IN A CHANG’AA DRINKING SPREE

(ONE ACT PLAY)

BY

ALEXANDER   K   OPICHO










CASTE
Advocate; self-styled advocate, his real job is insurance agent
Sampaza-changaa drunkard
Teacher-brother to Sampaza, also a changaa taker
Monica-changaa seller
Austeen-a lad, son to Monica
Watchman-changaa drunkard
Rono-friend to watchman
Njeri-friend to Monica, single mother
Atieno-friend to Monica, single mother
Driver- changaa taker and a smoker
Barasa-changaa taker and electrician
Ndhiwa- changaa taker, brother to barasa
Yator-changaa taker brother to barasa
Mavachi-changaa taker, with a fallen out wife
Mandila-relative to mavachi
Agnesi-wife to teacher
Music
*chang’aa is homemade alcoholic spirit consumed by the peasants in east and central Africa.




ACT ONE
In a slum area of Eldoret town, very many ramshackle muddy walled houses are seen; the setting takes place in the house of Monica the Changaa seller. There is low tone music humming from the DVD, playing Vincent Ongidi’s ‘mother is better than father.’
Music; Bakeni Nebekhale, bukula indika,
           Bukula indika samwana, Udimake kungeni
          Khusoko busia, bukula indika omusumba,
          Bakhwee nebechile, bukula indika
          Udimake khusoko yaya, bukula indika….
Driver; (dancing with a tumbler of chang’aa in his hand) let me dance! This is my best Sunday, let me dance, I am son of a woman. Sing! Sing! Sing! For us Vincent, you son of Ongidi, (pointing at the DVD).
Advocate; the problem you are only dancing with your class a half empty, moreover, you are not following the rhythm , I thought you dance to this song by shaking your shoulders, but instead you are gyrating your waistline.
Driver; (still dancing) let me dance because when I will go to the grave I will not get another chance to dance.
Advocate; (gulps from his tumbler) will you buy me chang’aa of ten shillings?
Driver; let me finish dancing first, I will see what to do about it.
(Enters Sampaza and teacher, as music goes off)
Sampaza; why are you dudes stopping the music on my entering?
Driver; it is not us who have stopped the music; you go and ask Vincent Ongidi why he did not sing a long song.
Sampaza; (sits at the old couch) where is Monica?
Driver; you burn us a cigarette before you ask for Monica, were you not with Monica upto the mid of last night?
Sampaza; why were you spying on me upto the mid of the night?
Advocate; (to Driver) give Sampaza time to introduce his friend to us
Sampaza; (to teacher) sit on this stool, forget about this drunkards.
Teacher; will this stool not break and sent me down like humpty dumpty? (Shakes the stool and sits on it)
Sampaza; It cannot even Monica herself sits on it and she is more huge than you do
Advocate; (to Sampaza) this is your brother?
Sampaza; now listen all off you
All; Sampaza we are listening to you all of us
Sampaza; had I killed our mother, he could not have born, (pointing to teacher).
Driver; if someone had not told me, there is no way I could know that this man is your brother. You are totally different from one another. Look, he is fat, strong, clean, well shaven and groomed brown and is like he took a bathe in the morning before he came here to chang’aa place, but you Sampaza tell us when you last washed your clothes? Even forget of washing your body.
Sampaza; (to driver) if you want to beg chang’aa from teacher just beg without using your desperate tricks of false praises.
Advocate; but me, I could easily know that teacher is a brother to Sampaza by simply comparing the shape of their heads, they look alike.
Teacher; who is serving chang’aa today?  I want to buy some for you guys.
Driver; it is Austeen, let me call him for you (goes at the door shouting) Austeen! Austeen! Aha! This boy is as earless as a female monitor lizard, (comes back) I have called him for you.
Teacher; thanks, let me believe he won’t take time, I am really thirsty.
Advocate; you can mitigate your thirst with this one of mine (gives teacher a tumbler).
Teacher; (sips) it was not a bad stuff (passes the tumbler to Sampaza)
Sampaza; (takes a full swig) uhm! The stuff is really the tears of the lion.
(Enters Austeen)
Austeen; My God, Sampaza is here again! Sampaza, why did you run away with my money last time? You take the beer and run away, even you made my mother to quarrel me yester night.
Driver; (to Austeen) you boy manage your mouths, don’t you see Sampaza is the age of your mother?
Austeen; wait! Sampaza must give me the money, give me the money you Sampaza!
Teacher; let me pay for him, how much was it?
Austeen; imagine Sampaza took off running into the darkness of the night after taking chang’aa of fifty shillings. Imagine a whole tumbler of fifty shillings.
Teacher; that was bad, Sampaza you did something very bad. You know Monica is a single parent and you run away with her money. This chang’aa is like Monica’s husband, so please let us be honest and pay our bills;
Austeen ;( to teacher) are you paying for Sampaza?
