W2F011T
The impossible lover
HE had never been more in love with her, and he told her so. Then she sank back at his side, she shut her eyes, she was silent. They say that many people forget what it means to speak, but many people forget what can be signified by being silent, the mad fantastic, extravagant thoughts.
Hanapendo watched, behind closed eyelids, fragments of her childhood passed by, she saw the forgotten faces of certain men, the closest, that of Joe. All these memories, instead of forming the vague, homogenous group that, when she was happy, she gaily called her life, turned into an <O/>, disorderly magma now that she was less so. Hanahela was right what was to become of them, where were they, together, heading like this? What would they become? And this bed which had been the most beautiful boat in Dar es Salaam became a drifting raft, thrown uselessly along Kunduchi Beach, and this so familiar room an abstract setting. He had put the notion of the future into Hanapendo's head and in doing so, seemed to have made it something impossible to share.
One morning, Hanapendo awoke feeling violently nauseated. Hanahela had already left as he sometimes left now without waking her. She went into the bathroom and was sick, without being too astonished.
Hanapendo was pregnant. She was at last, after a long combat, caught and cornered by life. A world where irresponsibility was punished. Hanahela loved her and would be ready to play the prospective father according to the way she presented the news. If she told him: something delightful has happened to us, he would take the expected child as a blessing, that she knew.
But she did not have the right. Because this child would take away her freedom definitely, and for that reason, would not make her happy. And too, she knew it she had disappointed Hanahela and had led him to a stage in their love where everything seems as proof of his love. And he would be ready to take as such that accident kindly. She loved him too much she did not want this baby, she only wanted him.
When Hanahela came home, she told him of her troubles. He grew slightly pale, then took her in his arms. He talked in a fanciful voice and she felt herself tighten her jaws stupidly.
'Are you sure you don't want it?'
'I only want you,' she said.
She did not discuss the material difficulties, she was afraid of humiliating him. She did not want to burden him with it. This was not the time to have daydreams of a little Hanahela. It was the time to open one's eyes to compare the size of the rented room with that of a crib.
'We might try to get married and all that....... we could move' 'Where would we go?' she asked. 'And I think that a child ties one down terribly, you know. You would <-_came><+_come> home to find me fed up, in a bad humour ... it would be......'
The next day at eight O'clock she telephoned Hanahela, his voice sounded tired, worried, she did not have the courage to speak of her fright. Yet, at that moment if he had asked her, she might have decided to keep the baby. But she felt helpless and she suddenly yearned for some sort of protection. She automatically thought of Joe Michuzimingi, Joe whom she had wiped out of her memory like an uncomfortable remorse, like a name that could still make Hanahela suffer. In a flash, she knew that she was going to ask him for help, that no one could stop her, that he was the only human being capable of doing something to end this nightmare.
Joe Michuzimingi, as his name explains was a successful businessman, a tycoon on his own right with big bank accounts in the country and abroad. Hanapendo telephoned him, she dialled the familiar office number, greeted the switchboard operator. He was there, she had a curious feeling when she heard his voice and it took a while for her to recover her breath.
'Joe' she said, 'I would like to see you, I'm in trouble'. 'I'll send the car for you in an hour,' he replied calmly. 'Is that all right?' 'Oh yes, Yes, she responded, 'in an hour'. She waited for him to hang up and then, as he did not, she remembered his unfailing courtesy, and put down the receiver. She dressed hurriedly, and had to wait for three-quarters of an hour afterwards, the chauffeur greeted her joyfully and, with a feeling of immense relief, she sat down on the familiar seat.
When at Joe's house, she glanced about the room, remarked in a loud voice that nothing had changed. Not even himself, and she thought with panic that he perhaps imagined that she had returned to him. She began to talk so fast that he had to ask her to repeat her words.
'Joe, I'm expecting a baby, I don't want to keep it, I must see a doctor for an abortion, I have no money.
'Are you sure that you don't want to keep it?'
'I can't afford to, we can't afford to,' she answered, blushing.
'You're absolutely certain that it's not only a question of money?
'Absolutely certain,' she said.
Joe got up, took several steps about the room, then turning, he began to laugh sadly.
'You don't want to have anything of your own, do you? Neither a husband, nor a child nor a home ... really nothing. It's very strange.
Joe sat down at his desk, wrote a cheque. He handed it to her she had a lump in her throat, she would have liked to cry out for him not to be so kind, so comforting, not to make her shed the tears that filled her eyes. Tears of relief, bitterness and melancholy.
'You know I'm still waiting for you,' said Joe. I'm horribly bored without you. It's not very tactful to tell you so today, but we see so little of each other?
He gave a small, forced laugh that put an end to her thoughts. She jumped up, 'thank you' and hurried to the door. 'I don't want the money,' said Hanahela. 'Have you thought for a moment of what that man thinks of me? Does he take me for a pimp? I take this woman from him and I make him pay for my blunders? 'Hanahela....' 'It's too much, far too much. I'm not a model of morality, but there are limits. You refuse to have my child lie to me. You sell your pearls on the sly, you do not mind just so long as it pleases you, But I won't have you borrowing money from your former lover to kill your present lover's baby, It's not possible.
'You probably think it more virtuous that I should be mangled by a butcher that you would pay? 'You're cowardly, Hanapendo, cowardly and selfish. At fifty you'll find yourself alone with nothing your damned charm won't work any more. You'll have no one to console you?
They felt cold, avoided touching each <-_over><+_other> , they felt upon them in that large bed-which had so long been their only escape-the weight of the world, They saw a hostile, difficult future, they saw a life one without the other, a life without love. All day long Hanahela had thought; 'It's not possible, all women experience this they have children, they have money worries, that's life and she must understand that. She's just selfish, but when he saw her again.
When he looked at her innocent, absent, unworried face, he had the impression that with her it was not a shameful weakness, but a deep hidden animal force that kept her from life in its most natural sense. he could not help having a vague respect for what he had despised ten minutes earlier.
Untouchable. Her determination for pleasure made her untouchable, her selfishness was what one called honesty, her indifference, interest. He gave a peculiar moan, a moan that seemed to spring from his childhood, his birth, his whole destiny as a man.
It seemed as though the fact of being able to sort out one's feelings automatically all their lives led to this conflict, while chats and liars could remain wildly romantic all their lives. Hanapendo loved Hanahela, but cared for Joe Michuzimingi, Hanahela made her happy and she did not make Joe unhappy.
As she valued both men, she was not sufficiently interested in herself to be ashamed of allowing herself to be shared by both. Her total lack of self-sufficiency made her ruthless, and it was quite by chance that she discovered that she could suffer.
She had not seen Hanahela for two days and decided to check him at his residence in Buguruni and surprised Hanahela was not around. His landlord could not comment on his whereabouts. Hanapendo used the key he had given her. The room was empty and the blinds open. For a moment she thought she had made a mistake. Surprised she walked about the room, she knew so well and yet so little, reading the title of books on the shelves. She felt that she was in a stranger's room, her presence there indiscreet. For the first time she thought of Hanahela as someone else and that what she knew of him did not make him a permanent accomplice, where was he? It was quarter past six, she had not seen him for two days. She <-_wondered><+_wandered> about the sad room from door to window, picked up a novel, poisoned love by Wilson Kaigarula, could not understand a word of what she read, put it down again. The idea froze her, motionless in the middle of the room, attentive, like certain mortally wounded buffalo seen in game reserves. A storm broke loose in her memory: What she had taken for <-/disaproval> in Hanahela's eyes was real.
What worried her was not the fear of being <-/dissaproved>, but the fear of making him suffer. He was no longer in love with her. A dozen of Hanahela's attitudes passed through her minds in a flash and she put them all down to indifference, she said aloud. "Well that's that. He doesn't love me any longer" she said. The words in a quite voice, and immediately the sentence returned to her like a whiplash, her hand went to her abdomen, as if in defence, if but what am I to do to Hanahela doesn't love me any more? Her world seemed to be drained of juices.
She remained standing, shaking so violently that she came to her own rescue: 'come, come,' she said aloud, 'come now... I won't kill it'. She spoke to her heart and body as though they were a team of terrified <-/wildebeasts>, she lay down on bed forcing herself to breathe quietly.
A table clock struck seven and she imagined that some cruel, mad God was tolling the hour for her, she switched on the radio and was greeted by the seven O'clock news bulletin, which had a police report of a person who was found dead along Magogoni creek.
The body was identified as that of Hanahela Mahatu believed to have committed suicide, according to a message found on his pocket which read. 'I and my blood together in heaven..... you and Joe together on earth.'
Next to Hanahela's grave Hanapendo was also laid to rest (may almighty God rest their souls in eternal peace). 
W2F012T
The brain drain
I had just become the dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Bongoland. I was about  to interview and counsel one of the lecturers who had remained without promotion for ten <-/eyars>. This man also happened to be my brother-in-law.
I went through the man's file. Since 1983 the man had not applied for further education, had not written or presented any papers and had not even complained about a promotion.
The man always seemed to be <-/absent minded>. He dressed simply and hardly ever shaved.
His wife, my sister, had left him in 1989, complaining that her husband was a bigamist and that his two wives were her and his work. She had given him an ultimatum; either to choose work or her and she had lost. He was a workaholic, she had said.
So if he was a workaholic, why had he not been promoted? 
His students conceded that he excelled in his subject but that he was rather too fast. The material he was teaching was apparently too easy for him.
Other lecturers had a low opinion of him. Some said he was too untidy. Others said he was antisocial. Yet others thought he was a <ea/>Mirembe case, a nut. The verdict was unanimous, he was different.
He spent a disproportionate amount of his time in his office or the science labs doing diagrams, calculations, experiments and reading the latest science materials. He hardly had any social life at all.
There was a knock on the door and Mr. Kilingwa came in. He was, as usual untidy but his eyes looked bright and <-/exited>.
"Come in Mr. Kilingwa," I said trying to be indifferent to what had transpired between him and my sister, "I won't keep you for long."
"Well, your summons <-_were><+_was> very timely," he said cheerfully, "I was about to come and see you about a matter of great importance. I'm happy now that you are Dean..." I gently cut him short.
"I wanted to talk to you about your career. Everybody else is scrambling up the ladder towards the peak of the academic profession. Why are you not?" I asked him carefully.
Kilingwa looked at me straight in the eye, and his voice was very earnest as he said, "I have no time to chase titles. I do the science work because I love it. It's my life. I live for it. It's not just a matter of making a living, I am very interested in my work. In fact I have just come up with an idea and framework for a hydrogen engine and that's what I had planned to come and see you about."
"How does this hydrogen engine work?" I asked patronizingly. I knew that it was another crank idea. I had had the same idealism when I graduated as an engineer. To design, to invent, to innovate and to build. To develop this beloved country by using this priceless asset, brains.
The constraints and <-/obstackles> that I had come across had erased all my ambitions. I had to face the harsh 'reality' that things are <-/mad> in Europe, America and Japan. We are but consumers, a market. Our leaders unwittingly discouraged us, facilities were lacking, funds were short and even life itself at the campus had basic problems. Circumstances were such that technology and inventiveness just couldn't thrive.
And here was Kilingwa telling me the details of an invention. I wanted to laugh aloud but checked myself. I had failed in my dreams years ago and I had joined the rat-race in the chase for titles and <ea/>marapurupu. Here I had some success, I was Dean, wasn't I? ... And now I had my eye on the Vice-Chancellorship. All that a man needed on this planet was money and enough power to protect one's interests, not silly scientific ideas.
Kilingwa said, he had found conditions of temperature, pressure and catalysis under which water could be split into hydrogen and oxygen using very small quantities of electrical energy.
Effectively this meant an engine that ran on water. He was asking for funds to develop the project and he was trying to explain the economics...
Environmentally and economically this would be a miracle, I thought, but what a dream! 
I said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kilingwa, I called you to this office for a different purpose and now we are discussing something else. I have to tell you very frankly that we have no funds to buy equipment and materials that you require for your research, At any rate I think it's a waste of time. Europeans would have thought of it if it were at all possible."
I dismissed him curtly and immediately regretted my behaviour when I saw the very pained and disappointed expression on his face. I ignored the feeling. A boss had to be tough; and if I entertained all the `nuts' that the campus had, I'd go mad myself. Thereafter I noticed that Kilingwa had become very friendly with Dr. Samuel Carter, an expatriate lecturer, from the United Republics of America, (URA). I felt sorry for Carter for having to put up with a queer like Kilingwa.
Six months later Kilingwa handed in his resignation. The faculty staff said "good-riddance!" The man had been abnormal.
We did not hear from Kilingwa for another two years, and we were about to forget him, when he <-_brought>+_sent> me a card saying that he was working for General Engines Company, a multinational based in the URA at their head office in New York.
He said he was coming for a holiday and wanted me to meet him at Bandar International Airport. He stated the expected date and time of arrival and wrote things that I interpreted as saying he also wanted my sister at the airport to meet him.
I understood. Kilingwa had no close friends, so I shouldered the burden of collecting him at the airport. Checking with the airlines, I realized that the airline with a plane arriving on the stipulated date would land at half past ten in the morning, not ten o'clock sharp as stated in the card.
Just to be on the safe side, me and my sister were there by a quarter to ten on the day he was to arrive.
At exactly ten o'clock, a Hawker Siddeley Executive jet touched down at the airport and taxied to the terminal building. We were about to ignore the plane, waiting for the scheduled commercial airliner at 10:30, when the hustle and bustle around the jet drew our attention. A black limousine bearing the flag of the United Republic of America drew up about twenty meters from the plane. If the Ambassador of URA himself was here to receive the guest then it must be a big fish.
Two <ea/>Wazangu formed a bodyguard as the blackman between them walked towards the ambassador after disembarking from the plane. They shook hands warmly and it was then that we recognized Kilingwa. He looked younger and healthier, almost handsome. <-/May be> that's how my sister had seen him those many years ago. We were dumb-struck.
My sister asked, "Why are they guarding him like that?"
A man besides us said," That man heads the Research Team for Hydrogen Engines in the URA. That is the engine of the future when fossil fuels run out. He is reputed to be one of the greatest scientists in the world and is lined up for the Nobel Prize..."
A series of emotions overtook me in quick succession. Pride, that Bongoland could have spawned so great a brain. Sorrow, that under the circumstances, brain drain had to happen. Shame, that I was party to this particular loss. And envy. Had I persisted in the dreams of my youth, would I not have come to this? Being received like a president?
My sister was speaking, In a way, I still love. You know, at least I did not lose him to another woman, I lost him to his work."
Women! Knowing my sister, she would already have laid out a strategy for reconciliation with him, ready to take second place to his work.
And we went down to meet him. 
W2F013T
The virgin marriage
"You're like Gado! Prostitutes are not worth living! You deserve to die a similar way; you. Gado, that putrid rotten Pamela and their cursed son...!" Humphrey gun in hand pointed at Maliki's chest barked in an explosive rage.
"What? My brother's what...?" "Shut up! I don't  want questions! Bloody fool! You knew your young brother was stealing my wife and you hid it! That's a big mistake. He's lucky not to be here but that's too bad for you. You'll substitute his death. Betrayal means death! The cursed family had to die no more...!" The way he held the gun and his malignant face were true indicators that at <-/ anytime> he would shoot, no compromise!
"But I don't know you....!" Maliki said sadly. "I've said shut up! To die is a must, whether you know me or not...!" "Then kill me! What are you waiting for? Are you afraid? Kill me! <./>Ki...!" Bhang!
The grand wedding took place at St. Joseph's Cathedral between Sir <-/Humphery>, forty-six, <-_to><+_and> Pamella, twenty-six and a secretary to Legal Advising Corporation (LAC). They flew to Seychelles for two <-_weeks><+_weeks'> honeymoon.
No sooner had the plane landed onto Dar soil when Humphrey's male potency sublimated! They thought it was due to the journey but a week passed by without any change! Pamella advised him to check with his physician. He accepted reluctantly. However, a <-_though><+_thorough> diagnosis <-/revealled> nothing. "I think after <-/sometime> he'll recover," the <slang/>doc told Pamella.
Two months <-/passed-by> and nothing changed. Pamella always complained urging her husband to try the with doctors. He became angry over the idea and reject the wizard idea. In response to this, he introduced extra security steps to his sex <-/manical> wife.
He sent his brother's son to a boarding school. Then he substituted all houseboys to housegirls. He took out his pistol, loaded it and warned Pamella that from that day on, whenever he hears she's with a man, he would shoot both of them instantly. He swore to that! Her holiday tours were also <-/concelled>. Even her personal doctor was changed and she was no longer to move alone; even to salons! The impotent husband was really jealous!
There was no way to divorce nor quit the job. She remained lonely in <-/furry>. Her ever <-/smilling> face turned passion, ire, repugnant and resentment. She was the most unlucky woman in the world!
Days went by and nothing changed. Pamella became more hysterical. Humphrey added his restrictions. At <-/anytime> he would make <-/suprise> visits in her office. It was safe if he found her in office otherwise he would take out the pistol ready to shoot! The fourth year entered with no difference nor hope!
At the end of it, something happened. Gado was temporarily employed in LAC. He had just finished form four and lived with his brother - Maliki - in a house opposite to Humphrey's. He requested to do temporary work until results were out.
A two weeks before Christmas, Gado was called by Pamella. She gave him a large envelope.
"What's it for?" "Find something for X-mas. And please put it in your pocket!" He was very lucky for hardly had he put it in <-_the><+_his> pocket when the door was opened and Humphrey on his usual unexpected visits, entered! "Oh Gado, how do you do?" He liked this boy and in fact he had some plans for him: "Do you have some time Gado we can go to Kilimanjaro for tea?" And it became habitual.
On the evening of the same day, Humphrey visited Maliki. The latter was preparing for his <-_Christians><+_Christmas> Moshi trip. After some talks, Humphrey asked for Gado. He came and Maliki <O/> exited.
"Gado, I want you to help me something but before I tell you, promise that you won't tell anybody even Maliki!" Humphrey asked.
After some hesitations, Gado promised. Humphrey told him that he wanted to hire him to keep an eye on his wife. He'll pay him tremendously! Gado couldn't understand what was wrong with this rich couple. He recalled the previous morning when Pamella gave him twenty thousand shillings for nothing important. The curiosity of exhuming the hidden life of them, prompted him to accept the duty he was asked.
<-/Please> Humphrey gave him ten thousand for not letting him down. He promised him some money for the X-mas shopping. And true the following morning he gave Gado twenty thousand. His pay would be eight thousand per month!
A week later Pamella called Gado. She gave him ten thousands more! "Go and buy a card for your girlfriend," she said. "I don't have a girlfriend," Gado replied. "Then I'm your girl. Look, I have bought you this for you my boyfriend!" And she <-/handled> him a parcel.
"I'll invite you in for X-mas dinner. Now leave!" Gado understood and left instantly. The parcel had a very expensive pair of English <-_shoe><+_shoes>. Also there was a very beautiful Christmas card. She'd written: Gado truly you mean a lot to me. I love you. With all my love - Pamella!
The telephone rang at six in the evening. "What are you doing Gado. Pamella had just reminded me that you're all alone there, why can't you come and kill the night with us?"
Gado had been there for two hours. He just drank soda. Humphrey kept drinking heavily his Scotch Whisky. At eight they ate the X-mas dinner. Gado remembered the warnings over the <-/pock> despite Humphrey's <-/persuations>. After the meal, the pleased Pamella joined them in a slow but very carefully calculated pace. She switched on the video and five minutes later, Humphrey fell on the <-/coach> extremely drunk!
"Come up my panacea. The paltry is drugged, leave it!" She said caressingly taking Humphrey's gun out of his hands. "Gado, you don't know how <-/you'ld> serve me today, my palliate!" She gripped him tightly. The air conditioned, red lit bedroom with a luxurious double bed were eagerly waiting them!
Similar thing re-happened on the New Year eve. Humphrey was drinking <-/hsi> whisky while Pennina accompanied him. They were watching video. When she served him and now Humphrey getting drunk, she drugged him through her long beautiful coloured nails. Several seconds later Humphrey was snoring while the heroine Pamella went upstairs with Gado!
"I'm a bit pleased now Gado. However, I'll find a trick in this year that we'll have it more often and free!"
But it didn't come out until the Easter of the fifth year. Maliki decided to send Gado to deliver some money to their father. When Gado told Pamella, she got a very bright idea. It was last February when her doctor got a transfer to KCMC Moshi, and Humphrey was yet to find the substitute.
She told Humphrey about her medical check up. While he thought it over, he visited Maliki. Fortunately, he was told about Gado's planned trip. "When?" He was more than excited. "<-_I',><I'm> still looking for his fare."
"Never mind about that. I'll pay for his return ticket. What's if he stays for a week, <-/y'know> he didn't go there for X-mas!" "I have no objection, maybe if he has."
Gado was called and asked. He was asking the lion to eat a goat! Maliki left and Humphrey cautioned him that he should be very careful this time. He would be living in the room next to that of Pamella in Hotel 77. He would give him fifty thousands for car <-/hirings> and other emergencies. He would deliver the report after their return.
In two days time they flew to KIA. It was when the plane untouched the soil when Pamella gripped Gado; "<-/Ot's> now or never!" Gado handled the money and claimed he was returning to work. He instead went to Hotel 77 where he met Pamella <-/all ready> eagerly waiting him. She had seen her doctor who knew her personal problem and who hated Humphrey's <-/treatments> <-_to><+_of> Pamella. So every way was for Disneyland! They hardly believed that a week was so short to end within twenty-hours!
They met the anxious Humphrey in the airport. He tipped her long old <-/advise> proved to be the actual solution. "I'm extra-ordinary! 
He said giggling!
Two weeks later Pamella discovered she was pregnant. Who was the father? She hardly had decided to abort when Humphrey discovered it. The way he celebrated, only Pamella knows. He couldn't rest when he sent Pamella for delivery. Later on he was told he was <-_a><+_the> father of a baby boy.
It was so exhilarating. Two days later he helped Pamella to carry their things back to the car. He kissed the new born, thanked God and drove back home.
It was at home when he took the baby, sat on the sofa and thoroughly checked it. He discovered something supposed to be discovered long ago. The baby was the exact copy of Gado; no mistake!
"What a phantom is this, <-/blood> fool!" He said throwing it down and running to their room. Pamella rushed and collected the crying baby. When she stood up, he was in the doorway gun in hand pointing at Pamella's head!
"Whose baby is that?" He asked. "Menacingly it is not yours Humphrey. It is mine me and Gado...!" She said shaking in rage but confident. Bhang! Bhang!
"Now to that son of a bitch Gado...!"
But thanks Lord for Gado was in form five at Mzumbe Secondary School in Morogoro! 
