. This lady had noticed this man’s stolen glances at her. She too had her own plans. It was a Friday night—end of the month Friday—and as usual “STONE PHOLA” was packed to its full capacity. This pub-cum-club was very popular here in Mbabane, more especially with the working class, who now felt that the bars and pubs in the townships and ghettos, where they lived, were too grimy for them, and also dens for hobos and tsotsis. That notwithstanding, they still couldn’t afford the posh and ridiculously expensive places up-town like “Rockers”.
   So, a clever and business-minded chap had built something somewhere in-between, just to cater for them, the in-betweeners. Indeed, STONE PHOLA was a modest place situated in down-town Mbabane. At the entrance, overused neon lights flashed around the dust covered club’s name, as a thick tall man, who looked like he didn’t have a neck, stood officiously at the door. He always assumed his current position every last Friday of the month. He checked patron’s tickets, with a lot of zeal, to ensure that the entrance fee had been paid and the patrons got into the club legally. He was flexing his muscles, ready to whirl off the melee at the door, anyone who would try to sneak in unnoticed, especially the guys.
Muzi “Fixer” Shabangu took a gulp of his Hansa Pilsner and smacked his lips in satisfaction. He placed the can on the counter and, stretched a lazy hand to scoop some peanuts and raisins that were in a glass bowl on the counter and began to chew. Then he turned to his friend, Thapelo also known as “Thux”. ‘I’m telling you man, she’s been staring at me the whole time, and I’ll have to make a move very soon, before she thinks I’m a bhari (fool).’ Fixer loosened his neck-tie and took another sip from the can.
Thux waved his left arm carelessly, dismissing the idea his friend had just shared. ‘Which one?’ he asked. ‘You mean her…the one sitting over there, near the V.I.P section? Mf’ethu(brother), can’t you see that she is the kind of woman that can milk you dry? As for you, she can take every cent because you got half-pay.’ He laughed at his friend, as he concomitantly dipped a hand into one of his corduroy blazer side-pockets, and took out a loose Dunhill cigarette. He lit it up and took a long pull of the cigarette, proceeding to blow the smoke into the already stuffy and saturated air in the bar with a good deal of nonchalance. He watched it waft into the air, to add to the already unpleasant odour that filled the place: an acid odour of cigarettes and perfumes and colognes, plus a whole range of other smells.
   ‘Chief, I don’t want people reminding me about what happened at work—half-pay and kaak. If I wanted all of that nagging and whining, I would have gone straight home, and my wife would have done a great job of it,’ returned Fixer, a bit annoyed. The oily dark skin of his face shone in the dim-lit place, the white set of teeth contrasting it noticeably. He barked at the barman on the other side of the counter for another can of beer. It was quickly put in front of him. ‘All I wwant to do is to enjoy myself. I’ll deal with the talking when I get home.’
   Oh, ok…whatever man,’ Thux said. Do what you have to do, but let me tell you one thing; I’m giving no advances this month. No!’
   ‘Ja,ja,’ mocked Fixer, slightly angered by his friend’s lecture. ‘Now this is what I want you to do,’ he continued. ‘Just walk with me to them. I want you to distract her friend, chat with her, whatever, and I’ll do my thing. Look at those lips bra yam’, tjo!’
   ‘Man you’re really serious about this woman, eh?’ In spite of the fact that you don’t know her and, have never seen her here before.’ Fixer gave him a stern look. And Thux said he was in. ‘Ok, ok, I’ll help you!’ he said. His friend smiled.
   Several tables with chairs were arranged around the walls of the hall. These sat a minimum of four people, which could sit to six or above, with demand for space, in peak hours. At the bar were lined up leather-padded bar stools, preferred mostly by the men. The sat and ogled and flirted with the female bartenders, as the latter shuffled behind the counter, serving orders. At the centre was a dance floor where lights of different colours flashed hypnotically in the dim room, as the revelers danced the night away to the selection of the resident disc-jockey (DJ), DJ Wheeler. The speakers blared a song from a popular South African group, and more people surged to the dance floor. The women were screaming in the process; the men just there, hoping to get lucky that night.
   There was a cacophony of sounds. A mad din. The only way one could sustain a conversation now was to literally shout to the person was talking to. Although such a state of affairs may seem odd to those who are not used to such places, for the regulars, the switching to shouting, to communicate, comes naturally.
