I have never professed to having a dull life, and in fairness I don’t think I could handle one either, that having been said at times dull does sound just a little inviting.
This weekend is a bank holiday weekend and interestingly so is next weekend, this week’s excuse is “Ladies Day” the reason, purpose or idea behind this, I have yet to fathom. I have asked a number of people and the stock answer seems to be “It is to celebrate the importance of women in our society” OK so a sort of self gratification day for half the population. But from what I could see in Lusaka this morning, the main purpose seemed to be to see if they could grind the whole of the city to a standstill whilst they wandered around aimlessly up and down the main thoroughfares of Lusaka, with a police escort. Mind you at least they seemed to be enjoying themselves, which is more than could be said for the drivers of the vehicles snarled up in the traffic chaos that ensued. It was gratifying to see that those that looked most pissed off where the women drivers.
Friday’s Bank Holiday is youth day. And I have an uncanny feeling that the reason for this will be “To celebrate the importance of youth in our society.” And that Lusaka won’t be worth visiting that day because all the traffic will be stationary again as, this time the youth of Zambia wander up and down the Great East, North and West Roads.(the equivalent to the M25) Wildly patting themselves on the back and telling each other how great they are and drinking ship loads of Chibuka (Lumpy, sweet, thick grain beer) and why not. No doubt I too will find something to celebrate and have a drink or two, but not quite as much as this weekend.
Saturday I was invited to a very good friend of mine Koob his birthday party. Now Koob and Jeanette have good parties, very good, the last one I attended there ensued much dancing and merriment with more than a fair share of alcohol abuse. I mentioned dancing, I use the term loosely, as I was informed the following day by a friend or was it my son “Watching you dance was like watching a terminator in a magnet factory” which I thought was a little harsh but probably not a million miles away from the truth.
True to form this Saturday, by about eleven o’clock I had ventured forth onto the dance floor and was moving around with the grace and elegance of a hippo with 30,000 volts stuffed up his bottom. But I was having fun and a surprising number of people were joining me out their, in spite of the risk of having an eye taken out or being smacked in the face as I tornadoed my chaotic way around the dance floor.
By three o’clock in the morning, I had done my full duet with Meatloaf to Bat out of Hell, lost my voice in the process, played air guitar till all the strings were broken and bruised my knees so badly I have not been able to walk properly since, as I skidded across the concrete dance floor on my knees head back singing my heart out and still playing my imaginary guitar. My knees are an interesting shade of purple and red currently. Luckily I was wearing shorts so I did not wreck my trousers but I have still to find my shirt that I am sure I was wearing when I arrived at the party.
I ended up leaving at around four, resisting the urge to stay until dawn as Koob was trying to convince me would be a really good Idea. (It really wouldn’t have been.) The journey home was uneventful, even the three police roadblocks that I have to drive through between his place and mine were all sleepily quiet with no registering signs of life just lights on doors open but no one home. A bit like I felt actually.
I snuggled into bed after a refreshing shower at quarter to five.
At five thirty, all hell broke loose.
Kalima Camp is a twenty hectare site at which you are invited to stay. Only two of the ten chalets are actually joined, the others are spaced out conveniently around the site. I stay in one of these conjoined ones and the other has stayed empty since Herman left about 4 months ago.
Now given the choice of all those vacant chalets, most normal people would chose somewhere secluded and quiet, as this is the essence of this place. But no, our new residents who moved in about a week ago decided they wanted to move in next to me, with only a thin block wall separating the chalets.
So as you can imagine when world war three kicked off that early on a Sunday morning. It had may as well have been in the same bloody room as me.
So all of a sudden I was violently awake, or was I dead, and in fact gone to hell, as suddenly, I realised that whatever was queuing up in the pain receptors from the previous evening was now trying to get out and redesign my head.
Mother, that was a good hangover, made all the better by my new neighbour's lack of volume control, choice of language and inability to shut doors without trying to invert them.
Anyway the verbal barrage lasted about half an hour, either they had cooled down run out of breath or just used up their entire vocabulary of profanities on each other and did not know what else to say. Eventually it ended with a final slamming of the front door and the car disappearing off up the drive.
Sleep was gone so I gathered what was left of my thoughts and proceeded with the day.
Sally who stays in the big house at Kalima, had also attended the party the previous night and was feeling by all accounts not dissimilar to the way I was. So we wandered around the camp for most of the day in a trance like state trying to avoid each other, in case one of us reminded the other of something they had done or said the previous night that your brain had decided that it would shield you from for a couple of days, until it thought you were up to facing it.
By four in the afternoon we got a bit braver and decided to have a braai and a couple of beers, we sat and watched the dam in peace and quiet. A little later over came my neighbor the one who was having the animated chat with her husband this morning.
It didn’t take a psychotherapist to work out that she was not happy (even though she is a little on the short side) grumpy would have been nearer. It was not long before we started to get the whole story from start to finish. Just what I did not need, but could not really just get up and walk off. So I sat, listened and cooked my dinner. During the course of the story she had put away a few vodkas, which I thought was not probably the best idea, but thought better of telling her as it looked like she needed them.
Her husband returned at about six and he came to join us at the bar. The atmosphere was tangible. It was like walking into a gas holder smoking a cigar. You knew it was going to blow but not just quite when.
And yes you’ve guessed it, they waited until they got back to the house and I had just got to bed to grab an early night to catch up with some of my lost nights.
Well this time it was even more animated than this morning’s episode, with screaming, crashing, wailing, and a selection of expletives I did not think possible. Again it was another half hour episode, (the standard allotted time obviously)the inevitable slamming door and car exiting stage left.
Great, peace and quiet and now at last, return to sleep. Snuggle down, eyes close with un-natural ease as I slip immediately into a state, not far from full sleep.
Bang, bang, bang. Denzil, its only me, can I come in.
Oh Shit.
I get dressed throw some clothes at my horribly abused body then go and answer the door. It’s my neighbor as if I had not guessed looking very red eyed and puffy. I invite her in and get her a glass of orange juice sit her down and hear the latest in their saga, not that I hadn’t just heard the un-edited version about five minutes earlier through the wall.
The long and short of it was that she was leaving her husband, not next week as planned, but tonight. Her son was on his way from Kafue to pick her up and he should be there in about an hour. (But I just want to go to bed.) Anyway we moved outside as she wanted to smoke so we sat on the veranda and she poured out her woes.
I don’t know how long it was, I seemed to lose track of time, I do that sometimes when I am tiered and bored shitless. A car pulled up that was not her husband. And we waited for her son to come over.
Next thing I knew armed police came running through the trees pointing guns at me. They got really jittery when I went to stand up, and insisted that I stand still with my hands where they could see them. (I wondered which film they had seen that in.) But thought it wise not to ask them.
It seems, they thought that I was the battering husband who had wronged his wife and they were going to sort me out either here or at the police station. It must have taken a good ten minutes to resolve the situation, most of the time with an AK47, and two hand guns pointing at my face. But we got there in the end and by three in the morning my visitors had gone, one neighbor was leaving for South Africa and her husband had disappeared into the bush.
I honestly do not go out looking for excitement. It just happens.
So if you want to come and stay. It’s only $40.00 per night per person and the excitement is for free.
Denzil Bark. (Taking bookings on +260 97 40 40 996)
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