W2F014T
The tearful separation
"<ea_><ea/>." Stella Kiboko hissed venomously at Florah, her voice lashing out unmercifully like a whip. (Go away. Go with your Garbage! don't ever <-/wont> to see you again at my place.)
Florah recoiled at the vehemence in her adversary's voice and <-/instictively> <-/sauggled> young Francis even closer to her in a gesture that could have been interpreted in two ways. She was either instinctively trying to protect Francis, to whom Stella was referring when saying 'garbage', or was unconsciously seeking protection from the 4-year-old son of hers, never mind the futility of this latter notion.
This <-_afternoon><+_afternoon's> verbal assault was a culmination of Florah's efforts during the past seven days to divest herself of the burden of bringing Francis up <-/single handedly> while she had no secure employment and was dependent upon street vending of such things as <ea/>vitumbua (rice fritters) <ea/>chapati (pancakes) and <ea/>maandazi (buns).
Although she had resumed living with her sister Waridi ever since affair with Dominic Lushato had broken up, she was nevertheless not a suitable replacement to Dominic, in so numerous aspects as Florah was now realising the hard way. To cap it all Francis was now like an anchor, restricting her from freely venturing into uncharted waters, as she would have wished, hence her decision to send him to his father and her erstwhile lover <-/Domini> Lushato.
The break-up of her affair with Dominic, whom they had <-_began><+_begun> staying ktogether soon after she became heavy with his child, was due to her failure to note that behind his rather timid exterior, Dominic was actually a man of immense inner-strength. <-/Strong willed>, and basically of unassailable moral character, Dominic shunned pretentiousness.
But there are always two sides to a coin. His virtuosity could ironically <-_he><+_be> said to have been the cause of many of the numerous collisions with some people close to him who misread the simplicity in his general outlook and <-/intrepreted> it as a sign characteristic of a weakling.
Before they had met, Dominic had spent a frustrating twelve years nursing successive heartaches after repeatedly being jilted by members of the 'fair' sex, whose main preoccupation in life, Dominic concluded, was to deliberately provoke men, hence arousing attention to themselves and once this deed was accomplished, they suddenly became coy and slippery and generally played hard to get, most probably relishing in the frustration this caused to the hitherto 'sleeping tigers' they had goaded into <-/consiocusness>.
To someone as straight (straight (or is it square?) as Dominic it was not <-/suprising> that he should become so devoted to the first woman who appeared to accept him <-/wholeheatedly>, as Florah initially appeared to be.
Florah on her part, had her reasons for being the <-/exeption> to the 'code' governing the conduct of women in their general interplay with men. At the time she managed to catch the attention of <-/Dominc>, she was you could say, somewhat <-/desparate>. Waridi, whom she had paid a <-/suprise> visit after finishing her primary education tired with the same old, old misconception, that the city is a goldmine of some kind, where <-_wealthy><+_wealth> can be mined with impunity; had already <-_became><+_become> tired of her unproductive presence at her place.
She had already given notice that come the end of the month she would give her a one-way ticket back to Bogwe. This was a notion she so dreaded, that she took the first opportunity that came her way to ensure that she stayed in Mwambao, namely, moving over to stay in with the first man who, however clumsily, invited her to do so. The <-_men><+_man> happened to be <-/non> other than Dominic Lushato.
After six months of their going together, Florah had conceived and she was immensely <-/exhilirated> by this event, as it defined in no uncertain terms the setting of her relationship with Dominic and made her position rather more secure.
Nine months afterwards Florah had given birth to a bouncing baby boy they named Francis.
The birth of Francis marked a significant turning point in their <-/notso> formal relationship so far. From the day Francis was born, it appeared that Dominic had ceased to exist insofar as Florah was concerned. The <-/new born> became the focal point of her attention and she was so obsessed in taking care of his up-bringing, that she seemed to forget that there was another 'baby' craving for her attention.
This brought Dominic practically back to the position he had been before living with Florah which was now aggravated because of her permanent presence, which made it extremely difficult for Dominic to play 'bishop' and count the <-/refters> in their ceiling while sleeping in the spare-bed as the three of them could not share the matrimonial bed and the toss as to who would share it with Florah <-/natuarally> went to Francis.
This brought a strain in their marital relationship, after the expiry of the traditional six weeks of abstinence, as unlike the time prior to <-_Francis><+_Francis'> birth, Dominic had always to take the initiative and move to bed. This put in an element of artificiality in their relations unlike the previous time where cohabitation occurred naturally and without the <-/premediation> that the <-/movments> to and <-_for><+_from> their beds entailed.
But what was perhaps more serious than the to and fro movement was the fact that Florah tried to use the relations as a bargaining chip in case she needed something Dominic was reluctant to buy her, or as a weapon whenever she felt she had been mistreated, (never mind whether by accident or deliberately)..
A gulf had now developed between them which kept on widening whenever they had misunderstandings. Eventually there came a night when Florah had used her bargain-chip cum weapon, once too often, and Dominic had decided that enough was enough and the ensuing fracas, led to their tearful separation (on Flora's part at least).
Unknown to Florah, her weapon had inevitably worked against her as it had forced Dominic to look beyond the four walls of their home and that is where Stella came into the picture. Her background was not dissimilar to Florah so, she accepted with both hands and curtsy the opportunity to move in and stay with Dominic when his relationship with Florah had flopped, and she had gone back to her sister's place in the hope that Dominic would follow, cap in hand, begging for her return. That was a grave miscalculation that sealed the fate of their then wavering relations. Stella had then moved in to fill the void she had created.
After one year of spinstership Florah had made the decision to dump Francis at Dominic's place, so that she could be free again to look for greener pastures. 
W2F015T
Pick pockets and the bag
Even when the sun had stopped building its heavenly fire and slept, Wembe had not earned money for supper or a stick of <-/cigarrete>. But neither Wembe nor his friend Patasi felt heart-broken. Their customers were many as long as the main bus station of Mjini was still crowded with people. The buses came, swallowed the people and ran away like monsters, rumbling. Yet many people thronged the station. Those were lean hours which even the workaholics were leaving their places of work to go back home.
"I hate this bus <-/top>. During the nights, it's terribly congested," one woman observed as she waited for a bus to take her to her destination.
"Yes, the city has a lot of people. There are more people. There are more people than the buses can carry them in a day. I wonder whether all these people have rooms to live in," responded her fellow.
"Why can't we walk up to Mataputapu bar, Jimmy? It's easy to catch a pick-up truck there," man told his chum.
"I am tired, Rama. I had no proper lunch. And I have fifty shillings for fare straight home. What is all hurry about," the man lamented.
"I can't board a bus full of sweating people. I will be choked. Will you be happy to see me dead, my beloved man? The people will spoil my hair. Do you want me to appear as ugly as a monkey. Just hire a taxi, darling," a girl complained while leaning on a man, who never responded.
Then a bus came and the multitude lined up waiting for the passengers to disembark. The anxious would-be passengers jostled for vantage positions to push their way inside and secure seats.
They scrambled as the last person disembarked. The fittest did elbow, push, kick and tread onto their fellows. The door seemed to be too small even for one person to pass through. It was blocked with human bodies, the smart alecks mounted onto their <-_fellows><+_fellows'> shoulders or heads in a bid to enter into the bus to secure seats. Everyone aimed at getting a seat. Had it not been for rattling cars, many seemed to have been condemned for garages, the sabre-rattling would have been more pronounced and far-reaching as human bodies bumped against one another. People stampeded and whimpered in anguish.
"Ooii! You are breaking my leg, you wicked man," a woman moaned as a huge man <-/trode> onto the woman's foot. "You must be a type of <-_men><+_man> who <-/rought> their wives up," the woman cursed. The man said nothing as the woman lashed her tongue at the man. He just struggled to board the bus.
"You merciless beast of a man look at that big hand of yours like an elephant's trunk. You have nearly knocked teeth out of my mouth," another woman yelled. It was the women's world of lamentations. But this time this man was a jester.
"Hurry up you woman if you want to travel. If <-_the><+_that> husband of yours divorces you because I had knocked the teeth out of your mouth, I will marry you, my darling," the man responded.
Some laughed and to others the comment passed lightly.
"You are not at your home to hen-peck your husband," another man intervened, acidly.
The scramble was in full swing. "<ea/>Haya, <ea/>hayaa," the bus conductor hollered. "Climb the bus for Madongokwinama "Board Air Madongo" which never runs but flies. It is the fastest bus on the earth," he advertised his hyperboles while beating the bus with his palm.
"Hey you guy with a T-shirt go forward and you huge mama you are taking up too big a space".
The bus conductor suggested that the woman had to pay fare for two people. She could not stomach such <-/insimuations>.
"Go and tell your aunt back home that she is so fat that she can pay fare for two people," she hit back. The conductor took it easy. He mooted fresh attacks on school children.
"Are you really learning or playing? How can school children travel in the night? You are cinema-watchers. I understand. So you have to pay the fares that the grown-ups I mean your fathers, pay". The school children protested over the fare.
"Who can listen to somebody who ran away from school simply because he felt the mornings were too cold for him to get out of the homestead?" A school girl fumed.
So Wembe and Patasi had been struggling, boarding and disembarking as the buses came, went and came again all the day. In fact they did so everyday unless they were ill or were pressed with other serious issues to keep them out of their domain - the Mjini bus station.
Drivers and conductors knew Wembe and his group. That's how Commando Wembe, his full operational name, eked out his living. Simply Wembe in short.
He was born Uchungu Langu, but that was his rural name. Yes, in the city he was Wembe, a brand new razor blade, for cutting, people's pockets, bag and even bras and get away with the money. Money, money for everything in the city . You buy even grass to feed goats.
<ea_><ea/> as one musician sang. Money soothes our hearts.
So sharp was Wembe that he fished money out of women's bras and went away with his booty unsuspected. He would squeeze them so that they thought a passenger was battling for a place in a particular bus.
Wembe's group, the <ea_><ea/> gang, started with eight members two years ago. Three were killed months after one stoned to death by an angry mob after he snatched a woman's golden chain and another died of <-/haemmorrhage> after his hand was chopped off with a machete by a man who caught a <ea_><ea/> member shoving his hand into the man's pocket.
Another gangster died mysteriously after he snatched an elder man's embroidered fez. It is said the man was deeply religious that he <-/red> a <-/condemnetary> chapter, cursing the person who stole the cap. Three other members were nabbed in a police swoop and were jailed for criminal offences, including murder. Wembe, the gang leader, and Patasi survived.
Wembe, son of a peasant, did not manage to stay in his village to till the land. He went to the city to seek employment. He got none. In fact even his relative Ilambo could no longer accommodate Wembe. As Ilambo was a bachelor, he left nothing for Wembe to eat at home. Sometimes Ilambo came late during the night with his girl friend, who had a loose tongue, probably she was drunk. Ilambo would knock at the door jabbering humiliating words.
"<ea/>Uchungu, <ea/>Uchunguu! "Why are you locking yourself into my room as if it were yours. Open it up or I will kick it open and cut off your long ear lobes".
His girl friend would add salt to injury. "He can't make us unhappy. He is so ugly, this relative of yours, his ears are as long as the bat's. If you don't throw him out of this room you will cease to be my husband".
So one night Wembe was thrown out into the cold and slept in the open, the moon gazing at him.
That was how he joined the thieves, the smugglers and the <ea/>bhang <-/somokers> and Patasi Makari.
They smoked marijuana. It made them blissful. They believed the dried, potent leaves only made sham smokers crazy. Not them. They were committed in their missions. They gathered at a derelict building and <-_pray><+_prayed> for marijuana.
"<ea_> <ea/>." They would operate with alacrity, mercilessness and an <-/unparralleled> mastery. Wembe was cleverer in his business whenever he smoked marijuana! He worked tirelessly. He had an eagle's eye. He could spot money stashed into their owners' pockets or bags or purses and successfully scheme how to take it. His fingers were money detectors. They were magnets. Money could not help being attracted by their magnetic field.
But this was one of lean days when all passengers seemed to be on strike not to carry money other than their fares. Wembe had smoked the whole stick of the powerful, yellowish grade of <ea/>bhang. Yet he got no money. Not even a shilling. and he was feeling hungry. Whenever he smoked the thing, they called <ea/>nguvu, power, he <-_overeat><overate>.
He could eat three plates full of rice. Now he had no money even to buy a single plate of rice with. He had taken a cup of tea and four buns mashed in a small bowl of hot beans. He got his breakfast on credit from his neighbour who ran a rickety restaurant.
Now as marijuana had incensed his hunger and whetted his thirst, he was determined to run with everything valuable, even a basket of cassava, potatoes or oranges. He would cook cassava or potatoes at a friend's place. Wembe had no stove at his room at a clumsy house. He wondered what had happened that he was so <-_unluck><+_unlucky> to get money from the people at <-/month-end>. It was the time when his landlord would demand the rent. Unfortunately, not even Patasi had some money to lend Wembe. In fact, Patasi too was alarmed where to get money. Fears to go home were not a problem for them. They would just board a bus and nobody would demand fare for them.
So Wembe felt at a man's bag. There were soft and hard objects. Maybe there were loaves of bread and new shoes. He would munch the bread and sell the shoes. Maybe they were the man's shoes or his wife's. He was not pretty sure but he believed the elderly man had something valuable <-_into><+_in> his bag. Wembe saw another advantage. The man could not run quickly as the age was catching on him.
He pulled the bag out of the man's hand and ran away. Patasi was quick to notice what had taken place. He also sprinted, following his colleague. The man shouted <ea/>mwizi, <ea/>mwizi thief, but Wembe and his friend were already swallowed by the darkness as they headed towards a dark alley.
Wembe opened the bag. His colleague also struggled to empty the loot. Wembe could not tolerate that as he was the key player to the operation. He grabbed his companion by the scruff and threw him on the ground.
It was usual for <ea_><ea/> members to show their prowess. That was partly why Wembe became their boss. He won many matches. So Patasi had once again to test Wembe's rough skills. When Patasi picked himself up, Wembe's hands were into the bag, groping for its contents. Patasi came. He shoved his hands too. Wembe felt a sharp object piercing his finger tip. He thought Patasi had come with a pin to pinch him. Before he took his finger out of the thing, it <-_squirt><+_squirted> something. He believed that was the work of Patasi. What was he holding equipped with? He had to teach him a lesson, this poor son of a peasant. He grabbed Patasi as his hands were rummaging the bag and threw him violently into the gutter he knew so well. Patasi yelled as a sharp, big thing impaled him. It was a metal object. Patasi felt like dying. Wembe cursed. He went back to his bag. He felt <-/dizy>, his hand limp. His legs were powerless. He could not see anything. Not even the moon, the neon lamps burning from afar.
The following morning passengers found Patasi dead in the gutter. Wembe was also dead beside the stolen bag. He died of overdose of cyanide which went into his blood system as Patasi squeezed the syringe which a researcher, whose bag was stolen, was injecting mice in trials to combat <ea/>konzo, a disease from cassava poison, which was affecting villagers in southern region of the Republic of Waimara.
W2F016T
The day I fixed a bully
Buga Street ah! Buga Street: that is the world I know, the world I was born into. It was a kind of <unknown/>Eloff - a hive of activity. Groups of children playing excitedly: girls playing in or skipping and barefoot boys kicking a flat plastic ball on the rough surface.
Shoppers, other children darting to and from Emakuleni. Youngsters rushing to or strolling back from the cinemas. Crowds of workers - <-/grim faced>, <-/strong limbed> men and women in overalls.
The first recollection that comes to mind is that of Enkomeni, a <afr/>shebeen diagonally opposite our house which dealt in homebrewed liquor; <afr/>Skopdonner, that's what they called it. The place was always buzzing with voices especially towards the evenings when business reached the peak.
To my chaste mind the strange men and women who patronised the place were a real wonder. They were not from anywhere around, for I knew none of them. On their way home they walked as if on water and fell down like cut trees. Some would collapse right in the middle of the street and lie there for endless <-_ours><+_hours> - there were not more than two cars on Buga.
In the street the drunks spoke in a strange way and seemed totally oblivious to those outside their circle. They would bare their parts and urinate right in front of our eyes. Ma did not approve of my seeing the goings-on of the weird place.
Whenever she found me standing at the gate fixed on Enkomeni, she would immediately find something for me to do inside the house. Sometimes, policemen in their <slang/>nylons (that is how their cars were called then) would raid the place and arrest people.
At such times, the whole street would come out to witness excitedly; these were usually on Saturdays when most people were resting at home.
As soon as I was big enough, I began to venture out into the street; to play. We played cars, marbles and top and other <-_boys><+_boys'> games. The girls played houses, skipping and <ea/>bati. Sometimes we came together for a game of <ea/>dimeke of <ea_><ea/> - boys against girls.
Playing outside was a dangerous affair for it exposed you to a ubiquitous township menace - the bully. Bullies are usually bigger, stronger and considerably rougher boys. It seemed their business was to examine studiously the innocent for weaknesses, exploiting which they proceeded to make life extremely uncomfortable for them.
Just as small boys do to helpless ants; like sticking pins to their behinds. You would be playing happily, completely lost in wonderland, when pham! - a bully showed up in your midst. For a small boy nothing is as scary as this unexpected appearance of a bully's face with its friends eyes and cruel smile.
In this circumstance you had to scamper for your dear life, and thus was lost many a valued boy. If you were not lucky enough to escape in time, you got a cruel beating.
It was a cat and mouse affair. In our case however, it had to end. We were growing bigger. It was Buti who took charge of this. Buti was a boy - three years older - who lived about five houses up from ours. In our group he was by far the strongest built and had already played up the street and beyond.
He knew the enemy and the enemy knew him well. He was simply tired of being led and bullied. So he just declared his territory and set his army to defend it. We were not a bad army at all. We never went to other areas to harass and loot; we kept to ours - guarding our grounds and protecting members.
Buti knew many things. He was already a <-/movie goer>. He told us karate, cowboy and gladiator films. Soon we also began to attend shows. Even our play changed. Now we played <-_that><+_what> we saw in the films, especially war. Serge - this is what we called him - organised us and gave us names from the films. He also taught us to make catapults and other weapons.
Soon our territory was free of intruders. Whenever an enemy blundered into our terrain, the first to spot him would whistle the signal and in no time we would be upon him.
When errands demanded that one venture into enemy country, others gave necessary protection. It was one for all and all for one. This was imperative for as soon as our rivals were beaten out, they resorted to cowardly measures; like ambushing our members individually.
This was unavoidable as elders would not understand our predicaments. They would send you after a useless thing right into enemy territory and not give you enough chance to gather your men; like the day when I was cornered by the boys up the street.
It was in the evening and I was fixing my car outside when my father called me in:
"Vusi!"
"<ea/>Baba," I replied a little annoyed, though I could not show it.
"Come," he commanded.
The first thing after work, <ea/>Baba soothed his big feet in a metal basin steaming with hot water. Presently this is what he was doing seated on a <-/bankstoel> next to the black stove.
"Go up the street to Gumede and tell him to give you that herb."
The name Gumede immediately sent shivers down my spine. I could not grasp anything beyond it. <ea/>Baba Gumede! That was enemy land. His son Punkie was the boss of our arch-rivals. Just the previous day, we had licked his 'trusted' and at this time they would be hanging around not far from the house enjoying evening palaver.
"You say I should go to <ea/>Baba Gumede's house, <ea/>Baba? I ventured <-/ackwardly>.
"Dammit! What's wrong with your ears? Can't you hear properly? I said run up to Gumede and get me my medicine!" He roared back and as I was starting out added:
"And please, I expect no delay. I want that medicine NOW. You understand?" It was as if he knew my difficulty.
"Yes, <ea/>Baba," I replied intimidated.
As I walked up the street many thoughts raced confusedly through my mind. It being a Wednesday, all members of our gang had gone to the Liberty Cinema. I still remember very well. The Pitiless Three was showing and I could not go for one chore or another.
I had no alternative but to go alone. I dared not disobey my father's commands. Walking numbly towards certain capture, I deplored the insensitiveness of elders to our plight.
Looking over my shoulder, I thought I saw <ea/>Baba's face looking sternly in my direction. He sure was intent on seeing me to the gallows. I hurried on hoping for a miracle. I even mumbled a short prayer.
"Hey, look what we have in our hands for supper, gents." It was our victim, I knew his voice. I had stumbled right into them. I walked on hoping it was just a dream or something.
"Ya, just where do you think you are going, heh?" There was an unexpected shove from behind. It got me reeling. When I looked up, I was completely encircled. There were six of them, with Punkie in command.
He stood out distinct; <-/well built> and proportional. His head was clean shaven and a shiny ring dangled from his ear. In his Scotford T-shirt, Greenline shorts and Tenderfoot sneakers; he was the typical look of a <ea/>tsotsi - the terror of many. Next to him was:
Zandie, the one we had fixed. The others were just there waiting for orders.
"So this is one of them, neh?" Punkie said advancing slowly. The others were just watching. It was beginning to darken over the township and the evening crowds had already thinned out. There was no other way out. I had to fight.
"Yaa, I'm one of them. So?" I heard myself saying, more from cheek.
"Plus, he is stubborn too. Let's beat him up." <-_Game><+_came> Zandie's voice. All the time I was looking right into Punkie's eyes, moving backwards in a circle.
"Don't be a coward Let's go for a fair fight." I heard myself saying again.
"Okay with me, if that's what you want, sonny," He said it coolly, indicating to his men to widen up the circle. His fists were already in the air and he smacked of <-/over confidence>. I stood my ground and egged him defiantly.
"Come." This angered him and blinded him to any possibilities of danger. He did not stop to think. He came straight, I was waiting for him. The next thing he was flat on the ground, never having seen what hit him. It was a <-/patrek> shot. And as he checked out his jaw, I was towering over him:
"You want some more?"
"You win," he replied weakly. That is how the truce was won on Buga Street. 
W2F017T
Belmora is dead, her species survives
THERE is a funeral air that surrounds my untidy house at Kaluta Street. All is quiet and I am typing fast to record the past fateful <-/twenty four> hours. I do not hear the scampering sound of Belmora nor do I see her darting. But from one corner there is a slight odour. The message is simple. Something or somebody is dead. It must be Belmora.
Julie my female cat died a few months ago and since nature absorbs a vacuum, Belmora moved in without any invitation. Only she was a mouse and a pregnant one at that.
Torrential rain had hit <-_out><+_our> capital city. There was Belmora shivering and cowering at my window sill. I did not invite her nor push her back into the stream of water which would have certainly killed her. There was no desire to kill her, for there is enough genocide of animals, birds and humans on our small planet.
I did not invite her. However to say the truth I was not opposed to her <-/tresspassing> in the house. I was curious, for I wanted to know how this mouse had survived as a species when larger and fierce animals and birds had perished. I was keen to know what was going to be my relationship with this animal, for after all we were travellers in this vast timeless and endless universe, and which with the exception of the galaxy Markarian I which has water shows no traces of life.
