Notes From The Gutter

What comes with winter!

 

Republicans, it is again that time of the year when temperatures drop and prices of warm clothing shoot up like rockets.

Chilly mornings slow down the desire for employed Republicans to jump out of their mounds of beddings to go to work early.

On this chilly Saturday morning, I was up early and on the road to the market square where our circle puts together our coins to buy weekend papers through which we dexterously comb.

In wornout slippers and fading jacket, Gagula, the ‘treasurer,’ was already at the rendez-vous almost an hour early, as per his routine.

Sneezing from the biting cold and his feet ice cold from the stony air, he stood there rubbing hands for warmth.

His tiny house only has two rooms—a bedroom, proudly his, and a ‘lounge’ that at night acts as a bedroom for his five wards, all female.

This means most vital items needed for laundry and other chores synonymous with a weekend have to be shipped from out of the house’s only ‘better’ room—the bedroom.

Laundry days are early days for Gagula and the newspaper circle is a good get away card for him.

I was within five metres off Gagula when a bicycle bell rattled behind me.

With the clamour was a sweating bicycle taxi operator who with one hand supported a child on the saddle and with the other pushed the bicycle with the might of an agitated bull.

A barefoot woman in her mid-20s struggled to match the equally barefooted bicycle operator’s wide strides.

She cried loudly and urged the bicycle operator to push the bicycle even more quickly.

The wailing boy was covered in a chitenje. At our insistence, the woman loosely explained that the destination was the hospital. On this cold morning the young boy had been scalded by hot water as he fought with siblings for a better pose around a charcoal burner.

We all sympathised and agreed to forgo our newspaper habit and instead push the collections towards the woman’s travel to hospital—it would be faster by minibus. In the ghetto, we serve our own.

Without a newspaper, our circle had a chance to look at matters more serious than the usual media pieces on white collar thieves protesting a five year jail stay for misdirecting millions of public money when ghetto chicken thieves rot in prison for over five years.

Instead, we noted how many children and adults alike will in this cold season end up in hospital from accidents resulting from attempts to warm themselves with open fires and other unsafe sources of heat while the lot in the suburban neighbouring housing lots heat their houses at the turn of a switch on the wall.

Then from the dusty ghetto road appeared a wedding procession heading towards one of our many churches.

It is when Gagula told us six more had cruised past the market square early on.

Pajatu nthawi yake ndi ino. Kuopa chilanga mbeta,’ he said, attracting our giggles. n

 

R

epublicans, it is again that time of the year when temperatures drop and prices of warm clothing shoot up like rockets.

Chilly mornings slow down the desire for employed Republicans to jump out of their mounds of beddings to go to work early.

On this chilly Saturday morning, I was up early and on the road to the market square where our circle puts together our coins to buy weekend papers through which we dexterously comb.

In wornout slippers and fading jacket, Gagula, the ‘treasurer,’ was already at the rendez-vous almost an hour early, as per his routine.

Sneezing from the biting cold and his feet ice cold from the stony air, he stood there rubbing hands for warmth.

His tiny house only has two rooms—a bedroom, proudly his, and a ‘lounge’ that at night acts as a bedroom for his five wards, all female.

This means most vital items needed for laundry and other chores synonymous with a weekend have to be shipped from out of the house’s only ‘better’ room—the bedroom.

Laundry days are early days for Gagula and the newspaper circle is a good get away card for him.

I was within five metres off Gagula when a bicycle bell rattled behind me.

With the clamour was a sweating bicycle taxi operator who with one hand supported a child on the saddle and with the other pushed the bicycle with the might of an agitated bull.

A barefoot woman in her mid-20s struggled to match the equally barefooted bicycle operator’s wide strides.

She cried loudly and urged the bicycle operator to push the bicycle even more quickly.

The wailing boy was covered in a chitenje. At our insistence, the woman loosely explained that the destination was the hospital. On this cold morning the young boy had been scalded by hot water as he fought with siblings for a better pose around a charcoal burner.

We all sympathised and agreed to forgo our newspaper habit and instead push the collections towards the woman’s travel to hospital—it would be faster by minibus. In the ghetto, we serve our own.

Without a newspaper, our circle had a chance to look at matters more serious than the usual media pieces on white collar thieves protesting a five year jail stay for misdirecting millions of public money when ghetto chicken thieves rot in prison for over five years.

Instead, we noted how many children and adults alike will in this cold season end up in hospital from accidents resulting from attempts to warm themselves with open fires and other unsafe sources of heat while the lot in the suburban neighbouring housing lots heat their houses at the turn of a switch on the wall.

Then from the dusty ghetto road appeared a wedding procession heading towards one of our many churches.

It is when Gagula told us six more had cruised past the market square early on.

Pajatu nthawi yake ndi ino. Kuopa chilanga mbeta,’ he said, attracting our giggles. n

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