Teacher; yes, but before that; pour a tumbler of chang’aa worthy fifty shillings for each of these elders, including Sampaza. I am going to pay that one myself. But serve me with a tumbler of chang’aa that goes for a hundred shillings. May be it can quench my thirst.
Driver; brother you are a man (shakes teacher’s hand).
Austeen; (to Advocate) stand up for some minutes; I want to remove a grenade from your chair.
Advocate; you mean I was just sitting on the tears of the lion?
Austeen; yes (he fishes out a yellow plastic container, feels each tumbler as required).
Sampaza; you boy! What are you doing? Fill my tumbler to the brim, why are you now conning me off my chang’aa?
Austeen; (politely) Sampaza listen, you know my hands always shake when I am holding something. I didn’t want to spill chang’aa by struggling to fill your tumbler to the brim.
Teacher; (sipping, closing his eyes) Austeen now play for us another music.
Driver; yaah! The music, play for us Marashi ya karafu.
Austeen; my mother has not yet bought the DVD for Marashi ya karafu, let me play for you this one (shows him the DVD), it will thrill you to your bone marrow, (inserts the DVD in to the player).
Music ;( playing) ukiwa wa enda nyubani kwangu heee,
                          Umwambie stella mimi  sitakucha,
                         Umwambie stella mimi nimefungwa jela,
                      Anisalie mtoto mama nitaleaaaa!
Driver; ndio hiyo! (Stands up to gyrate his waist swiftly) that is my best song from Tanzania. How I wish I was still in prison on Christmas day of last year.
Sampaza; (sipping at his tumbler) if you want to be in prison go and make love to your goat and call people to help you.
Driver; look at you, with all this women, why should I go for a goat?
Sampaza; (standing up to dance, shaking his shoulders) because you want to be in
Prison.
Austeen; (giggling and shouting) look! Look! Look at Sampaza, he does not know how to dance, he is waving his hands like wings of a chicken.
Sampaza; you dance and I see (daring Austeen)
Austeen ;( dancing) look! Look! Fire! Fire! Fire! (He goes to sit)
All; (laughing loudly and clapping) Austeen! Austeen!
Advocate; this boy Austeen, became old while in his mother’s womb
                     (Enters Monica, Rono and watchman)
Driver; here comes Monica, (provokes Monica for a dance, they both dance).
Advocate; (joins Monica and driver to dance) Monica! Monica! Daughter of Zinjathropus, Waa!
Monica; I am an early woman, yaani! Womanopithecus africanus (dancing).
Driver ;( pushing away advocate), dance away from here, why are you bringing here this evil smelling sweater of yours?
Advocate; I am sorry.
Driver; that is empty jealousy, you only saw Monica’s pelvis touching mine and you jumped here to disrupt my gusto.
                               (Music stops and they all get sited)
Monica; (to Austeen) give watchman and his friend chang’aa of twenty bob, I will pay myself.
Austeen; yes mama (serves watchman and Rono chang’aa)
Rono; Kongoi, I mean thank you Monica, you are such a generous woman? (Takes a full swig).
Monica; Karibu, don’t mind I am always and I will be always an early woman.
Sampaza; (to watchman) when you came in I thought you were the crow.
Watchman; (sipping) who? Me, I was a policeman ten years ago but I was ******.
Driver; (to Sampaza) this man is not a muriakole, he is not a cop. This is a D.D.O.
Advocate; meaning?
Driver; daily drinking officer, hmmm! The DDO.
All; laughing loudly.
Monica; (to advocate) how is your brother and his witchdoctor of a wife?
Advocate; Monica, just keep quiet, my brother is in problems.
Monica; which problems? I told him to marry me and he refused because I did not have book education.  I am now making more money from chang’aa in a day than even he does from his education. Let that man, that brother of yours, chew the full scale of his misfortune. Now tell me which problem has he?
Advocate; today very early in the morning I heard my brother screaming, of course from his house. Out of anxiety I rushed there to find out what was happening. Jesus! What I so…..
Driver; what was it? Just say.
Monica; a man has nothing to fear just say.
Teacher; where is Austeen?
Austeen; I am here
Teacher; serve each of us chang’aa of fifty shillings, start with him (pointing at the advocate) give Monica, your mother a tumbler, that one of a hundred shillings.
Austeen ;( serving as he sings) how long will they ****,
              Our brothers, while we stand watching them,
                Redemption songs, Bob Marley! Sons of ghetto!
Sampaza; Austeen you are always not measuring my chang’aa to the money given, now look, does this grasshoppers spittle qualify to be chang’aa of fifty shillings?
Austeen; Sampaza, I told you my hands are not steady, they always shake whenever I am holding something.
Sampaza; (to Monica) I will bring a medicine man to give some manyasi to this son of yours, so that he stops shaking his hands like an epileptic.
