MY THOUGHTS ON SUNDAY with CHARLES CHISALA
LAST week I found myself locked in a light-hearted ‘quarrel’ with one of the ardent readers of this column via the internet.
I had just demanded to know why my beloved cousins in Eastern Province have this strange propensity for giving their children the names of motor vehicle parts and makes.
The reader, Sonnile Zulu, is apparently from the east because he or she accused me and Bembas in general of ‘misspeaking’ and ‘misusing’ English.
Sure, BaSonny?
Sonnile swore that the talk about easterners giving their children names of motor vehicle parts and makes is nothing but part of a smear campaign against her tribe (Ngonis) by the “malicious Bembas”.
“Are you not the same people who sing ‘forward mama forward’ when you are actually moving backwards?” Sonnile said.
BaSonny, I know that you people from the east are just jealous of our beautiful akalela dance.
Is it a crime for me to advise my cousins to humbly ask the Bembas to donate some of their wonderful names to them? There is no need to name your children after motor vehicle parts and makes.
Surely, how could loving parents name their innocent baby as Crankshaft Zulu?
And there was a guy who appeared in a magistrate’s court a couple of years ago in Chipata. Even the magistrate could not help laughing when he was reading out the charge to the accused person.
“Are your full names Radiator Phiri?” the magistrate asked as the courtroom erupted into laughter. “Yes, your worship,” Radiator answered.
The magistrate hadn’t heard nothin’ yet! Three of the witnesses whom the prosecution called as State witnesses were Cylinderhead Ngoma, Steeringwheel Jere and Alternator Daka.
I am told that those names are quite common in almost all the districts of Eastern Province.
In fact, a reliable source confided to me that when President Sata went to Chipata Central Constituency last weekend to drum up support for Patriotic Front candidate Lameck Mangani some of the locals treacherously changed their names to escape taunts from their tribal cousins.
For example, the source said, one Engine Daka suddenly started telling people to call him Justin Bwalya, while his cousin Startermotor Lungu became Evans Bwalya.
And I know one taxi driver in Lusaka, Injectorpump Lungu, whose first born child is Ignition. He has even confided to me that his uncle, Sparkplug Mwale, has a son named Headlamp.
These people do not have any sense of shame when it comes to names. One day I gave a lift to a couple from Lusaka West to the city centre.
They had a three-year-old boy whom they introduced to me as Indicator Daka.
I have heard of a headman of some village in Katete district whose name is Wiperblade Tembo. His second born child is called Dashboard.
Now they have even extended their innovation to motor vehicle makes. I have already heard of Spacio Daka, Alteza Njovu and Ipsum Mwanza.
My question to you, my dear cousins, is why are you obsessed with motor vehicles? Can’t you people find better names to give your children?
And why do you give these funny names mostly to male children? It is not fair, you know. If you have run out of names just be humble enough and ask us to donate some to you.
The manufacturers of the motor vehicles whose names you are giving your children will start taking you to court for violating their patent rights.
I don’t want to hear anyone bearing the name Piston, Flywheel, Sprinter or Caldina.
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Recently. I was in the Cairo Road Shoprite supermarket waiting for my wife, who was doing her monthly shopping inside. A couple came out, each spouse holding two plastic bags bulging with shopping.
I suspected they had come from church because it was around 12:00 hours.
They were with a little boy aged between three and four, who was putting up quite a racket, apparently demanding a share of the contents of one of the plastic bags the mother was carrying.
The boy’s father, a decently dressed man donning a new jeans overcoat, wouldn’t take the nonsense. He stopped to wait for the mother and the crying child.
When they caught up with him he turned round and, without warning, unleashed a vicious swipe, catching the boy between the jaw and neck and sending him sprawling on the tiled shop corridor.
Everyone gasped in disbelief!
But the man had made a big mistake. Several women – shoppers and fruit vendors – confronted him and demanded to know why he was beating a child like that in public.
One woman, who was selling oranges, tenderly picked up the yelling boy and handed him over to his fuming mother, who joined in the condemnation of her husband.
“Bushe mwana wabo nangu wakusanga mung’anda (Is he his step son)?” the vendor demanded.
The child’s mother said the man was the biological father and made it clear that he would not get away with such abuse of her child.
“Baba kwati balipena aba. Kuti muleuma umwana kwati mukulu munenu (he behaves as if he is mad this man; how can you beat a child like that as if you are beating an adult)?” she fumed.
The man just stood there without uttering a word. But a horde of taxi drivers, hawkers, car washers and street kids surrounded him and took turns in castigating him.
“Iwe cimudala, bushe mwana obe uyu uleuma so (man, is this your own child you are beating like this)?” one of the car washers asked him, menacingly waving an empty plastic bag in his face as a street kid closed in on him from the left with clenched fists.
Another hawker was tugging at the trapped child abuser’s jeans overcoat from behind as the others cheered. The man looked foolish indeed.
He knew that if he mishandled the situation he would attract a thorough thrashing from the self-styled ‘children’s rights defenders’.
His wife was now pleading with the mob to spare him despite what he had done.
After he was finally ‘released’ following the intervention of security guards the man sheepishly joined her and the shrieking boy, and the three started walking away.
The female orange vendor gave him a parting shot, “Be careful next time. Don’t you know you can be beaten for mistreating your child like that?”
I shuddered to imagine what the woman and the children must have been going through at home at the hands of that cruel man. But I was also proud of Zambians for their love for children.