Zulu Lulu by Amos Bwire

This is for all 'Jezebel' lovers. The writer's ink is flowing again and this time, it's hotter, sexier and definitely better than anything you've ever read. Amos Bwire, my talented Tanzanian writer, in this masterpiece tells an intriguing story of love and betrayal in a socio-political setting. Trust me when I say this is definitely going to blow your mind and soul away. Enjoy!!!

Zulu Lulu (One)
September 2, 2011
She stares at her image through a cracky mirror.
A weak smile is drawn on her face overwhelmed by cheap makeups that are intended to give her an older, impressive persona.  Certainly knowing she could be innocently gorgeous without any of that, Lulu curses at the reflection. With a frown, she drops a stare at her wrist watch.
It's 10:45pm. She curses again impromptu, this time against a heavy rain that has been part of the day. Though now it's reduced to mere drizzles, the rain has left her dull-room mushy-mushy, with pools of water across abraded, eroded floor. Her earning potential for the night is also at stake. The rain makes it difficult for guys like her to prowl the streets and make a living.


A hawkish knock on the door takes Lulu by a jolting surprise. Another curse through her clenched teeth. She doesn't even bother to turn her face away from the mirror, "Enhee!"
The intruder trades quick, sharp stares between the leaking ceiling and a severely broken floor before shifting the quiet gaze towards Lulu, who is yet to turn around. "Where is my money?" Shouts the chubby woman.
Lulu flinches, almost jumping off the stool. "Oh, mama! Karibu!" She acknowledges the presence of her landlady "I, um, Shka--!"
"The rent!" Barks the woman, adjusting her lousy-multicolored blouse over her heavily built shoulder. "You're late!" Her sharp, coastal accent draws-in a heavy cough from the bedside, which echoes in the small room. Her head tilts. Her eyes burn over the body that lies sidewise on the lone bed inside the room.
Her name is Mwajuma, Lulu's roommate. She is 21, nearly six years older than Lulu. She has been on that bed for over a month, a warning sign that she's losing a long fought battle against the most dangerous disease of the day. "I can't tolerate you girls anymore!" Speaks the landlady, sarcastically, her eyes shifting from Mwajuma and back to Lulu.
"I know mama. I know." Lulu begs her, eyes staring weakly at the wide rat-hole on big mama's aged piece of khanga. "I'll give you the money, in few days. Please..."
For a short moment the Landlady stares blankly. Then she says, "And you keep on running around, avoiding me..."
"Not true mama. Sijapata pesa," Lulu pleads, "when I get the money, I swear, I'll pay you, all thirty."
"Listen, young girl. If I don't get that money by tomorrow evening, I throw both of you out of my house!"
"Mama please, I need--"
"Stop calling me mama!" Snaps the woman. "I'm not your mama. I don't have a sexually promiscuous daughter like you!"
Lulu bows her head in submission. The words cut through her heart like a sharp butcher's knife.
The landlady walks to the door and pulls it open. She turns around and once more cut a deadly stare at Mwajuma, whose weak frame is now crouched together in pain and fear; her pencil-line lips smack as she storms out of the room, banging the door behind her.
 "Humph!" Lulu sighs out of frustration. She gazes helplessly at Mwajuma, who yanks the blanket up to her chin in response, turning her skeleton face against the wall.
"I'll get her money, sis..." Lulu says, resuming her cosmetic activity. Bright red lipstick. Heavily dark eyeliner. Fake eyelashes. She opens up a small wooden box and picks out a pair of big hoop earrings. She stares at them indecisively for few seconds. Her walled face moves closer to the mirror as she puts them on. She picks a bunch of cheap, flashy jewelries from the box, and throws them around her neck. She combs  her hair in a messy afro.
She pulls herself up, throws a final glance at the scattered accessories over a small table-cum-dresser. She picks a tube of lipstick and slips it into her handbag.
A minute later Lulu exits the room, locking the door quietly behind her and starts down the scuffed, dimly corridor.

"I hope this is the last day you bring your curse in my house." A pitiful voice of the landlady has her knee-high black boot stumbling badly over the other, nearly bringing her down, head on. "Mama, you stunned me!" Clinging onto her tight brown leather-jacket, Lulu complains to the woman who is standing at her doorway, chit-chatting to her male neighbor.
The woman scolds at Lulu. But in a pig eye, the lanky man trails on her delicate low-cut tank-top of tiger spots that's left a pierced belly-button visible and her bra-less breasts unsecured. With a fat grin over his wide mouth, the boozeman tips his half-empty bottle of mbandule on his stained, yellow baseball cap. Then swallowing his lust with a chunk of alcohol, his big nose snorts heavily.
Lulu hurries past them, her hands thrusting the super-mini denim skirt down her curvy thighs, unsuccessfully.
It's Friday night. Best time for queens of the dark street to devour the hearts of the night. Lulu strolls onto a crumbling, squalid local neighborhood of Tandale Uwanja wa Fisi; a helluva slum predominantly for deadly local brews, notorious pushers and prostitutes of all stripes.
She passes through overcrowded and noisy open space, before squeezing herself onto a dark alley, along which she could see several women, frying and selling variety of seafood and other types of junkies to passersby. Streams of sanitary water run nearby. None of them is bothered by a foul, sordid trench in front of their eyes.
Shaking her head, Lulu tap-dances across a number of kids playing with muddy pools of water around the passageway, their mothers busy with customers.
"He-he-heee...unalo hilo(Gonorrhea)!" One woman ridicules Lulu as she passes through.
The rest laugh in unison, high-fiving each other,"Tena la mbwa haswa(not of a man, of a dog!)" They scorn Lulu, who smashes a quick stare at the first woman; now busy adjusting an infant over her back. She shrugs them off, and walks ahead.
A few steps further, at the junction, Lulu stops and scan the area before she hurriedly walks further down a dark street, towards the bus stop.
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To be continued...

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