Most Africans become holy on Sundays

THE last time I showed my face in church, my pastor looked at me as if I was the first born of the devil, and in a voice full of consternation, he embarked on a fire and brimstone sermon, which I am sure was not on the list of preaching that day.

I did not have to be a rocket scientist to know that most part of the sermon, if not all of it, was directed towards my innocent self, because I could not understand why he kept looking at me every time he shouted at the devil.

Anyway, immediately after the sermon, I tried to run for it but the man of the cloth cornered me in a very professional manner, which made me wonder what he did during his spare time.

He told me that although I believed that the producers of the frothy liquid had my best interest at heart, I should know that the good Lord needed me in searching for lost souls, which are many.

All I want to say is that since that time, my patient wife mama Boyi has been trying to drag me back to church using every means possible, including blackmail I might add, but I am sad to say that the exercise so far has proved to be futile.

Understand me here folks, I have nothing whatsoever against the church, far from it, because if you have to know, the man who is responsible for me being in this world was a very strict, no-nonsense pastor, and he could smell a demon hiding in the hilly sides of Ukraine.

“It is people like you who will be the firewood in hell, and I will be there laughing at you while I drink milk and honey in heaven, watching your body full of beer roasting like a goat” my wife told me one day, and I asked her politely whether she was sure if she will make it to heaven…….she did not talk to me for two days.

She tried the same trick with my domestic thug, the boy who is supposed to be my son, Papa Dog Killa a. k. a Ras, a . k. a Mtoto wa Ngwasuma, who did not waste time in telling her in plain language that he was not interested.

“I belong to Jah, and we believe in Selasie, the father of all Rastafarians, and our mission is to chant down Babylon,” he told his enraged mother while shaking his imaginary dreadlocks, and his mother did not bother him again after that.

Anyway, although I am a terrible church goer, I recently realized that for most Dar es Salaam residents and indeed most parts of African cities, Sunday means being holy, and in my beloved Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, this can be witnessed every Sunday when you come across people clutching bibles the size of a briefcase.

There was a time I saw a twilight girl who is notorious for snatching husbands from under the noses of their wives, and she was singing in a crusade as if she had a guaranteed first class ticket to heaven in her purse.

Last Saturday mama Boyi had gone to visit members of her clan on the hilly sides of Mbeya, and I took that opportunity to join the boys in celebrating being alive, and this ad hoc meeting took place at Zakayo’s Pub, my local watering hole in Manzese.

I met Jatello, that fellow from the lake zone who looked like someone who had just raided a bank and he wanted to get rid of the evidence before the hand of the law caught up with him.

He was ordering round after round of very cold, frothy Ilala products, and by the time my legs started sending warning signals which were picked by my brain, it was already morning.

I forgot where I had parked my collection of metal which is a sorry excuse of a car, and all the efforts to look for it proved futile, and the fact that my tiny brain was already swimming in frothy liquid did not help matters much.

In my state of mind, I knew I was not fit for walking, so I had to board a public bus back home, and peering at my watch, I could see that it was already heading to 8am.

I was in no fear of the dreaded flying frying pan, because I knew the expert handler of that weapon was not around, therefore I was looking forward to a peaceful entry into my home.

I found an empty seat near the driver, and as soon as my butt hit the comfort of the seat, I drifted off to sleep. I did not doze off for long, because at the back of the bus, a certain character who looked like a seasoned thug started preaching in a loud voice to a bored woman who was sitting next to him.

This disrupted my sweet sleep, and as I was still contemplating whether to give him a piece of my mind, when the girl who was sitting next to me decided to call ‘a sister in Christ’.

“My dear sister, I hope you are doing fine in the name of Jesus……yes we were in choir practice yesterday, right now I am heading to church where we are going to sing for the visiting evangelist from Germany……yes my dear sister in Christ…. I will also fast and pray for a miracle…..”

She told the ‘sister’ on the other end that indeed the devil is a liar, even if he appears in the form of drunkards who would rather swallow the devil’s urine than go to the house of the lord.

Looking at the girl, I recognized her as the daughter of my neighbor, who has a reputation of being a serious character when it comes to playing around with innocent boys!

When I alighted from the bus, the first person I stumbled on was the mother of a certain thug who has escaped gun shots on more than one occasion.

I knew the woman to be one of the people with the foulest mouth on this side of the Sahara, because if you put her next to a truck driver, she will make the guy look like an amateur in terms of spewing ‘the latest’ insults.

She was clutching a massive Bible and was standing next to an old man who looked as if he was living on borrowed time, and looking at him closely, it was obvious that he did not have much time in this world.

“My dear brother, as I was praying on Friday, I saw you in a vision, and the good Lord showed me that you are going to be very wealthy soon, just keep on trusting Him, and I will continue to pray for you…” she was telling him, my memory reminded me that the same woman spent the best part of Friday fighting with her husband!