PLAIN DWELLERS OF THE SERENGETI
The Grometi River runs dry for most of the year; a few hungry crocs patrol the beaches for unsuspecting prey but the truth is that naïve carrion comes a few times a year. The scenes on the plains of Africa have been played out over many years and have ingrained in the cast members familiar roles. The hunter hunts, the prey evades capture for as long as they can and the loop goes round. The predators were restless as the herds gathered the courage to cross the river; this was it, now or never. There was another place that reminds me of this scene but the lines were less clear cut. The lines delineating predator and prey were fluid and flexible. The Lions on the plains were endangered; their timeless tradition of conquest was under threat. The threat was the world around them; a world that they weren’t prepared for.
As I stood there in the midst of the drama unfolding before me I had a choice to make. Was I predator or prey? It was that simple; if I was predator then I would have to hunt and if I was prey then I would have to graze. There was no doubting my entourage; they were predators all the way. As “touch me, tease me” by Case came on the PA, it seemed the decision was obvious. The Pink Coconut was a legendary club in its time, the time was the mid-late nineties and the time was now. Despite its slightly effeminate name ‘the pink coconut’ was in club parlance ‘all-man’ and by that I probably mean not gay. This was a time when hip-hop was never seen and never heard; Black people had problems entering clubs. My first experience of clubbing was eye-opening; the chances are that if you weren’t living in London then most black people had a problem even getting in a club. There was a strict quota system; sometimes the bouncers were honest with you “there’s already too many Black Guys in there.” Too many meant anything in excess of 3. Then the endless wandering like Jews in the desert until it was kebab time.
Hip-hop was the sound of the 90’s; forget what you hear now, then it was rightfully described by the venerable Chuck D as ‘the peoples CNN’. But that was a long time ago but what is time if not space. In Rwandese we have the same word for time and space; they are easily interchangeable. Time is distance divided by speed, the speed of sound transports me to that time and that space. “TTTTTTTTT dun TTTTTTTTT dun TTTTTTTTT!” the high hat crept in. that high hat was the signature prelude to the aforementioned “Touch me, Tease me” by Case. In a beat that was reminiscent of Slick Ricks ‘the show’; it was perfect because it was a mid-tempo tune. Mid-tempo meant that it slow enough to dance with a girl and fast enough for those without girls not to be embarrassed. The song featured a kick-ass intro rap by Foxy Brown that simply tore the roof off the house.
Before I went to University I saw Hip-hop all around me but I never heard it in clubs; it was ruefully dismissed as ‘swing’ which bore no resemblance to 40’s Jazz. My first excursions to clubs were coloured by the usual fare of white boy lager cheese; ‘Brand new combine harvester’ el al, the highlight of the evening would be a nine minute interval of pure heaven. This was when the DJ played three Black songs back to back. It was usually “return of the Mack” by Mark Morrison, “Vibe” by R. Kelly and the peerless Bobby Brown with “Two can play that game”. This little interval nearly made being Black worth it; you were usually mobbed by a phalanx of White girls, each of them drunk and grinding on you like her ass was a mill and you were the corn. The popular song was ‘Bump n Grind” by R. Kelly; a song that coerced the perverted leach out of you. He implored you with the now timeless words “I don’t see nothing wrong, with a little bump and grind”. This was a sentiment that chimed with me after a few beers but I digress.
Fast forward to 1997; the time of year escapes me and it doesn’t really matter because in side it was timeless. Derby was an assault on the senses; a sleepy industrial giant dozing into the modern world of the information super-highway but never ceased to intrigue. When I first drove to Derby in September 1996 I was struck by the people not so much the place. I was looking for directions for the Mickleover Campus and the man I asked was only too happy to help and even jumped in my car as I drove to the site. It was then that I realised I was dealing with a different and better breed of people than I had dealt with before. It was great to see a place where people greeted you on the street; Black People all nodded to each other when you saw each other as if in deference and mutual respect.
‘Touch me’ was in its second verse and the chance was slipping away; I turned to the lions I was hunting with and was struck by their certainty. They seemed to have all their hunting techniques honed to a tee and they knew each others tactics; one hand washes the other. Some went for the ‘double glazing salesman’ technique; this stated that if you asked 100 girls then at least one would say yes. This was used by my friend Rob who instinctively grabbed and harangued girls as a matter of course however when they said yes he was somewhat unprepared. He once went to this Muslim girl who had had a somewhat sheltered upbringing “Hey Baby! Wanna fuck?” This was met with shock and anger but wasn’t meant in jest; most girls laughed it off or thought of it as a rhetorical question. Another technique was buying drinks which out of the question for a student who envied the wealth of homeless people. The best way was to be charming but that was half the problem, the biggest obstacle was to get their attention in the first place. This was where audacity saved the brave; some of my friends would merely pat the bum of the girl in question, then a tense standoff would ensue. She would cut you with eyes that questioned your right to take such a liberty and the offender would either feign innocence or doggedly stick to his guns. In this game of chicken the first to blink was the offender; if she backed down then it was assumed she was interested and if she reacted angrily then she was “fronting”.
I wandered how they did it. I remember once after a heavy night of watching rejection after rejection; I finally asked my friend Yinka.
“How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Do That, I mean a girl to diss you and you just bounce back?”
“She wasn’t dissin me. She’s just fronting. She’s a major ho.”
“Dude, if a girl said that to me, I’d kill myself. What’s your secret?”
“You’re a player-hater man. You got a PHD. Player-hatin degree.”
He wasn’t amused by my prodding, he took it was an insult but I meant it seriously and as someone with low self esteem I could have used the advice. The solution was a suit of armour; an armour of denial that was impervious to criticism. The number one enemy of the Black man in the 90’s was the “player-hater”. This scourge was destroying the hopes and dreams of the Black man or at least was he thought was his dreams. This player-hater was a strict dichotomy that was fluid as slick oil, sometimes you were a player, sometimes a hater depending on the given circumstance. Sometimes that player-hating degree looked like a good course to be on and I would ace it hands down. I once pointed out that my friend was stinking of pungent body-odour in the club, people kept choking as they passed and I added that this was drastically reducing our chances of ever getting laid.
“Dude, sorry blood. But you got BO man.”
“What? Why you looking at me?”
“Dude it ain’t nothing against you, we all forget to roll on after the shower every now and again”
“I knew it. I fuckin knew it.”
“What?”
“I always knew you were a player-hater man. Why you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yeah I always knew you were a bitch-nigger. Is it my style?”
And that was the end of the conversation; I had a choice to make. To be a player or a hater there was no in between. The Pink coconut was divided in two; there was the white room and the black room. The white room played cheesy disco for lager-swilling idiots whose moronic behaviour defied belief. The Black room was shrouded in mystery; there clouds of cannabis smoke beckoned only the most intrepid white boys. This was a twilight zone where normal laws didn’t apply; there were rows of clubbers rolling joints on the work tops, one burly bouncer accidentally spilled the contents a of studious smokers joint and had to apologise profusely. It was a giant bong where you could get high just standing there but the word melting pot was never so apt.
This was a place where sheltered White girls could go to experience a taste of Black culture and all the vitality, freedom and abandon it entailed. It was a simple fact that no White girl would step foot in there unless she had a predilection to Black men. This would raise other issues, who is the predator or prey? Then would resume the game of cat and mouse where the roles are reversed halfway through the act. There are many ways to skin a cat and here were a few.
GRINDING – this involved dancing on the dance floor until a lady approached your vicinity; in a packed dance-floor you can happen upon this by chance or design. A wingman also has the right to grind the friend of the girl you are grinding with. Grinding is extremely risqué but there are rules.
1 Always let her have control, don’t overstep the mark. No sudden grabs of ass or boobies as this can curtail your fun.
2 Do it to her rhythm, later as you get confident then you can dictate the pace.
3 Make her feel gorgeous
4 If she wants to go then let her, don’t pester her and she’ll look for you later
5 Never get a boner. You are in close proximity to sexual organs so control yourself nothing scares them off more than a boner, however if you are ‘getting off’ with her later then it is seen a rude not to have a boner.
THE TROLL BRIDGE – This involved the men positioning themselves strategically in a narrow pathway where access was required, this gave you excellent hunting grounds. However these spots were few and in high demand and you often had to fight for them.
THE IMPROMTU SEGWAY – This involved making up a contrived situation to speak to the ladies, “are you Tasha’s mate?” was a good one because a lot of girls were called Tasha. This also worked with Emma, Nikki, Debbie, Sharon and indeed all the other common names at the time.
