MAMBO LEO
(Current Affairs)
A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS
By John Coutouvidis
First published in 2011
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by John Coutouvidis
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
History
Poland, 1939-1947 (with Jaime Reynolds).
Editor and Translator of Andrzej Garlicki’s Five Volume
Biography, Jozef Pilsudski, 1867-1935. Attributor, Editor and Translator of the Source Material in a New Edition of Zajdlerowa’s, The Dark Side of The Moon.
Essays
T.S. Eliot’s Model of Society in the light of Polish experience.
Lewis Namier and the Polish Government in Exile.
The Matsis Papers: A Greek Settler in Tanganyika.
Videograms
Sir Frank Kenyon Roberts; A Diplomatic History, 1939-1968.
My Mother on The Dark Side of The Moon.
Novel History
The Kidron Bible (2011)
The God of Hunger (2011)
(PLEASE SEE END NOTE, BELOW)
*
Forthcoming
Doing In My Head (Biography in Verse)
*
MAMBO LEO (CURRENT AFFAIRS)
PREFACE
The play takes its title from a Swahili paper which appeared
in Arusha, Tanganyika, where I was raised. It is set in East Africa
during early 1960’s; the years of transition between the ending of
colonial rule and the advent of full independence; when the last
metropolitan adviser went home.
It is about the exercise of realpolitik by fictional statesmen
in imaginary states. It should, however, be noted that much of the
action takes place in a geologically and politically active region
along the East African Rift; nowhere else in Africa compares to its
potential for physical violence. There is a reality, too, in the
text; much of it is based on actual telegrams daily charting the
diplomatic prelude to the eruption of war in 1939 within the East
European region; nowhere else are political fault lines so likely to
slip into movements of mass terror.
In sections dealing with diplomatic history I base my story on
events in Europe as recorded in the published Documents on British
Foreign Policy, substituting real Europeans by entirely imagined East
Africans acting out their fictional roles in countries and cities
which today (with the exception of the mythical Tanganyika, featured
in my novel, God of Hunger/ Mungu Wa Nja,) still retain their
colonial names. Nevertheless, I wish to emphasise that no direct
reference to post independent states, statesmen, or capitals should
be read into my political fantasies. I have simply written them in
the belief that the principles of diplomacy, born in relations
between Ancient Greek city states, remain universally applicable.
Purists of the language must excuse my usage of Swahili. It is
of the up-country variety. Nevertheless, Mambo Leo is written mainly
with a Swahili speaking audience in mind; an audience which not only
inhabits a vast swathe of East Africa, but also a diaspora stretching
westwards from Beijing to Calgary, via Moscow, London and Toronto;
there are now as many Swahilophones in and around London as there
were in Arusha, Tanganyika, when the author left for the UK in 1963,
first to read and then to teach History at university; it is mainly
for an undergraduate audience that the play was written.
LIST OF CHARACTERS
IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Mwami
Salimia Sana: Head of State of Randa.
Adolfe Mpige:
‘Kopro’, Head of State of Rundi.
Joachim Kamanyoka:
Rundi Foreign Minister.
Hendeson Mgonja: Tanganyika
Ambassador to Bujumbura, Rundi.
Mrs. Dorothea Kse: Wife
of Tanganyika Foreign Minister, H’Alifa Kse, bosom friend of Maria
Cha’Mbali, wife of Tanganyika First Minister, Ndugu Paxius Cha’
Mbali and of Betty Funditia, wife of a prominent chief.
H’Alifa
Kse: Tanganyika Foreign Minister
Jezabel: Personal
Secretary to H’Alifa Kse, Tanganyika Foreign Minister.
Basil
Kaloleni: Tanganyika Ambassador to Kampala.
The
Congolese Ambassador.
Tarishi: (The word in Swahili
means messenger. It is also an official role. And at times in the
text it is used to denote ambassador in a ‘lets-face-it –that-is
what -they -are sort of sense.’ With Kenyon it is used in both
senses.
Johnny Massika: Ukanda Foreign Minister.
Mrs.
Massika: his wife. (massika: the small rains.)
Dr.
Edward Bene: Prime Minister of Ukanda.
Secretary (ies)
Jezabelle (s). Here, Jezabelle, Secretary to the Prime
Minister of Ukanda. Elsewhere in the play, secretary to this minister
and that …
Tony Ka’Ngombe: Minister for Home
Affairs, Ukanda Government.
Godfroy Bilakanisa: Attorney
General, Ukanda Government.
