KUNG FU AND THE TRIBESMEN

 ONE'S DESTINATION IS NEVER A PLACE, BUT A NEW WAY OF SEEING THINGS - Henry Miller

Over the last 2 decades; Africa has had an explosion of development in various sectors of the economy. Infrastructural projects such as roads, railways, hydroelectric dams, oil and water pipelines etc have been executed in almost all corners of the once dark continent.

These have largely been done at subsidised loans, grants and sometimes outright gifts from China. And with these projects there has been a penetration by the Chinese contractors into the various economies.

And as would happen in all human encounters ... with these of course come positives and some negatives.

This is the gist of this short piece i share with you.

In the recent past, there have been in the media reports of cases of mistreatment of local workers by their foreign employers. Some have been reported in countries such as Sierra Leone, DRCongo, Kenya, Uganda, Angola but a large majority are swept under the carpet without any record or mention.

The cases vary from minor cases of impulsive abuse to sometimes serious cases of assault resulting in serious injuries and bodily harm.

Here is one such incident.

So in one of my past projects we encountered a curious case of an assault on a watchman by one of the foremen of the contractor.

The story goes thus ...

The project was a government institutional project and had many components from different government agencies. There were the health department, police, forestry and others. Apart from a small quarantine section, dispensary, offices and a small commercial section there was also a fully fledged police station with an armory and cells as well.

The contractor was one of those international Chinese contractors who have swamped the country's major infrastructural projects over the last 2 decades.

He was already delayed in the works and was somehow struggling with cash flow as well.

So during one unfortunate occasion a Chinese foreman in charge of the mechanical workshop (by the way all the in-charges are always from their home country - they dont trust no one) found no one to help him shift some large tyres from one part of the workshop to be fitted onto a vehicle. It was getting late in the morning and he was already late in rolling the trucks to work. 

The workshop was a large unkempt yard - as is the case of most of these oriental contractors' yards - with a shed for tyre repairs, an open bay for washing up and a sheet metal store for keeping spares and tools.

In the centre of the yard was a large olive tree that provided shade during the hot afternoons and also a little  respite during rains.The olive tree also served as a meeting point from whence each worker was designated the day's tasks.

Before we handed over the site to the contractor, the olive tree had served multitude purposes for the locals as a baraza centre and also a meeting point for the young at heart. A few rural graffiti attested to the going ons during the nights and the wee hours of the mornings ....... 

If trees could talk; this olive tree would be a  treasure of stories including some saucy ones of the various happenings it has witnessed over the years .......mostly in the courtship sector .

So the foreman's office was a strategic vantage point next to the iron sheet store and from there he could see the whole yard and thus who is working and who is not.  

This particular morning, most staff had not reported on time, as was the case more often than not. Morale amongst workers of many international contractors is not surprisingly very low due to the poor working conditions which are usually similar to those in China or India - and thus low pay, high output expectations and salaries pegged back to the home country where due to the billion plus populations the wages are criminally very very low! 

And so the formen was getting late and increasingly agitated as no worker appeared. He needed to get the trucks moving.

The only soul in sight was the day watchman who sat on an empty disused tar drum near the metal grilled gate. He was a turbaned wrinkle-faced nomad. He looked much older than his actual age of early 30s. But that is the case in almost all nomadic societies the world over.....nomadic life has a way etching its effects onto the external features of its peoples.

 So from his vantage point, the foreman shouted at the day watchman in one third kiswahili one third English and one third mandarin across the yard in a rather rude and condensending manner -- a translation of which he meant 'hey you there move those tyres!'

The first shout in the broken english mandarin kiswahili was ignored. The second and third shouts followed in quick succession but with no effect whatsoever on the nomad watchman - who are in themselves masters of ignoring when they choose to. 

This obviously didn't go well with the foreman and he became incensed by the insubordination of what he must have felt as such a lowly soul. So without much delay the foreman was in a quick King fu flash next to the watchman. 

The story goes that the watchman naturally refused for two reasons. One, that it wasn't part of his job description as a watchman to move tyres and secondly if the foreman had been polite and requested in a decent manner then he would have considered doing it.....of course for something small as inducement.......nothing is for free in this world!

The Chinese obviously viewed this as insubordination and in anger kicked the watchman. But this wasn't an ordinary kick!

This was a kung fu kick from the heart of Central China ... and it landed with punch and venom!

Now here the story took two different directions. The foreman insisted that he did not aim where the kick landed while the watchman insisted that the kick that landed was a series of kicks which he expertly evaded except the last one which landed exactly where it was aimed at. He insisted that the kick was aimed at the nether sections of the poor man and landed squarely onto his manhood! 

The Chinese forman then allegedly uttered some not very savoury words and unprintable abuses and left the poor man crouched in extreme pain.

This became a serious matter as news of the kung fu kick spread in the small town like wild fire. The watchman's tribesmen who dominate the town got the news and decended upon the site in droves ....many of them armed with sticks, stones, machetesand other statement of crude weapons. In tow were a senior police officer and his men too. By 10am the mechanical workshop was more like a tribal war baraza surrounded by a variety of geriatrics with walking sticks and young men talking animatedly about the heinous act. 

The tribal elders had now taken over the shaded area under the olive tree and settled down to sort this abominable act.

'This has not happened since the colonialists left' said one old man who professed himself as the tribal history professor. 

Another younger elder kept shaking his head as though the kick had hurt him as much as the victim and kept murmuring' taboo, taboo, taboo.......to be kicked and not just anywhere but There!!!.....this is the worst kind of bad manners! 