Monica; Sampaza, you drink your chang’aa and to hell with your medicine-man. Let us listen to what happened to the brother of advocate.
Advocate; now, as I was saying I found my brother’s wife had swollen my brothers ***** to its base, the ***** was full deep in her mouth, my brother was screaming but the was dead silent ******* the *****, her teeth tightly gripping it at the same time.
All; laughing loudly
Teacher; Maybe it was oral ***, but not domestic violence
Monica; oral ***!?
Teacher; yes, it is possible
Advocate; but why was he crying?
Monica; because his wife was ******* his *****
Teacher; that is the case
Advocate; if at all it was pleasurable then why was my brother screaming?
Teacher;  maybe he was on ******* ecstasy, the same way a woman can be when you suckle or even ****** her *****.
Monica; but I can’t allow a man to suckle the eye of my breast.
Driver; even me, I can’t suckle my wife
Teacher; why?
Driver; even also, in my culture, one is not allowed to suckle a woman’s ****
Teacher; is that sexuology or culture?
Watchman ;( to driver) yes, answer that! Answer that question from teacher.
Monica; but it is only a foolish woman who can allow a man to suckle her *****, or if she can then she is not serious with that man.
Teacher; (to Monica) then which man do you like? Sampaza?
Monica; Me do love Sampaza?
Teacher; yes, Sampaza
Monica; this Sampaza, is always as miserable as a corpse in the grave without a coffin.
Advocate; you are as miserable as a corpse in the grave without a coffin.
Sampaza; I am not, I know am great
Teacher; yes, and capable to love the early woman like Monica.
Sampaza; (to Austeen) play for us some better music.
Austeen; which one mama? Which music can I play?
Monica; play for them Pamela Nkutha (sings) Nakula ebusi,
                  Nakula ewunwa, lalalaa! Lalalaa! Laaaa!
Austeen; Mama, that one we don’t have. Let me play for them Brenda *****.
Music; (playing) Songea nikubambe, songea nikubusu,
                          Nakupenda, nakubusu ehee monica eheee!
Austeen; Kula Ngoma; he who does not have chic let him embrace a stone (exits)
All; (dancing violently) Monica! Monica waaaaaaa!
Watchman; (dancing) Sampaza can you suckle the ***** of a woman?
Sampaza; ask driver that question.
Driver; I cannot suckle the ***** of my wife.
Teacher; I depend with nature of a woman you are in the bed with.
Watchman; correct , some women has fallen ******* like chapattis, but if a chic has ***** and pointed breast, I  can ****** and suckle her like nothing else in this world. I can even suckle her *******.
Teacher; by the way, ******* are the fountain of pleasure to a woman, when you suckle her she will just moan; Sampaza! Sampaza! Sampazaaaaa!
All; laugh raucously
Monica; these men are drunk.
Driver; no, they are now happy, pick one of them for yourself.
Monica; the man that I can love now must be having a death certificate.
Teacher; what does it mean? Me I thought you need a dark skinned man like Sampaza, you know the dark the skin of a man the greater the ****** pleasure ehee…
                       (Enters Njeri and Atieno)
Njeri; Monica, are you not aware that were are late for Chama? Look you are still *****, you have not even combed you hair.
Monica; Njeri come in why are rioting at the door, look at Atieno she is as miserable as usual.
Njeri; she was flogged by the husband.
Atieno; (to Njeri) you! Watch your mouths, I don’t have a husband.
All; laugh, (Njeri and Atieno sits).
Sampaza; look at this one (pointing to Njeri) can I give you some money so that you do me a favour.
Njeri; which favour?
Sampaza; of this…(Makes a sign of *** with his fist).
Njeri; I don’t sleep with chang’aa drunkards
Atieno; even me
Sampaza; (staggering, and then falling on Njeri’s laps) I want! Truly I want!
Advocate; Sampaza is drunk, let me take him home (pulls Sampaza).
Sampaza; (resisting, avoiding to be pulled out by advocate) leave me alone! You thief! You are an insurance thief! Who told you that you are an advocate? You are not! You want to steal my money. No, all these people are thieves, Monica is a big thief, and they want to steal my brother’s money!  Teacher! Come out of here! This is a den of pickpockets! They will still your wallet, come we go! Thieves! Thieves!
                        (Advocate pulls Sampaza out, as they both exit)
Driver; Sampaza does not have manners.
Njeri; Imagine he fell on my laps, what if my husband found him?
Monica; He would have now divorced you for eating rats.
Njeri; When I have not eaten any rat, it was only a drunkard supporting himself on my legs.
Atieno; he has spoken a lot of words.
Driver; and all the words were total lies.
Monica; no, whatever is in the inner heart of a sober man is always on the tongue of the drunkard man.
Teacher; to mean what? Anyway, forget about Sampaza.
Watchman; by the way
Rono; I am also off my senses, I am seeing each of you having seven heads, and the heads are a