With Julie, the departed cat, it was not long before a communication system was established. It was both ways. She gave notice when she was hungry. It also came to know my minimum demands, one of which was where to deposit the food and water her system had rejected. And Julie had an obsession about keeping herself clean. When not sleeping or eating she would be <-_hicking><+_licking> her fur that it would be both shining and clean. Even when she was dying she tried to wipe her face with her paws.
I found that Belmora was a professional in certain things. Julie would never lick her <-_sauser><+_saucer> clean and there would be crumbs lying about the floor. With this tiny mouse there was a certain degree of neatness. Examine my Azam's bread and there was a circular precise hole as if made by an instrument. When I saw a hole in my tomato, I knew that she had been around.
I was soon to learn that we had much in common. The food I liked she also liked. I was surprised one day to find that my plastic box had a neat circular hole. It had fish which I had cooked.
Fresh milk made her lose all sense of control and it was on this occasion only that she had made a mess. I found that Azam's milk packaging was <-_this><+_thin> and thus very vulnerable to her sharp molars.
Some way animals and insects are dirty. Julie was certainly not and with Belmore it was the same, if you exclude the small black droppings that you found near the fridge and stove.
I caught Belmora a number of times in my small cupboards. I cannot understand why she chose this because there is not food there, only cups, pots and pans. I could have dashed her head with my foot, but I did not.
There was a certain pattern in her movements. She never ran across the floor. Always it was along the sides of the walls, and through the chink of the kitchen door. One day I closed the door. It tried to get through the chink which was not there.
I went back and came again. Confused it turned back. Going through the <-_chick><+_chink> had become routine and it did not know what to do when this was closed.
As I said about food that we had things in common. With one exception. This was to become a major contradiction that brought us to war.
This house of mine is full of paper, books articles, magazines and my articles and manuscripts rejected by Editors and publishers. Those on flimsy and mechanical paper she regarded as a <-/delicasy>. I don't know why she did not prefer newsprint for there are hundreds of Daily News and Sunday News around. And to make matters worse it did not follow the normal etiquette of making circular holes. <-_Delmora><+_Belmora> literally tore my articles and manuscripts to shreds. It is then I realised that Belmora and I belonged to the opposite ends of our political spectrum. Now I said to myself "Why does it not put its teeth on the column of Mangengesa Mdimi's Small Talk?" "Or why should it not take a swipe at Wilson's Yours Truly?" "Why is it siding with the Editors and Publishers and finishing off my literary career"?
Then she delivered. But only one survived and I called him Sandy for unlike his mother he was brown. This little devil was filled with boundless energy. It would jump from one spot to another making an arc. Its speed seemed to rival that of sound. Now I had two extra mouths to feed. This I did not mind. But if this went on it could be twenty within months – forget those philosophers that nature strives to maintain an equilibrium. 

Till death do us part
<-_Garlos><+_Carlos> was really depressed. He was tired of tending blistered fingers, just as he was tired of going to work in crumpled clothes. It was not a question of not having an idea about cooking or pressing clothes he had been a bachelor long enough so he knew how to take care of himself. But in the past few months of being a husband, his wife, Helen, had done all that for him, which in turn had spoilt him. He really missed her, now that she was gone. Gone ... the word rankled in his brain.
It was in this depressed state that he entered his office at the Bandawe Constructors Co. He <-_numbled><+_mumbled> morning to Fred, his office mate. Who didn't reply but looked searchingly at him.
"<-/He> buster! Stop looking like someone who had just died, and say what's <-_bitting><+_biting> you. Go on, spill it," was Fred's <-_adea><+_idea> of a greeting.
"Well, er, I really miss the old girl. It's as simple as that," Carlos answered. "Go take her back. I presume she's still yours. You never explained it clearly, exactly what made you split in the first place?"
"Arguments, and lots of misunderstandings. We just didn't seem to agree on anything. Like the last row, we were discussing how many children should we have.
I said I wanted three, and she said let's have two for a start. I told her I could support three children, so she needn't worry. 
Helen said she didn't need to be reminded that I was the sole bread winner. Besides, I was responsible for her being not an income earner, following having convinced her to <-_region><+_resign> from a salaried job.
She went on <-/sayinng> that I'm a selfish rogue, and an ass, not a man. As a result, I called her a stubborn bitch, and told her she didn't have to put up with an ass, she could as well march out of my house. That did it. They next morning, she was gone Fred, ...gone", explained Carlos in a tone full of despair.
"Mh, that's trouble with most married people these days. One way to have a successful marriage is to learn to communicate with your partner, and express yourself without causing conflicts. In solving a problem, you should attack the problem, and not each other", stated Fred.
After a moment's silence, Carlos said, "that sounds sensible. I'll take your advice, and I'll go for her as soon as possible". Fred just smiled and they started working in silence. After two months of staying away from her husband, Helen came to her senses. She resolved to go for what she thought was best for both Carlos and herself. Her pride could go to hell, she wasn't risking the man she loved for pride. She would go to her <-/busband's> office and they would talk things over, she decided.
A wave of nausea swept over her, for the third time that morning, "I wish Liza was around," she <-_through><+_thought> <-/unhappilly>, as she made for the toilet. But deep down, she knew it <-/wans't> Liza she wanted. <-/Afterall>, her sister had to go to work, so how could she expect her presence at 9.30 a. m.?
It was Carlos she wanted. She had never thought it possible to stay away from him for a few weeks, let alone the months she had now spent away from him. She now understood how much he meant to her. Whoever said, "absence makes the heart fonder" knew what the impact meant, she reasoned with a sad smile.
One day, just as Carlos was leaving the Bandawe firm premises, he noted a familiar figure walking towards him. To his surprise he recognised Helen's beautiful face, and she was smiling at him. She's more beautiful than ever, he thought as he made quick steps to meet her.
"Hello, wife", he said, half shyly, as he touched her hand and smiled. "<-/Hillo>, husband," she replied with a broad smile. "There are matters I'd like us to talk over," he said, looking at her. Me too, let's go home," she responded, and made their reunion even easier than he had imagined.
On reaching their home, Helen got busy in the familiar kitchen preparing the evening meal. As they ate, they made small talk, and finally broached the subject that was nagging the conscience of each one of them. They continued talking until they compromised.
Helen <-_wake><+_woke> early the next morning, and tried not to disturb her husband by her side. The clock on the wall caught her eye, and the date was 28th June. A year had gone by since they got married, and the day marked their first wedding anniversary. How close they'd come to blowing it apart!
"Morning, darling", said Carlos in a sleepy voice. "Morning honey. Happy wedding anniversary"! Helen conveyed the message. "Goodness me". Is it really true?" He asked as he sat upright and embraced his wife. "It is true, Carl," she answered. "Alas! You aren't going to get any present from me dear. I'm truly broke," he said teasingly.
"That's no big deal. I'm broke too, so you can forget about a present," She remarked. "Carl, we weren't going to exchange any presents, but I couldn't help myself. We're going to have a baby." "How! That's the greatest present I ever wanted from you. What's it <slang/>gonna be, a baby girl or a baby boy?" He asked as he hugged her.
"Don't be silly," she laughed, "How do you expect me to know?" "Carl, how many children are we going to have?" "As many as we want, my dear wife." <-_The><+_They> laughed, knowing that now their marriage would work out well. 


W2F018T
Meet Miss Video
The office door swung half open and a lean, pretty face of a mulatto nurse peered in. "Tea time doctor!" A vivacious mouth sang the words to the man inside.
Hilda was sure the doctor heard her. She slammed the door shut and footsteps could be heard dying away as she hurried back along the corridor, eagerly waiting for the doctor to come.
Dr. Imense Rumaitija, a specialist <-/paeditrician>, flung aside the invitation to tea with some foreboding and went on studying the living form that nature chose to hide from a naked human eye, now under a careful scrutiny of a powerful microscope. As he adjusted and re-adjusted the lenses of the microscope, his brow showed puzzlement at the unusual intrusion from Hilda. Was there something up her sleeve? he wondered.
Most doctors at the hospital - in fact all - reflected Dr. Rumaitija, had watches which told them when and what they should go out for in the big, regional hospital. Their life at the hospital was a timed series of calculated regularity, as steady as the <-/rythms> of a heart-beat.
Above all, doctors even without the help of a watch, knew from the clanking and clattering of cups and saucers that a steaming, sugared liquid in a metal kettle was already set on a large table in the recreation room.
It was therefore unthinkable that someone should appoint himself an umpire of some kind for the hospital's activities. And it was most irritating that, that umpire should be Hilda Vinshulal, a 31 year-old unmarried nurse and a cross-breed product of Indo-Tanzania hit-and-run love accident in 1959.
The first person you will meet and know on your first arrival at the hospital, be it at night-time or day-time, is guaranteed against all odds to be Hilda. She appears to be on duty all the time; all the week, from January to January. She will sidle up to you with a conspicuously exaggerated swinging of her hips and then <-_starts><+_start> talking to you as if both of you have just come from a picnic.
She showers you with embarrassingly intimate questions about your life, your medical problems, whether you are married or not and where your wife or husband is now When she allows you to breathe because she has seen someone else who has caught her fancy, and you sigh with relief, you hardly suspect that you have supplied ample raw <-_materials><+_material> for her gossip industry to last a couple of days.
To many people, it seemed to them that no event, regardless of where it occurred, whether under the bed in a locked room, or at the goal-post behind the goal-keeper, escapes Hilda's dancing and searching eyes or her twitching ears.
Mention anything and Hilda has an encyclopaedia about it! But there was only one thing in the hospital Hilda didn't know of. It was her corridor baptism. Hospital staff christened her in absentia: "Miss Video".
Of late, Hilda had been blowing up a juicy story about Dr. Rumaitijy. She informed her enraptured listeners that the doctor had beaten his wife's bones out, disowned her, then bundled her off together with his two children to her parents' home somewhere in Biharamulo.
The doctor, the story went on, rubbed his hands with glee for having got rid of, as Hilda described, "an ugly nuisance." Then, goes on the story, the doctor turned to his household belongings. He sold them all so that he could buy a car. Hilda even gave the registration number of the car the doctor intended to <-/by>. "Just think of it!" She said with feminine concern. "Sending away your wife and children, sell everything in the house just for a car. A car! <ea_><ea/>" She ended with a contemptuous look on her face.
Dr. Rumaitija knew all Hilda was broadcasting about him. He was happy, for in a very strange way, it helped him.
Today, Miss Video's story about the doctor seems to be making some sense after all. An old man, tall and naughty, with sharp, stern features had burst into the recreation room asking for Dr. Rumaitija. As always it was Hilda who received him with her usual volley of questions. "Looks like we have met before. Where did we meet? What's your problem? Who is Dr. Tija to you? Your son-in-law? "
The old man, unfortunately for the crafty Miss Video, happened to be the type who doesn't go about announcing what colour his underwear is. "Very urgent, Miss, I want to see him!" The man curtly replied in a no-nonsense manner. She tried to melt him with tea, but the man, very firmly but courteously told her that a kettle, a cup of tea just weren't exactly what he happened to be thinking about at that time.
Then Hilda, a queen who is not to be beaten so easily, divined them man's behaviour. "You see!" She whispered knowledgeably to her colleagues. "This old man is the doctor's father-in-law from Biharamulo, and he is here to wrench out an explanation as to why his daughter was mauled and dispatched in such a manner. "To many, it made some sense. Hilda the Video knew everything!
Eyes were therefore cast about searchingly in the recreation room. Dr. Rumaitija wasn't there! Perhaps he wasn't prepared to meet his father-in-law! How sweet and exciting to make them meet, Hilda thought. So, it was with that excited feeling of a child reporting another for stealing sugar that Hilda quickly banged her cup on the table and ran to the doctor's office, throwing, very cleverly, that bait: "Tea time doctor!"
When the foot-steps had died down, Dr. Rumaitija scanned through the microscope for the last time, scribbled some observation noted on a sheet of paper, then, putting a heavy book on the sheet of paper, stood up to go to the recreation room.
On arrival, he was captured even before he saw the cups. "A guest for you doctor - and old man - could be from Biharamulo." Someone informed with pleasure. All the medical eyes in the room bulged out and never blinked, painstakingly diagnosing and analysing the doctor's reaction.
Intoxicated with pleasure was Miss Video. She revelled in it all - the way the doctor's eyes danced and fell, his changed gait as he crossed the room to meet his guest  Miss Video, a graduate in gossip, sat back and watched the show heading for its climax. To her shocked surprise the show abruptly ended when the doctor, without saying a word, led his guest outside.
There, out of hearing range, the two men stood talking. The old man was continuously shaking his head in what appeared to be a furious disagreement to the doctor's apparent curled-tail pleadings. When they parted, everyone believed that the doctor had received an <-/unforgetable> talking to of the year from his father-in-law.
A day or so later, more substance was put into the story when it was officially announced that Dr. Rumaitija would be away for "an emergency leave." Hilda, like an over-zealous teacher to his students before a major examination, dashed up and down the hospital corridors clarifying the phrase "emergency leave". The doctor is going to Biharamulo," she spoon-fed her listeners, "to face a council of elders. What he did is very bad!" How Miss Video knew all this was a question that troubled many but not for long.
Dr. Rumaitija went away on his emergency leave. Weeks move themselves into a month two months three The doctor never showed up. The know-all Video knew what happened to him. She said, "The doctor must have been forced to take his wife, and as far as I know him mh! he'd rather drown himself in Lake Victoria than take that woman again."
The hospital hung on suspense. What had happened to Dr. Rumaitija? People asked themselves. In the fifth month, when everybody was expecting some harrowing story, a letter arrived at the hospital. The person who received it had to inspect it several times because he couldn't believe his eyes. 
The letter had foreign stamps and bore a foreign post-mark. But that is not what made the person's hand tremble with disbelief. It was the handwriting which sent his heart pump hard against his ribs. He knew exactly whose it was. With shaking hands, he ripped open the letter, and there, the whole truth lay!
Dr. Rumaitija had written clearly that he had emigrated to another country where, as he wrote, the comma in his salary is now preceded by three figures, plus everything multiply by happiness. "I can now fill my grocery basket in a supermarket <-/everyday> for thirty days a month," he wrote. An exaggeration perhaps.
The last paragraph in his letter was for Hilda. "Tell Miss Video," he wrote, "to stop making malicious fantasies out of people's lives. It always works out in the opposite way by helping the victims as it so enormously helped me by diverting all attention and suspicions from very big secret plans I had." He ended the letter and signed off.
Had he known that the old man who visited him that day at the hospital was passed off as his father-in-law, he would have clarified it in the letter. The old man was a black-market foreign currency dealer.
The whole hospital mobbed Miss Video, expecting a confession. But gossips, as a rule, never bow to facts. "Where else do you think the doctor would have gone after committing those shameful family crimes? Eh? Tell me, where?"
So said the infallible Miss Video Hilda Vinshulal, to protect the interests and integrity of her gossip empire.
W2F019T
'This cosy world of romance ...'
On that Sunday morning after having breakfast with Adela, I was suddenly seized by a vague desire to write a reply to a letter which my long-time best friend Choggy had sent me some months back from Arusha town.
Choggy and I had known each other for many years since our University days at the HILL, and never had a long time passed without our meeting, more often by the sheerest chance. Choggy is the only person left to whom I ever troubled myself to write a proper letter. Of course, I sometimes used to send notes to other friends, just to keep in touch; but it is only to Choggy that I made an effort of telling in any way how I felt or what I aspired.
Me and Choggy became friends under very unusual circumstances: You see, during those youthful years at the HILL, it was difficult to know if one had fully grasped the notion of love, But I, for one, became certainly very aware that the flashing of the emotional sparks in my heart originated from the <-/tranced> languor of desire in Suzy's sweet thrilling young body.
For one whole year at the HILL, Suzy had never by word or deed given me cause for jealousy. I had seen how other students including Choggy admired her, but for sure I was about her love, that no doubts had ever troubled me.
But during one evening party I caught Choggy making calf eyes at Suzy while they were dancing <-_under><+_to> the strains of Bob Marley's Reggae tune "No woman no cry". Then after the dance Choggy grabbed Suzy around the waist and pressed his mouth <-/passionatelly> to hers. And I saw Suzy opening her mouth for him. Few people had observed this. This gave me a shattering pain.
When I asked her that evening: "If you did not welcome Choggy's kisses why then did you not resist?" Suzy's eyes as hot as mine responded: "Look Anthony, if you have lived the whole of this year with me and <-/can not> trust me, then all your love to me is mockery". With this Suzy walked away from my life, and my friendship with Choggy began the following day when he approached me to apologize for his misconduct. By that time it was too late and realized that Suzy had left me for good. This is how Choggy and me became friends. Since then ten years have elapsed.
So on that Sunday morning after having breakfast with Adela I sat at the desk by the open window and started <-/writting> a reply to Choggy's letter: It is ages since I heard from you I <-/can not> believe that <-_your><+_you> are still in Bongoland. You have my address, you know where I live. When am I going to open the door and see you standing on the threshold? There is so much I want to hear, but since I have no news of you, I can only tell you mine...'
Then I heard Adela calling me from the kitchen. "Anthony, are you going out to buy some meat for lunch? It is getting too late." At first, I pretended not to have heard her; but then she repeated the question, so I called back, "In a minute, dear. There is no big hurry, is there".
Choggy had never met Adela, and I often used to wonder if she would like him. I picked up my pen and continued <-/writting>. 'Adela and I are really happy here at Sinza. We have repaired the small house we rented and Adela has put some tremendous efforts in creating a unique panorama of flowers and herbs around the house. I wish you were here and witnessed the changes. I find myself continuously mentioning Adela as if forgetting that you have never met her, but the fact is that my life has become so interwoven with hers that the two of us are now scarcely separable.
'I have not seen any of our old friends since I left the HILL do you remember Suzy, that stunning beauty with high hips I used to chase? But strangely enough I find that I don't really miss <-/anyone> of them. Adela has filled the gap with a surprising completeness, and I am all contented. But at the <-/sametime>, I am not so <-/complecent> as to imagine that such a state of affairs is bound to last forever; I hope <-/desparately> that its course has still a long way to run.
'And as for my own part, I even wish we had been married - but Adela for some reasons I cannot understand, maintains that we are better off this way. We still have our freedom, she says; but God knows, I have never felt more committed, however voluntarily, in my life! Anyhow, the arrangement seems to work as perfectly as I wish in the circumstances, and that's all that really matters...'
Then <-/sunddenly> Adela appeared at the doorway. She was looking fresh and incredibly beautiful. Dressed in loose and transparent material, she stood there almost nude, with the contours of her beautiful curves revealing the <-/awaresome> strangeness of the <-/femanine> creation. "I think you would better go to the market and get some meat," She told me "Who are you <-/writting> to anyway?" She asked.
I rested my arm across the paper, for I did not want her to read what I had written. "To Choggy," I replied, "I have spoken about him several times, remember?" "But he <-/does't> often write to you, does he?" She asked. "No, not often. But that doesn't worry me. It is just one of those things about him which you have to get used to," I explained.
I turned and smiled up into her eyes. I <-/dont> think I had ever felt more deeply in love than at that moment. And then, with lithe grace, she moved away to the window, I slipped the pages of my letter into the drawer, then pushed back my chair and stood up. "I <-/wont> be long," I told her. Then I went to the door and left her standing there smiling at me near the window.
That was the last time I saw her, with a beautiful smile hovering on her lips, her hands clasped <-/infront> of her transparent dress, and a vague suspicion of reproach mingled with affection in her radiant eyes.
The market at Mwenge was full of people on that Sunday morning. From one butchery I bought a kilo of steak, as Adela had requested, then I left the market and set off for home slowly along Sam Nujoma Road.
It is really very strange the way I first met Adela: On one boring evening, some few months ago I decided to take a cab to Gogo Hotel, just to get away from it all. Once there, I ordered one full glass of cognac at the bar and carried it to a corner table close to the window. And there I sat quietly while a precious-lipped Zairean, commanding the audience to a funeral silence, <-/martyrized> the ghost of Franco (Makiadi) to the <-/accompaniement> of the <-/guiter> whose wailing of the lyric acquired a strange and disquieting meaning.
From the window where I sat, for the first time I chanced to see her talking to a good-looking young man. There was no one else <-_beside><+_besides> and they were obviously unaware of my presence behind the window because they were having a quarrel and, although I was little interested in what they were saying, their voices soon rose to such a pitch that the things they were saying made startling hearing. Then the girl said something very quietly which made the man's eyes blazing with fury and he suddenly hit her <-/accross> the cheek!
For a moment she just stood there looking straight at him, then she said, "Shall we go inside and order something to eat?" They found their way and came to <-_seat><+_sit> just two tables away from where I sat. They ordered dinner and did not say a word to each other all the way through the meal, and when they finished the man got up and went out through the bar, and the girl walked out towards the main road <-/possibily> to catch a taxi back home.
I suddenly left my glass of cognac unfinished and followed her out. A few minutes <-/latter> I joined her as I, too, was waiting to catch a taxi. The quarrel, I had no doubt, had marked its protagonists as lovers. But then having no transport of my own in such a situation, I just pitied myself and felt hopeless because the girl was very beautiful.
For a <-/momented> </hestiated> then fully realising how <-/readly> I was inviting a rebuff I humbly asked her, "Are you waiting for a taxi as well? We could together stop one and share". "No, no," she said, "please leave me alone." Again I hesitated. "I am sorry," I said, "I did not mean to intrude, I just thought that you were..." I left the sentence unfinished and made as if to return to the Hotel for I had no intention of leaving actually. But before I could move, she <-_place><+_placed> her hand on my arm. "Don't go!" she said.
Now it was my turn to be surprised, "It was very kind of you to want to help" she said. "I was just tired and felt like returning home." I invited her back to the bar for some few drinks. She settled for a cold Safari beer while continued to negotiate with cognac on the rocks.
I waited for her to say something, but she did not speak, so at length I asked, "Was it your husband you were <-/querrelling> with?" "We're engaged to be married until this evening," she said. There seemed to be no hint of regret in her voice, only a certain <-/bitternes>, "It is all over now." She concluded. 
W2F020T
Tribute to Barnaba
THIS is an obituary from one of your best friends you have left here on earth. And to avoid beating around the bush, I better identify myself only us Ashraf.
This name must still be ringing in your memories. I am sure - cocksure - that you <-_shall><+_will> receive this <-/memorium> with joy and the same love you had <-_on><+_for> me when you were a living member of this cruel planet. The planet that ruthlessly mutilated your innocent body only to be dumped into a jungle filled with hungry hyenas.
Maybe I should begin this piece of work by reminding you on how you left this planet forever. Doing so doesn't mean that you have forgotten it all yourself, but only for convenience of those who will not bother go through this <-/memorium> so that they could join me in shedding tears.
