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Fat Monkeys spoil New Year pork beach party

Sheikh Jean-Philippe LePoisson Sc., Native Authority Mandela and our leader of delegation, Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66, are back, literally with their tails between their legs. Despite my protestation, they went to Monkey Bay for what they called the New Year Pork Beach Party. MG 66 directed that they buy enough pork, chapatti and an assortment of drinks that included two bottles of amalaula for the Native Authority. And they left me behind.

I, however, took advantage of my loneliness to think.  Actually, the best things in the world were invented by lonely people.  Legend has it that Moses was alone on Mount Sinai when he ‘received’ the Ten Commandments; Mohammed, too,  was alone in a cave when the Holy Koran was ‘revealed’ to him; William Kamkwamba was alone somewhere in the dusty fields of Kasungu when he ‘invented’ the windmill that has made him a world star.  In contrast, politicians, particularly presidents, queens, kings and chiefs all over the world, don’t invent anything, essentially because they are surrounded by too much noise, heavily armed security police, cashgate ministers and nagging spouses.

Loneliness helped me to remember an old acquaintance who now works at the Dedza Pottery Lodge, makers of some of the finest pottery products in Malawi.  Those who care will remember that when we were in Nkhotakota, we visited the Nkhotakota Pottery Lodge where we ate, drank and spent a few days watching nkhungu in Lake Malawi, birds and reptiles in the nearby serene forest, and listening to mosquitoes as they whined around our netted beds all night long. The man who managed Nkhotakota Pottery is now temporarily managing the Dedza Pottery Lodge.

He lent me his tiny but roomy and comfortable town-mobile called Toyota Mpasu. The only small car I had driven until then was a Toyota Vizara. Until yesterday, I used the Mpasu as I wished. But I have had to surrender it back because my stubborn friends are back and have joined me at our secret lodge whose name we will not reveal because we are not sure about our safety here in Dedza.

“You were right not to go,” Joyce Befu, MG 66, said as she disembarked from the Toyota Harriet.

“What happened? You fought? You were beaten up for eating pork?” I asked impatiently.

“When we got to Monkey Bay, Native Authority Mandela and I went to see our people.  Later, we went to revel on the Chikoko Bay and Balamanja beaches. Things were nice until when my Sheikh took us to Chembe or Cape Maclear,” MG 66 explained.

“Chief Chembe chased you for carrying pork?”

“That chief is munthu,” Native Authority Mandela said as he also disembarked from the Harriet.

“Guys, in the name of Jah Rastafari, just tell me what happened,” I pleaded like a young man courting a president’s daughter.

“We went to a joint called Fat Monkeys at Cape Maclear, “Jean-Philippe started. “When we stopped there, MG 66 and the Native Authority jumped out of the vehicle and went to the bar to continue doing what we had gone to Monkey Bay to do. As I reversed the car to park properly I heard a commotion of sorts.”

“People were fighting?”

“No”, Jean-Philippe went on, “the owner of the joint was busy shouting, swearing at and shoving away my MG 66 and the Native Authority. He called them Black Monkeys and used those haram words you only hear at Chez Matemba. I got out and approached the white couple. They toned down and apologised.”

“They apologised for what?”I asked.

“For calling my MG 66 and the Native Authority Black Monkeys! That was utterly racist, despicable and foolish. How can a so-called investor and operator of a run-down joint call the autochthons Black Monkeys? How?  Those bloody white fat monkeys really spoiled our pork beach party,”Jean-Philippe said.

“Cool down. You were in a party mood. Weren’t you? You and probably the owners of the Fat Monkeys were all drunk.  Weren’t you?  So, an exchange of such apparently racist words was tolerable and not unexpected.  Sister Jessika at Chanko says beach parties are not for the feeble-minded. Last time we went there, we ate and drank but the owners of that joint didn’t call us names…”

“But they refused to give you water to wash your hands and eat nsima. Instead they gave you cutlery,” Jean-Philippe went on.

“Those are their standards,” I said.

“You seem to side with racists. How would you react to a foreign white person who called you a Black Monkey in your own country?”  MG 66 asked.

“Simple. Malawi is full of Black Monkeys, England is full of White Monkeys and while Asia is home to Red Monkeys. Yes?”

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