IT’S taken a while for me to write about my sojourn out on the assignment for which my former boss at the International Institution, JJ Chilalamumpoto requested me temporarily back to the office.
This tour of duty took us to a part of Zambia I deliberately neglect to mention by name but I am sure a good number of you readers might subsequently recognise.
Just as the rural district of Nchisi in neighboring Malawi is famed for witchcraft or the depth of knowledge of the occult, sciences from the dark, traditional herbs and other concoctions that can magically turn 2+2 into 19 without causing perennial damage to any long held mathematical theories, this Zambian district is as famous for  similar things.
Our task in this district had nothing to do with the witchcraft for which it is well known.  But once in there, my interest was hugely aroused to discover a few things before we returned to Lusaka.  I was on this trip alone with a sleepy girl, who for reasons of gender sensitivity, the International Institution had employed as driver.
Of course you will get to hear about Enala Jenete Nyokase Daka in due course.  For now, you might just be happy to know that she can step on that gas pedal more than our regular pal Dexter Kabotolo whose average on long distances is 120 kilometers per hour. This sleepy thing of a girl driver has sent me closing my eyes several times in the belief we were now done, headed for a crash and sure death, approaching sharp bends still running her speedo at 140 kilometers per hour but successfully negotiating the curve with rolling.
Chatting with Stakes ‘Girls’ Chitambo about this mission once back at base, we mused at length about how God could have endowed a few among us black things with such depth of knowledge and wisdom yet  instead of utilising it to the benefit of the whole world,  the way the Western scientists have done, we dug holes in the earth and hid this  knowledge, only unveiling it in the wee hours of the night, when everybody was sleeping and applied it on all the wrong  things, including incapacitating others.
Our science or magic operated best when done in secret, or only to the knowledge of a privileged few, who were themselves also capable of doing such sciences or magic.
If your village mate’s or neighbour’s son had done wonders at school and had now accumulated more than his fair share of coins, with which he was now helping his parents to live a better life than you, you waited till nightfall so that you could fly in a traditional sieving basket or any other gadget you could transform into a high speed jet, and go to do some strange things to him till he fell sick and later died.  Then you rejoiced saying of your village mate or neighbour: “Yes, you will no longer boast over your high status because we have cleared the one who was fending for you.”
One would have thought that with such depth of knowledge and wisdom, you would develop something no one had ever developed in the world, sell the formula for millions of Dollars and live a far better life than the poor village mate or neighbor whose son you flew into town to murder as he slept to exact revenge for nothing he had done wrong.
‘Girls’ actually had a good laugh suggesting we shouldn’t be experiencing all this power load shedding if our local  traditional  scientists did not abuse their knowledge and wisdom by  applying them  almost exclusively on negative things.
“Imagine this cute Zambian wizard,” he said with his characteristic crooked smile, “landing on one of the hills in Siavonga, where our Kariba Dam is located, and after doing a few concoctions, commands thunder and lightning to start cracking!  The locals are startled awake by the possibility of September rains when they realize it’s no bomb exploding on their town but signs of early rains!  Within minutes, he commands rain to hit the lake like nobody’s damn business and you have one of the biggest rainstorms this side of the equator.
By midday, Zesco can’t believe their luck they switch on every electricity-generating turbine (or whatever they call them) in the place as there is sufficient water to stop all this grumbling in the land.  Instead, your local scientist will send thunder and lightning straight into your trousers, between your long ugly legs, because he has heard rumors that you entertained his wife horizontal style at some nearby guest house on your last visit to the town!”
We laughed heartily.
“You gave horizontal refreshments to somebody’s beloved madam and the furious hubby creates thunder and lightning specifically targeted for your sex organs my friend! Pouhahahahaaaa! That’s African science for you!” he concluded, a few teardrops in his eyes from the laughing.
Back to the little witchcraft infested town where I went for official duty, meeting face to face with some of these rascals masquerading as medicine men, traditional healers or whatever  with  fancier names than symbolised what they really were – rascals, wizards  and witches, sorcerers, killers and destroyers – was quite intriguing.