BAD BOY – This involved standing around looking hard, giving the evil eye to all around you and generally creating an air of mystery. This was easier said than done; it required a type of method acting that De Niro would envy. You had to freak out whenever someone trod on your foot because this was your chance to be seen; during the ruckus women would be making mental notes of the guy who is extra-hard. I would always fail in this tactic because I would always end up dancing. The first rule of Bad-boys is that you don’t dance however I would bob my head and soon without noticing I would be in a full on jiggy routine. Even when you look like you are hard, you have to back it up, and unfortunately my posh Oxfordshire accent let me down on several occasions as I didn’t have the patois lingo that the girls required.
DOUBLE TEAM – Also known as the wingman, this involved two men approaching two ladies, without a plan and just hoping that it will turn out fine. Unfortunately most of the time that should be given to planning is spent arguing over who gets the ugly one. That’s the way it is; pretty girls always pair up with an ugly girl, it is a law of nature. Maybe it balances the equation; maybe the pretty one needs self-esteem, maybe the ugly one lives vicariously through the pretty one. It goes like this.
“Dude them two gals is checking us.”
“Which ones?”
“Them two over there, next to the slot machines. Don’t look.”
“Which ones, the one in red and her mate?”
“I said don’t look. Fuck sake!”
“Yeah, them was checkin from time.”
“Ok Dude, you get the one on the left, I’ll the one on the right.”
“She’s buggers. Why can’t I have the other one?”
“Coz I saw her first. Get in and don’t let me down.”
“When have I let you down?”
“Last week, and the week before.”
KISSIN ARSE – This was the preferred way of a lot of cowards such as myself. It usually took the credo of ‘you catch more bees with honey’. This involved sending a rose to prospective girl or buying her a drink but this was dictated by the circumstances and the girl. You generally got to know them and talk without pressure; from the outside it looks like you are saying “your place or mine?” but between you and her you are talking about the weather or chocolate or films. At the end of the night you walk her home but your friends would never believe you if you said you didn’t sleep with her.
“Dude, I saw you last night. Good Fuck?”
“Nah, she was just a friend.”
“Dude, you are fucking smooth, don’t give me that shit.”
“Nah Dude, seriously we just went home for a chat.”
“Fockries! I saw how hot she was, you’re tripping. How did you keep your hands off her?”
“Nah we just chatted.”
“Fuckin hell! You telling me that you were just holding her hand and cuddling?”
“It was complicated, she got a man that she’s still hung up over and she was a nice girl.”
“Fuckin hell? Are you fuckin stupid or what? So what if she got a man?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand, you’re a fag!”
“No it was coz she had her period”
And I was forgiven; claiming a girl was on her period was an easy way to escape scorn for ‘failing to close the deal’. Black men were just ‘fucking machines’ nothing else; it was our calling. In this world we were dehumanised and sexualised in equal measure. The whole ‘black man – big dick’ theory was bought hook, line and sinker by the masses especially ourselves. That was the reason ‘the pink coconut was full every weekend. Black men had no opportunities in life, no prospects for the here after neither; so in sex they had redemption, they had identity. To watch a Black man in a club is as graceful as watching lions on the Serengeti; there are so instinctively in tune with their environment. Every nuance; every blade of grass, every undulation in the terrain is all fed into its brain and informs its actions. Watching them was like watching pure-bred hunters with an innate understanding for their prey.
“Hey Baeby luv, wa ya sae? U luk nice ya know? Me wanna lick up them sweetness.”
There is no way I could say that without a hint of irony but they managed to get past the initial absurdity of the situation to do it seriously. ‘Touch me’ was into its third verse and I still didn’t have the guts to step forward, as I leaned back I accidentally trod on the foot of one of the Black lionesses behind me.
“Ya Bambarassclat! Watch where ya go ya cross-eyed, boss-eyed rassclat.” She said with venom that defied belief.
I was somewhat shaken but the bad-boy next to me reassured me.
“Fuck them fat black mampi bitch! Next time tell em’ ya gon’ break her other foot.”
She overheard this and was soon shouting away, it was then that I realised that I was in the midst of an oedipal battle that had raged since slavery. Black men and Black women from the Caribbean have a very tenuous alliance that breaks from time to time. They are stuck together on the other side of the world; away from their natural environment in the third stage of their exodus from Africa and were stuck between the forces of assimilation and self-determination. The white girls paraded up and down like retinue of debutants with yo-yo string. The Black girls wretched at the sight of these interlopers; while the men wiped the saliva off their lips, and waited. The White girls copied the fashion of the Black girls who took this sincere form of flattery to be an affront, the men waited. The Black girls like sour grape wine got more bitter as time went on. All the Bad-boys were leaving them and their world was falling apart. As an African I had as much chance of getting to know them as pork chop getting eaten on Ramadan.
‘Touch me’ was now over and I decided to call it a night as I hated the desperation involved. The fat ugly girls were now top of the menu due mostly to time constraints. It was wrongly assumed that these fat chicks had low self-esteem and would therefore give it up quicker. Sadly this wasn’t always true as many of my friends found out, many of those fat ugly chicks thought they were gorgeous and the pretty girls thought they were fat and ugly. The wingman conversation is different at 1.45 AM
“Dude them two gals is checking us.”
“Which ones?”
“Them two over there, next to the slot machines. Don’t look.”
“Which ones, the one in red and her mate?”
“I said don’t look. Fuck sake!”
“Yeah, them was checkin from time.”
“Ok Dude, you get the one on the left, I’ll the one on the right.”
“She’s pretty. Why can’t I have the other one? I want the fat ugly one”
“Coz I saw her first. Get in and don’t let me down.”
“When have I let you down?”
“Last week, and the week before.”
The stampede was at its height; the lions were poised, the gazelle were ready. The brave sometimes have to walk away and fight another but the lions have to fight today or face death. Normally a fight broke out around 1.45 hence my withdrawal. LL Cool J came over the system as DJ Digit spun all the latest tunes, his sidekick who we called ‘nice and wet’ awaited his cue. We called him that because he would wait for LL Cool J in his track “lounging” otherwise known a “doin’ it” and when the line “How a big boy like it baby? NICE AND WET!!!!” He had a mysterious flat cap that he never took off, a girl I knew once bedded him but he never took off his hat leaving his secret intact. Fun times
Monday, 5 March 2007
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
The Libation Bearers
THE LIBATION BEARERS
When I think of my world and the wonder it invokes; I am taken back to the first ever wonderland I knew. Malawi was that wonderland in the pure bloom of youth and adorable. If I was to paint a verbal picture of the place it wouldn’t do it justice; to see it now is a tragedy as with most African countries it is a dilapidated mess that is a mere shadow of its former glory. It is parched and dry, like a glorious peacock robbed of its feathers but in 1983 there wasn’t a better place on earth. If there was a place that was designed for the growth of a child’s’ imagination it would be Lilongwe; this city far surpassed Disneyland for fantasy and imagination. There were carefully wooded suburbs, rivers that snaked over and underwater. There was a national Park in the middle of the city; you could walk over a bridge and see the grasslands with their eternal drama, the drama that only the food chain can provide.
It was a nature reserve, excellent planning decision to put carnivores in the midst of humanity like that but a convivial balance was struck. One downside to this was when I was walking down the lane and saw a giraffe, I gave it priority due it its superior height advantage and it was then that I had a eureka moment and realised that the long carpet in our corridor was actually a skinned giraffe neck. To understand the country I was in would take you a long time; it would be easier to understand the man who made the myth. Firstly Malawi was his creation; the British called it Nyasaland after Lake Nyasa, but he saw a map where it was called lake Malavi so he switched it to Malawi. How many people actually get to name a country? A test of egomania is if you could call a country anything then what would you call it? Luckily in Africa this happens all the time; Cecil Rhodes, Mobutu, Sankara, and several other leaders have all had the chance to rename their country. Rhodes in typical modest fashion named his country after himself, Mobutu after the river, Sankara renamed Upper Volta – Burkina Faso. These names had various meanings but Malawi had no meaning.
The beautiful city that it was; Lilongwe had one major drawback. A name confers on a place a certain mystique; a place can conjure up a certain romantic image due to the name itself. In Lilongwe all the areas were named numerically. So conversations went like this.
“Hi my name is Isibo, I live in area 21”
“I heard that’s nice, I live in area 16.”
“Oh area 16 that’s really nice, not as good as area 19 but nice”
“Have you seen the waterfalls in area 14, really nice?”
