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I had just got into grade IV when our class was assigned to a pupil teacher, John Ngoma. He had just returned from National Service and it seemed he was greatly impressed with the military mentality. He found our class a good substitute for 'revenge.'
He could soak you right inside the classroom - with water ferried in buckets from the school tap - and belabour you with dry bamboo cane at the slightest provocation.
Another one of his favourite punishments was one that we feared. He used to take one of the small school chairs and order the offender to pass his body through the gap between the seat and the lower-most rail of the back rest, knees on the floor. Roughly in the shape of the letter Z, the offender would expose his posterior to the full wrath of the cane. John would himself then sit atop the back rest and get to work, pressing the unfortunate offender's body onto the chair.
Sometimes he would tell you to count the roofing sheets and give you a jab in the throat while you were thus counting.
Although John behaved like this, he was jocular of nature. He threw wise cracks most of the time, particularly where girls were involved. He never really ever did punish them, we were invariably the perpetual victims. Our military friend was particularly fond of Rhoydah, a girl with a head like a kite, who he said should buy two packets of milk and mix the milk into her bath water in order that she may grow up quickly so they could marry. Baba, as we nick-named her, was always among the people who went to draw water for the soak-ups.
The incidence I place at the top of the list of John's eccentricities was the Kachasu-Emelia Sondashi affair.
As was often the case, we were delightedly listening to a story which was being read by our enemy-cum-friend from a book entitled Bamusho Lweko. The story was about a villanous character, Kachasu, who led a turbulent life of brawls, duels and such like. He at one time decided to go to his home village where he got married to a girl, Emelia Sondashi. The story was, of course, interrupted from time to time for our highly romanticising reader to add in his own speculations and emphasise desciptions of girls by making illustrious curves in the air.
The most emphasis was laid on the marriage. After he was through, he suddenly got an idea which made him chuckle nastily to himself like a hyeana. He rubbed his hands together gleefully and announced that everybody was going to tell him which boy/girl they admired most in class. This announcement at first met repulsion but he quickly altered his countenance to a threatening mask.
We were to go to his desk and whisper our choice into his ear. We all went there and "cast our votes." After he was through with everybody, he counted the names. Under the 'favourite boy' column, my name had a 90% dominance. Under the 'favourite girl' column, one girl, Mable Mulenga, beat the rest by a few counts in her favour.
I was elated when the results were announced for Mable was a permanent feature of what could have been my wet dreams were I older. We were christened Kachasu and Emelia Sondashi and given a desk at the back of the class. Our 'marriage,' by John's reckoning, automatically exempted us from class chores and punishments.
*
1980. I was doing my grade VII. I was travelling from Kalulushi to Chambishi and was fast running out of time, being as it was that you had to connect through Kitwe to complete that journey. A "six to dawn" curfew had just been imposed due to Rhodesian rebel activity.
Not that I arrived at K.M.B. (Kitwe Main Bus Station) late from Kalulushi. But, Jesus, our Chambishi bus. The sun was only half-way down the western sky. We waited and waited. The sun crawling stealthily towards the tall eucalyptus trees opposite the station did very little to assure us. After running out of our Chambishi residents' unusual patience, we became restless. Then agitated. Then worried.
Then, as the eucalyptus shadows reached us and police cars started zooming around, we started panicking. We all knew that our bus would come before curfew time, but were not ready to accept it. The little consolation that was there, however, was that we were many. There were quite huge crowds at the Ndola and Chingola stops, plus the long-distance travellers who had come prepared to spend a night or several nights at the station, anyway.
I thought. Sleep here? No. Certainly not. I will just have to go back to Kalulushi. Just then I saw a full bus load heading in the direction of that town. There were only ten minutes to go. So it should be the last bus. Then a small car came to the station and the driver leaned out his window shouting, "Kalulushi! Kalulushi! Eight kwacha. Eight kwacha!"
Incredible! You could actually travel to and from that town fifty times with that sum of money! Besides, I only had about a fortieth of that amount being asked for, although on the normal fare that could still get me some three trips. The pirates were really cashing in on the curfew. Next place?
Nkana East. There lived a cousin there. I had never been to Nkana East before but I just knew that somewhere there lived a cousin. My heart contracted at the realisation that I would not be going to Chambishi that day. Next day Monday the mock exams would begin. what was I to do? Well, well....
The Nkana East station was some three or four kilometres away. Could I dash the distance in the few minutes left and get a bus? But what if I did? I did not have the faintest idea where this guy's house was located. But panic uprooted me from the station and propelled me towards town. I ran and ran.
Half-way there an idea struck me. I stopped in mid-flight and gasped for air. Listen here, boy. It would be clever wouldn't it? To be chasing people around while sitting comfortably in a police car - to be enjoying the chase instead of being a victim of it. Time was running swiftly. People were scurrying urgently in all directions. And the streets, but for the people panicking off to shelter, were deserted. I about-turned and ran to the Kitwe Central Police Station.
My right foot hit the threshold at exactly 18:00 hrs. What luck! I thought. I found a woman constable in the charge room. She was talking to a man who looked like he had encountered a combine harvester and was sorry he had. After him I cooked up a hot story of how I had just arrived from Lusaka and did not know how to get to a place called Nkana East where I had a brother. I was lost, I said. A nice one, considering my intimate knowledge of Kitwe.
"Haven't you got relatives elsewhere?" She asked.
"Yes, a sister in Kalulushi." The only true statement ever since I entered that room.
"Why can't you go there?"
"The buses have stopped moving," I explained.
"Alright. What is your brother's name and address?"
"Emmanuel M'hango... I don't know his address but I only know that he works for CPC..."
She straightened up from the pad over which she had bent and slowly lay the pen she had poised obove it in readiness to write the address. Her expression was suddenly nasty. She opened a small, stinging bag of Nyanja into my face at the top of her voice.
"Get out! Get out!"
My plan had collapsed. I shuffled out of the station with tears in my eyes. Night was closing in with characteristic rain season swiftness. The street lights were now on. Where to, now? Where else but K.M.B? That infamous bus stop.
I walked there and joined the hundreds of stranded travellers. At least there was company though it was cold company. I went straight to the long-distance stand. The place was crammed with people and luggage - sacks, baskets, bundles, children. I looked among the people until I found a small space into which I squeezed myself. I could not even stretch out. I had to lie with my feet folded. Furthermore, I lay on a wet sack. And it was cold. The slimy wetnesss underneath me was no comfort whatsoever. I kept shifting; now I lay on my back, now I lay on my side. It was the most agonising night I had ever known. I could not sleep. The concrete bit into my pelvis, the wetness into my skin and the cold into my arms and legs....
Some policemen came with their world war I wooden rifles. They fired a flare into the sky which lit the surroundings like moonlight. They whisked off a few suspicious-looking characters and peered closely into our faces. A rifle fired somewhere beyond the row of stores behind us. Somebody cried out and there was running foot falls. Time was at a stand still. It just stood still. I doubted whether that night would ever end. Oh, and how my body ached.
Finally, at looooooong last, the sky began bluing up. Towards six a Chingola bus came. I bought a ticket and got aboard it. The bus dropped me off at the Chambishi turn off. I ran the very long way from there to home, meeting people going to school on my way.
At home, people were surprised to see my hasty early morning appearance. I jetted into the house, jumped into my uniform, and left at a double. I arrived at school in time for the mock.
Just in time.
*