I was advised that if I attempted to interview them for the sake of understanding what they do or what powers they have, they would give me very scanty, if any information at all.  If I had to gain, I needed to pretend that I was a potential client, a ‘curstoormer’, as they would say in Zambia.
Not that I really relished meeting any such people.
You never really knew what they were capable of.  Even as I pretended to be a potential ‘curstoormer’, their science would probably help them know that I was just an intruder keen on learning something about their weird, horrid, putrid and wicked acts.  They might not send thunder and lightning into my underwear but who knows whatever evil else they could unleash on me!
These were the very rascals well famed for applying black magic that caused adulterous couples to remain stuck to each other after  the act, resulting in unimaginable pain and embarrassment to more than just the villainous couple.   Fine, I agree that adultery or the habit of going to bed to with other people’s partners is despicable and  must be discouraged but these evil weirdoes … aaaah, they went  to excesses!
I remember my own little misadventure when someone sent  rumors  tumbling across Lusaka city that a couple was failing to disentangle after committing adultery at some township guest house, and how crowds milled around that place in the hope of catching a glimpse.  Poor me!
By some bad luck, I happened to be in that dilapidated guest house, only to be suspected to be the one failing to disentangle from my partner.  You had television cameras, crowds, police and the rest all speeding to that guesthouse!
But, as Dexter Dex Kabotolo observed, we might after all be assigning too much respect to these quacks, rascals and villains out of our fear of the unknown.  Dex talked of how he had heard so much about the proverbial ‘ilomba’ whatever it is, which in all his years on earth he has heard of being discovered or fished out of some miscreant person’s house but he has never had the luck of actually seeing any one such creature.  Even where he found crowds still milling around and excitement high about the discovery of such, he never saw it.
“Even in your case, Meexy, after that rumor broke out, hundreds of people came to that guest house.  Even though they never saw the couple that was supposedly stuck to each other, the story still does the rounds today… that some people had been locked in a magical sexual grip,” he argued.  “You were not locked into that woman!  You just had your enjoyment and …these things don’t exist!”
I am not the one to argue against Dexter’s reasoning.  Like I said earlier, it is problematic that the best of black people’s God given scientific knowledge is shrouded in secrecy, must be performed in the nude, the scientists must fly on axe handles or baskets while totally naked such that whenever there is a crash landing, their discovery leads to total shame and embarrassment instead of attracting sympathy and quick medical attention for the survivors.
Look too at the voodoo practices of blacks in the Caribbean!
Absolutely backward!  With black science, we seem to be more interested in scoring negative successes like ‘locking’ people into sexual embraces, or ‘pumping up’ (like soccer balls) the stomachs of petty thieves so they end up looking like bad imitations of the ‘mutant ninja turtles’ or some ugly thing about to explode as they desperately run back to your home to return the secondhand canvas shoes they stole from your wash line!
Our scientific knowledge and wisdom works extremely well when causing you to love your wife so foolishly you even want to stop working so you can sit in the veranda of your house watching her all day as she goes about her domestic chores.
They call it love portion.  Absolute balderdash!  Why not inject or tattoo the Kwacha with the famous ‘mangolomela’ the famed and supposed potion for power and strength such that within days, it outmuscles and clobbers into submission all the powerful currencies?  Wake up you wizards and witches and help our Kwacha beat the Dollar into submission.
Our lives will be that much better off than when you are using your great scientific acquisitions to cause that neighbor to be perpetually wiggling his waist (all his life), wherever he is – seated, standing, lying down or walking- as punishment for happily and excitedly wiggling this same waist in some bed in a secret location as he ‘entertained’ and mesmerised your willing and submissive wife!
That’s poor science or poor use and application of knowledge. And anyway, didn’t you say you could ‘lock’ your wife so any man who came within a meter of her with the intention of doing unthinkables  with her would become instantly impotent until he moved away from her?
Ok, that’s for next Sunday.