So the government hadn’t got around to naming places and people will have to do it with numbers. Malawi looked like an Orwellian nightmare done on a tight budget. The cantons were strictly regulated with a regimented system that crushed any spirit of freedom. For children the world was free; there was total security and from the age of 4 I could freely navigate the cityscape. I remember one day loitering around town aged 5 and bumping into my Mum on her lunch break, then going about my business. I would save my pennies and then go downtown and buy a soda and samosas. I will never forget on day when I went to the shop and I handed over my money as usual only to be told it wasn’t enough. Due to the niceties of structural readjustment, my money wasn’t worth as much as I thought. The shopkeeper had a problem conveying this in a sensitive manner and I proceeded to cry as hysterically as a five year old could. The other shoppers persuaded the shopkeeper to forgo the laws of economics as I was a special case.
“Man, it’s not enough.”
“Yeah, but he is a kid, he didn’t know”
“But fanta now costs 10 kwacha”
“Just give him something, he is making noise”
He then grudgingly handed me the fanta and I stared at him first, then at the lady next to him. She began to weaken as flittered my eyes, then I pouted and she screamed “For goodness sake give him the samosas.” Mission accomplished; I took advantage of the “kids ride for free” rule to ride the bus home. I was thorough glad with myself for suspending the laws of economics like that; it was a major victory to stand up for myself. And I wondered how this would change me? When I think of Malawi I think of rainbows; they were everywhere, on every horizon, every view. It was like a metaphor for defiance and hope; how it shone brightly, only to disappear and fade. One day I decided to follow the rainbow, I did so as I followed it over hills and hills until I saw it on the final hill. Usually they faded onto the next hill but this time it hung in the same place.
The emerald hill had a star as bright as the pulsar with the rainbow curving out of it; now I faced a dilemma just like a kitten that you didn’t want to scare away, I inched closer and closer to the hill. This rainbow had eluded me on several occasions so I would require stealth and cunning, two qualities I lacked in abundance. I couldn’t let the rainbow see me so I ducked under bushes; I proceeded to the other side of the hill with military precision. It was rocky and rugged so I was careful, the flowers were in bloom when I ascended but I still crept forward. When I approached the top there was another plateau that was invisible from the bottom; from this plateau flowed a stream. This stream dripped over the side of the hill onto the ground below, at the exact point where the stream tipped over the side, there was a refraction that separated the light into the perfect rainbow. The rainbow stood at my feet and arched all the way up to the heavens and back down again. The most supreme of optical illusions, I could touch it and distort its curve; I almost felt a tingle as I did.
There are days that fill me with wonderment when I think of Malawi; when I think of how I saw it and the actual reality on the ground. I attended Bishop MacKenzie School it was a mixed school with a mix of expat children and wealthy locals. The school was named after a Scottish Missionary who was the first white missionary in Malawi; in 1861 he heeded the call of David Livingston and set off to Malawi. He promptly died of malaria within a short while of arriving in Malawi but is always remembered. I sat there in a school named after him but I spent most of my tie looking at the sky; Malawi had the most beautiful blue sky you could imagine. Maybe it was the angle at which the light hit the Earth, maybe God blessed it that way. Whilst I was in one of my daydreams I hadn’t heard the call for me to join the others outside.
When I got outside I noticed that all the pupils picked were Black. The school was mixed with Whites from Rhodesia, South Africa, Britain and Asians as well as wealthy Africans. We were told we would have the day off and just as I was about to walk home I was told the catch. We would have to go to the airport; I liked that idea, airports are the most wonderful place that a child can go to. The bus came and soon we were boarded, details of the trip were sketchy at best. “You are going to see a very important man.”
Wow the honour; but I thought of why none of the white kids had to go, it reminded me of when I was visiting Denmark and some kid came up to ask me “How come you are like that?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like that, your colour, you are really brown.”
I had never been conscious of race before, I was like most 5 year olds and more concerned with the accumulation of sweets and playing. I stood there for ages wondering the correct answer to give and was truly stumped. Then he asked.
“Are your parents like that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, then that’s why.”
It was then that I realised that people were different but I hadn’t thought about it since it happened. Now on the way to the airport we were learning songs. “You are welcome to our country, a land of beauty and wonder.” And the even more catchy “Peace, love and Progress” and if you were still not convinces then “Joy to the people of Malawi.” We sang these songs in military drill fashion until we were considered proficient enough for VIP guests. We stood on the scorching hot runway, the delegates were not amused because due to a mix-up they realised only 30 minutes ago that there weren’t going to be any singing children. Singing children are a staple of African diplomacy; the guest arrives on the runway and kisses the waiting children before he inspects a guard of honour. This meeting was destined to fail until our timely intervention as thanks to us there would be a bevy of kids to kiss. The guest was kept circling overhead as we prepared the final touches to our presentation; the prettiest girl with pigtails was given a bunch of flowers to hand over when he arrived. Then everybody froze as the plane descended, it was too late now.
When the plane landed, it taxied down the runway while a brass band played. To add a streak of the ridiculous the plane drowned out the band and the back draft from the jet engine blew a lot of so-called dignitaries out of shape. Mr Banda wasn’t here to welcome the guest as it was a politically sensitive time. The plane pulled up and the car-ladder slotted into place, the door opened to reveal our guest. A pasty, red-flush old white man appeared in the doorway and waved. For some unknown reason the band was playing “Yankee-doodle dandy” which added to the bizarre nature of the proceedings. The man in question was P.W Botha, the president of Apartheid South Africa; he was here on a fence-mending expedition and if a country ever needed fence-mending it was South Africa.
Malawi was a pariah state; it was the only African country to have diplomatic ties with South Africa and for that reason it was shunned. South Africa was working as a proxy of the Americans and furthering their cause in the region, this meant that supporting rebels groups in Angola (UNITA) and Mozambique (Renamo). South Africa was using Malawi as a front for its involvement with the Renamo rebels so Mr. Botha was there to see how it was all going. Kamuzu Banda could not be seen to welcome Botha so he dispatched his foreign Minister.
As Botha touched down the band stopped; the darling who had been chosen to hand over the flowers did so in a nervous fashion. He received them gladly and handed them to his assistant. Just as he was ambling off he was reminded to kiss the kids. He arched to stoop over the terrified girl; they were both nervous and there was a hesitation as he chose which cheek to kiss, left or right? It nearly ended in a lip to lip kiss but for a last minute deviation on his part. The little girl sighed as the ordeal ended, but Mr. Bothas advisers were not satisfied.
There was a whisper in his ear; it should have said “Kiss that kaffir like you mean it.” He stooped down to kiss the next girl who was not in anyway prepared for the event and almost bolted in shear horror. The third girl was angling a way out but it was futile as Mr. Botha was now on a roll and he was overcoming his aversion to kissing blacks. His eyes shot to his next victim and this time he lifted the girl up and held her. Bothas nickname in South Africa was “the old crocodile” while I have never been kissed by a real crocodile; this was no less terrifying. His behaviour was starting to worry his hosts as the poor children were in danger of being kissed to death, luckily the minister intervened and cut short this kissing spree. His zeal was now infectious as he rigorously shook the hand of all the welcome party. He proceeded to give a speech; I don’t remember how it went but it must have said something like “We South Africans, we ain’t that bad really, we love you guys. We ain’t racists, come on, you saw how I kissed that kid? We are trying to help you get your freedom by funding rebel groups.”
The speech was well-received, as the applause suggested and soon the sweating hog was off to another function where he would have the chance to kiss more Black people. When I arrived home I noticed that none of my friends shared my enthusiasm for Mr. Botha. My white friend Brendan told me he was an evil man, the cook said he was the devil-incarnate and those were the kinder comments. That was when I realised why only the Black kids were sent to meet him; they couldn’t show Black kids and White kids together because then the myth of separation would collapse.
One morning soon after that I was playing in the garden when I heard the sweetest words that a child can here “Free soda”. I had to investigate further; even though we had soda in the fridge the thought of free soda was too enticing. A horde of kids had assembled on hearing the good news and we thought of the best strategy to get this free soda. We heard that the free soda was in the park behind our estate so we proceeded to the park. I hadn’t even told my mother I was going but I ran after the pack. When we got to the park we were disappointed to see there was already a mob of thousands waiting for free soda; this would take all day. We tried to scramble our way past the masses but being children we didn’t stand a chance. Just as we were giving up we were saved; a woman with a clipboard ushered us to the front. “We need three more children.” We children had gone from being a nuisance to the centre of the show. The lady motioned to the thousands of extras the exact spot they had in the picture.
Nothing was out of place; a brass band was playing, there were women dresses in cloth which was imprinted with his picture. Curiously his picture was printed on their chests and buttocks which was either a sign of disrespect or extreme reverence. The Police had come to restore some order and soon the organisation got a lot better as the men with guns did the pointing. Children were in front, followed by supplicants and cronies, and then followed by zealous peasants paid to chant. The day got hotter as the noon sun crushed onto sweating scalps; soon the headaches that accompany sunstroke were pounding my temples. Soda could have quenched that thirst and sunstroke but it was forthcoming. It soon was three hours since I arrived at the park and still no soda. I stood up to protest and as I approached a soldier to register my discontent; he cocked his gun leaving me in no doubt that he wasn’t at all concerned with my plight.
