Thu, 23 Mar 2017 09:56:12 +0000
By Philip Chirwa
| AT first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me; for what I was seeing happening some 50 metres ahead of me near the junction of Makishi and Parirenyatwa Roads in Lusaka’s Fairview area looked too strange to be true. But as I approached the scene, it became quite obvious that I was witnessing a real life drama. |
A young man aged about 25 years was in big trouble and certainly needed my assistance. About half a dozen women, including a pretty young lady later identified as Emeldah, had floored him to the ground and the group was beating him up, with some trying to undress him while he struggled and kicked his legs about in a vain attempt to free himself.
I had never realised until that day that women could be so powerful at times. I had all along harboured the notion that no group of women could ever beat me, but now I was having second thoughts!
One could see that the angry women were having a field day, obviously proud that they had pinned a member of the so-called stronger sex to the floor. Then, suddenly, an elderly woman appeared on the scene, wielding a pounding stick. She asked the crowd to let her in so that she could break the young man’s head, “because he is not fit to live. Let me punish the idiot!!”
However, her colleagues restrained her, saying they were only after teaching the young man a lesson.
Strangely enough, I did not hear the young man cry for help. He just struggled with the women. He was to explain to me later that he did this so as not to attract undue attention as he had been confident of overpowering the women, although this didn’t happen.
It was apparently when he saw me coming that he finally decided to swallow his pride and shouted for help. “Big man, please help me,” he cried out. “I’m innocent. I don’t know why or for what reason these women are beating me.”
I immediately ran to the young man’s rescue and pleaded with the women to let him go as they had punished him enough. Luckily, one of the women recognised me and through her, I managed to stop the fight.
That done, I asked the women what wrong the young man had committed. It soon transpired that most of them had no idea of what was happening: they had merely been driven by mob psychology to act together in defence of their sex.
The woman who said she knew me said, “I was doing some washing at my house when I heard this girl (meaning Emeldah) screaming that somebody wanted to rape her. Having heard and read a lot of stories of girls and women being raped, I rushed over to help.”
Emeldah confirmed that the boy had attempted to rape her and that was why she had shouted for help.
But asking the young man, who identified himself as Greenfield, he categorically denied the allegation, saying, “God is my witness. If it’s true that I attempted to rape this girl, let lightning strike me dead right now because I do not deserve to live. But I can assure you that I’m completely innocent.”
Greenfield explained that he had been on his way home in the neighbouring Rhodes Park area from town when somewhere near the junction of Makishi and Parirenyatwa Roads in Fairview area, he saw a beautiful girl coming from the opposite direction. That girl was Emeldah.
“To be frank with you, big man, I immediately fell in love with the girl. I therefore decided there and then that I would accost her. So as we approached each other, I left my side of the road to go and greet her.
“I said ‘hi’ to her, and I was very polite about it. At first, she didn’t answer and just passed me. Undaunted, I followed her and greeted her again. To my utter surprise, she rudely told me to bugger off, saying I wasn’t her type.
“Now, I’m not the type who would take kindly to such insults, especially from a young girl like her. Naturally, I felt humiliated that a girl of her age could tell me to bugger off and, worse still, tell me I wasn’t her type!
“I had never been insulted like that by a girl before, so I told her to withdraw her statement or I would beat her. Instead, she became even more abusive, saying I could not beat her because she was not my girlfriend.
“She then repeated her earlier statement that I should bugger off because I was not her type. At this point, I felt the girl had gone too far with her rudeness. It was then that I took hold of her and slapped her, warning her to mind her language. But to my surprise, she started shouting for help, claiming that somebody wanted to rape her.
“It did not take long before a mob of women mobilised themselves and pounced on me. I tried to run away but they pinned me down and started raining blows on me, calling me a rapist. Some even tried to undress me so that they could de-manhood me.
“Get it from me, big man, I didn’t intend to rape this girl because I’m too decent for that sort of thing. I’m a law-abiding citizen who holds a fairly senior post in society. I can’t sink so low as to rape a girl. I hate rapists and I’m one of those who feel such criminals should face the gallows.
“Mine was a simple case of a young man who gets attracted to a girl and goes ahead to try his luck. If the girl thought I didn’t appeal to her, there was no need for her to resort to insults.”
It was a long, long story and we allowed him to say everything he had in his chest so as to enable us to study him – to prove whether or not he was the type who would go out to rape a woman. In the end, the group agreed he was innocent.
I then turned to Emeldah and asked her if she had any comment to make on what Greenfield had said. She was good enough to admit that she had over-reacted and asked Greenfield to forgive her. Greenfield told her he had accepted her apology and hoped that she would forget what had happened. “You have no reason to feel guilty. These things happen.”
Somehow, I thought Emeldah had given me some hint, although I didn’t know what it was. But it was this feeling that prompted me to propose to the duo to exchange addresses “because who knows? You might meet again some day.”
Thereafter, we all went our ways. I soon forgot about the incident until some seven months later when Greenfield came over to my office at Zambia Daily Mail with a letter from Emeldah in which she was not only apologising again for what had happened that unfortunate Saturday afternoon but asking him for a date.
“What’s your advice?” the young man asked me.
I told him not to be funny. “You had fancied the girl when you first met her,” I said. “I think she’s genuinely sorry for what she did. Go and see her.”
Greenfield returned a month later, this time in the company of Emeldah, to announce that the two were in courtship…………..
The author is a Lusaka-based media consultant who also worked in the Foreign Service as a diplomat in South Africa and Botswana. For comments, sms 0977425827/0967146485 or email: pchirwa2009@yahoo.com
