memoirsfromzimbawee

Each time we passed through the old bus stop, I heard the same remarks: “There lies Mbongoro, right in the middle of the road”. Cars, buses and lorries would sound their horns, but not until Mbongoro retreated to the side of the road could they manage to pass. That day, I was on my usual marathon training session along the Chitungwiza-Mbare road. A heavy twelve-wheeled lorry skidded, with the driver applying the emergency brakes, but it was too late. There was a putrid smell of smoking tyres grinding through the tarmac, followed by the heavy impact of the crash of metal against bone. As I turned in the direction of the impact, I could see a grey body in the road, and one hundred metres ahead the bloody large intestines of Mbongoro the Stubborn Donkey. A half grin touched my face, as I stared at Mbongoro’s big brown teeth in his wide extending jaws, which would never close again. Yes these were the jaws that had made such a great noise during his braying days