It was on a Friday evening when we expected that attending a music show by a foreign artist would be good for a change.
I have recently held the view that the more things change the more our local artists remain the same old unprofessional acts— getting on stage hours behind schedule or wasting hours on sound-check.
But alas! What was to come was a bunch of the same things, just from another artist and country.
There we stood, like dolls, waiting for the organisers [or disorganisers?] of the show to trace a missing microphone. How on earth does an organiser of a show of such international acclaim realise on the very hour of the event that they need more than one microphone!
Lack of contingency planning was at work. It is then that the new bank notes made the subject of the ensuing chatter.
The guys near us joked about how one note can now order a round of drinks for four people!
In their soft approach to life, the people are calling this ‘increased empowerment’.
We joined in the discussion.
The guys got so chatty as they ‘seriously wondered’ how beer prices have defied the devaluation, remaining almost the same when prices of other goods have gone up.
At that moment one guy fishes out a K1 000 from his wallet and jokes about how settling bills has gone easier!
He schooled us that people in his neighbourhood have since dubbed Kamuzu for the note has a portrait of Hastings Kamuzu Banda on its front.
The K500 is a Chilembwe, K200 is a Chibambo or Adona. The K100 is Sangala, the K50 a Gomani while the K20 is a M’mbelwa.
The other day, he says, a group of his friends voted the K200 the cutest in the range!
I agreed to this, don’t ask me why!
After all I am not ashamed to say if I get the K200 in change [the only gender sensitive note!] it will go straight into my wallet for good; who doesn’t want beauty in their wallets?
We were deep into such chatter when, without even an apology for letting us wait for ages, the show took it right course.