   ‘Zinhle,’ said Nos’milo to her friend, ‘I think that guy who was checking me out for the past half an hour or so, is coming here.’ Nos’milo stole a peek at him through the dancing crowd.
   ‘Ha! ha!’ Zinhle laughed out loud. ‘What does he want? I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re interested in him. Oh my God, he’s bringing his friend. I’m just not in the mood for small talk with a guy I don’t know.’
   ‘What am I going to do?’ asked Nos’milo. ‘Perhaps I gave him the wrong idea.’
‘I don’t know, you’ll have to sort him out. I’ve his friend to worry about.’
   Presently the two gentlemen greeted the two ladies who sat opposite each other. Thux sat next Zinhle, and Fixer next to the lady with full shining lips. He couldn’t look at anything else but them. Nos’milo was a very attractive woman and, she wore a hugging top that slightly revealed the cleavage of her big breasts. Her jet-black dreadlocks with streaks of blonde were neatly tied behind the back of her head, ponytail style, and she donned silver studs on her ears. She had full eyebrows that almost met in the middle of her forehead, and her eyes were clear, with a lazy stare. Zinhle, her friend, was not at all an unattractive woman, neither could it be said authoritatively that she was beautiful, and Thux found that consoling. There was nothing that he hated more than making small talk with an unattractive woman, especially in such an arrangement, where it is part of the plan and obligatory—a favour to a friend.
   ‘So what are you ladies doing here all by yourselves?’ asked Fixer self-importantly. The alcohl was now swimming in his veins and wafting in his mind. His tongue had loosened.
‘We’re just hanging out, you know,’ replied Nos’milo. ‘But we were just about to live, to go back home now, ‘cause it’s getting late.’
‘Really?’Thux added helpfully, for his friend, ‘but it’s so early!’
   ‘It’s not, for us, you know,’ said Zinhle. ‘We’ve other responsibilities.’ Thux nodded assent and Fixer let out a short dry laugh.
   ‘The party is just getting started!’ shouted Fixer. ‘What are you ladies drinking? Savannah? Storm? Name it.’ Zinhle glared at Fixer with a sort of disdainful eye, and Nos’milo slightly smiled.
   ‘We don’t drink alcohol,’ Nos’milo said politely. And, there’s no need for you to buy us anything. We’re sorted.’
   ‘Oh, okay, fine! We’ve got ourselves Miss Independents,’ he said in a sing-song voice.
   Fixer was not a patient man. The fact that these women had declined his offer for drinks, and that they didn’t even drink alcohol, was reason enough for him to now leave. He made eye contact with Thux, and gave him the “look”, which was their signal for leaving or aborting a plan because it was not working out.
No’smilo saw Fixer’s restlessness and suddenly said: ‘We can hang out with you guys for another ten minutes, if you want.’
   ‘Listen here,’ Fixer replied, ‘I didn’t come all the way here to hang out. I just thought you were a hot babe and just wanted to explore my chances of sucking away at those lips, and perhaps getting more!’ He then downed his sixth can of Hansa Pilsner and wiped off the beer froth from his lowly-cut moustache with the back of his hand. Thux let out an uncomfortable laugh, and tried to downplay his friend’s outburst, saying that he was quite a joker. Fixer told them that it was no joke: that is was the whole truth. Thux sat there with a plastered smile, waiting for the ladies’ reaction.
Zinhle shook her head, visibly annoyed, and pulled hard at her fruit juice with a straw, as Thux tried to ask her something inconsequential and irrelevant, which she ignored.
   ‘Ha, you haven’t even asked for my name, and I don’t know you, and now this,’ said Nos’milo. ‘Do you always do this to women you meet in pubs?’
   ‘Eh, I don’t like the sound of that,’ answered Fixer. ‘Thux let’s go man, we’re wasting our time here.’
A while previously, Nos’milo had excuse herself from  the company, on account of an important call she had had to make to someone. Presently, her phone rang again, and again she left the table. Fixer looked at her disappear into the crowd, towards the door, or perhaps the ladies’ room—he was not sure. He lamented that he wouldn’t have a piece of her. He sat meditatively, looking up at the ceiling with the flickering tiny bulbs, and opened a can he’d just ordered. Tonight had turned out bad, he concluded inwardly. It was time to go home. Thux himself was now tired of the useless small talk, and he too felt it was time to leave.
Nos’milo reemerged from the crowd with another, rather statuesque woman.
‘Hi again, Fixer,’ she said, emphasizing his name. ‘I just brought your wife here, to join us. By the way, she happens to be my cousin.’ Fixer and Thux sat transfixed, mouths agape, and their eyes fixed on the bustling and breezy Nos’milo and her demure companion in train. The two girls exchanged knowing smiles.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