The singing continued, we chanted his name for hours until entranced. We chanted though out of breath, we chanted in unison and soon it was drummed in. Banda was the man to rule Malawi, we believed it after a while and the cult of Banda had new converts. To understand Malawi you have to understand Banda; he is your archetypal African despot. Born in 1896; he was already 87 when I first saw him and his life was like the history of colonialism. He was educated by Scottish missionaries, he left Malawi for Cape Town in 1917 and worked in various roles before he read history at the University of Chicago; and then he studied medicine in Tennessee and must have been one of the first Black doctors in the UK. He was the most Anglophile of the post-colonial leaders, he was married to an English woman until 1958 when he returned home and had a damascene conversion to the role of statesman. However any illusion of modernity were soon dashed as he proved to be one of the most controlling dictators n Africa.
His picture was everywhere, in public and private buildings and indeed those who were too poor to purchase a descent image of him received free copies. His picture could not be placed on the same level as any other image and had to be placed above. He was keen to see his people were properly dressed and took the grave step of banning miniskirt and trousers for women. Though he did ban miniskirts in the 80’s when they had long gone out of fashion, banning trousers was seen a necessary step to protect the moral foundations of the nation.
Female passengers will not be permitted to enter the country if wearing short dresses or trouser-suits, except in transit or at Lake Holiday resorts or National parks. Skirts and dresses must cover the knees to conform with Government regulations. The entry of 'hippies' and men with long hair and flared trousers is forbidden.
Despite this step the moral state of the nation got worse due to poverty. He pervaded all aspects of life, films were censored. Videos that were for private viewing had to be approved, before they could be watched and even then all images of kissing had to be edited. All foreign magazines were censored and TV banned; any articles that were critical of himself or South Africa were cut out. All radio bulletins began with his name and ended with his name. This was his Disneyland and we were all grateful for making this fantasy true.
The crowd had reached its crescendo; you could feel the love and fear in the air as we waited for brother number one. This might look Orwellian but the precepts of total power were written long before Eric Blair and 1984. Like when Jesus asked who the man on the coin was and when he was told it was Caesar he said “Render on to Caesar what is Caesars” That is what we were doing as we were told that he would arrive shortly. There is a reason why despots are rarely seen in public; maybe the printed image adds more mystique, maybe shyness but the reason is that the despot never lives up to his gargantuan image. The iconography of Banda was set in stone; the pictures were from when he was a much more youthful 65 or so but now he was a decrepit 80 year old man who wore nappies.
The Mercedes rolled up to the park; there was a retinue of lackeys who panicked with decorum and the spontaneous applause was turned up to the max. Even the most cynical man would have applauded as an oceanic feeling engulfed us “Kamuzu, Kamuzu, Kamuzu, Kamuzu! His mistress came along to officially open the proceeding; she opened the door for him and he creaked as he crawled out. When he emerged there was a slight gasp as the man and the myth collided. He stepped up into the sheer opulence that was his marquee; with one supplicant fanning gently while another whisked the flies away. The women danced for him, then we children sang a song, then there were numerous speeches praising him to the rafter and then proceeded through several hours of sycophancy. He sat majestically as his praises were sung; he then proceeded to eat lunch in front of his starving minions and didn’t mind the stares. Some sycophants talked for hours during which even he fell asleep; nobody minded the old crow on the stage as he dribbled and sneezed. Like an Old king Priam; under siege on all fronts yet deluded that Troy will still stand. Lead by Cecilia his mistress; the libation bearers proceeded to the King as he mumbled in his sleep.
When I returned around 5 pm from a surreal day, my mother; who had been worried sick, was so pleased to see me.
When I think of my world and the wonder it invokes; I am taken back to the first ever wonderland I knew. Malawi was that wonderland in the pure bloom of youth and adorable. If I was to paint a verbal picture of the place it wouldn’t do it justice; to see it now is a tragedy as with most African countries it is a dilapidated mess that is a mere shadow of its former glory. It is parched and dry, like a glorious peacock robbed of its feathers but in 1983 there wasn’t a better place on earth. If there was a place that was designed for the growth of a child’s’ imagination it would be Lilongwe; this city far surpassed Disneyland for fantasy and imagination. There were carefully wooded suburbs, rivers that snaked over and underwater. There was a national Park in the middle of the city; you could walk over a bridge and see the grasslands with their eternal drama, the drama that only the food chain can provide.
It was a nature reserve, excellent planning decision to put carnivores in the midst of humanity like that but a convivial balance was struck. One downside to this was when I was walking down the lane and saw a giraffe, I gave it priority due it its superior height advantage and it was then that I had a eureka moment and realised that the long carpet in our corridor was actually a skinned giraffe neck. To understand the country I was in would take you a long time; it would be easier to understand the man who made the myth. Firstly Malawi was his creation; the British called it Nyasaland after Lake Nyasa, but he saw a map where it was called lake Malavi so he switched it to Malawi. How many people actually get to name a country? A test of egomania is if you could call a country anything then what would you call it? Luckily in Africa this happens all the time; Cecil Rhodes, Mobutu, Sankara, and several other leaders have all had the chance to rename their country. Rhodes in typical modest fashion named his country after himself, Mobutu after the river, Sankara renamed Upper Volta – Burkina Faso. These names had various meanings but Malawi had no meaning.
The beautiful city that it was; Lilongwe had one major drawback. A name confers on a place a certain mystique; a place can conjure up a certain romantic image due to the name itself. In Lilongwe all the areas were named numerically. So conversations went like this.
“Hi my name is Isibo, I live in area 21”
“I heard that’s nice, I live in area 16.”
“Oh area 16 that’s really nice, not as good as area 19 but nice”
“Have you seen the waterfalls in area 14, really nice?”
So the government hadn’t got around to naming places and people will have to do it with numbers. Malawi looked like an Orwellian nightmare done on a tight budget. The cantons were strictly regulated with a regimented system that crushed any spirit of freedom. For children the world was free; there was total security and from the age of 4 I could freely navigate the cityscape. I remember one day loitering around town aged 5 and bumping into my Mum on her lunch break, then going about my business. I would save my pennies and then go downtown and buy a soda and samosas. I will never forget on day when I went to the shop and I handed over my money as usual only to be told it wasn’t enough. Due to the niceties of structural readjustment, my money wasn’t worth as much as I thought. The shopkeeper had a problem conveying this in a sensitive manner and I proceeded to cry as hysterically as a five year old could. The other shoppers persuaded the shopkeeper to forgo the laws of economics as I was a special case.
“Man, it’s not enough.”
“Yeah, but he is a kid, he didn’t know”
“But fanta now costs 10 kwacha”
“Just give him something, he is making noise”
He then grudgingly handed me the fanta and I stared at him first, then at the lady next to him. She began to weaken as flittered my eyes, then I pouted and she screamed “For goodness sake give him the samosas.” Mission accomplished; I took advantage of the “kids ride for free” rule to ride the bus home. I was thorough glad with myself for suspending the laws of economics like that; it was a major victory to stand up for myself. And I wondered how this would change me? When I think of Malawi I think of rainbows; they were everywhere, on every horizon, every view. It was like a metaphor for defiance and hope; how it shone brightly, only to disappear and fade. One day I decided to follow the rainbow, I did so as I followed it over hills and hills until I saw it on the final hill. Usually they faded onto the next hill but this time it hung in the same place.
The emerald hill had a star as bright as the pulsar with the rainbow curving out of it; now I faced a dilemma just like a kitten that you didn’t want to scare away, I inched closer and closer to the hill. This rainbow had eluded me on several occasions so I would require stealth and cunning, two qualities I lacked in abundance. I couldn’t let the rainbow see me so I ducked under bushes; I proceeded to the other side of the hill with military precision. It was rocky and rugged so I was careful, the flowers were in bloom when I ascended but I still crept forward. When I approached the top there was another plateau that was invisible from the bottom; from this plateau flowed a stream. This stream dripped over the side of the hill onto the ground below, at the exact point where the stream tipped over the side, there was a refraction that separated the light into the perfect rainbow. The rainbow stood at my feet and arched all the way up to the heavens and back down again. The most supreme of optical illusions, I could touch it and distort its curve; I almost felt a tingle as I did.
