OF EATING SLOW AND GROWING A BIG HEAD

By MacPherson Mukuka_Urban

 In my growing up in a quite big township of Lusaka Province called Mtendere,(Peace Park) I never ceased to wonder some stories and their basis.

Every late evening of every day, we would sit around a fireplace and have a listen to some fairy tales, most of which where told by some old folks for one particular reason. You would not argue with them.

Quite a number of stories were told but the most bizarre one was about how one would grow a big head if they ate the slowest than their friends.

I really did not get the sense especially that I was usually the culprit,  I keep the best for last.

If it was nshima with a superb relish, obviously the NDIYO (relish) would be devoured last.

And I would get such comments of 'Walakula icimutwe' meaning "You will grow a big head".

It was only later in life that  got the complete meaning of it, and while that's my understanding.

The meaning  was that I needed to do things and finish at their appointed time.

I later learnt that life has everything timed and only those that there is no need to waste any second on it. Time to eat nshima meant eating it with its accompaniment.

So is life now, lets take for instance a problem.

Solving a problem cant be a success if you don't know you weakness(es). You will need to table both but not at separate intervals.

You will need not to waste time working on you problem while you leave your weaknesses idol, lest that gives birth to another problem.

Today I am grateful, that despite not growing that 'big head' I have managed to learn the ways of life and knowing that some things a tackled at once.

'WALYA NDIMU' THE EVOLUTION

By MacPherson Mukuka

       

It was a game that was played without leaving one crying, or going home with a severe headache.

    Four (4) or more people would gather around to share a trick, and whoever fails, would be the first to bend over and get the very first fists of hard knocks.

   We called the game ‘WALYA NDIMU.’

  

 In this game there is a possibility that the first to go will not have a chance to knock any of the other players.

    To make things worse, it was a game of guessing, you guess wrong, it’s on you, only once in you game time will you guess right. However the chance would still be very slender.

      I played the game on many occasions and concessionary got my head knocked pretty hard, that I can confess.

      However, sometimes I was one of the lucky guys that went scold free.

     The selfish part of the game was that even when someone guessed right, they would still get the wa sabaila answer, meaning you have guessed wrong. 

     This happened mostly to those who for unknown reasons were hated by others, sometimes that young ones would be the victims of such treats.

     Today, WALYA NDIMU still exists but at a different form, it has come as a political style of dealing with the ones who oppose the ruling government.

      It is sad to note today’s political landscape world-over is running based on this game.

Those we don’t like will not pull through and be the ones to lead others, all because of their looks, ideologies or whatever the case may be.

    We have decided to play the game so hard that we even go to an extent of knocking the heads of the innocent people who for reasons best known to them feel there is still a chance for others to play also.

      Politics is now a personalized game, whoever has a grudge with the Government the day in any part of the world will receive the hardest knocks on their head. 

 

      This political arena has become more of the oppressing platform than a foundation stone to development and unity.

     The game is also found in ‘churches’ run by the so called prophets.

     We have them so called ‘men of god’ playing a hard on of their followers.

     We have heard of stories of ‘men of god’ raping, impregnating and worse, stealing from their followers in the name of performing healing, deliverance and building the temple respectively.

     Somewhere else, followers of the ‘good news’ are stepped upon, made to drink petrol, chew grass and to the extreme, there are doomed.

     We should remind ourselves every day that playing games of hard head knocks will not build us; it will instead destroy even the little we have achieved as a collective.

    May God open our eyes to see the good in our friends and pray that that bad part in them should cease  to exist, after all we are one people of different colours.