I am compelled to draft this <-/memorium> by the mere fact that yours was not a normal death, therefore it ought to be uncovered to some of your friends, relatives and the peace lovers the world over who are not aware of your mysterious departure from this world.
The whole saga went like this: you and colleagues left the country and crossed the giant Ruvuma river into Mozambique on a life-searching tour of that war-torn young nation. Owing to difficulties in transport in that former Portuguese colony, you had to travel on foot miles and miles, hungry and thirsty. As you might agree with me, in such journeys, especially in Mozambique, the only thing which dominates in the minds is fear. And that fear comes in the form of a dream. Unfortunately, <-/sometime> the dream <-_come><+_comes> true. The most feared people in Mozambique are the armed bandits.
It was not until you had forgotten all about home, all about your people your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and your young lovely wives that you unwillingly and unknowingly stepped into the deadly MNR trap. That was the beginning of your painful death.
As fate would have it, you were then taken to the death camps of the armed bandits or to call them in their Portuguese name <foreign_>Bandidos Armado<foreign/>. In the camps you were kept starving for four days without even a single drop of water. On the fifth day you were forced to cut one of your precious fingers so that you could quench your thirst by sucking your own blood from the bleeding finger!
Barnaba, this story was narrated to me by one of your colleagues who by mere act of God narrowly escaped from the devil's mouth. He is totally crippled, unable to do anything except talking and eating. Hadn't the bandits dismembered his both palms, this <-/memorium> would have been written by him. Having been deeply moved by the sad story I resolved to put it on paper so as to expose the atrocities committed by the MNR bandits, your killers for that matter.
Dear Barnaba, your life here on earth had been nothing but a mere catalogue of disheartening misfortunes. For instance just try to go back to the good old days when we used to go to the forest to tap tree-sap which we used to make small balls or '<ea/>chandimu'. Unfortunately, you were good at climbing trees and we were not. So on that fateful day, you had to climb high on the huge tree while we waited.
But when you were half of the way to the peak of the tree, another climber was trailing behind you. And that climber was none but a huge snake. That was a trying moment to your climbing 'career!' What a fateful day! For sure, the snake was too big for us to counter-attack, little boys as we were.
I remember to have childishly shouted at you only one sentence, 'Drop!' I was very sorry that was my only help, the help that only put you on the horns of dilemma. You were <-/sieged> with two fatal decisions - either responding positively to my 'help' or wait for what would be your fellow climber's action.
As if my suggestion was a saviour of the day, in a matter of seconds you were down with us, in a twinkling of an eye, wholly unconscious. The whole drama was rather shocking and the place abruptly turned ghostly. Blood was flowing from your ears, mouth and your heart silently and faintly beating. We nearly ran away but thank God you came to your consciousness after a spell of a dead silence. However, you had suffered a lot. You had your backbone injured and uprooted your two teeth. This was but one among a number of misfortunes that befell you before this one which has resultantly given birth to this obituary.
Now to come to our main subject. Our crippled friend, I mean the survivor, who happened to be present at the death industry, told me that before your final death you had died a thousand deaths as your <-/tormenters> chose to kill you slowly but <-/beastially>. They began cutting off your right leg with a very sharp <-/matchet>. You were screaming with untold pain when the thugs turned to your remaining leg for the same assignment. As if that wasn't enough the beasts forced you to drink the blood that was flowing from the wounds.
That wasn't the end of the history as no sooner had you finished to dine what I may call a tasteless and your last meal in this world, than the bastards cruelly dismembered your both palms. But, according to the survivor, before they had turned you into a complete torso you asked your killers to spare a minute or so for you so that you could speak your last words before you kick the bucket. Thanks the thugs did not pay a deaf ear to your request. Here come what our friend, the survivor, called the ghostly spoken words:
Now I must go to <-/haven> as you have succeeded to rob me of my precious life, the life whose role in this world was to take care of my ageing parents and my young brothers. In the wider range, my life had the role of fighting against poverty, ignorance and, don't forget, the fight against the people of your calibre, or to put it in the right angle, the suckers of human blood.
I think now you begin understanding that all my life I have been fighting against colonialism and its manifestations, be it actively or passively. I am well aware of the naked fact that my life has reached its destination, but before I am no more, let me tell you one last thing.
The heart of the matter is that you are not killers of your own will. The South African Racists have employed you to kill your own people. You are sucking the blood of your own fathers and mothers. Who do you think you are killing? It is your own mothers gave you God's rare gift to mankind - Life. You are butchering your own brothers and sisters with whom you shared your mothers' wombs.
You have plunged this country into a state of blood. The whole once beautiful land is now a vast deep sea of blood. You have greatly played a part <-_to><+_in> the destabilisation of this country's economy. It is very pitiful that in this highly resourcefully endowed land, people live in sordid poverty. Because of bloodshed and insecurity the people have been turned into refugees in the country of their birth.
You have betrayed your grandparents who for centuries fought fiercely against the Portuguese colonial domination. Your grandparents fought a bitter war so much so that their grandchildren, you - would inherit a land with peace, love and prosperity.
You deserve to be called political thugs with no underlined political good. Your mission is to kill, even <-_the> harmless people. You are devils in <-_the> human form. Do not fool yourselves that you will achieve your wicked goals for the hour will come when justice will take its seat and rule without malice to none.
Lastly, I ask you to cut my throat so that I can die, for that will be the only consolation to my bleeding, mutilated body. May Allah The Merciful, the Compassionate rest my soul in eternal peace. Amen.
Those were the last words heard of you in this world as no sooner had you finished <-_you><+_your> narration than life left you. This was the cruel death I have ever heard of.
All in all, Barnaba, you are dead and whatever I am going to say you will never wake up from the dead; you are dead like others before and after you. One last thing is that more and more people have been and others will still be killed by the bandits. The bandits have gone beyond <-/boundries> as <-/new> they loot, rape, burn houses and so many ill deeds. However, it is not that people are playing cards in time of strife. The government troops are rubbing shoulders with civilians in order to liquidate the armed bandits. Do you still remember those catch words we used to hear when tuning to Radio Maputo? You will remember that before any news bulletin came the following: <foreign_><foreign/>; meaning Let us liquidate the armed bandits. Those were not good-for-nothing words, bandits will one day be liquidated, liquidated forever May Allah the Merciful, the compassionate, rest your <-/soil> in eternal peace. Amen. 
W2F021T
Forgive me father, for I have sinned
Images of the funeral of Pamela Uzuli, would never be erased from John Baya's mind. He was relieved that he was not charged with any misdoings by Police and could continue his life. Pamela had died from a septic abortion.
He had been out of the country at the time and knew nothing about it.
John remembered seeing the beautiful face of Pamela cold and lifeless in the coffin. When he saw it he felt as if Pamela's soul should <-_had><+_have> jumped out at him and was screaming. "Because of you, I am dead!'
He had never broken down and cried in public before like that. After all he was, the handsome, macho, superstar boy of Somasana High School, in Dar es Salaam. Though he had graduated with honours and was going to study on scholarship, at an elite school in a neighbouring country, he could not help thinking that Pamela's death was his fault.
He remembered how he had taken advantage of Pamela on his graduation day, and then hid from her. He had always considered Pamela a nice girl and hoped that they would have had a future together. But in the meantime he thought that it was quite fine to run around with other not so nice girls to satisfy his ego. 
John could not help but think that the devil had possessed him when he seduced Pamela on graduation day. However, he never knew that she had become pregnant. He could not blame her for having an abortion as if she did not, she would have been <-/expelleed> from school and unable to finish Form Four.
"Education is the key to life, be you a boy or a girl," his father used to tell him.
John kept feeling guilty his friends tried to comfort him saying that the pregnancy was not his fault but John knew that it was. He tried to prepare for his new school but could not. One of his friends commented that he was not so macho anymore.
Kellana was recovering from her accident. She had been struck down by a car on her way home from Pamela's funeral. She felt so bad that her best friend had died that she did not see the road and just stepped in and met her fate. She would be unable to walk ever again.
Police had questioned Kellana about Pamela's death and if she knew anything about the abortionist. She decided to keep quiet. She had never told anyone, but she, herself had had an abortion, done by the same abortionist. She had survived and thought it was safe for Pamela too. She kept wondering what had gone wrong. It was these thoughts and grief for Pamela which clouded her mind and made her careless when crossing roads.
In hospital she would cry and say to herself, "I was only trying to help. I was only trying to help my friend." Nurses at the hospital took pity on Kellana.
Just before John left for school, he decided to visit Kellana in hospital. He had avoided going to see her, because he knew that she knew what happened on graduation day. He wanted to avoid more guilt. Deep down he knew that if he had not seduced Pamela, she would not have <AmE/>gotten pregnant, had a backdoor abortion and die. On the other hand Kellana would not have been struck down by a car.
When John went to visit Kellana, he found a few Somasana students with her. He asked them to excuse him as he wanted to talk to Kellana alone. The students left giggling and speculating what he wanted to say. They knew that he had had a secret affair with the late Pamela. The whole school knew.
Kellana offered John a smile, which he returned. He felt at ease. He wanted to get a full picture of what had happened to try and clear himself of <-_guilty><+_guilt>. 
"Your friend Pamela is dead. You know what happened at the graduation ceremony. But who did the abortion. Who killed, my child", John said.
Kellana was shocked that John had been so open and admitted the relationship. "I do not want to talk about it John, what is done is done!'
But, John pleaded with Kellana to tell him what happened. She only admitted that Pamela had told her that she was pregnant and that John was the only one she had had a relation with. 
One of the nurses, was listening to a radio. Just, then the music of Leonard Rich was playing. Images of Pamela stormed through his mind. He excused himself and left the hospital in a hurry. The next day he was off to his Elite School.
Kellana could not forget the look of guilt that she saw in John's eyes. She felt strange to see the macho image reduced to a mouse. Anyway, she knew that he would get a good education, marry some fresh young girl and live happily ever after. She felt that she would never get married to a handsome, worthy man. She fell asleep as she remembered Pamela. 
Kellana was discharged from hospital after a three month stay. She had been bought a shiny new wheelchair. Somasana students had contributed money buying it. She was able to continue with her schooling, after the school made special arrangements so that she could attend in her wheelchair.
Other students pushed Kellana to school in the morning and home in the evening. Kellana was determined to make the best of life, which she had concluded was precious and should <-/belived> as comfortably as possible. Her marks which had been average rose putting her in the class top 5. She would be able to go for Form 5 studies, and then on to University. But her aim was to go and study abroad, in a country where facilities for the handicapped were easily available.
Sometimes she would go near the <-_abortionist><+_abortionist's> house, and watch who was coming out. She wondered how <-_may><+_many> girls would end up, dead like Pamela. She shook her head. The stinking, <-/balled> headed man always made his clients sleep with him before he did his dirty work. She wondered how she could make up for Pamela's death. Whenever she passed there she felt as if she could see her friend going in and coming out.
Kellana had just finished her final exams. The graduation ball would be held the next day. She remembered the last years graduation, and her friend Pamela. On her way home, Kellana passed by a church which was offering evening prayers. Some churchgoers offered to take her inside, and she happily agreed.
The preacher was talking about love, honesty and kindness. He said that people who embodied such qualities in their lives had the ticket to eternal peace. She went home reflecting on what the preacher had said.
It was graduation day, the students lined up and received their school leaving certificates. Kellana was <-/jubiliant>. She had seen her Form Four graduation, she wished Pamela was still alive.
During, the disco the music of Leonard Rich, dominated. Kellana remembered how Pamela also enjoyed it. She immediately left the schoolgrounds. She struggled to push her wheelchair tyres to get to the nearest Police Station, the time had come to put things right.
She reported the abortionist. The Police were surprised why she had suddenly decided to talk about it. The Police decided to lay a trap for the abortionist.
It was a week later, that Kellana saw the abortionist handcuffed and led to a Police car. Police found abortion tools, blood and other evidence needed to convict him. The young woman who had gone to him that day for an abortion was actually an undercover Policewoman.
Kellana felt as if a heavy load had been lifted off her shoulder. As the abortionist was led out, she thought that she could see Pamela walking by. She turned her head too much and fell out of her wheelchair. As people rushed to assist her, she got up by herself and stood. People screamed in shock at what they saw.
Kellana took one step forward, then another, "I can walk, I can walk again." Kellana jubilantly shouted. Her feet were shaking, but she insisted on walking home.
The abortionist was sentenced to life imprisonment, but died shortly afterwards from a heart attack.
John had come to Dar es Salaam for holidays. He heard of the 'miracle'. Kellana was walking again. It was the talk of the town.
He went to see Kellana at her house. He felt that the visit would help relieve his guilt. When he saw Kellana she was as beautiful as ever, radiating an <-/undescribable> beauty. He felt touched, this was the same bedridden girl, he had left behind he said to himself. He could not <-/beleive> it.
Kellana greeted John. She showed no signs of resentment to him. "Pamela has helped me, to be a person again." Kellana said.
"Pamela has sent me to see you." John said. "Congratulations for finishing Form Four and ... walking again. I never expected you to, not after what we were told..." John said hesitantly.
"No one expected me to, not even myself," Kellana said.
"I could not stop thinking about you, even in your crippled state. That is why, I came to see you," John said.
The two agreed that mistakes had been made, but that life goes on. <-/Afterall> people learn through mistakes. They pledged to keep in contact with each other.
John and Kellana both went for studies in Europe, and got married. At the wedding they confided that they felt as if Pamela was watching.
Somasana High School students have turned the Pamela story into part of their school history as a lesson to others. 
W2F022T
The absent-minded groom
When it came to everyday matters, I was extremely forgetful. I forgot <-_colleagues><+_colleagues'>> names during introductions, I forgot my change when shopping and I invariably forgot where I'd left my spectacles whenever I took them off for a while. My girlfriend Maggie often got stranded on dates that we planned and I forgot.
The reason for this apparently poor memory of mine is a very busy mind. By profession I'm a Commercial Product Designer and when it comes to engineering and scientific data, I possess a phenomenal memory. I can quote, with accuracy, for instance, trigonometric values of most angles and the coefficients of most engineering parameters. I know almost all mathematical and scientific formulae by heart and I'm obsessed with my work.
I have always perceived the great engineering feats as man's triumph over nature. I admire the men who engineered products like the Boeing 747, the space shuttle, the bullet trains, the super-computers, the undersea tunnels... the list is long.
I have resolved to join this exalted group of men who worked at the frontlines of removing man's physical limitation. I thought that if one did not succeed in unravelling the mystery of Creation in this life, then at least one should have the consolation of having contributed something new to it.
When Maggie and I eventually decided to get married, my friends became very excited at the prospect of a married me and they wondered how I'd found the time to woo Maggie. James, one of my best friends and who was to be my best man explained to them that it was Maggie who had done the wooing. He had also joked, in front of my other friends, telling me not to forget to come to my own wedding and they had all laughed because they knew me.
We formed a wedding preparations committee and worked hard and enthusiastically. Three weeks before the planned wedding date, we had one of our usual '<ea/>Vikao' to review the progress made in collecting contributions, working out details with regard to transport, invitations drinks, food .... etc.
It was during this particular <ea/>Kikao that James triggered off my Technical-Problem-solving mind. He dramatically, with deep furrows of thought creasing his forehead, lifted his glass containing cold Safari beer and said, "Why do glasses containing cold beer always get wet on the <-/outtside>? I'm sure everybody hates this. Anyone who invents a glass that will remain dry on the outside even whilst containing a cold drink is sure to become a millionaire!"
That was an interesting problem. And once my mind locks onto a problem, it never lets go until that problem has been solved. Otherwise the challenge remains like an addictive drug that my mind won't release.
As far as that and subsequent meetings went, I was there in body only. So deeply did I become involved in the design of the dry or non-sweating glass, that the later success of my wedding could only be credited to my <-_friends><+_friends'> selflessness and dedication; I was not with them.
Even my fiancee Maggie, got worried by my spells of absentmindedness. When she talked to me about her family's preparations for her send-off party, I merely nodded and said something non-committal.
The scientific explanation for the problem was this; the outside surfaces of glasses containing cold drinks provided cold surfaces on which water vapour from the atmosphere condensed.
The material would also have to withstand and not crack under thermal <-_stresses><+_stress> due to temperature differences across its thickness. It would also have to resemble glass to satisfy the conservative drinkers.
As my wedding day drew closer so too did I get closer to the solution of the problem. I spent any spare time that I had in the University Reference Library, digging for information. The wedding preparations had gone so well that by the great day we were all set. On the very morning of the wedding day, I decided to go to the Library to have one last look at Transparent Superinsulators. These materials were the key to my problem. I thought the search for information would only take half an hour or so and that I'd be home by the time James, my <-/best man> came for final preparations before we went to church for the ceremony.
I do not quite remember for how long I'd been in the library, for I had lost myself in concentration on the materials books. I was roused by the sound of running footsteps, very unnatural in a library. It was James. He was fully dressed for his role as best man and he was breathless and sweating. He was carrying a large brown paper parcel. I'd never seen him so angry before.
"What the hell are you playing at?" He shouted pointing to his watch, "I've been searching all over the town for you! We are supposed to <-/>to be in church now!"
The Librarian and a few readers came to see what the commotion was all about. James explained urgently, "This man is late for his wedding!" He threw the large brown paper parcel to me and said, "Get behind a shelf and get dressed, that's your suit! "
I had the presence of mind to react appropriately. I hurriedly dressed in the library and James helped me with the finishing touches. We were ready in four minutes flat.
We ran out to his car and we roared off in a hurry towards St. Joshua's Church where the wedding mass was to be celebrated. The car screeched to a stop in the church compound and we ran up the steps to the door of the church to join a weeping Maggie and her maid of honour - she had lost hope.
We walked unceremoniously down the aisle towards the altar. We were late and Father Sean frowned disapprovingly but officiated the ceremony anyway.
During his sermon, I reflected on how little this little ceremony meant to most people. It was the food and drink afterwards that mattered most. Success or failure of a 'wedding' was generally evaluated on the basis of the number of people intoxicated to the point of being disabled by overdoses of alcohol.
Later in the reception hall, the champagne bottle was opened <-/amids> excitement and ululations and poured into our glasses.
The Master of Ceremonies instructed us and everybody else to stand up glass in hand and to drink to the health of the bride and groom.
I raised my glass to Maggie and noticed the droplets of moisture that were beginning to form on the outside of the glass; the champagne must have been chilled. In the lights of the decorated hall and flashing cameras, the water droplets acted like prisms and, by tricks of light they looked like finely polished gemstones in a priceless crown.
And because of the droplets, my mind was transported back to the problem of the 'dry' or 'non-sweating' glass. I forcibly tried to withdraw my attention from all the raised glasses (people were saying 'cheers') and James must have noticed the strain of my effort he knew me well; he asked if there was anything wrong.
Later when we had relaxed, I told him, right there at the high table about my design problem.
James said, "why don't you concentrate on Maggie for a change? I assure you, she is enough material for your researches for a lifetime!"
I had to laugh. James was the best Bestman I could get. I brought my attention back to Maggie and the most important day of my life so far.
I still feel the urge to contribute something new and useful to the world, and I don't mean just children.
W2F023T
The Coincidence
"What?" Adella exclaimed loudly. "What a mess is this? My dearest daughter Erica to be married by your son. No! No! I can't allow it... It can't be. I being your wife, Magessa, then my daughter becomes your son's wife. No, this is ridiculous! I can't accept it. I as a mother of the bride... No!
Adella's <-/high pitched> voice disturbed and changed the whole picture of the room.
It was <-_a><+_the> talk of the year in Makao Village in Musoma Rural District.
"This is a real coincidence I've ever seen, one man was heard saying.
"It's terrible", the second one replied. And much was said over the event. This is how it happened:
Old Isaya Massanje Magessa was very popular in Makao Village. He was said to be the richest man in the village. He was said to have born nine children among them eight strong males. One of his sons; Justin had built a house for his father. It was the only modern house in the village. Not only that, he also bought a three-and a-half tonne Mitsubishi Canter to help his father and the family at large.
Thus Isaya was the only man with a modern house and a car in the village. You wouldn't mistake him if you go to the village. Stories were made of him and his good luck, and children sang about him in their songs. The proud Isaya always wore a smile on his face and helped to provide transport to the villagers.
Justin Massanje Magessa was the fifth son. By the time of this <-_incidence><+_incident>, which in fact he was the bridegroom, he was 28 years old. He was the only son of Isaya who had studied up to university level. In fact, no <-_any> other son nor daughter of Isaya had gone beyond primary level.
Isaya himself did not mind much about this for he'd all the cattle to <-/sastain> his nine children. When Justin continued well with his studies, he gave all the support possible. It was because of this support that Justin built a big house and bought a car for his father as a gesture of appreciation.
Unfortunately, Zainabu Massanje Magessa, the mother of nine children died when Justin was 12 years old. She had died when delivering the ninth child, who turned out to be a girl. The girl was named Zainabu after her late mother.
Isaya went as far as swearing that he won't marry another woman to help him bring up the children. And that is what he really did.
No one could deny it, that Isaya and Justin were more than friends. Isaya himself was very much proud of his son and he didn't hide it.
He was always talking about Justin, who was still a bachelor while the rest of children including Zainabu, were married.
When Isaya was told by other elders to ask Justin to get married, he always answered them that Justin would marry whenever and whoever he wanted. The people were worried about this, thinking that Justin would marry a woman from far away. They wanted their lone university graduate to marry a girl from their village to be chosen by a team of selected elders. 
This was vigorously rejected by Isaya, who emphasized his previous stand.
Days went on. Later, Justin won a scholarship for masters degree in economics. When he broke the news to Isaya, he nearly ran mental. The news was so pleasing, and that night, Isaya kept praying for his son's safety and successes. A few days later, Justin left for England.
It was when he was in Europe when he met a girl who for the first time his heart loved. The girl was called Erica, and to his surprise she was also coming from Tanzania. She was taking her first degree in architecture.
Erica, coming from Mara Region as Justin, was very beautiful. She had a fair complexion with beautiful milk-white teeth; the qualities Justin knew would interest very much his father. He presented her to him. All this time he had not expressed his feelings to Erica. And when he made his move, the response was favourable, and soon enough they were well madly in love.
Had it not been for the respect they have for their parents, they would have got married in Europe.
"I can't marry you without my mother being around", Erica had said, and Justin agreed with her. For he also did not want to marry in the absence of his dearest friend - his father!
While two were studying and having a good time abroad, something happened at home. Isaya in course of his business one day made a stopover at Kiabakari Village. He stayed there for three days. While there, he heard a lot of stories about a widow who was made rich by her six beautiful daughters. He was told that for one get married to one of her girls, one had to pay a big bride price. And when Isaya saw the woman, he was deeply attracted.
