Why Atupele shakes Karonga
Thanks to the ingenuity of our resident guide, Roselyn Mwenelupembe, that indefatigable, ever smiling, and creative Karongian girl, we were able to travel to Kayerekera Uranium Mine and back to base. While Jean-Philippe and I were busy thinking about how to get airtime to call the Mzuzu office of RR Rent a Car, Roselyn was busy unplugging cables, blowing injector nozzles, and repluging injector pipes.
“Now, I understand why Malawi’s the least visited country in Southern Africa,” Jean-Philippe mourned.
“Tell us,” Roselyn said mockingly as she unplugged another pipe.
“Why should airtime cost like jet fuel?” Jean-Philippe wondered.
“I suspect mobile telephone network providers have raised their tariffs in response to the government gesture of increasing tax on airtime. Theirs is not charity work, you know?”
“Communication is a human right. Why should the tools and services that help people to communicate be overtaxed?” Jean-Philippe asked, sighing rather dejectedly, “Why?”
“You, donors, are very funny. You come up with anti-subsidy policies and when those policies start biting you, you cry like petit babies!”
“I am not a donor!” Jean-Philippe protested.
“Well, France is a donor! You are French; therefore, you are a donor!”
“Mon Dieu! What school of logic is that?”
Roselyn asked me to try and crank the engine. I did. The engine picked. I pressed the accelerator, and behold, there was throttle. Roselyn had repaired the car while Jean-Philippe and I were busy complaining about mobile phone services. I felt jealously angry about her success. How could two reasonably educated men spend their time complaining while a woman, a mere club servant, was putting things right?
“We can go?”I begged, literally.
“Not yet,” Roselyn said with an air of deserved pride.
I smiled. Jean-Philippe smiled. Roselyn smiled. We smiled. Smiling has been our tool of reconciliation each we have crossed each other’s paths, particularly when we are under the influence of haram drinks.
“You know what we do here in Karonga when we have no Malawian network? We use the Tanzanian Netiweki ya Taifa to call our Malawian friends and enemies.”
“Isn’t that expensive?” Jean-Philippe, always conscious about costs, wondered.
“What’s the difference? You just spent K500 on a fruitless five-second call; but if we had used the Netiweki ya Taifa, we could have finished the call and got the service we wanted,” Roselyn said.
We agreed with Roselyn and learned never again to store all our okra in one chinaware pot. I asked how I could access Netiweki ya Taifa. Roselyn advised me to remind her when we got back to Club Marina so that she could give me a Netweki ya Taifa sim card.
Roselyn signaled that she had finished fitting back the injector pipes, and we started off for the controversial Uranium Mine. When we got to the entrance to the Mine, an English speaking guard asked us if we had booked an appointment.
I drove back as fast as I could, not because of Jean Philippe’s command, but because I wanted Roselyn to give me a Netiweki ya Taifa sim card for me to call Mzuzu. We sat in the car like spouses who cannot divorce each other because neither of them can remarry, anyway.
“This is Atusaye Village. The Village Head, Atupele, is young and ambitious. Here in Karonga, we love and almost worship him,” Roselyn said, breaking the silence as the Harriet whizzed past children, men and women on foot on our way to downtown Karonga Boma.
“Atupele?”
“Yeah. He is very courageous and forward looking. He took over from his ailing father and on his installation day, he told his village folks, in the presence of his own father and mother, uncles, and wanyambala that for there to be genuine change in the village, there was need to get rid of everything and everybody associated with the old days. His father could not believe what he heard from Atupele’s mouth. He died two weeks later.”
“He said that?” Jean-Philippe asked, puzzled. “Is this the same Atupele I know?”
“I am talking about Atupele Atusaye Mwenilondo. Which Atupele do you know, yourself?”