The courtesan and poet Zuo Fen had two cats Xe Ming and Xi Ming. Living in her distant court with only her maid Hu Yin, her cats were often her closest companions and, like herself, of a crepuscular nature.
      It was the very depths of winter and the first moon of the Solstice had risen. The old year had nearly passed.
      The day itself was almost over. Most of the inner courts retired before the new day began (at about 11.0pm), but not Zuo Fen. She summoned her maid to dress her in her winter furs, gathered her cats on a long chain leash, and walked out into the Haulin Gardens.
      These large and semi-wild gardens were adjacent to the walls of her personal court. The father of the present Emperor had created there a forest once stocked with game, a lake to the brim with carp and rich in waterfowl, and a series of tall structures surrounded by a moat from which astronomers were able to observe the firmament.
      Emperor Wu liked to think of Zuo Fen walking at night in his father’s park, though he rarely saw her there. He knew that she valued that time alone to prepare herself for his visits, visits that rarely occurred until the Tiger hours between 3.0am and 6.0am when his goat-drawn carriage would find its way to her court unbidden. She herself would welcome him with steaming chai and sometimes a new rhapsody. They would recline on her bed and discuss the content and significance of certain writings they knew and loved. Discussion sometimes became an elaborate game when a favoured Classical text would be taken as the starting point for an exchange of quotation. Gradually quotation would be displaced by subtle invention and Zuo Fen would find the Emperor manoeuvring her into making declarations of a passionate or ****** nature.
       It seemed her very voice captivated him and despite herself and her inclinations they would join as lovers with an intensity of purpose, a great tenderness, and deep joy. He would rest his head inside her cloak and allow her lips to caress his ears with tales of river and mountain, descriptions of the flights of birds and the opening of flowers. He spoke to her ******* of the rising moon, its myriad reflections on the waters of Ling Lake, and of its trees whose winter branches caressed the cold surface.