However he didn't do anything until he had finished his business. And when he talked to the beautiful Adella Martin Okello, she also found out that Isaya was what she was looking for.
She had heard a lot about him, though she hadn't seen him before. A new life developed between them. Finally they wedded and lived together. Adella, who was as boastful as Isaya, never told her new husband about her daughter who was studying in Europe.
Isaya, as expected, told her about his son Justin. But he did not tell his son that he got married to another woman for fear that Justin will object to the move. "Let the kid study in peace", he said to himself.
Days went, and the date of their return to Tanzania arrived. They returned together, and were now living in <-_the> Justin's house. While in Europe they had bought all domestic items and appliances, jointly. They'd bought a Hilux pick-up.
A week before their return, Justin wrote a very long letter to Isaya telling him all that has happened, including the fact that he had met Erica.
Finally they were home. No one could explain the happiness Isaya had when he saw his son back! Isaya ordered the biggest he-goat to be slaughtered.
After settling down, <-/Justine> broke the news about his future plans with Erica. The news <-_were><+_was> so exhilarating to Isaya who had for long been waiting for this moment.
"What good news my son! You don't know how a father feels when he sees his son get married. So you're going to get married to a Luo like me. It's good and I'm happy about it!" Isaya said with a broad smile on his face.
Justin had promised to bring his bride on the following day, that day, the cow was slaughtered. The house was cleaned and everything was neatly arranged. It was a very hectic day for Adella, who supervised the work. It was not until after 3.45 p.m. when she went to take bath.
Justin had said he would bring the <-/bride to be> at 4 p.m., and according to Isaya, everybody should be at the house when they arrive. The Canter was sent to collect relatives. So the house was full of people.
Exactly at 4.00 p.m., Justin pulled up the car before the house. Zainabu was the first to welcome them. She took her <ea/>wifi and together with other in-laws, went inside the house where Isaya was eagerly waiting.
When Isaya heard the car, he called Adella who was in their bedroom. "Adella, where are you? What are you doing all that time? Come, quickly!
"Hey. I'm coming man," she replied from the room.
Then the delegation entered in.
"<ea/>Karibu! <ea/>Karibu! Welcome my daughter, welcome! Don't be afraid. This is your home, feel at home and relax," he told the prospective bride.
After a while, Justin introduced his brothers, sisters, uncles and others to Erica.
"Oh it's good my son. I'm <-/happly> to see you and your fiancee. 
As you know, all of your brothers and sisters are already married. You were the only one remaining. Personally, I'm delighted and let me not talk much, just wait for your mother to see her and then we, adults, will sit down and talk this over..."
The door was opened and Adella came out.
"What! She <-/explaimed>.
Erica hid her face into her hands. Everybody was surprised and couldn't believe what was happening. There rose a big confusion which could not easily be solved.
What a coincidence was it!! 
W2F024T
Never trust a woman
I have been living happily with my wife Sebe, for years until I came to Dar es Salaam and met Darly. I am a journalist, working for MAELEZO.
For sometime, I have been in the upcountry regions but then thought I should try my potentials in the city of Heaven of Peace. The housing problem in the city forced me to rent a cheap room at Manzese Uzuri area, where my dear wife could save some money on fares by walking to and from the nearby school where she teaches. 
When I say I have been living happily, I <-_real><+_really> mean it. I am an ardent supporter of <-_women><+_women's> liberation movement. Call me a feminist if you like and I will <-/heartly> accept it without any problems.
I have always supported and forwarded the struggle for emancipation of women to the extent that some <slang/>fellas find it funny and point it out that "<ea/>nimeolewa" (I am under control of my wife's <-/apion> strings) and some go to the extent of commenting that I should join the U.T.W. All I can say to them is that "I may be weak to women but I am not a male chauvinist pig".
And hence by this stand, my wife came to know me better and the harmony between herself and me blossomed. 
Darly or Daria is our neighbour two blocks away. Her job is something to be derived, but she seems to do well and fine. Her sense of joyfulness and humour makes her acceptable in any social group and function. She is kind of <-/busy body> and she is warmly welcomed at all the households around our place. 
It was not surprising then to accept her when she befriended my wife and proved helpful in every get-together. She showed my wife around and <-_socialize><+_socialized> her with the city life. I also came to find her helpful to my convictions on women lib ideas. 
Darly took a liking <-_on><+_for> me to the extent that, if not for her charm people could have suspected of an affair between me and her.
When close to me, she liked to make me a laughing stock. "That tie is too broad and heavy, with this heat, you could use it for a handkerchief", she could remark whenever I put on one of those odd looking ties of mine. 
Once she came to our place, clad in a T-shirt scribbled "<ea/>Kamikaze." As we were sipping some soft drinks, I told her what the words meant and I elaborated her, how during World War Two, Japan seeing its possible defeat, resorted into using the "<ea/>Kamikaze" (suicide) commandos to distract Americans winning the war.
Darly was so much impressed with the story but she had an air of just playing along simply not to annoy me, but she seemed to know it all along. She used to wear the T-shirt just to please me. <-/Any way> as long as I had an inbuilt faculty never to hurt women morally even physically, I played it cool.
I am sorry, I did not mention that I am a renowned artist, specialising in portraits and graphic art, and this is what Darly seemed to be much interested on me. She liked to comment positively on my art works and I knew the comments were deep from her heart.
"You know, this young lady could be much more elaborated with a blue attire that could match well with the background", she could remark on a composition of a village woman grinding flour on a grinding stone.
One day I had a day off from work and was preparing a feature on problems of women in town, when Darly came around and volunteered to give me some vivid instances from her own experience. She then asked me if I was prepared to visit some grotesque areas and take some photos if I liked.
I was overwhelmed <-_with><+_by> the offer and was ready to sacrifice my time on the task. Darly proved to be true to her words and the mission was a success. So, when she invited me to her friend's for a coke I did not object. But then out of the blues, she asked me, if I could do her a favour.
Of course I accepted even before being told what that favour would be. Darly wanted me to do her a "puris naturalibus" portrait in oil, with nothing on except her "<ea/>Kamikaze" T-shirt.
I was reluctant to undergo the task, knowing what it might lead to. I offered many excuses but in vain. She was desperate to get her way. 
I have seen many nude works of art veterans such as <-/Piccaso> and I had even tried to do some without a live model and this could be the first time I have a ready volunteer before me.
"It will take me long to finish all your torso in oil" I objected. "Why don't I just photograph you instead", I suggested, buying time and distracting her wild ideas, knowing well that I could not develop the photograph anywhere without raising a few eye brows. 
All my objections seemed to hit a solid wall of concrete fuss. It happened that my convincing powers were not strong enough to elude her wild desperation. Eventually, there was no way out for me but to pretend that I was giving in to her fuss so she could leave me alone, but fast she was, she devised a quicker way to trap me.
As we were sipping cokes, she took trouble to <-_handle><+_hand> me album after album of some of her fantastic <-/breath taking> photos followed by some exotic foreign magazines, accompanied by sweet flowing music from the background while her consistent fuss persisted. Being weak as I was to women, I slowly succumbed to her wild whims.
This was the prelude to what she had planned <-/before hand>. After some months later my wife Sebe knew of our affair and she decided to give me a cold shoulder, but I was hooked to Darly and I said she could pack and go. She left.
A week later after Sebe had gone, I received this letter.
Dear Jesse,
Don't get surprised <-_with><+_by> this lousy note from me. All I want is to present to you my faithful gratefulness for your cooperation, which resulted <-_to><+_in> my mission being accomplished successfully. I am a<-/ fenume> fatale, who had vowed to bring destruction to male domination over women and I am thankful you fell victim <-_of><+_to> my whims. All I wanted was to avenge my mum <-_of><+_for> My dad's brutality. In a way, I am much disturbed whenever I see two contemptuous camps in harmony and living together in bliss. I was not at all happy to see you and your wife living happily!
I'm sorry I cannot tell you how my dad wronged my mum <slang/>cause it is none of your business.
I really loved you at a time, but you were too dumb to realise it (you were much absorbed with your silly Sebe. I took you for my ideal dream man but I found you to be as blind as you are dumb. My wearing of the "<ea/>Kamikaze" T-shirt was to avert your attention <-_of><+_from> my intentions but you were deaf enough to brush aside what your neighbours and friends tried to alert you. I am sorry for what happened but that is life and you men have had enough over us the fair sex.
After receiving this letter don't even come to my house because you might get hurt for nothing. My husband who has been in Europe for six years comes back next week. All the best. 
Yours lovingly,
Darly
Soon after completing reading the letter, I felt thirsty. When I tried to stand up to get a glass of water, my legs buckled and I fell down, face first. 
W2F025T
At another place
"I SHOULD get out of here immediately. All their medicines are useless. It's better if we try our place. I can't wait for death here," Professor Decamund Kitiku, in a hospital bed, told his wife Marietta.
"Certainly the doctors won't allow you to go home if you're still seriously sick," suggested Marietta.
'No! No! I will tell them. They can't leave me to die here while I know their medicines are useless", he groaned. "If they keep on leaving me rotting here tell the President. He can't allow these boys to leave me in a mess. He will order them for me to be sent abroad for treatment or I will go to our place."
Then he groaned as if on death throes. He closed his eyes, his mouth agape, issuing forth a whizzing exhalation.
Professor Kitiku was admitted in a lone room. For the person of such a calibre would not be mingled with other patients.
Yet the Professor conversed with his wife in euphemisms. Despite his seclusion he was very suspicious of intruders, did not like any eavesdroppers, doctors or nurses on duty, who might enter into the room unceremoniously to get wind of his intentions.
This was one of the times when the Professor regretted for not marrying a woman from his tribe. They would have conversed in vernacular without much fear from being overheard. He, from a <-/normad> tribe, had married a woman from a settled, farming ethnic.
"The woman sat by the hospital bed, indecisively. "I was about to forget. Doctor Sweetface is outside. He also wants to see you," his wife changed the topic at the drop of a hat.
"I didn't want him to enter together with me. I knew we could have difficulty in exchanging something he was not supposed to hear", his wife added.
Dr. Sweetface was a foreign expert working at a unit on research on rodents in the Washupavu Republic.
Professor Kitiku was the unit's new boss who had been assigned to make thorough research on the rodents which were devouring the crops and other Washupavu's longings.
He loathed the President for demoting him. Furthermore he (President) has misallocated him. For the person like him who held a Ph.D. in Entomology he was supposed to deal with insects, he thought.
But for long, before his recent demotion, the Professor was the Director General of the National Agricultural Marketing Board. There he could mint money. Not in the tiny unit on rodents!
He was among the reputed academicians of the Washupavu Republic. Having graduated overseas, '<ea/>Ughaibuni', he lectured for a number of years back home at the then only university.
His rise was meteoric. It was not stunning that he held various Presidential appointed posts.
But Kitiku believed that intellectuality and diligence were insufficient to enable him enjoy the national cake.
He also believed in witchcraft, a term he always evaded. He called it "fortification". One should be fortified against his or her enemies in life, he believed.
He held a philosophy that metaphysics bred with science could yield a "hybrid" - stronger than either of the two elements - to make one run a balanced life.
Outwards, he appeared pious. He frequented the church, prayed, sang and offered tithes. Sometimes a priest would conduct prayers at his home.
The Professor's sitting room had religious murals, pictures and scriptures on the walls. Some read: "Jesus is the Head of this house" or "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son... "
Other drawings showed Jesus Christ in various stages of persecution. There were angels or Virgin Mary.
Yet the Professor would surreptitiously consult a witch doctor, an act considered sinful in the <-/churchcircles> to give him some <-/portions> in order to be lucky and so on holding top posts.
His favourite doctor was Vituko of Uroghi village. Vituko always clad in weird animal straps but had a lot of cattle he bought from money he accumulated from his customers.
Whenever the Professor visited him, Vituko would always say that he had been admonished that the "profesa is coming" the previous night.
Then the witch doctor would gather his pebbles and tiny gourds. He would enter into a penultimate room and signal the Professor to follow him up. There he would speak hysterically and make some antics. <ea_><ea/>
I see a very bad person in front of you. He wants to eliminate you," Vituko would say.
Then he would stop abruptly and summon his gourds. <-/Chatterring> voices like those of mice would be heard from the gourds. The Professor would not understand what they meant. But Vituko would say they admonished everything on Kitiku's life.
Then he would give the Professor some concoctions. The learned man would pay lump sum, thanking Vituko. He would drive home contented, believing that no bad person would cross his way.
Vituko's medicines would even blindfold the President from seeing the Professor's corrupt acts, he believed.
He had accumulated a lot of money through dubious means and built three houses. Two were rented to some foreign experts who were working in the country. They paid him in foreign exchange and would convert illegally. The other house was left for his parents to live in.
For two decades since he started lecturing, his parents came to live in the Mambovuma city, the capital of Washupavu Republic. There were several houseboys working for his parents living in one of posh areas of the city. So he was stunned when he realised that he had been demoted from the director general of the National Agricultural Marketing Boards to the research unit.
He suspected that one of his jealous subordinates had engineered his downfall and Vituko would deal with him. 
After being removed from the Marketing board, he had to vacate the house he used to live in a serene, posh place and go to Legeza Mwendo street, also in the city, where the research unit had its flats.
He did not like to live in one of his houses as that would curtail his financial channels.
On the first day's night in the new place in Legeza Mwendo street, the Professor witnessed a terrifying incident he had not been used to in other places of the city he lived at.
A huge cat stared at him the moment he went out to tend the call of nature.
The Professor believed that somebody had cast a spell onto him. The creature was a wizard or something evil, <-/masquarded> as a cat, to kill him. He felt short of breath.
He came back into <-_him><+_his> room yelling "Oh! <ea/>Wameniweza and collapsed. His wife, a houseboy and elder children even woke the neighbours up and the sick Professor was rushed to the hospital in his own car driven by his son.
At the hospital, the doctor on shift examined him and found nothing serious. He was given some soporific drugs and slept.
The following morning he woke up still agitated whenever he recalled the cat incident. That was why he had to have a <_/tete-a-tete> with his wife what to do next. But he believed that Dr. Sweetface could not have engineered his elimination. Few intellectuals from Ughaibuni would dare <-_engaged><+_engage> in such a thing, he believed, unless were researchers on anthropology, he thought.
He had no qualms with Dr. Sweetface. So he allowed him to come in. The doctor apologised for delaying the Professor's wife as they had to come together after he had completed dealing with the journalists who had come in the morning wanting to know what the unit was doing to have the cat population controlled.
"Prof. I like journalists sometimes. They are not always after scandals. Indeed there has been a high population of stray cats in our area. I think they will stir something from the concerned bodies to check those cats. They are really a nuisance," Dr. Sweetface said.
Professor Kitiku's eyes widened. "I told them to see the livestock officer for the solution," Dr. Sweetface added.
"There is a high population of cats, eh! I didn't know that," said the Professor perplexed.
"How would you know that. You're new in our area Prof. I have been there for some months. I know how a nuisance the creatures could be" said the doctor.
Something rang the bell in the Professor's mind. The cat he had seen the previous day was perhaps a true cat. He felt like he was recuperating. He had not been accustomed to living in poor areas like Legaza Mwendo, for decades.
What are the lives in the villages and slums of the Washupavu Republic, he thought. He should go home. He was no longer sick. He smiled. "Aah! So that is the situation!" He did not like Dr. Sweetface to know what ideas the Professor had on cats.
Then the doctor on duty saw the Professor smiling. He came towards his bed. He greeted him knowing that his patient was recovering - after being given sleeping drugs only as he was merely frightened.
"I hope you're not feeling bad anymore, Professor. I will discharge you soon," the doctor said. The Professor's face wore a broad smile.
W2F026T
The unlucky tenant 
Moses introduced me to the landlord, <ea/>Mzee Ngogwe who also lived in the same house as the tenants. He looked me up and down as if sizing and weighing me up. In his hands lay my fate, whether I would get a room in this house or not.
Apparently he was satisfied that I would do as a tenant because he proceeded to give me the terms and conditions of tenancy.
"If you go along with me you'll find a very good person," he was saying, "but otherwise." He finished with a gesture of the hand that could only, mean "you'll be given immediate notice!"
In Bandar, given the state of the housing that was no mean threat. 
He gave me the general rules of the house about tidiness and general discipline and added two rules that I'd never heard of before.
One was that, if Young Blacks Sports Club wins any match against Chui Sports Club, there was to be no celebration in that house. 'Sports' in Bongoland generally referred to soccer. Chui and Young Blacks were the top and rival football clubs in the Bongoland Super League.
It was said that <ea/>Mzee Ngogwe was a Chui SC <ea/>mkereketwa, fanatic and one had to be careful in discussing football matters when he was around. A difference of opinion could cost one a room.
Another of the unique rules that Ngogwe imposed was that one was not supposed to cook exceptionally aromatic foods. <ea/>Kukaangiza was forbidden and restricted to public holidays only. <Ea/>Mzee Ngogwe believed that cooking oil was highly inflammable and could set his house on fire.
Having lived with my brother since my graduation from Technical College and having endured my sister-in-law's arrogant and selfish attitude towards me, I was at the point of losing self-control when Moses came to me with an offer of a room. I grabbed it the way a thirsty man in the desert would grab a glass of cold water. I saw Ngogwe as a trouble maker but was prepared to put up with him.
"Do you have six months advance rent?" he asked. I said yes, I had come well prepared. I gave it to him.
I got the key to my room and I was ecstatic. The house wasn't anything to write home about but at last I had freedom. Now I could come home late, bring girlfriends, play the music I chose, etc.
I moved in immediately.
On my very first night, I had a <-/frihtening> experience. I was lying in bed, relaxed, reading a picture magazine, dressed only in my underwear, when something moved under the bedsheet between the naked skin of my back and the mattress. I instinctively jumped off the bed fearing that it might be a snake. The little protrusion, like a small mountain moved rapidly across the bed and fell off at the end and immediately I saw that it was a furry rodent that quickly ran into a hole in the wall to take cover.
Even as I stood there, another one ran across the roofing framework on the unceilinged roof. The house was full of them.
For the lucky ones of you who might be familiar with the Tom and Jerry cartoons or Mickey Mouse, this animal might seem endearing. I assure you that it is not. If I were the Creator, I would confine this pest to the video screens and cartoon books to make the earth a happier place for mankind.
I found it hell to live in the same house with mice. They ate food, they ate clothes, they ate wood, and made disgusting noises whilst doing so. I spent sleepless nights listening to their chatter and industrious and destructive activity. Even my productivity in the machine shop at work deteriorated.
Mice were getting on my nerves and I declared a <-/full scale> war against them. In this, I was hindered by a number of factors.
First, I avoided the use of poison because it might harm the 'innocent civilian population', the children of my neighbours. I could not afford the risk.
Second, traps had little effect because the mice in Ngogwe's house had all attended Advanced Trap Avoidance Courses. In this endeavour, I ended up, with two swollen fingers when one of the traps was accidentally tripped by myself.
Third, I did not have repatriation agreements with my neighbours who harboured these pests. The mice or rats or whatever they are called, just used <-/guerilla> tactics. They would come to my room riot and then run to the neighbouring rooms when things got too hot for them. I could not violate legitimate boundaries in my case of the enemy, so they had safe asylum everywhere in the house except in my territory.
So as you can see I was very handicapped. One morning I had a very bright idea and brought in a cat. I thought that would solve my problem in no time and once and for all.
A next room neighbour called me aside and advised me that I'd better take the cat back to wherever I'd got it from, or else I'd be in trouble; <Ea/>Mzee Ngogwe did not like cats and that the old man had an allergy for cat hair.
By this time I was in such a state that I could have a mental breakdown. The gnawing teeth and small scurrying feet in the night were driving me <slang/>nuts. And to top it all I had to sweep out the droppings from the accursed rodents.
One day I happened to have a hammer in hand after a little DIY (do it yourself) work. A huge mouse, must have been the head of the family, scurried quickly across the corridor, <-/vectorising> for an open door behind me. I beat the rodent to the door and closed it. In the ensuing hunt I ended up <-/victorius> with a bloody hammer in hand. The rodent's head was crushed and the cement floor was chipped at one or two points where I had missed in the initial strikes.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Animals might not approve, but I felt <AmE/>real good then. I cleaned up the mess and some good neighbours congratulated me <-_in><+_on> that notable achievement.
My joy was short <-_live><+_lived>. The following day Ngogwe summoned me and warned me that I should not stain the floor of his house with blood as that would bring bad luck, <ea/>mkosi, upon it. He had noticed the stain on the floor and one of the tenants had told him how it had got there. I'm sure now that if he had noticed the chipped floor where I had hit with the hammer, then it would have been Adios to my room!.
To me that was the last straw. I had to find another house. Ngogwe alone was manageable. Mice alone I could fight. But a combination of Mice and Ngogwe I could not take! I simply had to move.
After a month of intensive and continuous search by myself, Moses and a number of sympathetic friends, I got a room in a house built on the lowland valleys; such was the congestion of housing plots in Bandar.
A month after I'd moved in, the rainy season started. It rained intensively and continuously and things started to get very bad.
I had to wade into and out of the house. I had to put bricks on the legs of the bed to elevate it above the floods. Cooking stoves had to be placed on tables, otherwise the fires went out ... it was hell.
I'm still looking for a decent place to live. Food, shelter and clothing; the fundamental necessities. To most of us decent shelter is still an insoluble problem. 
W2F027T
The Final Plunge 
For someone in a positive frame of mind, the scene at the beach could be described as romantic with gentle easterly breeze from the sea, the sound of the waves lapping on the shore the panoramic views of the calm water of the sea and the stretch of grey sand on the beach.
It was an ideal place for courting couples, holiday-makers, and tourists.
However, all this was wasted on Cosmas Ndahiliwe. Beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eyes of the beholder and Cosmas was in no mood to be aesthetic. His defeatist attitude poised his general outlook of the world. To him everything appeared <-_to pay-turvy><+_topsy-turvy>.
A few metres above him, on the embankment, life was going on as usual. The mid-morning traffic was sparse on this <-/sea side> boulevard, with an occasional car heading either way, but Cosmas was hardly aware of the fact.
The <-_pedestrians><+_pedestrians'> pavement was virtually deserted. Cosmas had indeed chosen well the spot to accomplish the eerie mission he had in desperation set for himself. During week-days the beach was an ideal solitary place for someone with the inclination to become temporarily a recluse.
He walked along the beach, tasting the salty air as he took in air and breathed out. He tried to summon enough strength to accomplish his resolution which was what had brought him to the beach.
When he reached the weather-beaten concrete beach, he seemed to have mustered enough determination to start the process which would fulfil his resolve.
As he sat on the concrete bench he untied his shoelaces and kicked off his shoes. He then took off the thread-bare pair of socks from his feet and stuffed them into the shoes. He pushed the shoes under the concrete bench and stood up.