Colonel Idi N’ami’N:
Chief of Staff of the Ukanda Army and Air Force. (Progresses from
Colonel-General-Field Marshal as Chief of Ukanda Military eventually
Head of State.)
Catherine Katiti: Minister for the
Community and for Culture.
Sir’Kali Nyonga: King of
Wankole.
Sir Matukano Wengi: Senior Permanent Secretary
to all Ministries and Chief Advisor to all Ministers. Ex officio
member of the Ukanda Cabinet. (His name translates as Sir Lots of
Meetings and if foreshortened to M’tukano, which sounds like the
word swear, he may be known as Sir Swear-a-Lot.)
First
First Secretary and Second First Secretary:
Bright young graduates of Makelele (Noisy) College, employed at the
Foreign and Internal ministry in Kampala and directly responsible to
Sir Matukano.
Mwanainchi:
Tanganyika Ambassador to Nairobi. Legco, Permanent Secretary at Kanya
Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
General
Gameleg: Commander of the Kanya
Regiment.
President Haraka
Baraka: President of Kanya.
King
Frederick Kiboko: (His surname may translate as hippopotamus or a
whip, sometimes made from its hide.) Ukanda Head of State.
Ding
Kimate: Kanya Foreign Minister.
Ndugu Paxius
Cha’Mbali: (Brother, Comrade, from ‘afar to
Swahili speakers and to Anglophone ears the surname sounds like an
approximation of Chamberlain.) First Minister of Tanganyika.
KK:
Special Envoy to the First Minister of Tanganyika. He/She does not
speak directly but at key moments he/she crosses the stage to
eavesdrop, prompt or inform. The play’s director may deploy this
character accordingly.
Maxim Moloto: Foreign Commissar
of Kongo.
Kilima Schule: Randarundi Ambassador to
Kongo.
*
MAMBO LEO
(Current Affairs)
Introduction
In Act One, union between the two sovereign states of Randa
and Rundi is being mooted.
Mwami Salimia Sana the Head of State of Randa has been invited by Adolphe Mpige to Bujumbura.
In Swahili Mpige translates as ‘hit him’, thus Adolphe Hit-him. Also ‘The Leader’, also ‘Kopro’, the Head of State of Rundi. He revels in the title Leader and has no misgivings about his other nick-name, ‘Kopro’; Corporal was the rank he had attained in the army before taking power in a coup d’état. After becoming dictator he acquiesced over the use of the title of Kopro for two reasons: First it appealed to his sense of democracy in identifying the rank with the common people; the non-commissioned majority. Second, its usage enabled him to seek out opposition in his officer class by listening to the tone adopted by its members when addressing him as the Leader; many an officer went to his death for the tone of his voice after an audience with the former Corporal.
Mwami is asked to visit him at his private residence in the
mountains around Kitega, some distance from Bujumbura, the capital of
Rundi. Mwami is reluctant to go because of warnings from his court
mgangas (doctors of the magical variety) of bad omens; a nanny goat
sacrificed for the occasion contained in its womb twins conjoined at
the ribs. Attempts are made to overrule this bad omen by the
sacrifice of an Albino. This gives the Mwami encouragement to leave
his capital, Kigali, for Bujumbura where his country’s hand in
union was sought. It was of the shotgun type of wedding, more an
anschluss (German for Union) than an arusi (Swahili for Marriage)
between consenting adults. It was proposed by Kopro who greatly
desired the union having been born a native of Randa. He ran away
from his overbearing father to enlist in the army of neighbouring
Rundi. (As Ruanda and Burundi, the two were united as part of the
empire of bad king Leopold of Belgium; a distant relative of mad king
Ludwig of Bavaria and cousin to the unbalanced Kaiser in Berlin. He,
Queen Victoria’s cousin, once owned Tanganyika of which Burundi and
Ruanda had, as separate provinces, been part until his cousin, King
George V, took the lot in 1918, gifting Ruanda and Burundi to
Leopold. Just as Victoria had earlier given Wilhelm Mt. Kilimanjaro,
whose summit remained Kaiser Wilhelm Spitz until it became Uhuru Peak
in 1961)
Mwami, an inveterate smoker, driven from Bujumbura
to Kopro’s mountain retreat refused to contemplate union until he
could no longer bear to be without a cigarette; Kopro, a man well
ahead of his time in matters medical and ecological, banned smoking
by anyone in his Mercedes and in his presence. Mwami agreed to the
arusi for the sake of a fag, but on his way down from the mountain he
decided on asking the bride-to-be what she thought of the prospect of
union with Rundi.
ACT ONE, SCENE ONE.
