Are we ready to face Tanzania?

Alhajj Mufti Jean-Philippe LePoisson, SC (RTD), Mzee, the Most Paramount Native Authority Mandela, Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66, and I, the Mohashoi, are here in the aptly-named Shire Highlands. We will be lodged in a secret place because we want to be incognito. Our only outing will be to have the VW Amailoko serviced at the dealers.

Before we got here yesterday evening, we spent a few hours at Majete Wildlife Reserve watching animals enjoying themselves without worrying about party defections, cashgate, tractorgate, hyenagate,  border wrangles with arrogant and assertive neighbours, and the escalating prices of goods.  As we watched hippos and crocodiles lying side by side and giving each other enough space to manoeuvre, we wondered why the human race is so grabby and the strong keep taking from the poor even the little space they have.

“That’s why in the next life I want to be an elephant, a lion or a hyena!” Mzee Mandela said.

“Do you really have to resurrect to be a hyena?  Just stay here in Senaland and join Aniva,” Jean-Philippe mocked.

“I mean a real hyena with darks body spots, small hind limbs but huge fore limbs, a six-pack belly and  strong jaws to crash anything and anyone,” Paramount Native Authority Mandela explained.

“In the next life I want to be a male lion with large bloodshot telephotographic eyes,” Abiti said.

“A lioness, you mean?” Jean-Philippe tried to correct.

“A male lion to kill all hyenas and female pimps that prey on young girls,” MG 66 elaborated.

“Do you think God will have all the time to convert you, first from female to male, then from human to lion? Don’t forget that we already 7 billion” Jean-Philippe laughed as he reached for a can of beer from his rucksack.

Our gun-toting guard asked us to leave as our time in the wildlife reserve had expired. We drove back to the reception, thanked the lady on duty there and drove out to Villa Dyeratu to get one for the road to Blantyre, the City of Mediocrity.

Villa Dyeratu is that by all conservative estimates the best pub in Senaland. An usher or bouncer or both welcomed us and led us to a table for four that had been placed strategically under the pub’s trade mark baobab tree. I refused without consulting my Bottom-Up expedition colleagues. Instead, I went straight to the counter and asked for a fantakoko for myself, amalaula for Abiti and Mzee Mandela, and a can of frozzy beer for Alhajj Jean-Philippe LePoisson.

“You,” someone called from my back, “what brings you here!”

“Hey, Prof. Long time. And you, what are you doing in Fisiland?”   I said as Isaac and I hugged like a couple that has just reunited after being separated by an internecine war.

“A small Fisi anthropological study. Big money, hey?” Prof. Isaac responded, adding “My troops are already all over gathering stories and narratives about the Hyena practice.”

“And you are carousing as the foot soldiers are doing the work!” I said.

“You don’t need to remind me…”

“But you professors are a funny lot,” I said, “What kind of researchers are you? You are doing the Fisi research today because the Chief Arresting Officer sent Aniva to jail?  You react to an occurrence to conduct research instead of doing researching so as to avert occurrences.”

“Boy, you cannot conduct research where there is no researchable problem. Which research financier will bankroll research into some fuzzy cultural problem? This country can hardly afford to feed its people and you expect it to fund something as remote as a cultural practice that has killed no one or just one or two people?” Prof. Isaac retorted.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. Tanzanian researchers, professors, lawyers, historians, cartographers, PR practitioners, and perhaps the military, are working together and amassing evidence to justify that country’s claim to Lake Malawi. They did not wait for an occurrence. What research have you in our universities done to prepare the country for an intellectual showdown with Tanzania?”

“But that’s not my area of specialisation!” Prof. Isaac protested.

“He means that you, intellectuals, not just you, Mr. Isaac, should prepare this country for such eventualities as an intellectual clash with grabby and territorialist states like Tanzania,” Jean-Philippe came to my rescue.

“I am Professor Isaac; and not Mr. Isaac!” Isaac fumed and immediately wobbled to his car, beer bottle in his right hand. n