IN a recent adventurist outing, Lazzo joined a group of itinerant street traders who had ventured into the hinterland to sell their wares ranging from Chitenge cloth to second-hand clothing including an assorted array of wares.

They veered off Kabwe road and were soon heading towards a fishing camp where business was said to be brisk.

On the banks of the river was set a fishing camp in effect a village mostly habited by fishermen who made brisk business selling off their fish.

Lazzo’s contingent consisted of three men and two women who had gone to buy fish and at the same time dispose of their city acquired goodies.

The three men found sanctuary in a makeshift grass-thatched structure to put   soul together in the night.

As urban-bred Lazzo had a unique chance to see how village folk got by when he saw a woman walk up to the loading bay with an empty dish but was soon called by a fisherman on the canoe.

She had her dish filled to the brim with fish and when Lazzo enquired whether that was the missus to the fisherman, he was told that anyone that goes with a vessel or container sends a message that they want ‘fish aid’.

It was here that he met Mai Kiri a woman in her early thirties with a perfect dental formula which made her produce a radiant smile which melted the hearts of many starry-eyed men.

He could not find a mistake in the facial caricature and deep inside him Lazzo was amused that deep in the rural precincts, one could find such heart-throbbing beauty!

It was not until the third day that Lazzo began to befriend the mesmerising Mai Kiri  who he learnt was ‘married’ to a fisherman.

Here, a casual relationship was construed to be ‘marriage’ and it transpired that Mai Kiri was in fact a spinister who was ‘married but open to an extramarital affair.’  She stayed with a cluster of friends in a hut.

One Saturday afternoon, Lazzo and the three city dwellers had struck a friendship with a local resident who used his premises for a merry-go-round get together social gathering imbibing the home-brewed  ‘Munkoyo’ (a kind of sweet root beer) which in fact, had traces of alcohol as it fermented gradually.

Lazzo noticed that there was a constant flow of the brew and fishermen leaving and returning from the river estuary.  One could hardly see anyone going to sleep because there was also music playing all night long!

The women that shared a home with Mai Kiri behaved the same way as each one of them had a litany of friends in the neighbourhood.  They interchanged houses especially when each one of them had a guest in the night.

Lazzo was perturbed when his newly found acquaintance had a swollen face and when asked, he narrated that he had been clobbered by the ‘uncle’ for ‘selling Mai Kiri to city dwellers!’.

One villager at the watering hole hut disclosed that men who usually came from the city were very smart compared to the local ones and women  often got attracted to them.

He pointed at one fisherman returning from his fishing errand and said:”  See the way that man is dressed.  He does not care about looks.  Some of them do not even care to dress up properly but prefer to go drinking ‘Munkoyo’ like that!”

The narrator further explained that because they were constantly in and out of the river, many thought it was not necessary to look very smart as long as one had money.  They only dressed nicely when going to Lusaka for shopping.

But usually, shopping was brought to them as they did not need to travel out often but when they want to buy a ‘Chilimba’ radio,  home-theatre set or a DVD decoder for instance.

As they sat listening to the host, another fishing camp resident announced that there was a good brew near Mai Kiri’s hut and told his clobbered friend to take ‘the city dwellers’ there.  He also had heard that the contingent was missing meat which he could easily arrange.

He trailed off towards the famed home of the potent ‘Munkoyo brew’  whose fermentation level was reputed to have gone above average.

All this time, Lazzo was thinking about Mai Kiri who had become a motivating acquaintance in the locality that she sometimes fried some fish for Lazzo’s team including meals.

If he had to stick to her, would he have to become another fisherman? Suppose he took her to the city and changed her outlook, what would happen?

His mentor colleague Chile told him that he was entertaining a mirage because there were some women in the world who should be left where they are found.

“For instance, the mistake some men make is that they think that  a woman they find in a pub can make a good wife. 

“This is impossible because they never stop their indulgence and will always get back there!” he told Lazzo who seemed obsessed with Mai Kiri’s  beauty.

In fact, the last straw that would break the camel’s back would be when in the event of  Mai Kiri agreeing to go to the city, she would be so excited with the bright lights of  cosmopolitan Lusaka that she would later become wayward.

At this turn of events, then Lazzo would be courting a heartbreak and this meant that he should learn a lesson from the old adage that ‘all that glitters is not gold’ or let ‘sleeping dogs lie’.

But Lazzo could not buy any of the wisdom from Chile and Mai Kiri still turned out to be the prima donna of the show and one of the women that he failed to erase from his subconscious. 

If he were reading this episode, the headline would read:  Lazzo’s Lost Love in Lenjeland!

It was dusk, when the fish-camp guests from the city sauntered down a lonely country footpath towards the main road where they would spend a night before boarding a bus back to Lusaka.