(The stage is set as three inter-connecting offices of equal
size represented by a painted backdrop of, say, three doors and some
simple furniture.)
Joachim Kamanyoka: Good of you to come at such short
notice. Please sit down. I want you to know that I have been informed
that in the view of his paranoid mind about, ha, ‘threats’ from
ourselves, Mwami has decided to hold a referendum. All Randians of
either sex over twenty one will be asked if they wished for a ‘free,
independent and undivided Randa for all who confess their allegiance
to the nation.’
Hendeson Mgonja: The idiot! Now he is asking for it! I
shall report his decision to Dar-es-Salaam immediately. May I use
your telephone? Unfortunately the line at the embassy is out of order
Joachim Kamanyoka: Yes, I know. .. It is a question of the
account … In the circumstance, I shall direct BT (Belge Telecom)
to reconnect you. In the meantime please use the ‘phone in my
secretary’s office.
Hendeson Mgonja: Thank you, Excellency.
(Stands, bows and enters the ante room. Picks up the telephone
and calls his minister in Dar-es-Salaam where the lines are
constantly engaged in conversations between receptionists in
different ministries. Mgonja next tries his boss’s home number.)
Mrs.Dorothea Kse: Hello. … Yes? Who is it? Oh it’s
you. Not again! I’ve been trying to get in touch with Betty
Funditia all day. Maria Cha’Mbali and I are going to tea at the
Kilimanjaro Hotel which has managed to get some from Ukanda and we
want Betty to join us. But whenever I try to call there is another
damn ambassador with a message to my H’Alifa. Why don’t you all
try his number at the ministry?
Hendeson Mgonja: With all respect, you know why, Mrs. Kse.
His secretariat talks to all other secretariats constantly. We cannot
get a word in edgeways.
Mrs. Kse: Yes, yes. I know. How else are they to discuss
matters of state? If one finds bananas in the market she must tell
the rest; it is a co-operative of hopeful shoppers after all! I told
my H’Alifa to tell the Ndugu that the phrase could well describe
our country. Aysh, we laughed! Tanunya: The co-operative of hopeful
shoppers. Ever hopeful shoppers. The Republic of Eternally Hopeful
Shoppers. Ah, mwanangu, tu licheka sana! (Ah, my dear we had
such a good laugh.)
Hendeson Mgonja: I am sorry Mrs. Kse but what I have to
report is no laughing matter. As you may know, the Kopro in
Burundi is threatening Randa with union, a take-over, by
force. This could be vita. (War) We must avoid it. Mwami, the
President there, has decided on a plebiscite on the issue. Please
tell the Minister that I believe the risk of war by holding the vote
is considerable. But that, from our point of view, the risk is worth
Mwami taking, as it will cost us nothing and give the Kopro
everything he desires, thus satisfying his appetite for good. That is
my message to him. Please see that he gets it. And enjoy your tea at
the Kilimanjaro. Kwaheri. My respects to the Minister. And …
please tell my wife that I am sending her some coffee in the
diplomatic bag.”
Mgonja, unsure and unsettled waits stage right and phones
again. The telephone rings once more at Mrs. Kse’s.
Mrs. Kse: Hello. Is it you Betty? …. Who is that? Who? Not you again! For goodness sake I’ve been trying to get hold of Betty Fundifira. Maria Chembalindi and I have been invited out to tea … Whaaaaat is it now?
Hendeson Mgonja: I am so sorry Mrs. Kse but I thought the
Minister had to know that the plebiscite in Randa is more than likely
to arouse much storm here. I fear for the worse …
Mrs. Kse: Yes, yes. It’s no wonder they call you Hara
Blue. (A street name for severe diarrhea) For goodness sake man,
don’t keep telling me the obvious-to-tell my-husband-the-obvious.
Get off the phone and keep off it. I have a tea-party to arrange.
(Slams down the receiver.)
ACT ONE, SCENE TWO.
H’Alifa Kse, the Tanganyika Foreign Minister sits, stage
center, in his office, entertaining the Urundian Foreign Minister,
Joachim Kamanyoka, a man of snake like reputation and a former seller
of pombe - beer, on his visit to Dar-es-Salaam. He has been sampling
the capital’s best and is disgusted with the after tastes which
remain in his mouth ….
Joachim Kamanyoka: I did not believe how bad things were
here. Your pombe is disgusting …. spits into his pocket
handkerchief.
H’Alifa Kse: Oh, dear me, Excellency … Some chai
perhaps? I find that, with lime, it takes the taste away. …
Summons his secretary.