Whilst Zuo Fen walked in the midnight park with her cats she reflected on an afternoon of frustration. She had attempted to assemble a new poem for her Lord.  Despite being himself an accomplished poet and having an extraordinary memory for Classical verse, the Emperor retained a penchant for stories about Mei-Lim, a young Suchan girl dragged from her family to serve as a courtesan at his court.
      Zuo Fen had invented this girl to articulate some of her own expressions of homesickness, despair, periods of constant tearfulness, and abject loneliness. Such things seemed to touch something in the Emperor. It was as though he enjoyed wallowing in these descriptions and his favourite A Rhapsody on Being far from Home he loved to hear from the poet’s own lips, again and again. Zuo Fen felt she was tempting providence not to compose something new, before being ordered to do so.
      As she struggled through the afternoon to inject some fresh and meaningful content into a story already milked dry Zuo Fen became aware of her cats. Xi Ming lay languorously across her folded feet. Xe Ming perched like an immutable porcelain figure on a stool beside her low writing table.
Zuo Fen often consulted her cats. ‘Xi Ming, will my Lord like this stanza?’

“The stones that ring out from your pony’s hooves
announce your path through the cloud forest”

She would always wait patiently for Xi Ming’s reply, playing a game with her imagination to extract an answer from the cinnamon scented air of her winter chamber.
      ‘He will think his pony’s hooves will flash with sparks kindling the fire of his passion as he prepares to meet his beloved’.
      ‘Oh such a wise cat, Xi Ming’, and she would press his warm body further into her lap. But today, as she imagined this dialogue, a second voice appeared in her thoughts.
      ‘Gracious Lady, your Xe Ming knows his under-standing is poor, his education weak, but surely this image, taken as it is from the poet Lu Ji, suggests how unlikely it would be for the spark of love and passion to take hold without nurture and care, impossible on a hard journey’.
       This was unprecedented. What had brought such a response from her imagination? And before she could elicit an answer it was as though Xe Ming spoke with these words of Confucius.

“Do not be concerned about others not appreciating you, be concerned about you not appreciating others”

Being the very sensible woman she was, Zuo Fen dismissed such admonition (from a cat) and called for tea.

Later as she walked her beauties by the frozen lake, the golden carp nosing around just beneath the ice, she recalled the moment and wondered. A thought came to her  . . .
       She would petition Xe Ming’s help to write a new rhapsody, perhaps titled Rhapsody on the Thought of Separation.

Both Zuo Fen’s cats came from her parental home in Lingzhi. They were large, big-***** mountain cats; strong animals with bear-like paws, short whiskered and big eared. Their coats were a glassy grey, the hairs tipped with a sprinkling of white giving the fur an impression of being wet with dew or caught by a brief shower.
       When she thought of her esteemed father, the Imperial Archivist, there was always a cat somewhere; in his study at home, in the official archives where he worked. There was always a cat close at hand, listening?
       What texts did her father know by heart that she did not know? What about the Lu Yu – the Confucian text book of advice and etiquette for court officials. She had never bothered to learn it, even read it seemed unnecessary, but through her brother Zuo Si she knew something of its contents and purpose.

