Nilibe Problem December!

My neighbour surprises me. He is a middle aged party animal who can suck a lake dry.

Fridays are for booze. Saturday mornings are for more booze and loud music while the afternoons are for beer sessions that spill on to Sunday.

If there was a bottle big enough to accommodate him, he surely wouldn’t be living inside four walls anymore.

From his drinking escapades, he staggers all the way home, rumbling about the lyrics of the song of the season. Actually, he has for long become my reliable source of news on music chart toppers.

A few days ago, while deep in my sleep, I heard a huge thud from the direction of his house. I concluded it was the kind of ghetto thieves who force their way into people’s homes by smashing the already rickety doors with huge stones.

I hastened to peep through my tattered curtains and, in the bright moonlight, voila! It was my neighbour struggling to keep upright, a bottle of cheap rum carefully clung to his chest like a key to a bank safe.

He had come home too drunk and crawling, at least by the look of his clothes. The only time he almost successfully stood upright he had tried to use the wall for support. But alas, the wall seemed to duck his attempt and he nosedived back to the hard earth.

Amid song, he wiped his bloody nose with his palm and studied the red that told a story of pain. He winced and I thought he had a drinking problem.

But before long, he broke into song:

It’s ok okamba wazikamba/It’s ok wozonda wazizonda/Ali na chilonda, ndiye amvera kuwawa/Ine nilibe pulobulemu, nilibe pulobulemu/Nilibe pulobulemu, ine nilibe pulobulemu

It is the festive season again. And, like most Decembers, one song takes charge of the festive season. This year the December music force is not from locals. It is from Zambia’s Dalisoul and Magigi.

But ine nilibe pulobulemu with that! n