H’Alifa Kse: Jezabelle, tea for his Excellency. Plenty
of lime …. Be quick about it … the good stuff … She makes
big eyes and signals with a shrug of her shoulders that there is no
good stuff left. …. The very best for our esteemed visitor.
Turns to him.
Excellency, I wish to speak to your Excellency very frankly on
general lines. We desire peace and good relations between all nations
and good relations between Tanganyika and Urundi would be an immense
contribution to this end. For our part we have no desire to place
obstacles in the way of peaceful agreement reached by peaceful means.
The last thing we want to see is war in East Africa. But the
experience of history shows that the pressure of facts was sometimes
more powerful than the wills of men: and if once war should start it
is quite impossible to say where it might not end, or who might not
become involved.
Joachim Kamanyoka: You have been most frank. I too will
be, for you must understand how repugnant the proposed plebiscite in
Randa is to us. I cannot say what our Leader’s response will be
but, if you would allow me to say so the most useful contribution to
peace Tanganyika could make would be to use your influence with
Mkundu, (Arse) … I mean, Mwami, His Highness, Mwami Sana the
Head of State of Urundi, to cancel the plebiscite. Our Leader is a
moderate man Excellency. But there are extremists in my country who
will cause damu (blood) to flow. It will be impossible for him
to restrain them should the plebiscite go ahead. You must advise
Mkundu to resign.
H’Alifa Kse: Must? Must? Your Excellency? Lazima?
How can we take responsibility of advising Mwami …. mkundu …. the
President of Burundi … to take any course of action which might
expose his country to dangers against which our government are unable
to guarantee protection? You must stop the extremists from
operating.
Joachim Kamanyoka: Lazima? Lazima? (Must?) How
can my Leader stem the inevitable, probable, possible, flow of damu
(blood) in circumstances of extreme provocation? Mkundu is
goading us with an action which we cannot accept lying down (atu
wezi ku lala chini) …
H’Alifa Kse: Excellency. This is not a moment for
emotional words or for hasty decisions. May I suggest we dine at my
home together this evening. Perhaps your memsabu may wish to
come too? I will call my bibi …
(Picks up the ‘phone, which, as usual is engaged. Replaces the
receiver and calls out for a messenger, tarishi. A boy like
man called Kenyon enters.)
H’Alifa Kse: Ah, Kenyon, Kimbiya nyumbani na eleze
kwa mama Baringo …
(Run to my house and explain to my wife … Kenyon go at once
(kwenda sasa hivyo …)
(Kenyon remains rooted to the ground. His face breaks out in
sweat.. His eyes widen and his mouth drops in shock. Before this
young Hutu sits the Tutsi Minister whom Kenyon recognises as the
‘butcher of Usumbura.’ Unable to control his fear he farts
(jambas) loudly.)
H’Alifa Kse: Kenyon, mshenzi we, una zali nini?
….
(What are you thinking you mongrel?) Toka sasa hivyo. (Get
out immediately.) …. Turns to Kamanyoka who has again taken out his
handkerchief which he puts to his face. The hankie becomes covered in
expectorate as he gags, splutters and sneezes.)
…. Your Excellency. Please forgive this most terrible pass …’
Kamanyoka stands, and still concerned about the lingering
smell, again takes out his handkerchief, puts it over mouth and
nostrils and takes his leave without uttering a word, grimacing at
the snotty sensation. …
ACT ONE, SCENE THREE.
Later that day. At home with the Kses. The stage is set as a
‘lounge-diner.’
H’Alifa Kse: “The bloody shenzi (mongrel). How
could he do such a thing? This will go down in history as the war of
Kenyon’s fart … (He rambles on) … And where were you
when Kenyon farted? … I served in the war of Kenyon’s fart. … I
was born on the day of Kenyon’s fart. … He died on the day of
Kenyon’s fart. … Good God woman. I tried to ‘phone but it was
bloody well engaged as always. What do you find to talk about?? You
and your friends? The price of eggs?
Mrs. Kse: In fact, yes. Did you know that eggs are now a
shilling each? We used to buy a dozen for that money before Uhuru.
Martha said that she would urge Ndugu to lighten up on Ujamaa
(Socialism) otherwise there will be riots...
H’Alifa Kse: Riots! Too right there will be
riots. Riots throughout Urundi. Riots in Randa. War in East Africa.
All because of a Tarishi’s fart. Bloody hell. I am finished!
(The telephone rings.)
Don’t you dare pick it up. I am not available. You are not
available.
(Mrs. Kse goes to the telephone and raises the receiver.)