There are days that fill me with wonderment when I think of Malawi; when I think of how I saw it and the actual reality on the ground. I attended Bishop MacKenzie School it was a mixed school with a mix of expat children and wealthy locals. The school was named after a Scottish Missionary who was the first white missionary in Malawi; in 1861 he heeded the call of David Livingston and set off to Malawi. He promptly died of malaria within a short while of arriving in Malawi but is always remembered. I sat there in a school named after him but I spent most of my tie looking at the sky; Malawi had the most beautiful blue sky you could imagine. Maybe it was the angle at which the light hit the Earth, maybe God blessed it that way. Whilst I was in one of my daydreams I hadn’t heard the call for me to join the others outside.
When I got outside I noticed that all the pupils picked were Black. The school was mixed with Whites from Rhodesia, South Africa, Britain and Asians as well as wealthy Africans. We were told we would have the day off and just as I was about to walk home I was told the catch. We would have to go to the airport; I liked that idea, airports are the most wonderful place that a child can go to. The bus came and soon we were boarded, details of the trip were sketchy at best. “You are going to see a very important man.”
Wow the honour; but I thought of why none of the white kids had to go, it reminded me of when I was visiting Denmark and some kid came up to ask me “How come you are like that?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like that, your colour, you are really brown.”
I had never been conscious of race before, I was like most 5 year olds and more concerned with the accumulation of sweets and playing. I stood there for ages wondering the correct answer to give and was truly stumped. Then he asked.
“Are your parents like that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, then that’s why.”
It was then that I realised that people were different but I hadn’t thought about it since it happened. Now on the way to the airport we were learning songs. “You are welcome to our country, a land of beauty and wonder.” And the even more catchy “Peace, love and Progress” and if you were still not convinces then “Joy to the people of Malawi.” We sang these songs in military drill fashion until we were considered proficient enough for VIP guests. We stood on the scorching hot runway, the delegates were not amused because due to a mix-up they realised only 30 minutes ago that there weren’t going to be any singing children. Singing children are a staple of African diplomacy; the guest arrives on the runway and kisses the waiting children before he inspects a guard of honour. This meeting was destined to fail until our timely intervention as thanks to us there would be a bevy of kids to kiss. The guest was kept circling overhead as we prepared the final touches to our presentation; the prettiest girl with pigtails was given a bunch of flowers to hand over when he arrived. Then everybody froze as the plane descended, it was too late now.
When the plane landed, it taxied down the runway while a brass band played. To add a streak of the ridiculous the plane drowned out the band and the back draft from the jet engine blew a lot of so-called dignitaries out of shape. Mr Banda wasn’t here to welcome the guest as it was a politically sensitive time. The plane pulled up and the car-ladder slotted into place, the door opened to reveal our guest. A pasty, red-flush old white man appeared in the doorway and waved. For some unknown reason the band was playing “Yankee-doodle dandy” which added to the bizarre nature of the proceedings. The man in question was P.W Botha, the president of Apartheid South Africa; he was here on a fence-mending expedition and if a country ever needed fence-mending it was South Africa.
Malawi was a pariah state; it was the only African country to have diplomatic ties with South Africa and for that reason it was shunned. South Africa was working as a proxy of the Americans and furthering their cause in the region, this meant that supporting rebels groups in Angola (UNITA) and Mozambique (Renamo). South Africa was using Malawi as a front for its involvement with the Renamo rebels so Mr. Botha was there to see how it was all going. Kamuzu Banda could not be seen to welcome Botha so he dispatched his foreign Minister.
As Botha touched down the band stopped; the darling who had been chosen to hand over the flowers did so in a nervous fashion. He received them gladly and handed them to his assistant. Just as he was ambling off he was reminded to kiss the kids. He arched to stoop over the terrified girl; they were both nervous and there was a hesitation as he chose which cheek to kiss, left or right? It nearly ended in a lip to lip kiss but for a last minute deviation on his part. The little girl sighed as the ordeal ended, but Mr. Bothas advisers were not satisfied.
There was a whisper in his ear; it should have said “Kiss that kaffir like you mean it.” He stooped down to kiss the next girl who was not in anyway prepared for the event and almost bolted in shear horror. The third girl was angling a way out but it was futile as Mr. Botha was now on a roll and he was overcoming his aversion to kissing blacks. His eyes shot to his next victim and this time he lifted the girl up and held her. Bothas nickname in South Africa was “the old crocodile” while I have never been kissed by a real crocodile; this was no less terrifying. His behaviour was starting to worry his hosts as the poor children were in danger of being kissed to death, luckily the minister intervened and cut short this kissing spree. His zeal was now infectious as he rigorously shook the hand of all the welcome party. He proceeded to give a speech; I don’t remember how it went but it must have said something like “We South Africans, we ain’t that bad really, we love you guys. We ain’t racists, come on, you saw how I kissed that kid? We are trying to help you get your freedom by funding rebel groups.”
The speech was well-received, as the applause suggested and soon the sweating hog was off to another function where he would have the chance to kiss more Black people. When I arrived home I noticed that none of my friends shared my enthusiasm for Mr. Botha. My white friend Brendan told me he was an evil man, the cook said he was the devil-incarnate and those were the kinder comments. That was when I realised why only the Black kids were sent to meet him; they couldn’t show Black kids and White kids together because then the myth of separation would collapse.
One morning soon after that I was playing in the garden when I heard the sweetest words that a child can here “Free soda”. I had to investigate further; even though we had soda in the fridge the thought of free soda was too enticing. A horde of kids had assembled on hearing the good news and we thought of the best strategy to get this free soda. We heard that the free soda was in the park behind our estate so we proceeded to the park. I hadn’t even told my mother I was going but I ran after the pack. When we got to the park we were disappointed to see there was already a mob of thousands waiting for free soda; this would take all day. We tried to scramble our way past the masses but being children we didn’t stand a chance. Just as we were giving up we were saved; a woman with a clipboard ushered us to the front. “We need three more children.” We children had gone from being a nuisance to the centre of the show. The lady motioned to the thousands of extras the exact spot they had in the picture.
Nothing was out of place; a brass band was playing, there were women dresses in cloth which was imprinted with his picture. Curiously his picture was printed on their chests and buttocks which was either a sign of disrespect or extreme reverence. The Police had come to restore some order and soon the organisation got a lot better as the men with guns did the pointing. Children were in front, followed by supplicants and cronies, and then followed by zealous peasants paid to chant. The day got hotter as the noon sun crushed onto sweating scalps; soon the headaches that accompany sunstroke were pounding my temples. Soda could have quenched that thirst and sunstroke but it was forthcoming. It soon was three hours since I arrived at the park and still no soda. I stood up to protest and as I approached a soldier to register my discontent; he cocked his gun leaving me in no doubt that he wasn’t at all concerned with my plight.
The singing continued, we chanted his name for hours until entranced. We chanted though out of breath, we chanted in unison and soon it was drummed in. Banda was the man to rule Malawi, we believed it after a while and the cult of Banda had new converts. To understand Malawi you have to understand Banda; he is your archetypal African despot. Born in 1896; he was already 87 when I first saw him and his life was like the history of colonialism. He was educated by Scottish missionaries, he left Malawi for Cape Town in 1917 and worked in various roles before he read history at the University of Chicago; and then he studied medicine in Tennessee and must have been one of the first Black doctors in the UK. He was the most Anglophile of the post-colonial leaders, he was married to an English woman until 1958 when he returned home and had a damascene conversion to the role of statesman. However any illusion of modernity were soon dashed as he proved to be one of the most controlling dictators n Africa.
His picture was everywhere, in public and private buildings and indeed those who were too poor to purchase a descent image of him received free copies. His picture could not be placed on the same level as any other image and had to be placed above. He was keen to see his people were properly dressed and took the grave step of banning miniskirt and trousers for women. Though he did ban miniskirts in the 80’s when they had long gone out of fashion, banning trousers was seen a necessary step to protect the moral foundations of the nation.
Female passengers will not be permitted to enter the country if wearing short dresses or trouser-suits, except in transit or at Lake Holiday resorts or National parks. Skirts and dresses must cover the knees to conform with Government regulations. The entry of 'hippies' and men with long hair and flared trousers is forbidden.
Despite this step the moral state of the nation got worse due to poverty. He pervaded all aspects of life, films were censored. Videos that were for private viewing had to be approved, before they could be watched and even then all images of kissing had to be edited. All foreign magazines were censored and TV banned; any articles that were critical of himself or South Africa were cut out. All radio bulletins began with his name and ended with his name. This was his Disneyland and we were all grateful for making this fantasy true.