You Want To See More?


The kombi drivers and the conductors caused a mad racket as Fikile strode across the crowded bus rank of the capital city, Mbabane. These men, standing in haphazard groups around the within the rank, shouted snide comments at her. Each one of them felt they had something to say concerning the way Fikile was dressed. Most of their rantings were insulting and unpalatable, yet, notwithstanding that, the latter seemed to swallow them up without the slightest problem.

   On-lookers and passers-by stared at her too. Others looked at her absent-mindedly, as they rushed to wherever they were headed and some, mostly the idlers, too keen interest in the unfolding events. Part of the latter mumbled their disapproval in what these men were doing, although a majority of seemed to share the same view with the raucous drivers and their counterparts.

   ‘She ought to be castigated and discouraged for such unwomanly behaviour,’ said one of the women   vendors who sold fruits and vegetables in the bus rank. There were a growing number of these vendors who sat around the fringes of the terminus, selling their goods. In fact, they now seemed to outnumber the public transport for which the structure had been constructed. The city council rangers had tried in the past years to forcefully remove the former from the terminus, but in vain. They would only disappear for a few hours, and one-by-one—like vultures on a dead carcass—they would come back. The local authorities must have grown weary, so they now let them be. Although the influx of people selling various articles in the terminus meant bad news for those who did business in the legitimate market built by the authorities, the general public silently approved. Now one could easily purchase the items that were short at home without going to the expensive market a few streets away, without risking being left behind by the bus or kombi. Now who wouldn’t want that? This was the musing of most of the people who used the bus rank.

   ‘How dare she dresses up like that? With everything showing like that!’ said another one of the women. She proceeded to scoop ligushawith a rusted tin and filled it into a black plastic bag and, gave it to her customer. ‘That will be three emalangeni, thank you,’ she said as she received the coins. The two speakers and those that had heard her former comment broke out in a loud cackle.

‘These young ones have the nerve, I tell you,’ the first woman speaker replied her friend. ‘And to make matters worse, she doesn’t care a single bit! Look at how she is walking, tall and proud.’
Indeed, Fikile hadn’t the slightest shame by the looks of things. She strolled proudly amidst the hullaballoo her dress style had supposedly caused. She sported a white boob-tube top that clung—as if for dear life itself—to her plump body, and exposed slightly the cleavage of her breasts. The skirt she donned was held her tightly on the buttocks and hips and, was a few inches above her knees. Her slightly hairy thighs rubbed against each other as she continued walking. She also wore make-up, and it made her look a bit older than she was—nineteen.

   Although the fear of imminent danger crossed her mind, seeing the place filled with a bunch of perverts, she didn’t think there was anything wrong in the manner she was dressed.