He paused for a moment, contemplating <-_on> what to do next. He had now reached the decisive stage in the whole business, a litmus test of the strength of his conviction in his resolution. 
Should he take off his clothes as well? He was quick to discard the idea. He would look queer indeed to the occasional passers-by in his underpants at that time of the day and on that day of the week. The spot was not the usual resort for swimmers. No, he would not take off his clothes.
That the idea to take off his clothes had even occurred to him, was the weak point in his armour. It was a clear sign of vacillation. It showed that deep underneath he lacked that inner resolve needed to see him through his mission. Had he been resolute there would not have been any need for him to dither. Why worry about wetting your clothes if you were really determined to take the final plunge?
He headed towards the sea and began wading step by step.
What circumstances had led to Cosmas's mid morning desperation?
It all started some five years ago, when he had decided to take that crucial step that separates men from boys and confirms one to be a full fledged adult.
He had decided to leave the <-_bachelor's><+_bachelors'> club. It was at this time that he had started to take decisive steps to join the marrieds' club that the idea had <-_reminded><+_remained> mooted in his mind for quite a long time.
Being the first born in a family of four boys and four girls, the dice had been cast against the smooth accomplishment of his ambition right from the very beginning. It had to do with the shaky background, devoid of love, in which his father, Christopher Ndalihiwe, had been brought up almost half a century before.
Ever since he was six months old, young Christopher was brought up first by a step-mother and afterwards by foster parents. His mother had died when he was at that tender age. He was thereafter brought up by a stepmother. His father, Cosmas' grandfather, had married for a second time. He was thus deprived of maternal affection at the most delicate stage of his formative years.
When young Christopher was of school-age he received another psychological blow. His village, Kidahwe, had no primary school. The nearest school built by missionaries was at Bugaga some 50 kilometres away.
So it was arranged that he should stay with very distant relatives while attending school.
So, young Christopher attended school under the guardianship of alien parents, and in the companionship of rather hostile distant kith and kin.
Although his new <-_guardian><+_guardians> did their best to be kind to him, they were nevertheless a poor substitute to the warmth he would have got from those with whom he had a blood bond.
To compound this his father had shifted from Kidahwe to Nyamnyusi, a new settlement deep in the forest where the land was still virgin. The place was inaccessible and ill-suited to normal family life. This was a severe disadvantage to children.
The result of this upbringing was that young Christopher grew into adulthood an oddly-complex individual. He had left school at standard ten and joined the civil service. He worked through the ranks to attain the position of considerable authority as a district natural resources officer.
While occupying this rather exalted position, Christopher had every opportunity to consolidate his standing among his peers. Many people came to see him at his office or even at his home to ask for his assistance.
Instead of taking this opportunity to make himself indispensable, Christopher only succeeded to alienate himself from the vast majority of those seeking his help including relatives and close friends - by refusing to concern himself with their problems.
Only the most unabashed sycophants and some well-to-do individuals who could in one way or another repay his favours benefited from his good offices.
This earned him a succinct if blunt and unflattering assessment of his character by one of his subordinates as "cold-hearted and self centred hard-core cynic."
This callousness extended even to his own children to whom he was particularly brusque. There was no rational explanation for this except that this might have been the outcome of the deprivations he had suffered as a child. It looked as if he was unconsciously making <-_the> society pay back for the humiliation he had been subjected to.
The first time Cosmas Ndalihiwe bore the full brunt of his father's insensitivity was when he had become betrothed to Gloria Karadyoshe.
At that time Cosmas was working in the city as a storekeeper at the National Grain Marketing Board (NGMB) headquarters, after completing his studies at the College of Business Education in Dar es Salaam and qualifying for a Diploma in materials management some five years back.
He tried to enlist his father's help at raising funds required for marriage. Sadly, Christopher disassociated himself from Cosmas' endeavours. This unsavoury decision was difficult to ignore because it had a destructive effect to the fund raising initiatives jointly undertaken by Cosmas and his mother, Rita.
Christopher's dictatorial attitude at home also made the atmosphere unconducive to translating the fund raising initiatives into actualities. On top of that, Christopher shirked, whenever he could do so, from the fundamental responsibilities for the upkeep of his family. Therefore he made it necessary for Rita, who was working as a primary school teacher, to fill the vacuum, Christopher thus created.
To make matters worse, Christopher refused even to <-_land><+_lend> his moral assistance to <-_Cosmas><+_Cosmas'> endeavours. Out of sympathy for Cosmas whom he saw had been forced to act solo as an orphan, Cosmas' uncle Cosmas Naraso volunteered to deputize for Christopher as the go-between with the Karadyoshe clan.
The whole process was extremely slow, taking almost three years. Things seemed to gain momentum only when Cosmas was home during his annual leave when he could dedicate his full energy to the matter.
Ironically Uncle Emmanuel's assistance was somewhat <-/counter productive>. This was due to the fact that he was not well versed with the <-/intricates> involved and the subtleties adopted in the bride price negotiations.
Uncle Emmanuel had travelled all the way to Munanila, the Karadyoshe's village for the purpose. But being from a different province with a different ethnic background to that of the Karadyoshe and Ndahiliwe clans, his presence in effect added more problems than it solved.
W2F028T
Forgive, forget the past
DAYS have gone when <ea/>mama Lucy would just talk and get almost everything she wanted. These days even though she is not beaten, <-/everyday's> quarrel with her husband over kitchen expenditure became is a burning spear that penetrated her heart daily.
"The day before yesterday I gave you a lot of money for groceries but today you are telling me that there is no sugar, what have done with that money?" her husband would angrily say.
"Oh my God what shall I do to make you understand? Prices have gone up so I bought half a kilogram of sugar my Husband," she would plead with him. Even though her husband would dismiss all those explanations as lies.
"It's nice to talk because you're not working. Other women are helping their husbands, while you're just sitting like a queen, I'm tired of you," the husband would in a voice shaking with anger as he gives money to Lucy.
<ea/>Mama Lucy was one of those women who besides going to the <ea/>shamba, would just sit the whole day decorating themselves. When other women were coming together for projects like poultry <-_farm><+_farming>, she would be a customer who unfortunately buys on credit depending on her <-_husbands><+_husband's> salary.
"<ea/>Mama Lucy, you're our good customer. Many people buy our chicken on credit but when we need our money we've to run after them, keep it up," a sales woman would comment.
Indeed in those early days, her husband never bothered whether one kilogram of sugar could take two days or less because commodities were cheap, but now everything is expensive and <ea/>mama Lucy's social and economic life is <-_in><+_at> stake.
<-/Everyday> her husband, besides complaining about her carelessness in using money, was developing some new habits. He would come home drunk and make a lot of noise. Sometimes he would not turn up at the end of a day come back the following day very drunk. Above all he was threatening to leave her with her eight children.
<ea/>Mama Lucy became very thin. She did not know what to do to restore her family's comfort, peace and love. Day and night she was restless in mind. To her, that was a time when she was mostly in need of her husband.
One day the radio announced that pupils <-_will><+_would> have to share school costs with the government. They had four kids in primary school. At that time it was two months before schools were reopening and unfortunately one of the kids fell very sick. She took him to hospital where to her surprise was told that all services that offered by the hospital are paid for. When she got back home her husband told her that there was no money.
"I have told you to look for a job. I know you may think I am drunk because I have taken some beer with all the money I had. That is not true, my friends bought it for me," said the drunk husband.
Had it not been because of a certain widow who was her <AmE/>neighbor, the moon was down for <ea/>mama Lucy. Maybe she could have stayed with the child until it died. The widow gave her some money to <-_sent><+_send> the child to the hospital. She was selling fish and fat cakes in town. That was how she was earning her life.
"You know <ea/>mama Lucy, you're too young to let life trouble you in this way. There are many things you can do to generate money for your family. Even if your husband was not a <slang/>boozer I don't think his salary is big enough to keep the family going," the widow said.
"Do you see this house I am living in, I have built it alone because my husband died long time ago. I don't like to tell you what to do. I am selling fish and it is because of it that I sent all my kids to school, so please my dear never ever allow life to trouble you in this way," the widow said adding that the time <-_has><+_had> gone and that she had to rush to her work place.
Unfortunately three days after the widow had advised <ea/>mama Lucy, to start a project, her husband left her.. He was not far, just in the same area. The husband was staying with a certain lady who was a clerical assistant at a certain company in town.
<ea/>Mama Lucy was not used to waking up early in the morning and <-_come><+_coming> back home very late <-_is><+_in> the evening, the business of buying and selling fish was not an easy task to her at all. There was a time when she nearly allowed a certain man to stay with her so as to easy her life. But her husband had made her hate men.
It was tough, she became thin. Some people were not even able to recognise her at a distance. The whole lot of <-/house hold> together with family decision making were fully on her <-_shoulder><+_shoulders>. She had to see to it that children <-_go><+_went> to school with all necessary requirements.
Indeed, in the beginning of fish selling business, she could not imagine herself running big business like a fish market which she ended up running. Even though she was in partnership with the widow and another lady in their place, she had a satisfactory share because of little education she had.
She was acting as a manager therefore she changed. She became more beautiful than when she was a house wife who was depending on her <-_husbands><+_husband's> salary. It was in those days when one day she arrived home from the market, to her surprise, the escaped husband was in the house which he left a decade and a half ago.
The man had decided to come back. However, that time he was no longer a healthy person. He was suffering from tuberculosis. <ea/>mama Lucy found him lying on her bed breathing heavily and after every minute he was coughing he looked like an eskimo dog. Just by his side was a lot of toilet <_papers><+_paper> which each was covering drops of blood that came every time he coughed.
At that moment <ea/>mama Lucy became very furious. She wanted to tell him to go back where he was staying. But the widow asked her to accept him.
"You've got to thank this man for lifting you up where you are now. Had it not been because of him you could have stayed the poor <-/house wife> until today. I'm not saying what he did was good. I rather consider him a weak minded and foolish man. Forgive him, forget about the past, go on living your life," the widow convinced <ea/>mama Lucy.
However, the husband died after three days. Do you know what <ea/>mama Lucy did? She bought him a very expensive coffin and a very beautiful suit to cover his body on his way to heaven. 
W2F029T
Toothless bulldog
THE four hours he had spent in the lock-up were beginning to take their toll <-_to><+_on> Charles Masunga, the Head Teacher of Msimamo Primary School in Kigoma Town in Western Tanzania. That the <-_reason><+_reasons> for his incarceration were not made clear to him, helped very little to calm the psychological turmoil he was undergoing due to the incarceration.
The cell in which he was solitarily confined was a dingy little room 2.5 metres by 2.5 metres with two concrete bunkers each on adjacent walls, an impregnable metal door six inches thick with a 60 cm square port grilled with thick round steel bars spaced 5 centimetres apart, and a corridor, providing the only view for the inmate <-_with><+_of> the outside.
But nothing spectacular could be observed past the port as the view in question was only the row of cells on the other side, with the exterior part of the reinforced door of the cell directly opposite, with its own barred port at the same level.
Perhaps the only redeeming thing that could be said of the cell was that it was not as dirty as Charles had expected to find it from the <-/metal>-images of a lock-up he had construed from tit-bits of information from people unfortunate enough to have <-_underwent><+_undergone> a similar experience before him. The relative cleanliness of the cell was maybe due to the fact that he was obviously the first inmate to occupy it on that day and presumably it had been cleared during the morning time.
But he was not the only inmate in the remand cells. Other cells had other remandees, and as far as he could ascertain from snatches of conversations going inside them, they were on the average holding more than the four inmates each was originally designed to hold.
The reason that he had been accorded the dubious privilege of solitary confinement was because his was a very special case. He had incurred the wrath of no lesser personage than the eminent Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Israel Masharubu, who was the over-all in charge of police in Kigoma Region by virtue of his post as the Regional police Commander (RPC).
How come that a humble primary school master had managed to so cross paths with, and to the extent of chagrining one of the handful of personalities constituting the cream of the province? An intelligent reader might ask. The answer is simple enough and can be summed with <-_a><+_the> name of one single lady Mayasa Mkembe.
Mayasa, a sultry and voluptuous 24-year-old beauty who was in the teaching staff under Masunga's administration at the Msimamo Primary School, was Mashurubu's mistress. She had not been on the staff for long time compared to her compatriots having graduated from the college of National Education some four years previously.
Born of parents hailing from Kigoma Region, Mayasa had finished Primary School at the ripe age of 15-years. Just after reaching the transitory period of adolescence into womanhood she was lucky enough to get chosen to undergo training as a grade IIIC teacher at Ndanda College of National Education into the neighbouring Tabora Region.
Her three-year-stay at Ndanda could be described as very hectic. In the most vulnerable years of her life Mayasa survived by sheer cunning the numerous stumps that could have earned her termination of her course. She had aborted twice mainly because (as the Kiganza grapevine had it) the co-respondents in the two cases were tutors who hastily arranged for and financed the abortion because their <-_carriers><+_careers> could have otherwise been put into jeopardy.
But well, that is neither here nor there. Upon graduation, Mayasa was posted <-_as><+_to> Msimamo for her first appointment. Initially she stayed with her uncle who worked at the Railway Station but not for long. With her instincts for survival, nurtured and honed by her experiences at Ndanda, she had managed to win the attention of, and arouse the <-_list><+_lust> for her in the <-/middle aged> provincial police chief's soul.
Under the patronage of the obsessed RPC, Mayasa managed to acquire living quarters of her own in a four-room house owned by the Roman Catholic Mission at Ujiji which were also comfortably furnished by the former.
With the flourishing of her razzle-dazzle affair with one of the most powerful and influential men in the region Mayasa was also by proxy one of the most powerful and influential women in the region. She could, depending on her inclination, open doors of opportunity to her close friends and relative, or close them in the case of her adversaries and foes. With this acquired power came the arrogant streak that led her to show open disrespect towards her immediate superior Charles Masunga, the Head Teacher of Msimamo Primary School.
Masunga had tried several times to make her change her behaviour especially when it directly affected her teaching duties as she was prone to sometimes abandon a class midway through a lesson if and when Masharubu had happened to <-_chose><+_choose> such a time to send his driver to pick her at the school for a rendezvous. Eventually he was left with no alternative but to write a strongly worded reprimand which he copied to the Kigoma Ujiji Town Council (KUTC) Education authorities.
It was this letter that had earned him a four hour stay <-_at><+_in> the remand cell - immediately after getting the letter, a sobbing Mayasa had taken it to Masharubu and accused Masunga of being prejudiced against her. This had so angered Masharubu that he sent his subordinates to go and pick the poor school-<-_maser><+_master> and bring him to the Central Police Station, where he was bundled into a cell for four hours, before Masharubu was ready to grill him in his office.
The harassed school-teacher, eventually decided to apologize to Masharubu though he could hardly see <-_that><+_what> he had done to warrant such a plea. But even then the RPC did not intend to let him off lightly. He told him to withdraw the reprimand he had given Mayasa, and then publicly apologize to her during the afternoon parade, before pupils were dismissed.
Masunga found these conditions too humiliating to accept and said so. Masharubu could not hold him further as he had committed no crime and reluctantly released him. But that was not to be the end of the affair. Two weeks afterwards Masunga received a letter from KUTC education authorities informing him he was being transferred to a primary school at Tongwe, a remote village in one of the most inaccessible parts of the province. He reported to his new station a fortnight later, a victim of Masharubu's <-/peccadiloes>. He realised that as a headteacher he was merely a toothless bulldog, and could not impose his will on his subordinates who had god-fathers in positions or real power. 
W2F030T
'You were for each other' 
GONE are those days when a University graduate was able to get direct employment. After my three year course at the hill, I was employed by the National Intelligence <-/Bereau> (NIB). Vinah my long time friend, and fiancee was taken by National Development Corporation (NDC).
Immediately after I joined the NIB, I was selected to go for intensive studies abroad. In all the three years of my absence from home my relationship with Vinah was smooth, and actually we had even planned <-_for> the date of our marriage.
Two months after my return and a month due to our wedding, I was summoned to NIB's Chief Office. I was among ten NIB officers summoned there. The boss told us about the <-/narcotin> crisis prevailing in the <-/neihgbouring> country Zambia.
This being the case then a number of top NIB officials have to go there. "The mission is rescue-a-neighbour, protect-yourself. You are the chosen officers," he finished.
"No Chief, I <-/can not> go," I found myself standing in protest. A protest which followed a hot debate as to why shouldn't I go. By then I was almost possessed by spirits, I was not myself, as I had even forgotten that I was talking to my top Boss.
The Chief was not ready to listen to my request, he summed up the debate with a command." You have to go...!"
It was one of the worst days I had ever lived. The following two days were like mourning days. I was forced to postpone my plans and do what my Boss had asked me.
When I reached Zambia I was to be collected from the  Airport by one of the intelligence people there, a <-_gentlemen><+_gentleman> introduced himself to me and took me to my new house. The house was not very far from the City Centre.
From outside it looked like a King's Palace. Well designed. I disembarked holding the keys my host gave me I started <-/oppening> the gate. I was surprised because my host seemed to be worried. From <-/a far> I saw a Toyota 4-runner coming very fast.
My intuitions sensed danger. I jumped from the gate and went behind the car. I was right, the moment I left the gate I heard shots on the gate bars an AK-47 machine gun was used. While I thought I should start going back to the gate I got <-_a><+_the> <-_shook><+_shock> of my life when I saw that my host was aiming at me.
Unfortunately for him, I was quicker, I stopped him with one bullet. The Toyota was there shooting at me again we shot at each other before it left.
Before I thought of doing anything the Toyota was there again <-_in><+_at> full speed, this time I saw a hand grenade coming out of the window. I <-/summersaulted> reached the gate and jumped out. I was out in time when the grenade exploded.
It was a huge explosion that shook the whole area, the Toyota vanished <-_in><+_at> the speed it came with. Sure it is a big war. "It seems the <-/narcotin> -syndicate is everywhere, it involves people of different walks of life," I <-/murmered> alone.
In the evening I wrote to Vinah telling her at least I have reached my destination, I tried to assure her my love and what I expect to do immediately I go back home. I gave her my address and all other possible means of reaching where I was when need <-/a rises>.
Two weeks later I got her reply. She said she understood every point I made and that her love <-_to><+_for> me is still there. She wished me all the best and urged me to take care of myself <-_rest><+_lest> anything bad should happen to me she is sure of committing suicide.
"I am missing you terribly, but I will try to cope <-_up> and wait for you," she finished.
Five months after my commencement of the operation, I went home tired and <-/exausted>. I had not received Vinah's letters although I had been writing to her <-/fequently>. It was past <-/mid night>. I stopped the big 950-BMW motor-bike outside the gate.
Going in I checked with my watchmen to see if everything was under control. I also checked with my letter box. There was only one letter. It was in a big envelope, looking at it I saw <-/epress> stamps from Tanza. I couldn't <-/supress> a broad smile when I saw Vinah's handwriting.
For the second time after so many months at last I got it. It had several cards, one which attracted my attention had our photograph on it. It was our best photo, I can tell you, we looked the most perfect pair ever existed in the world. There was only one sentence on the card, which said, it is a tragedy goodbye darling. My hands started shaking, I did not believe what I saw. Then I had to start reading the letter so that I get the whole story as to why all this.
It was a long and a sad letter, Vinah was complaining that I had neglected her, and that since I left I wrote only one letter to her despite <-_of> all the letters she had sent to me. I have written about twenty letters to you but none of them has been answered." she complained.
"Okay, let us forget about the past," Vinah continued, "do you remember Bernard?" the letter asked. I stopped reading for a while thinking of this chap Bernard. Oh, <slang/>yer I remember him, he was my rival to Vinah when we were still at the hill.
Bernard got the news about my absence and the misunderstandings in Vinah's family and took the chance to convince Vinah and her parents to accept him. Vinah's parents took it to be a blessing to their deserted daughter, they were now up with Vinah to accept him.
"I had such a hard time Collins, I kept writing to you but all in vain. Finally, I gave up, I accepted Bernard's hand for marriage. I am going to marry him on the 22nd of this month. If you can please Collins just come to my wedding, I know I will be disappointed but I will love to see you.
It was an emotional letter, and it was calling for action and not tears. I went out immediately. The motor bike petrol tank was empty. I had to wait until in the morning so that I go and fill the tank with petrol. in this same evening Vinah will be vowing to live with Bernard for ever.
I left Tusaka early in the morning. I had my jeans and T-shirt on just like a cowboy. I did not forget my revolver full loaded. I decided to act like a delta force commando, abort the wedding.
At exactly three thirty, I <-/packed> my Motor bike on the Church yard. I entered when Vinah was vowing publicly that she accepts Bernard to be her husband and that she will stay with him come rain come sun.
At the reception I forced my way in because I had no invitation card. In there I wanted to shoot Bernard but a strange voice from <-/no where> told me not to <-/loose> hope in life. "There is always a second chance man..." the voice echoed in my ears.
Just before the end of the reception, the Master of Ceremony introduced a funny game. People were asked to come forward pay some amount of cash and ask anything to be done by either the bride or the groom. Anybody who rejects the request has to bid higher and stop the former request.
At first I waited to see if I understood well the game, after thirty minutes I went <-/infront>, took everything which was in the plate where the others had been putting their money. After that I placed my 2,000 US dollars. The Master of Ceremony did not believe his eyes.
I was given the chance to ask for what I wanted from the newly <-/wedds>, I kept <-/quite> for a moment as if I did not want to say anything and then I said, I have a motorbike and I would want to have a ride with the bride. The MC was surprised but what to do? He asked if there was anybody who objected the request. <-/No body> did, so I won.
"Let us leave this place Collins, "I heard Vinah's soft voice. Her words gave me more courage. I pulled the accelerator with full lights on, the BMW sounded like an approaching <-/mirrage> bomber. All the people who were watching us gave way.
As I promised Vinah, two months later another grand wedding took place in Tusaka.
Bernard came too, during the reception, he surprised all of us with his <_/confesion> ," Collins, I did not come here to spoil your wedding, I have come to wish you a happy marriage because it is true that you were meant for each other, pardon me..." he finished and came to shake our hands... 
W2F031T
'Get out of here...' 
PREGNANCY can be a dirty word to some people. To others, the word pregnancy can be the most beautiful word ever created on this earth.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Suzi Moto, a humble young ordinary looking secretary in a certain parastatal in Dar es Salaam. I have worked for this company for the past three years.
So where did I fall that day when I found myself pregnant for the first time. Here I was looking at the results of my urine test. It was stamped in bright purple ink 'POSITIVE'. I could not believe it, no, there had to be a mistake, maybe the urine samples were confused. I thought. When I asked the laboratory technician who did the test if the results were correct, he laughed.
"Of course it is correct, Congratulations!", he said and even offered me a handshake.
