Namnaani Mgoshi wa ndima

Mgoshi wa Ndima

Joe Makamba - what is ‘work’?

Couldn’t get power last Wednesday So I went some watering hole. Somehow they had electricity. I plugged in my laptop and started firing this column.

As I was writing this piece Wednesday mid-day I felt like having a beer. “No,” said the bar girl: “Beer will be sold only after 4 p.m.”

I threw a tantrum. Who does not have spare time to work. Joe Makamba’s name came to the fore. I got outraged – why is Joe Makamba trying to look for work?

There is plenty of work for him. Maybe I should point it out to the mheshimiwa – there is rampant crime, armed robbery.

There are buildings collapsing and the coming scandal of greedy thugs who have erected buildings without building permits. There is rampant cholera year in year out.

When I was little, I used to see my dad go to work in the morning and come back in the afternoon. It was a nine to five job. The colonialists even gave out permits to the then ‘officers’ to have a drink! Five beers a week!

Joe Makamba is trying to do the same. Joe and his bunch of, well, I would not call them idlers, but people who need something to do. So they sit and get allowances to tell us when to drink our beer.

I drink, or don’t drink, whenever I want. No government or legino is going to tell me how to spend my money!

Maybe Joe should tell us what do they mean when they talk about ‘time for work’ then? If I hauled a lorryful of potatoes from Mbeya. The trip takes all night. I arrive safely in Dar the next morning. Go to my place and earn a badly needed sleep. Is that not work?

Then I wake up later, eat and go for a beer, only be told that it is not ‘time’ yet to drink beer. But at the same time you can drink your head off in those international hotels in town.

I have seen numerous officials getting bombed in those ‘international’ when it so-called working times. They are not harassed.

I am a nocturnal animal. I thrive past midnight. I think of this column and immediately pull my computer. I have never seen anyone from the regional commissioner’s office querying on why I work past midnight.

I get paid by this government-owned newspaper. Now why should Joe Makamba and his bunch come and tell me how to spend my money, eh?