   ‘It is summer for crying out loud!’ she mused. ‘What must I be wearing? An all-weather coat and an ankle-length dress?’ she continued her musing. ‘This is not the Stone Age for Heaven’s sake!’

   She now came near the kombis that ferried passengers to Eveni, her place of abode, and other areas in the vicinity. She got in. There were a few spaces that were unoccupied when she got in, and these were filled quickly after that. Seeing the kombi full to its capacity, the driver rushed in, ignited the old Toyota engine and drove out. No sooner did the kombi start to move than a man clad in blue overalls and a leather flat cap resumed the discussion on Fikile’s sense of style. He had shot an eye laden with disdain when she had got in.
The man went on a tirade regarding how today’s children had lost respect for adults and themselves too. As he developed his discourse, he proceeded to lick his calloused index fingers and cross-locked them as a sign of solemn vow to his great-grandfather Matamatisi, that if his daughter would ever dress like Fikile; he would be jailed for homicide. The driver joined in the discussion. He gawked gleefully at the overall-clad man on the rear view mirror and would occasionally steal a quick glance at Fikile.

   Some of the passengers let out incomprehensible grumbles and, the women shook their heads slowly in disapproval of the image the young girl was portraying. Most of these women were clad in pink or powdered blue tunics and worked in the suburbs as domestic servants. Fikile sat two rows from the driver’s seat and as the “lecture” continued, she kept her eyes glued on a novel. She had raised her eyes from it only once, when the man had sworn that none of his children would be seen dressed like her, so long as he breathed oxygen. To that comment, she had partially grinned much to the vexation of the man.

   The kombi swerved to and fro as it attempted to dodge the innumerable pot holes, as deep as rubbish pits, along the road to Eveni, a plush suburb undoubtedly exclusive for the well-to-do. The much respected residents of the place had complained—some even going to the extent of threatening to default on their rate taxes—about the deteriorating condition of the roads, and the city council had responded with the unconvincing measure of filling up the holes. This was ineffectual because every time the rainy season came, new holes, deeper than the previous ones would develop again. Presently the holes were very much a nuisance to the road users and the local authority was yet to respond.

   Fezile looked up and signaled the driver that she was to get off at the Eveni bus stop.

   ‘Good riddance!’ yelled the driver. He changed down the gears and the engine let out dark choking cloud of smoke from its exhaust pipe. Through the rear view mirror he looked at his collaborator for support. And, this was not the type of chap to disappoint.

   'Yes! You must tell your parents to teach you how to dress little girl, you hear?’ he howled and wagged an accusing finger at Fikile.

   Fikile disembarked quietly and stood at the threshold as she handed the four emalangeni fare to the driver. Then abruptly, she said to the driver and the man: Hhey’ nine, do you want to see more?’’ As they were still stunned by her sudden outburst, she pulled down her skimpy top and exposed her dark-nippled breasts for them to see. They bellowed and tried to cover their eyes. But it was too little too late.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Imagining a 'New' Swaziland