"We have to slaughter several goats and a camel to solve this" said another wise man.....whom I suspect dealt in hides and skins or had shares in the local abattoir.

The contractor (the foreman's boss) had soon arrived and after assessing the situation quickly took a stand... by now he had conveniently forgotten all the English and Kiswahili he ever knew. And to all the remonsrations from the tribesmen, he replied in Chinese...and this to the obvious chagrin of the tribesmen....who took this as not only disrespect but a deliberate attempt to water down or wish away the matter.

'Weeeh mchina, the longer it takes to solve this the more it will cost you' threatened a young tribesman who looked like he'd been to school and was a master of such arm-twisting techniques.

By 11am the patience of the tribesmen had been tested, nerves were raw. The situation was turning into a shouting match of a group of elders each sounding like they have all and sundry been injured by the single kick that landed on a poor watchman's manhood. 

A few elders decided they had had enough of Mandarin now decided to escalate the matter and bring in the Law. The police officer who had been listening in to the goings on was asked to do the needful.

The foreman was arrested and put into custody. Nothing strange so far. 

But a twist in the tale is that the foreman was actually locked up in a cell within his own constructed building. Now this must be the first case of its kind in the whole world! A contractor who builds a police station becomes its first official prisoner!

He was the first official user or shall I say inmate of the newly constructed police holding cells which he had constructed himself.

The story didn't end there. I was called in to try and mediate and resolve the matter because I had good relations with the contractor and with some of the tribesmen too and also one or two senior police officers. I tried but my efforts bore no fruit. 

'How can an architect based in Nairobi understand the cultural implications of a kick below the belt' retorted one wise man. 'He knows only how to draw lines on paper' rejoined a young one who had seemingly been to school.

The contractor offered apologies and even a token compensation. He started with 20k. 'What? 20k for such a henious act! No way! '20k cannot be the value of our future generations' retorted a middle aged man who had been largely silent during the proceedings.

The contractor upped his offer to 50k. And stuck to his guns from here onward.

Matters got worse. Somehow the tribesmen felt they could squeeze out more. And by now they were already so numerous such that the 50k would hardly suffice to get 1k for each elder.

No way! Everyone dug in.

The contractor could see the situation degenerating and immediately stopped work.

The tribesmen demanded punishment.

.

The tribesmen had smelt blood and the petty 50k being offered by the contractor for an assault on the future generations of the tribe was rejected outright.

It was Friday evening and the obvious danger was that the guilty foreman would spend the weekend in custody constructed by himself. The contractor knew this and so did the elders.

Frantic efforts were made to appease the tribesmen to accept the apologies and the token. They didn't budge. They wanted more. They had now become a large formidable group of idle elders. I suspect even members of other tribes had now joined in ..... just in case a part of the loot can fall their way.

The contractor went into panic mode. He couldn't allow one of his senior staff locked up in a jail. And a jail which he himself had constructed only to be its first official user.

An idea came to his mind. He approached one of his own senior local staff who was familiar with senior civil servants in the town.  

This guy knew quite a few local senior civil servants and they socialised together. He related the story to a few of the connected civil servants and stressed that the guilty guy is remorseful and ready to pay a token as compensation. 

The intervention by the local senior staff of the contractor brought a bit of respite as a senior civil servant managed to free the kung fu foreman from custody on a personal free bond with undertaking to appear in court on Monday morning.

Before dark the police had received instructions to release the foreman on a free personal bond and be charged with the offence in court on Monday since all efforts to get the two parties to agree and resolve out of court had failed.

The long weekend started and the tribesmen dug in now demanding 4 times what the contractor had offered. They dutifully appeared under the olive tree both on Saturday and Sunday. But to no avail....

The contractor dug in and stuck to his guns.....and he did this in Chinese having forgotten all the other languages he ever knew.

On Monday morning, everyone appeared in court. But unbeknown to the local elders there had been efforts to resolve the matter individually with the watchman -  these had also failed as the watchman now conveniently forgot all knowledge of Kiswahili or English - probably infected by the same language-destroying disease which affected the Chinese in first place. 

On Monday morning the magistrate appeared even earlier than normal. The dingy courtroom was packed with tribal elders all talking away in hushed tones about the serious crime commited and how they have not slept nor eaten for 3 days and how they fear the retribution of the ancestors, and how and how and how....

The court was called to order.

The kungfu foreman was brought to the dock.

The magistrate asked the parties about the particulars, the two parties involved in the act were asked to state their stories. Neither lied. Both said the truth but spiced with remorse and pain and remostration.

And the guilty foreman pleaded guilty that he indeed made a mistake and that he offered apologies and was remorseful.

'You are guilty' pronounced the magistrate and in accordance with the law you are hereby fined 5k or 3 months in jail if you fail to pay.

The tribesmen were aghast.

The contractor promptly paid the fine. The watchman lost his job. The custody cell performed well....with the first user being the builder himself.

The tribesmen lost everything.

I was satisfied that the cells I had designed did their function well.....and when we finished and handed over the project I reminded the police that the facilities were up to date because the contractor himself had tested them!  

The policemen laughed in good cheer.

Two days later there were rumours that the senior staff of the contractor who had solved the matter was seen in a bar making merry with his pockets full......a happy man! I didn't see him myself but if true then he was a happy man. Well why not...he had saved his employer a handsome amount of money.

I can for sure tell you one thing, my cell served its purpose and punishment was meted albeit for a short while.