The crowd had reached its crescendo; you could feel the love and fear in the air as we waited for brother number one. This might look Orwellian but the precepts of total power were written long before Eric Blair and 1984. Like when Jesus asked who the man on the coin was and when he was told it was Caesar he said “Render on to Caesar what is Caesars” That is what we were doing as we were told that he would arrive shortly. There is a reason why despots are rarely seen in public; maybe the printed image adds more mystique, maybe shyness but the reason is that the despot never lives up to his gargantuan image. The iconography of Banda was set in stone; the pictures were from when he was a much more youthful 65 or so but now he was a decrepit 80 year old man who wore nappies.
The Mercedes rolled up to the park; there was a retinue of lackeys who panicked with decorum and the spontaneous applause was turned up to the max. Even the most cynical man would have applauded as an oceanic feeling engulfed us “Kamuzu, Kamuzu, Kamuzu, Kamuzu! His mistress came along to officially open the proceeding; she opened the door for him and he creaked as he crawled out. When he emerged there was a slight gasp as the man and the myth collided. He stepped up into the sheer opulence that was his marquee; with one supplicant fanning gently while another whisked the flies away. The women danced for him, then we children sang a song, then there were numerous speeches praising him to the rafter and then proceeded through several hours of sycophancy. He sat majestically as his praises were sung; he then proceeded to eat lunch in front of his starving minions and didn’t mind the stares. Some sycophants talked for hours during which even he fell asleep; nobody minded the old crow on the stage as he dribbled and sneezed. Like an Old king Priam; under siege on all fronts yet deluded that Troy will still stand. Lead by Cecilia his mistress; the libation bearers proceeded to the King as he mumbled in his sleep.
When I returned around 5 pm from a surreal day, my mother; who had been worried sick, was so pleased to see me.
Random Auto
RANDOM-AUTO
I remember the deepest conversation I have ever had, naturally it involves drugs but don’t let that fact detract from its significance. It was sometime in 2000, Crofty and I were doing a heady cocktail of drugs and even Keith Moon would have appreciated the severity of the mind-bending substances on show. To set the scene, we had stayed up for 3 days solid, sustained only by jazz and drugs. Crofty had an argument with his girlfriend Helen and she had either kicked him out or he walked out. He had arrived in the middle of the night in such a mood that we didn’t bother even asking. Dyce my housemate was working so he left us.
In order not to arouse any discontent Crofty had arrived fully stocked, his eyes bulged with anticipation of the binge. He stripped in the living room and stumbled up the stairs for a shower. While he showered I discussed with Dyce how to deal with the situation, he decided that since I wasn’t as close to him then I would tell him to leave. When he returned he said nothing and I feared that he had overheard us. He proceeded to the CD player and there I first heard “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. Crofty had an awkward gait that was sloping due to his skinny frame and this wasn’t helped by his drug intake. His eyes were hazel and always red due to the weed. His jaw was locked and skittish due to the pills. His skin was sallow but his character made it shine through.
I wondered how to approach him as I rolled the umpteenth joint, his mind was deeply engrossed in his mushrooms. He boiled them meticulously, like a science teacher teaching you how to separate complex compounds with just wits and a Bunsen burner. He wasn’t your average druggie; he knew all the chemical processes that your body underwent when high. Getting high with him was a science class; soon I knew words like serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and cannibanoids but I would barely remember the class in the morning so we would have the same lecture again and again. Miles Davis had been on the loop for around 5 hours; we had been watching TV for a couple hours when we realised the TV wasn’t plugged in. This merely reasserted the fact that the shit was really good.
I turned on the TV around 4.am but my vision was so blurred that I could process the images and I pulled the plug after failing to work the remote. I wish I remember what happened that night because when I sobered up I was merely offered a pill. “Euro-Star mate! It’s got a wicked buildup.” Said Crofty; in his strange accent that was a mix of London cockney and a Derbyshire drawl as per his upbringing. I took the pill and took advantage of the window of sobriety to roll another joint. This is when I realised that in my discombobulated state I had tried to roll several joints and had lacked the mental ability to complete the task. We must have talked about everything; the philosophical question of the day was WHAT IS REALITY? Who is reality? Can you be reality at the same time? This went around in my head several times as I wrestled with the question. The tunnel effect was coming on, choo, choo, choo! Like a train building up speed. Our argument escalated as we descended into anarchy. “I am reality, not you. Fucking dickhead! You want to be reality all the time. Why can’t I be reality?” Crofty was being intransigent, he had declared himself LORD OF REALITY and declared me non-existent. This riled me beyond measure; what right did he have to do that? I told him that if he didn’t declare my existence I would be forced to take drastic action. Despite my warnings he still persisted in this and then threatened to liquidise me. I ran for my life out the door and though my legs were like jelly I still managed to make some ground. I can’t remember where I was but I must have been gone for ages.
I came around and was laying in a playground with my head under a swing as it swung over my head rocking back and forth, that is when my mother appeared. She calmed me down and walked me back home despite the fact that she wasn’t there. When I walked back in Crofty apologised for threatening to liquidise me, I accepted the apology although I still held a slight grudge. Miles came back on the loop signifying another hour had gone by, this was the hazy time as we took out some deckchairs and watched the sun come up. The reefer was abundant as we debated the COMPLEXITY OF LIFE. WE TALKED ABOUT GOD. This went on all day as we went through it again. Dyce went to work and found us in the same spot, another late night smoke session culminated in several hours of Tekken while Miles still played on the CD. By now the album was speaking to us spiritually as we drifted in and out of reality. On the 3rd day I had the deepest conversation of my life; drugs are strange. In the first moments it gives you the utmost clarity, ironically removing your clarity, go figure. These moments are perfect; before the drugs take over every aspect of your life, they give you this moment. The moment your whole life has been waiting for, it is fleeting but haunts you like your shadow.
“Fuckin hell man!” I said.
“What?” He said.
“Time and space. D’you know what I mean?” I said.
“Yeah. Well deep.” He said.
TIME AND SPACE that’s what I’m all about, it is what art and science is about. It was my first ever question. I was taken to one of the most enlightening days of my life. In was 1988, a perfect year in my book. I was in Kampala, in one of the better districts in the dusty sprawl of Uganda called Makindye. I was starting to recover my good spirits after a year of deep depression where I had withdrawn into myself and created my imaginary world, complete with countries, cities and landscapes. My depression was compounded by missing my mother; which is why she popped up in all my trips in later years. I had started to settle in to school at Nakasero after a dismal year at Molly and Paul at the bottom of the road. This school was not my idea of a school; most of the kids had jiggers and lice. I was one of only 3 kids in my class to wear shoes; this brought a lot of animosity upon us. The bullying got worse as I was a Foreigner, being Rwandese and far worse a snob.
My best friend was also my bully, which was the solution to all my bullying; get a bigger bully and give him the exclusive right to bully you and that way all the others are vanquished. Looking at Vincent at the time he wouldn’t have struck you as a bully, he was half a foot shorter than me but this didn’t change the dynamics of our friendship. During the last year I had grown a foot taller and while I thought this would help my plight it only made it worse. Vincent demanded that I stoop low whenever he castigated me; which made for a comical sight. In Europe Bullying is determined by size or numbers; in Africa it is determined by age. Whereas a big 12 year old can bullying elder kids in Europe; an African kid will cow down to a child ten minutes older than him. Therefore I found my growth spurt did little to change the situation, I was told that the only way around it was to find some younger rascal and dish it out for a change. This was thwarted by my gentle demeanour and nobody took me seriously when I demanded their money. My world was taking away all the hurt, in this world I was king, I was in control but the price was detachment from other kids.
It was very rare to meet a kid with similar interests; I was into reading, writing, and actually stimulating my brain whilst other kids seemed to want to play mindless games. One such example is when I was sitting in my room and heard a voice, it was Fred. “Hey, are you coming? We are going to go throw stones at wild dogs.” This I had to see, I dropped the Hardy Boys book I was reading and ran down the stairs. It turned out to be a let down as we ran away in terror upon seeing the rabid dogs. This taught me not to pick on ravenous dogs with rabies as it could be a health risk. I had gone to the Catholic church at Kabuye to say my confession, it was something I did idiosyncratically, for comfort as much as absolution. My trips to the Priest had become more frequent due to puberty; my rap sheet included several counts of indecent thoughts and “self-pollution” as it was called. On my way up the hill I bumped in to this boy; his name escapes me now but for one day he was the best friend I ever had.
He was walking purposefully up the hill with a bundle under his arm; I asked him what it was.
“A random atomiser!” He said and carried on.
“A random atomiser?” I asked.
‘It rearranges molecu…..” He explained but I butted in.
“I know what an atomiser is?” I was holding him up and he was dismayed to have this delay.
“Then why did you ask?” He was already on his way up again.