Confucius was once asked what were the qualifications of public office. ‘Revere the five forms of goodness and abandon the four vices and you can qualify for public office’.
       For the life of her Zuo Fen could not remember these five forms of goodness (although she could make a stab at guessing them). As for those vices? No, she was without an idea. If she had ever known, their detail had totally passed from her memory.
       Settled once again in her chamber she called Hu Yin and asked her to remove Xi Ming for the night. She had three hours or so before the Emperor might appear. There was time.
        Xe Ming was by nature a distant cat, aloof, never seeking affection. He would look the other way if regarded, pace to the corner of a room if spoken to. In summer he would hide himself in the deep undergrowth of Zuo Fen’s garden.
       Tonight Zuo Fen picked him up and placed him on her left shoulder. She walked around her room stroking him gently with her small strong fingers, so different from the manicured talons of her colleagues in the Purple Palace. Embroidery, of which she was an accomplished exponent, was impossible with long nails.
       From her scroll cupboard she selected her brother’s annotated copy of the Lun Yu, placing it unrolled on her desk. It would be those questions from the disciple Tzu Chang, she thought, so the final chapters perhaps. She sat down carefully on the thick fleece and Mongolian rug in front of her desk letting Xe Ming spill over her arms into a space beside her.
       This was strange indeed. As she sat beside Xe Ming in the light of the butter lamps holding his flickering gaze it was as though a veil began to lift between them.
       ‘At last you understand’, a voice appeared to whisper,’ after all this time you have realised . . .’
      Zuo Fen lost track of time. The cat was completely motionless. She could hear Hu Yin snoring lightly next door, no doubt glad to have Xi Ming beside her on her mat.
      ‘Xe Ming’, she said softly, ‘today I heard you quote from Confucius’.
      The cat remained inscrutable, completely still.
      ‘I think you may be able to help me write a new poem for my Lord. Heaven knows I need something or he will tire of me and this court will cease to enjoy his favour’.
      ‘Xe Ming, I have to test you. I think you can ‘speak’ to me, but I need to learn to talk to you’.
      ‘Tzu Chang once asked Confucius what were the qualifications needed for public office? Confucius said, I believe, that there were five forms of goodness to revere, and four vices to abandon’.
       ‘Can you tell me what they are?’
      Xe Ming turned his back on Zuo Fen and stepped gently away from the table and into a dark and distant corner of the chamber.
      ‘The gentle man is generous but not extravagant, works without complaint, has desires without being greedy, is at peace, but not arrogant, and commands respect but not fear’.
      Zuo Fen felt her breathing come short and fast. This voice inside her; richly-texture, male, so close it could be from a lover at the epicentre of a passionate entanglement; it caressed her.
      She heard herself say aloud, ‘and the four vices’.
      ‘To cause a death or imprisonment without teaching can be called cruelty; to judge results without prerequisites can be called tyranny; to impose deadlines on improper orders can be thievery; and when giving in the procedure of receipt and disbursement, to stint can be called officious’.
       Xe Ming then appeared out of the darkness and came and sat in the folds of her night cloak, between her legs. She stroked his glistening fur.
       Zuo Fen didn’t need to consult the Lu Yu on her desk. She knew this was unnecessary. She got to her feet and stepped through the curtains into an antechamber to relieve herself.
       When she returned Xe Ming had assumed his porcelain figure pose. So she gathered a fresh scroll, her writing brushes, her inks, her wax stamps, and wrote:

‘I was born in a humble, isolated, thatched house,
and was never well versed in writing.
I never saw the marvellous pictures of books,
nor had I heard of the classics of earlier sages.
I am dimwitted, humble and ignorant . . ‘

As she stopped to consider the next chain of characters she saw in her mind’s eye the Purple Palace, the palace of the concubines of the Emperor. Sitting next to the Purple Chamber there was a large grey cat, its fur sprinkled with tiny flecks of white looking as though the animal had been caught in a shower of rain.
       Zuo Fen turned from her script to see where Xe Ming had got to, but he had gone. She knew however that he would always be there. Wherever her imagination took her, she could seek out this cat and the words would flow.

Before returning to her new text Zuo Fen thought she might remind herself of Liu Xie’s words on the form of the Rhapsody. If Emperor Wu appeared later she would quote it (to his astonishment) from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.

*The rhapsody derives from poetry,
A fork in the road, a different line of development;
It describes objects, pictures and their appearance,
With a brilliance akin to sculpture and painting.
What is clogged and confined it invariably opens up;
It depicts the commonplace with unbounded charm;
But the goal of the form is of beauty well ordered,
Words retained for their loveliness when weeds have been cut away.