Well, I never imagined the International Institution would one day get stuck on some assignment, try searching left, right and centre for someone to do a quick and thorough job for them but draw a blank.  But that’s exactly what seems to have happened!
They did get stuck!  And, believe it or not, I got a call from the affable JJ Chilalamumpoto, the CEO, who went to great lengths to convince me that our parting, the International Institution and I, had been mutual and cordial, that we had not broken any bridges, so could I oblige them and pay them a visit as soon as yesterday, pronto, per se, and discuss the possibility of undertaking a one-off assignment for them.
I am so bored of my new life so anything that would team me up with the guys and dolls back at the office was a most welcome proposition.  Just imagine me and Stakes “Girls”, possibly Dexter Kabotolo as well if there was a trip out of town!
Deograta “Deo” Kamugode would most probably want to lock me up anywhere where there was a door that was lockable and who knows what else that could lead to?  She could have some goodies learned from the days that I haven’t gotten so drunk in her presence as to fall victim to her seduction.  Goodies not really to benefit me but you the reading public heheheheee! Sure, there might even be an interesting altercation or two with my perennial adversary, the Head of Human Resources and Administration, Mr Paul Mabesere.  It should be fun!
If we have to go out of town, who knows what kind of adventure we might encounter that is not worthy of disclosing to you my dear readers? Most likely it will be intriguing. It will be interesting.
Similar I hope to that of the traditional ruler who booked himself in a village lodge with his wife but who after drinking more than a few intoxicating beverages forgot he was with his wife and hired the services of a sex worker for the night!  And headed straight towards his room to do unthinkable things, much to the chagrin of his Kapaso, the so called Chief’s Retainer who tried his doable best to deter a scandal of unimaginable proportions exploding bare in that small place but who instead invited the ire of his Royal Highness – who promised to use sorcery to get him out of the way if he persisted with foolish and insubordinate antics of trying to stop him, the chief, his employer from taking the hired wench to his room for a night of sexual intercourse!
Remember the Kapaso’s brave efforts to control the damage in the eyes of the few who might have been watching or hearing the chief confess that he practiced wizardry… the Kapaso gallantly telling the Royal Highness he was not a wizard so he could not use sorcery … and the Royal Highness thinking his witchcraft prowess was being doubted and challenged and as a result threatening to instantly send thunder and lightning into the Kapaso’s trousers to prove that he, the chief was indeed a powerful wizard?
The Kapaso, fully aware the Chief was capable of tossing lightning in his underpants – he must have seen worse things in the course of duty – desperately pleading with the chief not to unleash the lightning…Remember this tour-of-duty adventure?  I love this kind of thing, I tell you.
Traveling out of town for duty is the fun that I have truly missed being out of the International Institution.  There were always so many different adventures out there. I am eager to get to the office and find out what JJ Chilalamumpoto wants me to do for him.
I sincerely hope we are going out of town.  With Stakes “Girls” Chitambo and Dexter Kabotolo.  Before we leave, or after we come, and before I leave the place for home for good, we must drink with Deograta.  Not that I want to do anything unthinkable with her.  But it could be fun to just see what she will be up to this time around!  And tell you about it!!!
I am in Chipata so they must wait a day or two.  I’ll be there.
&&&&&&&&&&
I am currently in my home town, Chipata, visiting, passing time.  Seeing my uncles in Chief Mnukwa’s area, the place the Ngonis up there proudly call Chikenkhe Chamsang’ombe, whatever that means!  That’s where my mother hails from. Also visiting my cousin at Feni, where Inkosi ya ma Khosi Paramount Chief Mpezeni has his permanent residence.
He will not see me. For all my fame, I am a nonentity in his sight because my fame derives from being a nuisance, a hopeless drunk and a sex maniac (when drunk). Drunken maniacs like me should not get anywhere near the paramount chief.  We don’t want such bad manners rubbing off royalty, you know, so I am not visiting the Inkosi.
I am definitely driving around town.  Just for the nostalgia.  Kwa Boma, Kwa Jere, Ku ma Six Rooms, all famous places, some which are business centres, others residential where we either went to buy stuff our parents sent us or where we either stayed or went visiting friends.  Kwa Kamungu, the area where my former school mate Chimtukulo now has some going business concerns.  What was that place called Kwa Kapezi?  I can’t remember anymore what it was famous for but the place was regularly in our vocabulary.
I have visited the so called down shops or Kwa Amwenye, the area where most of our countrymen and women of Asian origin have their shops. They don’t like being called ‘amwenye’ although the term is an innocent word that denotes their race in our local Chewa, Ngoni and other languages here.  Somehow they get upset to be called amwenye.
But that term won’t be wished away by our brothers.  Going to those shops was going Kwa Amwenye.  Today it’s mostly called Down Shops.  Because it’s down the Lunkhwakwa Stream, below the towering Kanjala Hill.
I want to visit our one time little house, near Hospital Compound and just outside the perimeter fence of Kanjala School, which was once a school reserved for Asians while Hillside was an all-white affair.  I might touch Katopola too, the school for coloureds!
Sounds so silly today but we had such apartheid right in our little town, Fort Jameson, now renamed Chipata, the entrance! There was Government School, jus known as Gava, short for Government, where my dad taught briefly.  It later became known as Mpezeni Park.
I will touch all those places.  Just for the nostalgia.  Even before I go to Anoya Zulu, from where I emerged among the top kids to go to my beloved Chadiza Secondary, I must pass by St Anne’s School …the boys’ side, to just remember the many times we from Anoya exchanged blows, either beating others or getting thoroughly beaten ourselves simply because we came from different schools and saw the others as either inferior or pompous!
I’ll try and get atop Kanjala Hill. It is the tallest of all the Hills in Chipata and hides behind it the glamorous St Monica’s Girls Secondary.  Splendid results from that school and … I see they have maintained the same unfashionable white blouse and blue skirt my sister Mbikazi wore as uniform while there in the sixties!  Pleated skirt.
You get no idea what shapes are covered under those flowing uniforms to start salivating dangerously over the kids.  You leave them alone partly because of their uniforms!  But atop Kanjala I must get, even though there was always this rumour that the Army kept dangerous things up there and would point guns at you if they saw you attempting to climb.
Abdon yezi should be happy to accompany me on a walk from Ma New Houses, past parts of Navutika, all the way to Katopola, then Walela School, while catching a glimpse of the agricultural skills training centre and all the way to Chizongwe Secondary School.
He lived near that school at his mother’s farm and ate nsima and beans with the boarders, just for the fun and more out of a sense of belonging seeing that a lot of his age mates were in that school.  The late Amos Kasankha’s, the Joemwa Mtsinje Mwales, the Mark Chisis aka Zico, the Sam Ngomas and the like!  Let’s go walking Abdon!
This whole Chipata sojourn will not be complete if I don’t touch Manda ya aZungu, the once whites only burial space.  It’s such a derelict space now though we have buried so many worthwhile relatives and friends there.
We used to just admire how neat the burial space was and never developed the scary feeling we got visiting the blacks’ graveyard at St Anne’s!  Often, we literally sprinted if we had to pass anywhere near that graveyard. If it was evening, we even imagined we had heard or seen dead blacks running like mad after us!
And why not a bus ride to Chiparamba ku M’madzulo!  That is where I hail from.  Yes, “coming from together” with the likes of President Rupiah Bwezani Banda.  I’ll just have to go there. Past Gondar Barracks, Fisheries Department, pa Bola, the road now a neat tarmac all the way to Mfuwe Game Reserve.  I will remember other places and surely go there.  I am, after all, revisiting a childhood held so dearly to my heart.