"Mmmh..." I mumbled in dismay as the <slang/>congrats hit me like a tonne of bricks. I did not accept the handshake but turned around and went out of the laboratory.
"My God, what am I going to do now? How did it happen? Why, Why me!" were just some of the thoughts that raced through my mind over and over again. I left the hospital in a <-/dace>.
I do not know how I did it, but somehow I managed to find my way to my little rented room in Magomeni which to me is quite <-/cozy>.
There I guess my best friend and neighbour, Sara, noticed how down I looked when I walked into the corridor of the six room Swahili type house.
"Hey, what is wrong, did someone die?" Sara asked me.
"No, no one is dead, I just had an injection of chloroquine at the hospital. I have malaria." I said.
"Oh, that explains why you have been <-/vomitting> in the mornings <-_there><+_these> past few days, I thought you were pregnant." Sara joked.
 I was not amused. Sara noting that I had been disturbed, offered to prepare lunch for me. I refused. She offered to go for soft drinks from a nearby kiosk. I again refused, telling her that I would accept the offer another day.
With that, I opened my room, went in, closed the door behind me gently, then I threw myself on my bed, crying.
"What am I going to do, this is the worst thing that could happen to me, especially now," I thought to myself.
You see, I am engaged to a handsome young man, Aristo Motala, who is away in Europe studying to be a pilot. He had been gone for the past eight months and would not be back for another eight. There was no way that I could call, Aristo, the father of my child. I had disgraced myself even though I had tried to remain faithful to Aristo. I wondered whether I should seek an abortion or just go ahead and have the child. I decided that the only way to solve the problem was to confront the father of the child. He was Sara's <-/finance>, Marco. Marco was also my immediate supervisor at work.
Believe me, it was not my fault, it was entirely his!
Oh, how I regret that night. I had had one beer too many and a few <-_totes><+_tots> of <ea/>Konyagi as well. I usually do not drink but that night I did. I had no strength to resist. Sara, had gone to Tanga for a funeral.
It was an office party. We were saying good-bye to <ea/>Mzee Ramadhani, who had been a faithful driver to the General Manager for the past ten years. He was now retiring after working for the company for the past 30 years, working his way because I really respected <ea/>Mzee Ramadhani.
When the party was over, Marco offered to take me home in his car. I agreed, after all I felt safe with him because he was my '<ea/>shemeji' (in-law) and I thought that he could not do anything to me.
Well, I was wrong. <ea/>Shemeji meant nothing to him. He was drunk. Instead of taking me home, he took me to his flat at Ubungo. You know what happened after that, but I assure you that I was unwilling.
So, I found myself pregnant with Marco's child. What could I do? How could I tell Sara, should I tell Sara? I was confused, I cried myself to sleep.
In the morning I was sick as usual but I managed to get dressed and go to work. <-/Thank-God> there was office transport.
The mini-bus stopped at the Magomeni Bus Stop. I got in. There was Marco, sitting in the back seat. My heart almost stopped. I recovered though and managed to find a seat and sit down.
Marco was telling jokes as usual. The other workers in the bus just laughed. The jokes had no meaning to me now. I stared out the bus window as we drove through Jangwani into the City Centre. The babies on women's backs, the school children struggling to get transport had new meaning to me now that I was in the family way.
The twenty minute trip to the office seemed like eternity. The first thing I did in the office that day was to go to the toilet, to be sick. When I felt better I stopped by Marco's office.
He was sitting at his desk. His office mate had not arrived. I was glad. I thought that I could talk to him even more freely.
"Marco, do you remember the night that you forced me to sleep at your flat?" I asked him.
"What, you my <ea/>shemeji slept at my house, when Sara was away at a funeral? Is it possible? What will people think? what will Sara think? Let us just forget that it ever happened... Marco said in a cool eerie voice.
"Marco please, let us be serious." I pleaded. "Serious about what? he asked, his forehead wrinkled a bit. "I am pregnant by you and I need your advice." I managed to say.
"What pregnant by me. You slept at my flat only once, are you crazy, get out of here, you whore!" he shouted. I could not believe that it was the same Marco. I ran out of his office terrified because I had never seen him so angry before. I rushed to the toilet where I was sick again. My head reeled as the meaning of what had just happened, sank in. I felt faint.
Instead of working that day, I took a sick sheet, went to the doctor and got a four day ED. After presenting it to the Department Manager, and telling him that I had a bad case of malaria, he ordered a driver to take me home. I was grateful.
When I reached home, Sara was not there, luckily. She had not yet returned from her many business ventures. Whenever she could she avoided sleeping at Magomeni and slept at Marco's, her future home. Their love for each other seemed to grow each day.
I could not bear the thought of facing Sara even though I knew I eventually would have to. <-/Afterall>, she was my best friend. I found myself crying again.
My landlady was kind, she saw me sick that day and brought me <ea/>ugali and <ea/>kisamvu (ground cassava leaves) to eat. I was thankful and realised how hungry I was. I ate all the food. When the landlady came to collect the bowls, she asked to sit down and talk to me. I agreed.
"My dear, what is bothering you?" she asked.
"I have malaria." I said.
 The landlady laughed. My dear do you think that I do not know these things. I can see that you are pregnant. You cannot fool me.
I was shocked, how could she know when my belly had not started to show yet. I asked her how she knew. She said that my skin had turned glossy and my mouth had darkened, while my eating habits had changed.
I felt really bad and wondered how many others suspected that I was pregnant. The landlady left me alone. I started crying again. My tears dried up and I began to whimper like a puppy.
Marco had denied the child which was certainly his. It was not the child's fault that it was conceived. But, how could I give birth to a child with no father, or least one whose father did not want her. I never knew my father and did not want a fatherless child.
Having the child would mean that I would lose my <-/fiance>, Aristo. It meant that I would disgrace my mother's family which was the only family I knew. I had sworn to them that I would not have a child out of wedlock but that was what was happening.
"Should I have the child, or should I terminate it." I was in a dilemma, my head ached. I fell asleep. I dreamt that my best friend, Sara, had tied me to a stake and had poured petrol on the pile of dry sticks that I was standing on. As she was about to light it, I woke up.
I realised that it was a dream and went back to sleep. This time I dreamt that I had given birth to a child with two heads, one looked like Marco, the other me. Sara was beating the head that looked like me with a club. I shouted for her to stop, but no sound came from my mouth, again I woke up.
That evening, I went to a hospital, and talked to a nurse friend of mine. She told me that abortion was illegal which I already knew. She said however, that there was a doctor who would do it for 8,000/-. I asked her to arrange it for me, knowing that I would have to dip into my savings to pay for it.
Before I went for the abortion, I went to church to confess my sins. I recited the prayers that the priest told me to. I felt guilty at not telling him that I was actually going to commit murder.
After the abortion and another one week ED, I was back to work. I was my cheerful old self on the outside, but inside I was a guilty being. I learned a lesson though.
Sara, gets married to Marco, next Sunday. I did not get a wedding invitation. I did not tell her about the pregnancy or the encounter with Marco. But Marco, in an effort to ward off problems told her that I was trying to sleep with him. That ended my friendship with Sara and she moved out of the house at Magomeni and went to live with Marco.
Oh well, I am waiting for Aristo to return. I hope he does not find out what happened. But believe me, I have learned a lesson. Never trust a man who claims to be '<ea/>shemeji'. 
W2F032T
World without fakes, cheats
No. I have not gone away from Surat to protect myself from the plague of wagging tongues, sharp as unsheathed knives and deadly as laser rays.
It is not from shame of having begotten a child before wedlock that I have taken refuge in this forgotten village that has still to see a railway or a highway. Rather to tell you the truth, I have run away from him. He is dead, but he is everywhere, in the wards, corridors, offices and the resting room for doctors. The memory of joy, exhilaration, the vitality of the first love in the dying days of his life was too much for me.
Nothing is more painful as Danta has rightly said than to remember in sorrow the days of happiness of days gone by. The torment I could not bear and that is why I fled with his unborn baby within me.
I recalled his words at the entrance of the ward where infected people suspected of killer disease were <-_quarateed><+_quarantined.
'Tell Dr. Vawda to summon all doctors, nurses and orderlies in an <-_hours><+_hour's> time', he ordered.
'Did you not hear me. Call them.'
'There is no one to answer your call. They with some patients have fled.' I answered.
'There is nobody.' I said calmly.
'Except you.' He added
'And you.' I replied.
So Panic travels faster than plague,
'But we are not nobody's.' he said with determination.'
'Together we shall work wonders to amaze the medical world.'
'And you.' he turned, sending my poor lovesick heart in a spin.
'Why have you remained?'
'I have nowhere to go and no one to go to.'
I cannot lie. My blushing cheeks gave me away. ...
'Come on, don't be shy.'
'Cries of the dying, sobbing of the living and my utter loneliness made me lose my self control.
"Can't you see that you are my life and my love. Can't you hear it is my voice, in the gleams of my eyes and my devotion whenever you are around. How can you be so blind, so utterly blind?" Tears fell like an unexpected shower and he led me to their deserted resting room.
'There.' He said, 'drink this.' offering me warm milk.
In my rage of self pity, I thrust it and it fell all over his face.
The realisation of what I had done made me spring like a tigress and there I was sipping the liquid with my lips - indeed a new mix - my burning salty tears mixing with the warm sweet milk. The taste was utterly divine and should qualify for honourable mention in Marian's original recipes of her Concoction Company.
I expected a <-/sever> reprimand, but instead he unburdened himself to me, because he had no one to listen to his heavy grieving heart.
"I am not a hero for I don't want to die. But I am not afraid of death. My oath says: 'Save lives as a doctor come what may.'
'If I have to die so that others may live, I am prepared to give my life - life which I love and treasure so much". He said this simply and slowly.
How petty, how selfish were my reasons compared to his lofty and altruistic values. That is why I wanted to be near him, to touch him, to be his companion in life, for better or worse in work, love, life; till the end of time.
'As possessed by a hundred little devils,' I beckoned.
"Come, my lips are young. My mouth is young and my kisses are young what more..."
"But I am old," he cut me.
"If you love and can love, you can never be old." I said. "For love erases age."
No he did not touch my lips as I had expected, for that could have been the kiss of death. Rather he took my flowing tresses, my long <ea/>chotli and gently caressed it and then with fingers of a professional transformed it into a bun. And with it I too changed from a little wisp of a girl with hair almost reaching my feet to a demure damsel, expectant and alert.
He did the unexpected. With his soft cotton wool, he dipped into dettol the disinfectant. He dabbed the back of my earlobes, touched slightly the tip of my nose, brushed my armpits and wet the tips of my fingers and toes; the thighs and what went in between he left alone and yet these were in most need for it is in this region that the risk of infection was the greatest.
Inside I was bursting with pleasure but on the outside I was burning with pain... This then was my perfume, the precursor for the most intimate and delicate movement in my life.
''Wonders upon wonders,'
Joy upon joy, the aching, the yearning and longing are now coming to an end,' I said ...' Instead of the lifeless pillow, I shall have the living, him holding and pressing me - soft <-/had>, meeting my throbbing body. In our embrace we whispered to each other. If we heard, we did not understand each other.
Oh, the hugging and heaving,
the clinging and clutching,
the pressing and the squeezing ....
For me it was soaring pleasure and stinging pain.
Perhaps nature was kind for gravity just unshackled us and we floated, fresh and free soaring from one end of the horizon to another, - endless horizons where time and space seemed to merge into one. Surely this must be supreme happiness.
There was no time to discuss whether what we have done was right or wrong. What right had the deserters from duty to judge those who stayed behind.
I cannot with honesty say that I satisfied him. After all it was on the rebound that I got hold of him. His wife Sonia not only left him in his hour of need but was brutal and vicious with her ugly parting words: "You are staying because you want to be a hero. You are after cheap publicity."
But with me it was different. I was all aglow. My body tingling, eyes glistening and hands vibrating. I walked with agile footsteps devouring with my eyes all however small that crossed my path. My arms flew out to embrace to tell them to love, love ... for love was <-/suprime>, here, there and everywhere.
We tore into work like hungry predators, and in working together we found each other. Above all we found that we needed each other, and there could be no stronger foundation of a durable companionship that could run through life than working together for a common cause.
His job was to <-/diagonise> - he felt the pulse, got the temperature, touched parts for possible pain and then asked the patient to talk. His diagnosis was swift and very accurate:
Then came commands:
Nurse get the tablets:
Nurse sterilise the needle.
Nurse collect her urine.
Nurse escort and get the stool ....
Nurse, nurse, nurse, nurse ....
It was joy, sheer joy because I realise that he needed me. Minutes dissolved into hours and hours pushed us to midday and midday to midnight ...
And at the end of it, his face now serene he would say "well it was a good day." There were small victories when a patient was discharged - victory because he had turned a sick person into a healthy one. And in a <-/philosphpical> note he would tell his grateful patients: "I am the captain of my ship. For I have the lifebelts to save you all from drowning."
We all work for a living. But when one works for the love of work, then it is life at its highest and noblest.
And he was not satisfied with the routine questions dealing with <-_patients><+_patients'> health and their replies. He wanted to hear what they were thinking and feeling about wider problems of life and existence.
<-_There><+_These> sessions uplifted and exhilarated him. I was present at one of these question and answer meetings usually in the evenings. The one I am recording was a WHY session. A young woman now wasting away started: "Doctor, tell me doctor. Why? Why? Why? Why are we squeezed with rats, lizards, spiders that we have to fight for a piece of fresh air and a piece of sun, in this city of Surat?"
Said another with a goaty beard. "Why should you blame the insects, vermin and rodents for our sickness for it is our shift, our dirt, our spit, our trash, and our filth - OURS AND NOT THEIRS.
"Where do these animals and insects come in with the garbage that grows up into little hills ..." posed a lady.
"And the stench smell the dropping of mice and smell of ours, particularly after heavy drinking of toddy, which stinks more, theirs <-_and><+_or> ours?"
"And doctors... we believed that they were little Gods, and now they have run away. But <-_shy><+_why>? They are doctors to save lives of others."
'And not their skins?' Observed another.
And they then gave him a priceless gift.
Said Ali: "My daughter Salama's mother and I have agreed that our next boy shall be called Sharma after you...."
"And the two of us have agreed that at least one child should become a doctor ... if not that then a nurse, if not that an <-/orderlie> in a hospital so that they lead lives, <-/servig> people who are in most need of help."
These presents he regarded as treasures and he banked them straight away. He would take them out when he could be depressed and melancholy. These would become his medicine to restore his vision and vitality.
What became unerasable for me and engraved in his heart, <-_was><+_were> the words of a cricket fan: "We want is a world, a fit place to live in. We don't <-_what><+_want> to leave <-_thiks><+_this> wonderful planet before our time. We want our full innings and not run out before them ... Our innings must not end until we have all scored a century."
One night when all was quiet when intimacy reached out for our innermost thoughts and feelings I asked:
'What do you want our child to be?'
"A pine or a palm <-/treee> that can withstand snow or desert storms, he whispered."
'And you?' he asked.
'A plant that dares to show its leaves when others have shed theirs.'
Or should I say:
'A plant that opens its bud under lighting and flowers under howling winds and torrential rains.'
We never spoke about it. But we were both aware of the impending social storms, erupting volcanoes and deep wide holes caused by social earthquakes.
The next day, we had <-_out><+_our> first quarrel. It was not a normal <-_lover's><+_lovers'> quarrel. It is said that birds, mice and other insects know of rain, <-_earthquake><+_earthquakes> or other natural disasters long before they take place. I felt something dreadful was going to happen to him. "Addressing him by his first name I said: "Sunil, you must cover your face. You cannot go on like this day after day. The patients will <-/inderstand>. <-_Ever><+_Even> tellers in <-/som> of our banks cover their faces."
He could not believe what I was saying. Then when what I had said dawned on him he said suppressing his anger.
"But I have been doing my rounds without covering my face for five days. I don't need a mask."
"Yes, I know." I replied. It was done to restore confidence in the patients that the disease is not deadly and can be cured. And now they believe you.
"Then why do you want me to change and make a fool of myself in front of them." he remarked.
<-_It><+_I> was silent ... but he pressed on for an answer. 'Sunil, please understand me. I have had a premonition' ........
"You of all should know better that we doctors act on facts before us and not wild fancies and delusions ....."
"But I feel within me that something dreadful would happen to you. I answered helplessly, almost in tears.
"Nurse," he said severely, you are under stress. You <-_fell><+_feel> insecure and instead of moving forward, you have taken two steps backwards.'
It stung me, not his criticism but his referring to me as a nurse, in that tone and not Kavita which he had begun to call me by.
I wanted to flee sobbing but <-/restained> myself. Doctor I said, "I am going to the government stores to collect the medicines. I shall be back in the evening."
The hospital was unusually dark when I returned. Woman were wailing and children <-_wer><+_were> crying, I ran to find him stretched out on the sofa. Some patient had put a mask on his face.
'He just fell down and we carried him to this bed .....'
I ran to the cupboard where the <-_tetracyclene><+_tetracycline> tablets were kept. Took out a double and administered it though his unwilling <-_month><+_mouth>. I was prepared for its side effects. His fever should go down in a few hours time. I reasoned.
It did not. Rather the temperature continued to be on the rise.
Unknown to me then but which the postmortem was to reveal was that the plague bug known as verstinia pestis had made a <-/three pronged> attack. One went for his armpits bubonic the other for his blood stream <-/septicemic> while millions upon <O/> attacked his lungs pneumonic and the <-/breakthough> was made in the lungs.
But <-_non><+_none> could resist the antibiotics tetracycline. But it did not work. I then administered stretcomycine. Still there was no response and he became weaker and weaker. He could not open his <-_eys><+_eyes> but his hands were stretched out seeking and when he felt mine, his face became gentle and relaxed ...Goodness me, I said, he is dying ... Why? Why? In a flash I knew why ... the <-_copsules><-_capsules> were fakes and thus become killers, the deadlier because the people had faith in them.
I flung upon him, sobbing without restraint. Why should they take you away ..... how shall be my life without you. Oh my Sunil, my star, my life, my guide and companion. I love you. He opened his eyes to show that he heard me and he signalled with the same eyes that he loved me too.
And he closed them forever ....his hands that had clasped mine had become cold. Rigor Mortis had set in. I then withdrew mine.
As expected the news media flashed his death, focusing on his utter devotion to his calling at the risk of his life. Representatives of international media based in India gave it homely twist by showing him to be family man with a wife utterly devoted to him and his work.
Foundations sprang up like mushrooms and money poured in. Local councils changed the names of the street to <-/hnour> him as did the <-/mecical> wards of hospitals all over India. Actually in death, he became alive for only death that his work found recognition. Most prominent in granting donations were firms that sold medicines.
It is <-_ot><+_not> my desire to stay in this forsaken village <-/foreever>. Dinesh has taken my father's name. But soon I shall tell him the name of his real father.
And then we shall go back to Surat and together continue the battle. I can neither forget nor forgive. The manufacturers of fake medicine who kill millions for naked profit shall have no peace. They shall be <-/hanted><+_haunted> down and made to pay for their heinous crimes, for Sunil, my beloved Sunil who I miss so much would still have been alive today, were it not for these junk pills.
Our <-/stength> and stamina may not be equal to his, but together, now Sunil junior and I, shall carry out his <-_cherish><+_cherished> <-/legavy><+_legacy> of building a new world......WITHOUT FAKES AND CHEATS. 
W2F033T
Prison romance
CONSTANCE Blondie who was employed as an announcer with the world service of the Voice of the United Kingdom (VUK) used to get an <-/everage> of five letters a week from admiring listeners all over the world, and at least two among these were from some lovelorn souls who infatuated with her sweet voice as transmitted into their radio sets were expressing fervent wishes to marry her.
It was then indeed ironic that she should have been the one to initiate the correspondence with Carlos Byantanye who was at the time being held at the Mabuye Correctional Centre as a prisoner of conscience in the Abatwele Archipelago hundred of miles off the coast into the Atlantic Ocean.
Carlos' name and his plight first came to Blondie's attention in the course of discharging her duties. He was among the myriad of <-_prisoners'><+_prisoners> of conscience from all over the world, whom the world-wide human-rights activists grouped under the auspices of the Amnesty International were campaigning for their release.
He was also among the dozen or so <-_much><+_many> prisoners whom the VUK was proposing the highlight of their plight to the world at large in a series of six minutes radio programme so as to rally the listening public to pressurize by letters the respective governments of the prisoners into releasing them immediately.
Carlos Byantanye was a nephew of a former Minister for Public Security in the deposed government which had fallen in a bloody coup-d'etat that had installed into power a military government in the Archipelago. The minister himself, as was the case for most other members of the cabinet in the fallen administration; had fled into exile with his immediate family, <-_living><+_leaving> his distant relative prey to the vengeful retribution of the present leadership.
He had been rounded up together with the other unfortunate kith and kin of the exiled politicians immediately after the new strongman had taken control of all key points in the Archipelago and detained in the maximum security Mabuye correctional centre.
He had been languishing for more than a year in the centre before being the focus of the AI campaign and arousing the interest of Blondie when his name and curriculum vitae came <-_into><+_to> her attention.
The 30 year-old news reader had, by all accounts, a successful seven years, public career as broadcaster, but nothing glowing could be said about her private life. She was the youngest of the two children (both females) of Mr. Marcus and Mrs. Sheila Blondie, who were unfortunately drowned at sea, when a pleasure boat they had boarded capsized leaving no survivors. Constance was thirteen years old at the time and Nancy her sister was twenty years old.
The elder sister was at the time a junior at the Hopthins University and in a self-sacrificial move, Nancy had decided to leave school and look around for employment, so as to give her young sister chance to acquire at least as much as the formal education as she had <AmE/>gotten.
Her salary was enough to barely cater for their basic needs, so by the time Connie went to high school, Nancy found that the insurance, stocks and annuities left to them as inheritance from their deceased parents were all gone. So that had to be the end of the road <-_far><+_for> Connie as far as formal Education was concerned.
She landed <-_into><+_in> <-_the> broadcasting work by sheer accident, but diligently worked her way until she was promoted to become a news reader. But she had an unhappy love-life.
She had been unlucky enough that the first man she had fallen in love with had been cold-hearted and totally ruthless, who used women and when he felt they had served his purpose discarded them like a used tube of toothpaste.
This shattering experience to the starry-eyed ex-schoolgirl just about to embark in the career-world, doused all the romantic fire that had been boiling in her blood-veins. As a result when she did start her career she was totally immersed in it, and vowed to have nothing to do with men again to avoid the repetition of the heart-rending cessation <-_for><+_of> her first ever love-affair. But that was before she came across the life-history of Carlos Byantanye.
Here was a young-man (he was 18-years old when detained) who was definitely suffering from the sins of others.
