YOUTHS AND SLUMS

Its very dark in the night and one can hear shouts , laughter and screams of people all over the place, one would be led to thinking there is still a lot of time before midnight or is there?

It is exactly 2 hours after midnight and people are still patrolling the tiny paths along the neighbourhoods. Others sit around braziers while others pass along seemingly intoxicated and struggle to walk on as they stagger one step forward and the next backwards.

It is the life in the Bronx; others call it the shanty while others seem to think the word “ghetto" is more appropriate for such places where activities never cease.

The ghetto houses all kinds of people including the notorious of criminals who, in most incidences when caught thieving suffer very inhumane and gruesome deaths in the hands of furiously merciless residents.

Public lynches seem to be the only form of justice in the Bronx, people resort to beating to death suspected public menaces. And others are burnt using the infamous " ring of death".

While others attribute such practice to lack of police patrols in such areas and some claim its corrupt officers of the law that orchestrate robberies in ghettoes.

It is in the ghetto where suspected adulterous individuals when caught in sexual acts are paraded naked in the streets and sometimes are severely beat up .such scenes occur regularly in the ghetto. It is the life of the ghetto!

Recently, an embarrassing picture of two naked couples that was caught in the act in Lusaka´s Kalingalinga compound was circulating on the internet.

It depicted two seemingly old looking couple ,they were approximately in their late forties, the scene was a spectacle ,both suspected adulterous in their birthday suits and surrounded by a swam of people who looked evidently excited by the scene, it is the Bronx and that was entertainment!

In the ghetto, language is even very distinct from the normally spoken language, the type in the ghetto is extreme slang that one would think it’s a whole different language all together.

Isaac Njobvu a resident of John Laing compound explains that language changes dramatically as you go farther away from the town center and slang is a distinguishing feature of people.

"It changes, people in ghettos speak almost the same language, even the kids growing up in the same environment speak like their brothers”, he explains.

He further cites some vernacular terms in the famous ghetto slang as "zebigy","ni downi”, the former referring to a larger and respected person in the ghetto, while the latter implies its okay.

Other terms regularly used are "ah nachuma bakaamba naiposa wecana!(things are bad no deals my friend).When some hard core users of this slang are talking one would be led to thinking they are arguing over something when in actual sense it’s a mutual conversation.

Believe it or not the ghetto can as well be a very pleasant place to live in as Mrs Mbuya Tembo a resident of Chawama and a house keeper in Lusaka’s Kabwata residential area explains.
"nghati ulibe ndiyo kwatu timatandizhana ngako, olo mwana wako adwala onse apafupi pafupi atandhizana maningi",(ghetto dwellers assist each other even when neighbours are starving or a child in the hood is ill).

She explains in a language called Nyanja which she says is widely used in her neighborhood.


Mrs Tembo explains that generally, commodity prices in most of the ghettoes she has lived in are lower compared to prices in places like Kabwata where she works.

While one individual jokes that in the ghetto most people’s lives are completely oblivious of what goes on in town and others never even go to town for a long time.

They are just comfortable staying in the ghetto.

Whether the assistance by neighbours or the relatively low prices of food stuffs in the ghetto, lack of security is a blurring feature.

Benson a resident of Chibolya Compound narrates that in some Compounds the police never go there.

He gives an example of Chibolya compound where in some parts of it, youths, older people sale drugs and other illegal commodities un deterred by the law enforcers.

It is a common feature in the Bronx, people smoke marijuana in public, they drink "Kachasu" a local brew, without any one ever arresting whoever is responsible, it is life as usual in the bronx.

In the Bronx, life is hard, others resort to prostitution, which a source, who declined to be named described as rampant and cheap.

"Sex in the ghetto is very cheap, especially in places where there are a number of brothels where one can go and have intercourse for as little as five thousands kwacha, it is even very widespread”, he says.

In these infamous red light spots, Men just walk in rooms and help themselves with the women they find attractive.

The tales of the ghetto never cease to amaze, others are not comfortable in the ghetto while some just want to indulge themselves and are comfortable. It is life which ever way you live it!