A CHAT FROM LONDON: The elderly lady with a smile and a book…

Earlier that morning I had read a wonderful piece by Maggid Mjengwa. Tanzanians do not like reading, Iringa blogger raged, reminding us of what the late sociology professor Chachage Seithy Chachage (pictured) said around a decade ago : we only read (seriously) to pass school and college exams. Our nation cannot progress if we are lazy about reading, Maggid chimed.

I thought of this while travelling to work.

Later in the evening the bus was crowded with children, women and men from schools, jobs, chores and duties. This particular double deck red bus was noisy and congested - not as much as daladalas and matatus in East Africa, but crowded and moving lazily like a fully eaten cow ready to regurgitate and re chew grass. Typical of London in autumn – chilly and streaming rain – God’s tears. Yes, they say our mighty God actually cries once a day. Not as bad as the ongoing Monsoon in India, but still- wet and wet and wet and wet.

I sat next to an elderly lady, who if it was in Africa I would have saluted “shikamoo” – she struggled and struggled to carry her shopping bags. Moving to give more space and nodding a quick “Hello”- with a smile - she scooped a book and swiftly proceeded reading.

No time wasted - is what you learn and get used to living among Wazungu. No sooner had I registered that than a sudden, annoying shriek of my mobile. I lowered my voice. The phone caller protested.

“I can’t hear you; can you speak a bit louder, please?”

“I am in a bus,” I mumbled.

Yelling on our phones is nothing abnormal these days. Many in the vehicle held their mobiles like beloved possessions: toys, chocolates, newborn babies. Nevertheless, I promised the caller that I shall ring back as soon as I was out of this noisy party.

The elderly lady by my side was still reading. A few stops later there was a sudden commotion; a man in a wheelchair wanted to get out.

“Driver! Ramp, please!”

The driver heard the demand, but took it easy. Someone pressed the bus bell a couple of times.

“Driver, the raaaaamp!”

Anxious passengers joined in the hollering and pleading…

“Driver, open up the ramp!” But some of the passengers were also stepping out; and well.... obviously the driver who could see everything from where he was perched, waited for the crowd to march out first. There is something noble in the patience of those who know what they are doing, in contrast to the impatience of the stressed and jittery. These were typical city folks, rushing to get home and the flooding rain, edgy and jumpy like wildebeest rushing to cross a river crammed with crocodiles.

After all had stepped out, the ramp was let loose;the disabled passenger rolled out, finally. One of endearing facts that leader of the Tanzanian Paralympics team, Johnson Meela, praised at the London event last year. Meela told me he liked the way developed societies have built public facilities for disabled people.

Anyway, during the course of that brief incident- the old lady beside me continued on reading, immersed intently in a world of words, letters, hope and prose.

“Good book?” I poked.

I thought she could not hear me, yet she smiled.

“Very. Better than that.” She nodded at the torrential rain; “I would rather do this than stare at this pissing rubbish. It is a torment.”

“You don’t like rain, do you?”

She laughed loudly. “Do you, young man?”

“It is good for farmers.”

She laughed again, shook her head, “London is not a farm, “she said, adjusting herself on the seat.

“What are you reading?”

“It is a story about Arsenal. I like true stories. I am not one for fiction and made up stuff.”

“You support Arsenal?”

I have never spoken to a female reading a football book.

She closed the book: “Since I was a little girl, I have been an Arsenal fan. Over fifty years. How long have you been in the UK?”

She went on telling me names of past Arsenal footballers; not Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira or Mesut Özil – much earlier- days when English clubs did not import so many foreign players.

“My late husband was a huge Arsenal fan. We saw most matches together since we were young, back in the 1950s and 1960s.”

“Was?”

She wiped a tear. “He was killed…”

“What happened?”

“He was stabbed. He was a very kind man. Did a kind deed to an idiot who robbed and murdered him.”

As we chatted I was reminded of the power of literature and reading. It increases the quality of language, transporting us to endless, unknown territory. It was Mwalimu Nyerere who said Africa’s enemies are ignorance, disease and poverty. Fourteen years since the chief died we need to support Mjengwa and the late Professor Chachage’s quest to fight ignorance…