Her heart bled for him. She was determined to do all in her capability to intensify the campaign for his release, and in the meantime, started correspondence directly to him. 
Her first three tentative letters had gone un-replied before her fourth letter was rewarded with a response direct from Carlos, in his own handwriting from the correctional centre.
Apparently her first three letters had not reached him. She was gratified by this, and somehow manipulated her superiors at the VUK into giving her a special assignment into the Archipelago to where she flew as soon as the formality and arrangements for the trip were finalized.
She lodged at a beach hotel in Kwisenga the sprawling capital of the Archipelago, from where she again wrote to Carlos and received his reply six days later.
Then with the help of the staff at her country's embassy, (and with some bribery involved with several high-ranking authorities at the correctional centre) she had arranged that Carlos be transferred to a private hospital in Kwisenga after the requisite recommendations from the prison doctor, who was of course among the recipients <-_to><+_of> the largesse she had distributed. There at the private room in the hospital, they had managed to see one another in the flesh, and although the room was under twenty-four hour guard, they were always left alone when she visited him.
Her desire to set Carlos free was now given fresh impetus by these private meetings with him, and she had again used the embassy to pressurize the military leadership into agreeing to release him on the condition that he be immediately exiled, which was what Connie had been wanting all along.
Her perseverance was rewarded as she flew from the Kwisenga International Airport three weeks after she had landed there with her hard-won prize, Carlos Byantanye, on the seat next to her throughout the journey to the United Kingdom.
There were married at a registry office, four weeks after their arrival in the <-/Uk>, and one hopes, they will live happily thereafter.
W2F034T
Beauty is money 
IT was a hot dusty day, in Dar es Salaam, when Luther Simon, told his fiancee, Pamela Johnathan, that their engagement was broken off. The words hit Pamela stronger than a blow from a heavyweight boxer.
Pamela had only been released from hospital the previous week. She had been admitted for almost a month following a terrible car accident in which she narrowly survived. The accident left Pamela disfigured, but doctors had told her that she could be restored to some extent through plastic surgery abroad.
Pamela, had expected that her multi-millionaire fiancee Luther would foot the bill, but now that he broke off the engagement that would not be possible.
The accident occurred one rainy day along Old Bagamoyo road in August. Beautiful, elegant and fashionable 22 years old Pamela, was returning home to her luxury villa in Masaki. She was returning from a shopping trip at Namanga, when the car skidded off the wet road, turned over and hit a tree.
It had rained earlier in the day and Pamela drove her car, a brand new Mercedes Benz 1995 make with a registration number TZH 007. Pamela, was a rough, uncaring driver who would drive through puddles splashing dirty water on tired pedestrians. It was a habit that earned her a lot of insults. Pamela, always laughed when she saw people complaining.
Pamela kept the vehicle sparkling and as she drove by the perfumes of London, Rome and Paris emitted through the windows. The tinted glasses on the vehicle stopped thieves from noticing the expensive gold chains and rings that she wore.
Some people who knew her began to say that it was high time she was taught a lesson. Several local <-/withdoctors> were consulted by different people.
Luther had warned Pamela, that he was not happy with her <AmE/>behavior and that she should change. He said that even though they were rich, they should always remember that the majority of people were not and needed assistance. But she did not care at all.
Pamela's attitude had not changed at all up to the day of the accident. She lived in her own little dream world and was oblivious to others problems. She never gave a lift to anyone she did consider, "her level". After all those not her level stunk, and would cause her Benz to stink. She couldn't take a chance on that.
"Why, should I allow the air in my car to be polluted by people who will be of no help to me?" She would say. Luther warned her to be more generous as that would bring her blessings in life.
Pamela, drove her vehicles through some puddles in front of some Namanga shops. She almost ran over a little kid, but did not even stop.
'<ea/>Jamani, those who own fancy cars love to show off! two women <-_pedestrian><+_pedestrians> shouted as Pamela's Benz, sprayed them with muddy water ruining their clean dresses. The two, <ea/>Mama Luka, and <ea/>Mama Nuru were headed for a wedding send-off party. They shook their fists in anger.
"Let us see if the driver will offer us a lift, <ea/>lifti, <ea/>lifti, <ea/>aisei!. Shouted one of the wet woman in mockery to the invisible driver who was speeding off.
The two women knew that the driver would not stop especially to offer a poor shabby person a lift. They sighed and continued with their journey.
"It must be nice to be rich." said <ea/>Mama Luka.
"No, I hear that these rich people are very unhappy, their marriages don't last and they use heavy drugs!" said <ea/>Mama Nuru.
"But, it is so hot and my feet hurt. I wouldn't mind a lift in an <-/air conditioned> car, right now," said <ea/>Mama Luka.
The two walking to the wedding send-off in an effort to save the 100/- fare they would spend on a <ea/>dala-dala. They had already spent 300/- each one way on their trip from their homes in Mbagala.
A number of vehicles passed the women, new ones, old ones and in between old and new ones. They were fed up having dirty water splashed on them and jumping out of their way. But, Pamela's TZH 007 vehicle, annoyed them the most as they felt it was a deliberate attempt to make them dirty.
"One day, we will fix those who show off their cars to us!" Their statement drew stares from some street vendors and other <-_passer-by><+_passers-by>.
Pamela's best friend, Josephine, warned her not be so arrogant. Josephine had become concerned that her friend had changed into a monster since she took up with Luther. Yes, Luther was handsome and rich, but she warned Pamela not to let her luck go to her head.
Josephine had met Pamela, the day before in the City Centre along Samora Avenue. Pamela offered her friend lunch at a luxury restaurant. They did not meet or talk much now that Pamela was upper class.
"Remember reminded Pamela of her impoverished background and how it was Pamela's aunt who came to the rescue and paid her <-/schoolfees> when she was about to be expelled from school.
"Look, I live away from the people. They do not help me in any way. They only want to take from me. I pay them for services, yet they ask me to give them money. Why should I give them my money, when Luther has worked so hard to get it?" Pamela said.
"Pamela, please be reasonable, remember that you struggle to get where you are." Josephine pleaded.
"I am being reasonable, after all, am I not wasting my time, talking to you. By the way, you stink too, Josephine. "Pamela said to Josephine's shock. "By, the way, you can keep the 100,000/- that I lent you, last month.
Josephine, was in tears, but Pamela just left and hopped into her Benz and drove off. Pamela decided to visit her widowed aunt in Sinza. She hated driving through what she called slum areas as they polluted her car and ruined her eyesight. She was going to see her aunt only because she had to.
Aunt Susana, was the wife of her uncle who paid her <-/schoolfees> during her time of need, when her own father had shamelessly abandoned his family, in <AmE/>favor of a younger woman, when she was only in Form One. Without their assistance Pamela would never have finished secondary school.
Aunt Susana, was a widow and at the time, had three sons attending secondary schools in the city. She was just a secretary in a parastatal at the time, but struggled to earn extra money so that she could help her younger sister's only child, Pamela, get an education, which she hoped would land the child a good job.
Pamela's mother was illiterate and had gone crazy after her husband abandoned her, she died shortly afterwards. That was six years ago. Now Pamela, had quit her job as a receptionist in a private company so that she could prepare to be a rich man's wife. She was thrilled that she would never have to work again.
Aunt Susana, warned Pamela, not to get married so soon, and strive for higher education. But, with Luther in her hands, Pamela, thought she was at the top of the world. Pamela, left her aunt 5,000/- out of the 200,000/- that Luther had given her for pocket money that day.
Pamela was not really happy about having to give her aunt money, even though she knew she was in need. Giving people money made her feel like she was throwing it in dustbin. Wouldn't it be better to buy some expensive fabrics, or some <-/ready made> clothes, or imported shoes, to add to her already vast collection? She thought.
Her aunt must have known what she was thinking, "I have never asked you to pay me back even though I am in need, now if I wanted you to pay me back couldn't I demand that you give me a million shillings and never see you again. Be careful Pamela, I will not curse you but others will!" Her aunt said sadly.
Pamela apologized and got up to leave. She offered her aunt another 5,000/-, her aunt accepted the money.
So, the next day when she came from her shopping trip, Pamela, was deep in thought and driving at high speed, when her car skidded <-/nd> overturned. It was just the turn around the corner near the Drive-In Cinema, when she thought she saw a pack of dogs and cats run in front of her. The number was so great that she stepped on the brakes and the car skidded. At the same time she thought she heard the sound of laughing 'Swahili' women and saw the road open up in front of her and her luxury Benz fell inside. She screamed as loud as she could out of fright.
And the luxurious car turned over again crushing her legs smashing the tinted glasses and the twisted metals cut up her beautiful face and neck.
Pamela survived the accident only because those she considered to be poor and stinking pulled her out of the wreck before the luxury car exploded.
"The road was laughing at me! I swear in the name of God that the road was laughing at me." Mumbled Pamela, as she was pulled out of the wreck, to the surprise of those who helped her.
When Luther heard he rushed to the Welltundo hospital where Pamela had been taken. He couldn't believe what he saw. His <-_fiancees><+_fiancee's> face had been ruined and her legs ruined and she just would not be the same beauty she was. He visited Pamela, daily up to the day when Pamela was discharged. Aunt Susana had stayed at her bedside until she was out of the worst. 
She was resting, and watching a video tape when Luther came" Pamela, I am sorry but I have decided to break off our engagement". Luther said calmly.
"But why, Luther I love you." Pamela stammered in shock.
"No, Pamela, you don't love me, but you love my money. As you love my money I loved you for your beauty which you no longer have." 
Luther said.
Pamela burst into tears.
W2F035T
Amina's philosopher 
I WAS tipsy and nervous. Nervous because time was running out. In fifteen minutes Bilicans would close. And so far I had failed to net anyone.
The few sailors who were around were all young boys. They naturally made their pick from among the younger and <-/goo-looking> lasses. I had been completely ignored. That also explained why by this time I wasn't drunk. I had to buy drinks from my own pocket which meant I had no option but to concentrate on beer. One doesn't get drunk on beer!
The weary waiters were putting final touches to their mopping up operation. Glasses and bottles had been collected, tables were wiped off and the cashier was preparing to take accounts. Gradually, couples began to stroll out. Some white sailors so drunk that they had to lean on their girls' shoulders for support.
Others conscious enough to put their arms stylistically around their girls' waists while a few lusty <-_one><+_ones> crudely holding their women's buttocks. 
I hopelessly dismounted from my high stool near the counter. The bartender bade me goodnight adding a sympathetic <ea/>pole. I was in no mood to respond. The thought of having to wait another hour or so at the corner and being picked up by some old, fat, inconsiderate daddy oppressed me and exasperated my physical exhaustion.
I had hardly walked a few yards when I saw Bob staggering towards me - from total darkness.
"You old bitch, you're good for nothing," and a heavy blow landed on my left cheek. Before I regained my senses, a young man had appeared on the scene as if from nowhere. With the agility of a boxer he pushed Bob towards a car parked nearby."
As the car drove off, I saw Bob lying flat on his back.
Handing me a white handkerchief, the young man said, <ea/>Pole.....there's blood under your chin." I took the handkerchief and wiped off.
The next question was unexpected and came as a surprise.
"Where shall I drop you off?" he asked.
For a moment I was simply flabbergasted. I didn't know what to say. But I was determined not to let him slip through my fingers and go home penniless. There was no time to play delaying tactics. I might lose him altogether, I thought. So I decided to be open and blunt.
"I'll drop off where you do." Before he could respond, I delivered another fast one. "You wouldn't mind giving me a bed for the night. Bob would tear me to pieces if I went home."
In case his lust fails, I figured, at least his sympathy would rescue me.
He didn't say anything. He swiftly turned the steering wheel, made a U-turn and sped off along the Bagamoyo road towards the University.
My young man was quiet and looked thoughtful. I didn't dare disturb him although I felt like making conversation several times.
The car screeched to a halt near some flats which I had never seen before. I was fairly familiar with the campus, though. I had been to the University several times, always at night, of course. However, these flats were definitely new and strange.
My host opened the door for me and, saying <ea/>Karibu, led me into a small flat..
The place was completely unorganised. Books were lying all over the place. Crumbs of bread and rice lay on the dining table while mango and onion <-_peels><+_peel> uneasily rubbed shoulders on the dirty cooker. Unwashed dishes were all heaped together in the sink.
The walls of the room were bare and naked. The only decoration on the walls was a big portrait of some white, fierce-looking, thickly bearded man whom I didn't know nor cared to know.
This single room was no doubt multi-purpose: dining, living, sleeping and kitchen, all in one.
"Would you care for some coffee?" the young man, whom I could now see properly for the first time, asked.
"No, thank you," I said as I surveyed him from top to bottom. The man was slim and handsome, 
rather shabbily dressed. His shirt was hanging out of his trousers and his <-_vest><+_feet> were only halfshod with his open, unpolished sandals. My <-/youngman> looked as unorganised and uncouth as his room.
"May I use your toilet", I asked.
"It's just round the corner," he said and threw himself onto a long couch near the big bookshelf.
Picking up my sling bag I disappeared into the washing room.
Without wasting time I undressed, took a quick shower and massaged my teeth with colgate to get rid of the odour of the beer. I carefully hung my underclothes behind the door and wrapped myself in my host's towel whose edges I neatly tied in a loose knot just above my breasts.
Forcing a broad smile on my face, I stepped out of the washing room. To my utter surprise and disgust, the man was still lying on the couch and reading a book. I wondered if he realised at all that I was ready. But the possibility of losing him and going home penniless forced me to drop all formalities. I walked straight towards him, sat on his <-_laps><+_lap> and started caressing his cheeks with my lips. To my surprise and shock, the man gently pushed me aside and stood up. He was now standing near the window looking out into <-/nothingless> for it was pitch dark outside.
"You see... er... what's your name?"
"Amina," I said. That was one of my many <-/pseudonames>. It was popularly believed among our clientele that coastal women were sexier than others and therefore we often adopted muslim <-/pseudonames>.
"Yes Amina, you see our society is terrible. Some of our sisters have even to sell their bodies..." I felt like abusing and insulting him. Why was he talking to me like this? It was none of his business. But the man was so nice and talked with such seriousness that he completely disarmed me of all courage to answer him back. Moreover, the fact that I was being talked to seriously and as an equal flattered my ego and I wanted to hear more.
"Sister, it is not your fault. It is the fault of our society. It is only because our society is full of inequalities and injustices. It is because some have a lot and others have nothing that even sisters are reduced to earn a living by converting their bodies into commodities."
I was now hardly following what my <-/youngman> was saying. I liked his sweet voice. I liked the way he talked, as if talking to a student or his younger sister. But I did not understand a single word of his, yet I felt he was telling me truth.
"Do you teach <-/philosopy>?" I couldn't resist asking him.
He turned round, smiled and continued.
"Love and sex should be mutual; should give pleasure and satisfaction to both partners – not a commodity on the market to be sold to the highest bidder...."
His voice tapered off and appeared to be coming from far away as sleep overpowered me and I dozed off.
Next when I opened my eyes it was already daylight. I was lying in my host's only bed covered by a bedsheet. My host was lying on the <-/coach>. He had not cared even to undress himself. An open book was resting across his face gently pressing against his childish nose.
"He must have put me to bed," I reckoned, feeling partly embarrassed and partly pleased.
My host prepared some tea and we had breakfast together.
"I'm sorry I bothered you with my lectures last night," he said.
"Oh! Forget it. You are such a good teacher," I said with utmost politeness..
"Could you please drive me to Kinondoni?" I asked.
My young philosopher was quiet and thoughtful throughout the drive. I wanted to make conversation but didn't dare disturb him.
As I began to get off the car, something kept telling me that I shouldn't lose him even if it meant I wouldn't earn a penny from him. He had flattered my ego by talking to me seriously and my ego wouldn't let me lose him.
I liked the way he talked. Although I did not understand him I wanted to hear what he said again and again.
"When shall I see you again?" I asked him softly.
"I'll be at Bilicanas this evening...", he replied as a matter of course.
"Good-day and take care..." I said and walked off to my single room apartment in the building across the road.
Bob was sitting in my room. He had been let in by Elsie, my room-mate.
"I am sorry for what happened yesterday. Now there's a sailor I have already arranged with. Shall I bring him around this evening or would you prefer to see him at the Highways?"
"I am damn tired. I want to snatch a few hours of sleep. Bring him here after mid-night. This room will be free. Elsie is sleeping out tonight. And please do not disturb me until then."
The truth was that I wanted to spend the early hours of the evening with my philosopher friend and hear his sweet voice. 
W2F036T
'We are just friends'
IT was during my secondary school days that I came across many students from various <-_area><+_areas>. Before admission to that school I was a herdboy in my grandfather's compound while my parents were living in Dar es Salaam.
I encountered a girl I came to love. Love was not taught in the classrooms, but the society around forced me to be aware of that game. LOVE. Let it not be the society, the age I was in contributed to my love and to be loved. It was amazing.
The school was co-education. We met students <-_form><+_from> various walks of life. There were beautiful girls and ugly ones. From the first time I set my eyes on Asha I felt impressed. She won a prize from my heart. I totally admired her beauty, Love at first sight.
It is not easy to let you know how we became friends or lovers. It was inexplicable, she adored me and I admired her. Between adoring and admiring we suddenly become lovers! At that time she was in Form One while I was in Form Two.
The <-/inagural> years of our bilateral relations were really sweet. We shared views and deeds. Very friendly though as a rule requires we didn't <-_indulged><+_indulge> ourselves in sexual activities. You may rule it out but it was the truth. We built a very strong relations in and outside our hearts. Some people started to feel jealous about it but the love we had, proved too strong for anybody else to break our relations.
It was at that time I believed the heart of a person in love is full of imagination, passion, desire, spirit of worship and respect. Asha to me was something valuable, she filled a <-/vaccum> I had before.
When I was in Form Four, we got into a riddle. The reason behind was that, we knew exactly that <-_on><+_in> October of that year we had to part. I had to leave her behind because it was my fourth year while for her it was the third. I completed four years of secondary education. My friend Khalid urged me to repeat but the rules spurned his idea. After all Khalid was merely joking me.
It was really bitter for me. How come for poor me to part ways with a girl I loved with all my heart? On her side she kept on promising me not to worry since she was mine. "I am yours, if you like it, I will be yours in whatever way it pleases you, take charge of me Silva". Furthermore she argued that since I was leaving her behind, communication would be a vital to facilitate and enhance our love. Although I joined her to think that way, still I needed her closest presence.
It was like a dream, the fourth and the final year of my secondary education reached its climax. I tried to persuade Asha for our friendship to be more than mere words. "<-_No><+_Not> until we get married, why hurry dear Silva?" She lamented. I accepted it without much obstinacy, we remained faithful to each other.
After completion of that "bad" fourth year, I left the school to join my family in Dar es Salaam. At the railway station, Asha showed up just to bid me farewell. She kissed me and patted me on my back saying "have courage, Silva." Then we parted!
In Dar es Salaam life to me was a little bit meaningless.
I kept on thinking day and night about Asha. I was longing for her heavily. To me she was the sense that could provide the efficient force which might change dilemmas of life into happiness. The very first love was consuming my conscience. Anyway, let it be, whatever the cost, I believed Asha was born for me and me for her. This was our motto.
Time flows, it moves towards a certain goal. Some believe time to be a <-/never ending> circle, repeating itself season after season and year after year.
Time always tells or reveals good and bad things. So time was there to tell about our affair.
The first year of our isolation was really tough to me. I used to visit post office frequently just to check for letters coming from Asha! several times in her letters she repeated that she was born for my sake so I should not worry. She urged me to work hard to mould our future and that of our generation to come, the duty I took efficiently. The <-/correspondece> was based on achievements.
Since I had a godfather in the system, employment came to me easily. I was employed by a <-/goverment> firm in Dar es Salaam as a clerk grade one. The probation which is one year proved difficult to me. The reason was very clear, thinking about Asha while I encountered new understanding about life at the same time. Job and love. It's tiresome.
She completed four years of secondary education as well.
As I did, She went to Gonja to join her family. She used to tell me that she was the favourite of her mother among the family of six. That "mother-in-law" was a nurse. She wanted her daughter to be a nurse! Immediately after completing her secondary education her mother found a nurse school for Asha at Kiomboi.
When she was in Kiomboi our ties with Asha prevailed. I received colourful letters and post cards from my "darling". But time is always there to tell.
Later I received a colourful letter from my Asha. Among other things she begged me a pardon in advance that, she would not write frequently to me as she used earlier because her tests were tough so she had to study hard. <-/Understoond>?" she stressed. I agreed but reminded her to write even twice a month. Seven years went by.
Four months passed without a letter from her.
I got furious to the postal system due to its nature of delaying letters to customers. I believed Asha had posted a letter but it has stuck somewhere within the postal system! 
<-_On><+_in> the six month of that year I <-/recived> a <-/much-waited> letter from Kiomboi, colourful too. The central message was "be patient, one day yes." But seven years of patience!
That message to some extent started to tear asunder my hope marrying Asha every time "be patient," every time "wait" Why so? I kept on asking myself.
It was really agonising. I've never heard about that girl anymore. The news about her completion at Kiomboi reached me by coincidence but it was true that she completed <-/succesfully>. I <-_though><+_thought> she was dead but dismissed the idea.
Then I was <-/twenty nine>. My parents especially, mother, were pestering me with <-_an><+_the> idea of marriage. My father was the power behind my mother's demands, though he never told me directly. The only way to please my parents was to abide by their demands. By the way, I had to forget Asha and find someone else to fill in the gap. She had decided to stay away from me. She never wrote, I decided to get rid of her for good.
Who will take over Asha? Who in this planet may challenge Asha and pull her out of my heart? I found it difficult but I prayed so that the <-/aAmighty> may provide me with a good beautiful wife. 
Although Asha had to go, I wanted her to remain my greatest friend. Rather than thinking aloud about becoming my wife, I placed her among the group of my best friends I had encountered.
There was a banker who was working with the mighty National Bank of commerce branch in the  city. She was my second choice after Asha. Our parents were friends for a long time till then. These two families were close for me to marry Furaha. In the <-/begining> I was reluctant for I had Asha in my minds. Now that Asha had become my best friend, the opportunity was open for Furaha to be my "beloved wife".
The day came a very big wedding took place. Furaha and Silva became one flesh. I didn't expect it to happen that way but time came to set the course. Now Furaha is my wife. We married two months ago at Saint Alban's Anglican Church, in the City. I hope to get a child!
Last Saturday when I was turning at the corner of Zanaki and Kaluta Street my eyes met that of Asha. Still elegant and pretty. She was attractive as ever! Curled her hair romantically! We joyously remembered the old good days and embraced. She showed a desirable gesture to me but ring around my finger a betrayal!
Finally after long time of blaming each other, I told her that I was married. "We are just friends" now.