Curry goat and rum
Published:Sunday | October 14, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Oxy Moron, Contributor
In the land of wood and water, there is a woman called Mama, who has an abundance of hugs and kisses to give, but a tongue you dare not pull. She loves her children because they are poor. And they love her back. Mwah! Mwah! Chupse! Chupse! Kiss, kiss. Hug, hug. Mi love unoo! Wi love yuh tuh! That's all you see and hear when they are together.
Some of her male children gloat incessantly about having gal inna bungle to promote their virility, while some of her female children decided to have out their lot to espouse their fertility. But Mama must mind them and dem pickney tuh.
So, when Mama was elevated to the highest office in the land, they jubilated and celebrated for days, even getting nauseous from the thought of the abundance of food that Mama would make them eat. No more chicken back, they chanted, only curry goat. Woieeee! It tun up! De fire tun! De pot dem tun up! Andrew tung dung, woieeee!
Since then, by night and day, Mama's children have been waiting, for the JEEP with the curry goat and rum to appear. They have been sitting with their hands at their jaws, hankering for the fleshpots of life. Knife and fork, and handkerchief drawn.
But while they were waiting, Mama fell into a deep, deep sleep. Tired and weary, and withdrawn she had become. And while Mama slept, her hungry children rioted against the keepers of her purses, calling them wicked and mean. So up in arms they went against the scholarly, portly, pretty and elusive purse-keepers. For eight months, their bellies have been growling and rumbling. "Food time!" they squealed as they headed to the troughs.
But it was the portly one, whose wardrobe malfunctioned during a rather auspicious moment, the same one who caused the honourable House to descend into a fish market, who has drawn their ire most. For when they dressed up in orange, yellow and red to take the early train to see Mama again in live and living colours herself, the portly one was nowhere to be found.
He was somewhere I heard writing an essay called, 'Saying no to curry goat politics', to be published in a paper near you. For, he possesses a tongue as sharp as the sword of Damocles, even sharper than Mama's tongue. In a diatribe, only equal in bitterness by Mugabe's philosophy of the men who live in the land of wood and water, he denounced some of Mama's children for their "licky-licky, nyami-nyami" mentality.
NOT AN EASY ROAD
The portly publisher wrote, inter alia, "It is not an easy road when one seeks to shun curry goat politics, I have come face to face with the ugly side of people representation when a few malcontents and disaffected, misguided souls head for the trough and stay there ranting and raving, What is even more worrying is that they have been aided and abetted by those who still believe that a bellyful and rum money should keep these irascible partisans at bay."
And then into the depths of self-pity he descended with, "I have been the subject of many barbs and there are members of my constituency, who are constantly abusing me and plotting to get rid of me." But there are no tears for the portly one. For I, Oxy Moron, happened to be passing by a certain 'Red Square' in the Second City, and the barbs of which the portly one wrote were still flying all over the bay, and they were as colourful as the orange, red and yellow cloths that some of his constituents were left stranded with. "A de fuss time in history diss eva happen," the woman in the orange tights declared. One man chipped in, "Wi want him out to orange, red and yellow claath!"
And where are Mama and the JEEP in all of this? The JEEP is resting on four building blocks in some garage somewhere in town. Mama is not into any talk, talk, talk. Mama is gone back to sleep, sleep, sleep. Sorry, work, work, work. And the volcanoes called bellies are rumbling, rumbling, rumbling.