Zambia World Wide

It�s definitely not career enhancing, to smack your new boss in the teeth, even verbally,�on first meeting him, but there seemed little point in showing restraint when he was deploying exactly the same technique on me,�despite being unaware of my�sweet modesty and�breathtaking talent for the job. Happily, his 2i/c, a chubby, bow-legged, ginger bloke, Gordon Murray, wandered in at that point, speedily assessed the rising temperature in the office and led me off to a less explosive environment, but it wasn�t�my wished-for�introduction to the governmental heartland of the country. �Don�t worry about Paddy� said Gordon, �he�s a bit liverish today�. That was soothing, for I was well used to associating with fiery, hungover Celts. Also, I�m thoroughly conditioned to being traduced by total strangers, even without the excuse of them being half pissed. It comes with my confrontational personality, apparently.

The introduction around the office commenced. Fate ensured that the first foxy-featured phoney who popped up, was Bryson, the shyster extraordinaire, who had piratically filched my expenses on the way into the country. Casting sincerely meant aspersions upon his paternal lineage, I took him to task on the incident and I was sufficiently fired up to do something physical about it, when he smarmily denied any cash had been issued and insisted that there had been nothing to pass on. Given this was said in front of a senior manager, but believing not a single syllable of it, I made some mumbled withdrawal and let it drop... for then. Stand on me, a grudge had been registered; satisfaction would follow, guaranteed.

The rest of the office tour showed that I was about to take my place within a hodgepodge of disparate characters, some of them desperate ones, but the heavenly light beaming out from under His office door illuminated the pathway to Roger Browning�s lair and it was uplifting to meet the Department rou� once again. I can�t believe I wrote that: perhaps the old woman has something in her�suppressed gayness theory, after all. That confessed, I knew the thrill was entirely based on the opposite sensation, especially as He greeted me with the news that I most wanted to hear: �Gerry, you�ll love it, there are�maningi women here�.

That just left the question as to whether they were all short-sighted, uncontrollably horny, foolhardy females, with no sensitivity or sense of smell, the�apparent qualifications�required to enable me to make the�journey into manhood. Still, my faith in His Worship the Seductor was undiminished, for I had seen Him at work, in the womanless (for me) desert that was Livingstone. My confidence levels rose substantially: for�Lusaka was proving to be all that I hoped.

Then the bad news came: whilst a new Customs Mess was being arranged, my accommodation had been booked in Longacres hostel. That wasn�t an attractive prospect, but still considerably less depressing than the even worse announcement of the first assignment that Paddy had bestowed on me; The Officer, Lusaka Sorting Office. Blimey, what did I have to do to escape the Zambian postal system? Sorting uncustomed parcels was definitely not the sort of humping I had been anticipating, but there was no arguing with his Paddyness, so off to the bowels of the building I trotted, into a considerably larger, but just as chaotic, situation as I had found almost�three months earlier. Now, where did I put that helpful Inspectoscope??

Under the flimsy pretext that I needed directions to the hostel and assistance�with my luggage, four of my new comrades and I crammed into the Ford and squeaked off in the direction of the airport, almost making it. Insouciantly cornering just before the compound, the nearside front wheel abruptly detached and pitched us all into a ditch. It�s said that, prior to death, one�s life flashes before one�s eyes. I can affirm that�it also occurs when you realise that a crappy old car, which�you�ve just driven at furiously high speeds around hairpin bends above unfenced 1000 foot drops, has wheels that apparently were affixed to the hubs with bent�Kirby grips.

Youth has a breath-taking contempt for mortality and, at 19, I was no less arrogant than�average�in that regard, but I knew that I just had come within the hand-turn of a bush-league mechanic with a chapatti for brains and less engineering skill than a lobotomised haddock, to laying in small pieces of Scots Lad at the escarpment base. Sobering? You betcha, but the feeling had dissipated by the time I had hauled my whingeing passengers from the bottom of�the smelly trench. That�s�juvenescence for you, as dumb & insensitive as an MP claiming expenses.