                                                       Imagining a 'New' Swaziland

The ultimate yardstick for democracy and multi-party politics in Swaziland, once ushered in, will not be the fact that an undemocratic government would have been ousted. Rather, it will be the strides taken by those who will be holding the reins of government at that time, to liberate the majority of the people from grinding poverty and deprivation. Take a casual glance at the rest of the African continent, and you will see that the foregoing is easier said than done—many promises have been made, but actions fall short.
   To extricate a people of a country from such social vices as deprivation and hunger, does not involve the paternalistic policies that most African governments have adopted in pursuance of this goal. Rather, an open political system, where all individuals and groups can participate freely in governmental processes becomes imperative. I must emphasise, though, that this does not happen with the wave of a magical wand. Such requires the existence of class-conscious politics within a country. The people and the leaders must understand that, as Mukoma wa Ngugi aptly noted, ‘that there is an inherent contradiction in a wealthy elite subsisting on the majority poor…’. This state of affairs—though prevalent in Africa, and obtaining in present day Swaziland—endangers the stability of a society, and further accents socio-economic inequality.
   I think that nearly everyone understands that there isn’t, necessarily, a direct correlation between multi-party politics and an improvement in the lives of people. But, I hasten to add that, a pluralistic society gives a better chance to people to impact on policies that affect their lives, and in the process, bettering their lives. Succinctly put, the aforementioned social system affords a greater chance to the elusive principle of democracy in our society. Therefore, what is needed in a “new” Swaziland is not only the people’s right to elect different political parties into government every after a fixed period. That will not be enough.
   A desirable new dispensation of politics in this country will be one where both government and its people will understand that, the democracy needed is not only of the ballot box, but, where conscious moves are made at alleviating poverty among the masses, encouraging creativity, and fostering debate on all issues that affect the people, without fear of intimidation. We have had enough of unique democracies, and those that serve certain cliques. As Mahmoud Mamdani asserts, ‘So long as democratisation drives are dominated by urban lawyers and churchmen and do not engage with the rural patrimonial structures that remain intact, they are unlikely to alter the political basis of the African state significantly.’ This quote begs an important question applicable almost throughout the continent: Is the lack of development in Africa a failure of democracy, or the failure of the state? I digress.
   Any politics—regardless of its hue and proffered ideas---that will still have people cast in chains of deprivation (of various freedoms) will not be acceptable.

Monday, April 2, 2012


Haunting Memoirs
I looked myself in the mirror, but I couldn’t see myself because the kerosene lamp burnt dimly in the huge room. I could only see my silhouette—or I thought it was mine. Then I said to myself: This is what poverty does to people; it makes you lose your identity and character, because to most of those who “have”, you are nothing but a shadow passing by—something of absolutely no consequence.
Suddenly the kettle started rattling on the gas stove as the water rapidly boiled in it. I was thus roused from my musing. I hurried and switched off the stove. Then I made myself a cup of coffee, in my favourite mug, the one I had just bought a few days ago. It was its super-size that attracted me to it; it could carry just enough coffee to warm me up every freezing morning in this dreadful winter season.
It was about 0530hours and it was still dark. Mist still enveloped the mountains near our house. Rocks protruded on some parts of the mountains and their haziness in the dark and misty morning made them look like a scary monster ready to devour anyone that dared walked in that direction. I slowly sipped the coffee in deep thought. Here I was, before the crack of dawn, getting ready to go to work, work that I didn’t enjoy, being matter-of-fact. Why was I even doing it? These numbers and numbers, and numbers that I punched all day at Corporate Services International (CSI) were not my thing. Everybody knew that I was an artist. A writer. And that was what I believed I was born to do.
Ah, anyway, I told myself that it was just a ‘passing gig’. Eventually I’ll get my work published and become a professional writer, I nursed my hopes. ‘Oh! Look at the time,’ I exclaimed, as I rose to my feet hurriedly. I was running late. My musing had taken all the time and I had hardly drunk half of my coffee. Oh my God, that nagging pain-in-the-arse supervisor of mine will skin me alive today. If he had it his way, he would do that literally. That bugger. I had worked there for only two weeks but he had already lambasted me innumerable times, for something I don’t really recall. It was probably nothing.
The repulsive part about these attacks was that he always spits on you when he speaks, because most of his front teeth, as my colleagues and I would say, needed to be called into order. They were just a careless cluster that overcrowded his mouth, and affected his fluency and diction. Notwithstanding that, he boasted a British accent that he made sure to flaunt to everyone that cared to listen to him as he churned out the trash that he mostly did.
After brushing my teeth, I grabbed my laptop backpack and headed for the bus stop. I dreaded every minute I spent at that place, but you know what they say “A man’s got to do what he has to do”.


To be continued....