“I just wanted to see if you knew, that all.” I replied curtly to conceal my ignorance. “What are you going to use it for?” I persisted.
“What do you think?” He was now angry.
“I don’t know; maybe I could help.” He was now fully stopped and losing his momentum.
“It’s hard to build a time machine on your own.” When I said this he dropped the atomiser, which was actually a shock-absorber spring.
“How do you know about that?” He said as he chased the spring that was now rolling down the hill, he caught it and ran back up.
“I know about these things.” I now distanced myself as he followed up the hill. He was now out of breath.
“What do you know about time and space?” As he pulled my shirt to retain my attention.
“I know everything, I’ve read Einstein, hitch-hikers guide and I’ve seen Back to the Future like 20 times.” This amazed him.
“Do you have a power source? The first thing you need is a power source.” I had the upper hand now.
“No, I wanted to use wind power.” He said sheepishly.
“You can’t build a time machine with wind-power, are you mad? You need a more reliable power source. I have a car battery in my garage.”
We walked up the hill and discussed our plans. Perhaps we should have done more research but we figured this would only slow us down, we needed to be quick. We got to my garage and were shocked to see the car battery I had promise my friend wasn’t there. Then I remember my Dad had switched batteries and sent the other for recharging, Phillip would have one but he lived 4 miles away. Vincent would be too nosy and want in on the deal, Ronny would want some kind of payment. So I arrived at the conclusion that John; Vincent’s cousin was a safe bet but could he be discrete?
“What do you want a car battery for? Have you got a car?” Asked John
“No we just need it. Ok?” I was firm.
“Wow you guys have a car! Let me tell Vincent.”
“No, you can’t tell him. Ok? This is a secret. We need a battery.”
“What for? I want to drive. If I give you the battery then I have to drive first. Ok?’ John was a serious bargainer.
“It’s not even for a car, we are building a machine.”
“What kind of machine?” John was already disappointed.
“Just a machine, damn!”
“To do what?” He stared at both of us and we both hesitated.
“A time machine.” I said mumbling
“What? Like a watch or clock?” He was even more perplexed.
“No. A machine that totally alters space and time.” Said my friend; he was now irritated and wanted to leave.
“Why do want to do that? Why don’t you just wake up early? That’s what I do. What if you change space and time and can’t put it back? Why are you messing with God’s plan?”
I thought back to my earlier childhood and why I had been so fascinated with time. I remember coming back from Sunday school in Malawi and I asked my Mum the following question.
“Are there hamburgers in heaven?”
“Yeah. All the hamburgers you can eat and you never get full, you can just eat all day.”
“Is there soda in heaven?”
“Yeah, they have lakes of soda, with fountains of milkshakes and mountains of ice-cream”
“Do they have music in heaven?”
“Oh loads of music. And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on……..”
I have always woken up in cold sweats when I think about that. How can time go on forever without end? That is one of the reasons I have never fully accepted Christianity; the concept of heaven being endless. Even eternal happiness is depressing. However there was a pressing matter of a power source, John said our plan was outright dangerous and wanted nothing to do with it. Luckily he gave us free reign over his garage, which was a veritable goldmine of parts. We must have taken a tonne of stuff with everything from video parts, to what looked like a gramophone and even a communication aerial.
We absconded to my back yard, which was mostly overgrown but a space was made to accommodate our wizardry. The first thing was to check the battery; I hooked up two wires to the terminals and pressed them together to make a spark. This was thoroughly amusing and we each took turns amusing ourselves with this promethean spark. Luckily the spark trick became less amusing with time and we were able to concentrate fully on the matter at hand. The video worked as a control panel, this was hooked up to the random atomiser, the atomiser would break us down and transmit us as sound down the gramophone, the gramophone was connected to old turntable and spin us round until we disappeared into time itself. Indeed once we put our minds to it we had it done in about half an hour. We were worried that these things should take longer but concluded that our genius was a mitigating factor in our speed, but soon creative difficulties began to emerge.
The first problem was where to go; he wanted to go back in time while I wanted to go to the future.
“First we must go back, I have to find my mother before she caught AIDS and warn her, and in fact I will warn my father as well.”
“You can’t change that. Besides what if you went back and she caught AIDS anyway?”
“I miss her. I have to warn her. When she died I wished that I had warned her. Everyone says my Mum was a whore coz she died of AIDS, I have to save her.”
“What if it was destiny? Bibawo (it happens) there nothing you can do.”
“What? Are you telling me that my Mum was meant to die and why is yours alive?”
“My mother is alive, but I don’t know where she is. Even with this time machine I wouldn’t find her.”
“Where is she?” He was now crying.
“I don’t know she is, maybe in Canada or UK or USA. I saw her last year and she said that one day she’ll come and get me. I want to forward to that day.”
“See? At least your mother is alive. If my mother was alive I wouldn’t care if she was in America as long as she was alright.”
“She is alright. She is in heaven.”
“Do you know that for sure? They say that people with AIDS go to hell. So my mother is now in hell. I have to go back and warn her even if she doesn’t listen. I don’t want her back; I just don’t want her to go to hell.” By now he was shivering with grief and any attempt to console him was making him angry. He walked off and was never seen again.
I remember the deepest conversation I have ever had, naturally it involves drugs but don’t let that fact detract from its significance. It was sometime in 2000, Crofty and I were doing a heady cocktail of drugs and even Keith Moon would have appreciated the severity of the mind-bending substances on show. To set the scene, we had stayed up for 3 days solid, sustained only by jazz and drugs. Crofty had an argument with his girlfriend Helen and she had either kicked him out or he walked out. He had arrived in the middle of the night in such a mood that we didn’t bother even asking. Dyce my housemate was working so he left us.
In order not to arouse any discontent Crofty had arrived fully stocked, his eyes bulged with anticipation of the binge. He stripped in the living room and stumbled up the stairs for a shower. While he showered I discussed with Dyce how to deal with the situation, he decided that since I wasn’t as close to him then I would tell him to leave. When he returned he said nothing and I feared that he had overheard us. He proceeded to the CD player and there I first heard “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. Crofty had an awkward gait that was sloping due to his skinny frame and this wasn’t helped by his drug intake. His eyes were hazel and always red due to the weed. His jaw was locked and skittish due to the pills. His skin was sallow but his character made it shine through.
I wondered how to approach him as I rolled the umpteenth joint, his mind was deeply engrossed in his mushrooms. He boiled them meticulously, like a science teacher teaching you how to separate complex compounds with just wits and a Bunsen burner. He wasn’t your average druggie; he knew all the chemical processes that your body underwent when high. Getting high with him was a science class; soon I knew words like serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and cannibanoids but I would barely remember the class in the morning so we would have the same lecture again and again. Miles Davis had been on the loop for around 5 hours; we had been watching TV for a couple hours when we realised the TV wasn’t plugged in. This merely reasserted the fact that the shit was really good.
I turned on the TV around 4.am but my vision was so blurred that I could process the images and I pulled the plug after failing to work the remote. I wish I remember what happened that night because when I sobered up I was merely offered a pill. “Euro-Star mate! It’s got a wicked buildup.” Said Crofty; in his strange accent that was a mix of London cockney and a Derbyshire drawl as per his upbringing. I took the pill and took advantage of the window of sobriety to roll another joint. This is when I realised that in my discombobulated state I had tried to roll several joints and had lacked the mental ability to complete the task. We must have talked about everything; the philosophical question of the day was WHAT IS REALITY? Who is reality? Can you be reality at the same time? This went around in my head several times as I wrestled with the question. The tunnel effect was coming on, choo, choo, choo! Like a train building up speed. Our argument escalated as we descended into anarchy. “I am reality, not you. Fucking dickhead! You want to be reality all the time. Why can’t I be reality?” Crofty was being intransigent, he had declared himself LORD OF REALITY and declared me non-existent. This riled me beyond measure; what right did he have to do that? I told him that if he didn’t declare my existence I would be forced to take drastic action. Despite my warnings he still persisted in this and then threatened to liquidise me. I ran for my life out the door and though my legs were like jelly I still managed to make some ground. I can’t remember where I was but I must have been gone for ages.
