For the crew, experience is the best teacher.<\/p>\n
Years of hanging out have taught us that what matters is not just who you are hanging out with, but also where.<\/p>\n
This is why the ultimate crew, under my drunken and smoke-free misrule, will never jump for any beer drinking invitation without asking: Who is around? What stuff is on the table? Where? How is it being taken\u2014 plain or on the rocks? Accapela or with some snacks? Why or why not?<\/p>\n
Nsanje Laranje? Lilongwe- Mpenu? Thyolo-Thava, Karonga- Nyungwe or Chitipa-Wenya? Their translation is a subject for another day. Now let\u2019s talk only of drinking.<\/p>\n
This is supposed to be commonsense, but it is not commonplace anyway.<\/p>\n
This is why many adults still jump without asking themselves how high is safe for them.<\/p>\n
Maybe I am preachy.<\/p>\n
But this is what hangovers can do to penniless men with a pathological allergy for cheap liquors gulped morning, noon, evening and at night–<\/em>time by our jobless young brothers in narrow, dark corners where snakes fear to pass.<\/p>\n We are talking about the so-called Devil streets, where massive youth unemployment wears the face of youthful drunkards emptying beer from plastic jerry cans all day.<\/p>\n The youth?<\/p>\n M a y b e .<\/p>\n Some look quite old really\u2014 with swollen faces, fresh wounds and scars all over their bodies and toothless jaws like goats.<\/p>\n The Crew refuses to visit<\/p>\n drinking joints where angels fear to take a sip of the finest booze on offer\u2014the places where one fistfight signals the beginning of others to come.<\/p>\n No to pubs where we ask ourselves: \u201cDo I want to be disfigured like them when I drink my last?\u201d<\/p>\n Z i m a t i w e n g a ! <\/em><\/p>\n We are safer home.<\/p>\n In fact, any step in that direction of destruction pushes us dozens backwards to drunken settings where our hearts, livers, lungs, minds and reasoning find endless peace.<\/p>\n This is why we still had to think about our safety when a member of the crew phoned one Saturday morning.<\/p>\n \u201cCrew leader, I need some company,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome company?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you got me right,\u201d he said. \u201cI want someone to hang out with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are you?\u201d I quizzed.<\/p>\n \u201cMachinjiri. At some hideout,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But Machinjiri is no small town. It is another world in Blantyre City\u2014 vast and more populous than Iceland.<\/p>\n In which part of Michigan was he?<\/p>\n \u201cJust behind Chikapa Market.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not yet 9am,\u201d I laughed, asking: \u201cSo what company do you want? A woman?\u201d<\/p>\n He refused.<\/p>\n \u201cA thin-teen?\u201d<\/p>\n He retorted: \u201cIf all planets accused him of dating a teenager, my creator would tell them I only eat ripe fruits not salads of immaturity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo do you want big ones?\u201d I cross-examined him.<\/p>\n And he responded honourably.<\/p>\n \u201cI really love them big and round, but I would have stayed home to hang out with my wife if I wanted an XL lady. Your sister-in-law ticks all boxes. But that\u2019s not why I did not stay home to apologise for hanging out all night-long yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n What do men and women do when they \u2018sleep out\u2019? Surely, pubs are not hotels.<\/p>\n But what happens in Vegas remains in Vegas.<\/p>\n The truth is the Honourable Crew Member needed company and he meant well.<\/p>\n His words were sweet to the right ear.<\/p>\n \u201cI need you by my side in a bottle\u2019s time,\u201d he said. \u201cI am at this wonderful bar, with nice flowers, nice trimmed grass, no loud music and maximum privacy. But the tragedy is that the refrigerator is stacked with perfectly chilled bottles with no-one to help me save them from the cold. If you don\u2019t come, they will freeze to breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n I knew he was lonely. The mention of cold beers seldom speaks of flawless fridges but low sales.<\/p>\n But the guarantees of privacy were persuasive enough for a person who takes no m\u2019kalabongo <\/em>spirits or illegal herbs.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll be there before you swallow 10 sips,\u201d I assured him.<\/p>\n \u201cGreat. When you get to Chikapa, just ask for the bar of Hastings or Fletcher. You will find me there.\u201d<\/p>\n Truth to that, I quickly jumped into a minibus to Chikapa in Machinjiri where I found him nesting on a basket chair in some fence.<\/p>\n As a matter of fact, the pub has no name.<\/p>\n He called for a queue of cold ones until regulars told us they love the bar, as nameless as it is, because those with no idea how potbellied gentlemen mess up just call it \u2018the decent place\u2019.<\/p>\n But neither The Black Missionaries nor any male ward countrywide knows a more male-dominated place than the nameless pub.<\/p>\n Actually, my first reaction was the men who filled up the place by noon would emerge frontrunners if the Pope, my namesake, really opened the doors of seminaries, sacristies and monasteries for married priests.<\/p>\n I was in a crew which seemed to fear their wives and the rest of women folk with all their might and kidneys.<\/p>\n The predominantly drum-bellied imbibers were extremely friendly, but those who smoke, steal and urinate anyhow beware. It\u2019s suicide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the crew, experience is the best teacher. Years of hanging out have taught us that what matters is not just who you are hanging out with, but also where. This is why the ultimate crew, under my drunken and smoke-free misrule, will never jump for any beer drinking invitation without asking: Who is around? 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