Robbers of Capital City: Part 1

O

ne afternoon last week, a good friend found himself in Lilongwe’s Area 15 sorting out personal business.

Driving out of the location, the veteran Capital City resident had no idea what was in store for him that day.

On the front passenger seat was a new phone a brother had sent him from far across continents as a token of solid brotherly love.

“Iyi si foni wamba[this is not an ordinary phone],” the friend had bragged a few days earlier.

It was a beautiful handset.

At reaching the t-junction where the road from Area 15 filters into a bigger one that connects to the M1 at Shaeffer Marquee on one end and Chilambula Road at Amina Round about on the other, he slowed to a stop awaiting his turn.

Then there he had it in a flash.There was somebody wildly clawing at the front passenger’s door,showing all signs of a man inviting himself in.

The time it would take the friend to lock the door was too much to keep the intruder off.

The thief was already inside!

“Tandipatsa makiyi. Ndikubayatu iwe! [Surrender the keys or I stab you!]” the invader was wielding a knife he thrust in the driver’s direction.

As instinct reigned, the driver had the pursuer’s hand in his, avoiding the knife by a whisker. A battle was now in session.

Noting ‘success’ was not to come easy, the thief now invested all his power in prising his hand off the tight grip it was wrapped in.

Fearing that letting the thief break free would as well mean the thief finding it easy to take a recharged stance from where he could attack with the knife, the driver had no choice but hold on to the hand.

He prayed for vehicles or pedestrians to show up and help. There were none.

The driver and thief now found themselves out of the vehicle via the passenger’s front door.

Their scuffle had swept the driver’s phone from the passenger seat, on to the ground.

With the thief now subdued and on the receiving end of the bout, it was his time to call for reinforcement.

“Tatuluka! Andiphatu kuno! [Come help me. Am cornered],” the thief shrieked.

And like a sudden burst of lightening, out of a maize field storms a muscled man with an iron rod on the ready to smash the driver’s head to smithereens.

“Mayo ndikufa,” the driver announced his absolute pain as the rod ruthlessly landed on his back.

The option for the driver now was to jumpfrom off the thief he was pounding and make it so safety.

So, from some metres away, the driver could only helplessly watch in astonishment as the two thieves searched the vehicle for whatever they could cart home.

“Tatenga foni pansipo iwe[pick the phone from off the ground],” instructed the thief first on the scene, staggering to his feet.

A few moments later, the two bandits were deep into the maize fields, with the phone now their new prized possession.

Next week is another story of this City of thieves. n