It can be tricky protecting the contents of your wallet if you hang out in the kind of drinking havens that Wa Muyanza frequents.
As it were, for reasons unknown to you, there are all these patrons who believe you’re financially so solid you should be buying them a drink anytime they ask you for one.
There’s, for instance, this fellow drinker (call him Allen) who happened to share a table with you the other day and, out of the blue, said:
“Mzee Muyanza, I understand you people of newspapers (watu wa magazeti) earn a lot of money, isn’t it so?”
“Who told you?” you asked him.
“Well, everybody says so…because you people do a great job writing things we don’t know about which we need to know,” Allen explained in an effort to justify the rumour.
Meanwhile, he was caressing his virtually empty bottle of Safari and looking at you stealthily in a way suggesting he could do with a replenishment, courtesy of an earner of millions working for magazeti.
Well, a man’s earnings are his own secret, so you won’t reveal to him the kind of joke that are your wages.
Nor are you ready to let him know that there’re magazeti colleagues who can’t recall the last time they were paid their monthly salaries. And they still go to work!
And Allen, you’re certain, isn’t even aware of the many newspapers that have closed up shop in recent years for lack of business sense.
You’ll therefore let him wallow in his ignorance. Now, lucky for him, a certain struggling writer who’s not yet into ChatGPT (bless him), sent you something on your mobile. You bought Allen a drink, cementing his illusion that watu wa magazeti’s wallets are always loaded with cash. Ha!
Come Sunday, April 26 and you’re at this semi-open air drinking and eating place. They’ve several screens here, one of which is a 75-inch affair, which is the most popular for hardcore football fans.
You’ve secured a seat closest to this screen, watching a Muungano Cup semi-final pitting Simba against Zanzibar’s Mlandege FC. Nearby, there’s this noisy Simba fan who calls himself Mchambuzi.
He’s doing a great job assuring fellow Simbans that, despite the 0-0 stalemate by halftime, his team will recharge itself and beat Mlandege during the second half.
“Mzee Muyanza, now that Chama and Mwalimu have entered, wait for Simba goals, and then I’ll drink a beer from you,” says Mchambuzi.
And true to his word, the 63rd minute saw Ramadhani Mwalimu give the Msimbazi boys their first goal, followed by another on the 71st minute through Anicet Oura and on the 89th minute, Neo Maema concluded the party with another goal.
Even before the celebratory noises settle down, Mchambuzi hails Mercy, the mhudumu who has been serving you: “Okay, Mercy, give me a beer from Mzee Muyanza… quick!”
Mercy takes a look at you and says, “Eti, I give him one?”
“I never said so…I offer someone a beer at my pleasure, not on request from anyone!” I respond in dismay.
In due course, however, your heart melts and you tell Mercy to find Mchambuzi and give him one. When you later summon Mercy to demand your bill, you first ask her whether she has given Mchambuzi “his” beer. She says no.
Another mhudumu nearby quickly leans towards Mercy and whispers—but not softly enough for me not to hear: “Wee! Don’t be stupid, tell him you have!”
Mercy stupidly changes her answer and says, “Yes, I gave him.”
Your reaction to this conspiracy to rob this son of a Mwasu peasant, a born-economist, is too crude to share with esteemed readers.
