Francis Mukuzunga By the time you read this, the ToW must have been overtaken by events. I mean ‘Talk of the Week’- dead simple. My choice for the week is none other than the ‘Girlie Fight’ caption on page 3 in our Monday edition of last week. Good old Fifi! Gees, the man has an eye for news – Eewa! For those not in the know, the caption that deserves our ToW award this week was the story of a highly expectant lady who was fighting off two colleagues that had attacked her over some ‘outstanding nocturnal and financial issues’. The story was told in pictures, and indeed, graphically too, right in the middle of town on an early Saturday, month-end, Windhoek-show-weekend morning. According to the story, the two had to seek refuge in a taxi with almost half their clothes torn off by the raging woman! They say, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ Our lens man was right there on the spot and just went on, click! A series of mugshots from the five-minute drama would have made our paper look more like The Sun tabloid had the superiors not made a decision to spike off the unpublishables. To Fifi, I raise by big Tafel and drink on your behalf – Eewa! And What They Said I’m right here at the Horseshoe Market, somewhere in the middle of Tura. Just had my Kapana on the other side of the Single Quarters and all I need is a washdown. The two gentlemen on my opposite must be wondering why I’m smiling to myself. Poor souls, they must be thinking I’ve had one too many. No, I’m eavesdropping on a conversation from a group of girls on the other table. It just makes me giggle as I listen to their own version of the drama. “If it was me I would have killed the bit**** for snatching my boyfriend,” says one. (Mind you, they use the term boyfriend here, not husband.) Another adds: “She can go to hell if she thinks she can have him all to herself,” to more giggles. Apparently, the foursome, in their late teens or early 20s, had drooled out of the Gomonate’ Fela in the wee-wee hours of this morning and decided to extend the happy hour here. More comments and laughter, in Afrikaans over rounds of green sweating bottles. And so you thought a Zimbo could not understand an inkling of Afrikaans, mixed with a bit of Otjiherero or Oshiwambo? Think again. After staying in the Grysblok section and having voluntary tutors of the fairer sex for six weeks and visiting the most popular joints in the area, who cannot master the greetings or insults of the common vocabulary? Related Bouts Here, I am in Dolam area on a fine Saturday afternoon. Apparently it’s a payday weekend in Tura and there are blaring sounds of people partying everywhere. It’s not the Wild Dogg music that’s attracting my attention, nor is it the Ongoro noMundu song playing from a house just opposite. It is the apparently two inebriated women who, after having a war of words, degenerate into a fistfight and are literally tearing each other apart – much to the excitement of a swelling street audience. No one bothers to stop the fight either! My journo sistren tells me this is quite common, especially among a group of people well known to break plates and bottles in your face should you upset them. Greatest Disappointment So what was I doing in Dolam, you ask me? I’ll explain. After crossing Rundu six weeks back, one tends to be homesick. To tell the truth, it was refreshing to know that Shona had now become Namibia’s unofficial 14th minority language right in the middle of Tura, so I decided to pay a second visit. My greatest disappointment though, is that my brothers and sisters have literally turned the shopping centre here into another Mbare vegetable market. Eking a living is not bad, but leaving the litter behind is. I know the Big Brother has messed up big time back home but I shudder at the thought of ‘Operation Clean-up’ being extended here. Mind you, they’re buddies here. Just tell me which is the longest road named after an African president in Windhoek? Parting Shot Congratulations to the Brave Warriors for sliding slightly past the Ethiopians. It was a good excuse for celebrations that went through the whole weekend, and what pleasure it was for me and newly found friends. Given time and space, all that transpired would be chronicled in Tura Tales Part 2. Eewa!