By Ted Malanda
The story of Africa begins and ends with the weather. Did it rain? Will it rain? When will it rain, oh God? Dear Jesus, stop it! Stop the rain!
Weather in Africa is critical questions because it determines life. When it rains, we die. When it doesn’t rain, we die. And how we wait for the rain!
This matter of the rains, of the weather, was once the preserve of old men — sages. But once we outlawed polygamy and made brews illegal, their ability to peer into the skies and sniff raindrops was severely compromised. So we passed the mantle to meteorologists.
But because, even in ancient times, matters weather were the forte of seers and such, we somehow equate meteorology to witchcraft, which sadly is no longer the science it once was, thanks to ‘modern’ religions.
Ignores
So every quarter, Dr Joseph Mukabana, our chief rainmaker, announces a weather forecast that everyone ignores.
We ignore him because we assume he has no idea about what he is talking about or he merely likes to have his name printed in the newspapers. In any case, we know we will survive .
Thus, the rains arrive with the force of an advancing army and find us watching Nigerian voodoo flicks.
Clogged
In hours, the country is soaked wet, elephants and people are drowning, roads are clogged and people are cursing in traffic jams. Everyone is so pissed of that even pastors, who were instrumental in getting the rains here in the first place, are cursing the rain in four letter words from the secrecy of their blankets.
Somewhere along the way, however, it dawns on us that roads are flooded because the drains got blocked barely hours after a sleepy-eyed contractor commissioned the works.
Wax
As a result, the floodwater uses the highway to flow to the nearest river. The only problem is that the same thing happened last year and dug up a pothole, which was lovingly sealed with banana peels held together with wax.
Predictably, the new floodwaters dig up that pothole into a crevice so deep that it can hold traffic for hours, causing a gridlock ten kilometres back.
Mercifully, a week later, a senior government functionary flanked by security men and other top nabobs arrives to pompously inspect the pothole.
He examines the pothole. They converse in low tones. They nod knowingly and unanimously agree. Yes, they will dunk a wad of cottonwood into a tin of methylated spirit and massage the pothole.
First Aid, they call it, as we breathlessly wait for the next rain season.