I came around and was laying in a playground with my head under a swing as it swung over my head rocking back and forth, that is when my mother appeared. She calmed me down and walked me back home despite the fact that she wasn’t there. When I walked back in Crofty apologised for threatening to liquidise me, I accepted the apology although I still held a slight grudge. Miles came back on the loop signifying another hour had gone by, this was the hazy time as we took out some deckchairs and watched the sun come up. The reefer was abundant as we debated the COMPLEXITY OF LIFE. WE TALKED ABOUT GOD. This went on all day as we went through it again. Dyce went to work and found us in the same spot, another late night smoke session culminated in several hours of Tekken while Miles still played on the CD. By now the album was speaking to us spiritually as we drifted in and out of reality. On the 3rd day I had the deepest conversation of my life; drugs are strange. In the first moments it gives you the utmost clarity, ironically removing your clarity, go figure. These moments are perfect; before the drugs take over every aspect of your life, they give you this moment. The moment your whole life has been waiting for, it is fleeting but haunts you like your shadow.
“Fuckin hell man!” I said.
“What?” He said.
“Time and space. D’you know what I mean?” I said.
“Yeah. Well deep.” He said.
TIME AND SPACE that’s what I’m all about, it is what art and science is about. It was my first ever question. I was taken to one of the most enlightening days of my life. In was 1988, a perfect year in my book. I was in Kampala, in one of the better districts in the dusty sprawl of Uganda called Makindye. I was starting to recover my good spirits after a year of deep depression where I had withdrawn into myself and created my imaginary world, complete with countries, cities and landscapes. My depression was compounded by missing my mother; which is why she popped up in all my trips in later years. I had started to settle in to school at Nakasero after a dismal year at Molly and Paul at the bottom of the road. This school was not my idea of a school; most of the kids had jiggers and lice. I was one of only 3 kids in my class to wear shoes; this brought a lot of animosity upon us. The bullying got worse as I was a Foreigner, being Rwandese and far worse a snob.
My best friend was also my bully, which was the solution to all my bullying; get a bigger bully and give him the exclusive right to bully you and that way all the others are vanquished. Looking at Vincent at the time he wouldn’t have struck you as a bully, he was half a foot shorter than me but this didn’t change the dynamics of our friendship. During the last year I had grown a foot taller and while I thought this would help my plight it only made it worse. Vincent demanded that I stoop low whenever he castigated me; which made for a comical sight. In Europe Bullying is determined by size or numbers; in Africa it is determined by age. Whereas a big 12 year old can bullying elder kids in Europe; an African kid will cow down to a child ten minutes older than him. Therefore I found my growth spurt did little to change the situation, I was told that the only way around it was to find some younger rascal and dish it out for a change. This was thwarted by my gentle demeanour and nobody took me seriously when I demanded their money. My world was taking away all the hurt, in this world I was king, I was in control but the price was detachment from other kids.
It was very rare to meet a kid with similar interests; I was into reading, writing, and actually stimulating my brain whilst other kids seemed to want to play mindless games. One such example is when I was sitting in my room and heard a voice, it was Fred. “Hey, are you coming? We are going to go throw stones at wild dogs.” This I had to see, I dropped the Hardy Boys book I was reading and ran down the stairs. It turned out to be a let down as we ran away in terror upon seeing the rabid dogs. This taught me not to pick on ravenous dogs with rabies as it could be a health risk. I had gone to the Catholic church at Kabuye to say my confession, it was something I did idiosyncratically, for comfort as much as absolution. My trips to the Priest had become more frequent due to puberty; my rap sheet included several counts of indecent thoughts and “self-pollution” as it was called. On my way up the hill I bumped in to this boy; his name escapes me now but for one day he was the best friend I ever had.
He was walking purposefully up the hill with a bundle under his arm; I asked him what it was.
“A random atomiser!” He said and carried on.
“A random atomiser?” I asked.
‘It rearranges molecu…..” He explained but I butted in.
“I know what an atomiser is?” I was holding him up and he was dismayed to have this delay.
“Then why did you ask?” He was already on his way up again.
“I just wanted to see if you knew, that all.” I replied curtly to conceal my ignorance. “What are you going to use it for?” I persisted.
“What do you think?” He was now angry.
“I don’t know; maybe I could help.” He was now fully stopped and losing his momentum.
“It’s hard to build a time machine on your own.” When I said this he dropped the atomiser, which was actually a shock-absorber spring.
“How do you know about that?” He said as he chased the spring that was now rolling down the hill, he caught it and ran back up.
“I know about these things.” I now distanced myself as he followed up the hill. He was now out of breath.
“What do you know about time and space?” As he pulled my shirt to retain my attention.
“I know everything, I’ve read Einstein, hitch-hikers guide and I’ve seen Back to the Future like 20 times.” This amazed him.
“Do you have a power source? The first thing you need is a power source.” I had the upper hand now.
“No, I wanted to use wind power.” He said sheepishly.
“You can’t build a time machine with wind-power, are you mad? You need a more reliable power source. I have a car battery in my garage.”
We walked up the hill and discussed our plans. Perhaps we should have done more research but we figured this would only slow us down, we needed to be quick. We got to my garage and were shocked to see the car battery I had promise my friend wasn’t there. Then I remember my Dad had switched batteries and sent the other for recharging, Phillip would have one but he lived 4 miles away. Vincent would be too nosy and want in on the deal, Ronny would want some kind of payment. So I arrived at the conclusion that John; Vincent’s cousin was a safe bet but could he be discrete?
“What do you want a car battery for? Have you got a car?” Asked John
“No we just need it. Ok?” I was firm.
“Wow you guys have a car! Let me tell Vincent.”
“No, you can’t tell him. Ok? This is a secret. We need a battery.”
“What for? I want to drive. If I give you the battery then I have to drive first. Ok?’ John was a serious bargainer.
“It’s not even for a car, we are building a machine.”
“What kind of machine?” John was already disappointed.
“Just a machine, damn!”
“To do what?” He stared at both of us and we both hesitated.
“A time machine.” I said mumbling
“What? Like a watch or clock?” He was even more perplexed.
“No. A machine that totally alters space and time.” Said my friend; he was now irritated and wanted to leave.
“Why do want to do that? Why don’t you just wake up early? That’s what I do. What if you change space and time and can’t put it back? Why are you messing with God’s plan?”
I thought back to my earlier childhood and why I had been so fascinated with time. I remember coming back from Sunday school in Malawi and I asked my Mum the following question.
“Are there hamburgers in heaven?”
“Yeah. All the hamburgers you can eat and you never get full, you can just eat all day.”
“Is there soda in heaven?”
“Yeah, they have lakes of soda, with fountains of milkshakes and mountains of ice-cream”
“Do they have music in heaven?”
“Oh loads of music. And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on……..”
I have always woken up in cold sweats when I think about that. How can time go on forever without end? That is one of the reasons I have never fully accepted Christianity; the concept of heaven being endless. Even eternal happiness is depressing. However there was a pressing matter of a power source, John said our plan was outright dangerous and wanted nothing to do with it. Luckily he gave us free reign over his garage, which was a veritable goldmine of parts. We must have taken a tonne of stuff with everything from video parts, to what looked like a gramophone and even a communication aerial.
We absconded to my back yard, which was mostly overgrown but a space was made to accommodate our wizardry. The first thing was to check the battery; I hooked up two wires to the terminals and pressed them together to make a spark. This was thoroughly amusing and we each took turns amusing ourselves with this promethean spark. Luckily the spark trick became less amusing with time and we were able to concentrate fully on the matter at hand. The video worked as a control panel, this was hooked up to the random atomiser, the atomiser would break us down and transmit us as sound down the gramophone, the gramophone was connected to old turntable and spin us round until we disappeared into time itself. Indeed once we put our minds to it we had it done in about half an hour. We were worried that these things should take longer but concluded that our genius was a mitigating factor in our speed, but soon creative difficulties began to emerge.
The first problem was where to go; he wanted to go back in time while I wanted to go to the future.
“First we must go back, I have to find my mother before she caught AIDS and warn her, and in fact I will warn my father as well.”
“You can’t change that. Besides what if you went back and she caught AIDS anyway?”
“I miss her. I have to warn her. When she died I wished that I had warned her. Everyone says my Mum was a whore coz she died of AIDS, I have to save her.”
“What if it was destiny? Bibawo (it happens) there nothing you can do.”
“What? Are you telling me that my Mum was meant to die and why is yours alive?”
“My mother is alive, but I don’t know where she is. Even with this time machine I wouldn’t find her.”
“Where is she?” He was now crying.
“I don’t know she is, maybe in Canada or UK or USA. I saw her last year and she said that one day she’ll come and get me. I want to forward to that day.”
“See? At least your mother is alive. If my mother was alive I wouldn’t care if she was in America as long as she was alright.”
“She is alright. She is in heaven.”
“Do you know that for sure? They say that people with AIDS go to hell. So my mother is now in hell. I have to go back and warn her even if she doesn’t listen. I don’t want her back; I just don’t want her to go to hell.” By now he was shivering with grief and any attempt to console him was making him angry. He walked off and was never seen again.
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