Chapter 16: A motorway free of fraud

Wolverhampton to Manchester

The roadside stand was getting a little nervous. I was going to Manchester for a gig, so I had to get there in good time and long waits made me techy. I constantly checked my phone trying to find some backup means of transport in case it all went wrong. Standing in the services on the M6 though the only way out was in someone else's car. 

I was going to see the WITCH. They’re a Zambian band, a Zamrock band, who earned notoriety during heady days in the 70s for their wild, expressive performances. Decades later they’d reformed and seeing them play was something I couldn’t miss.

Zamrock had been a unique phenomenon. A fizzing mix of psychedelic rock and rumbling Zambian rhythms that saw a newly empowered youth enamoured by rock n roll. Zambia gained independence from the Brits in 1964 but in the 70s most of the country’s copper mines were still owned by British firms. British employees brought with them their records and Melody Makers and the infectious rock n roll slowly seeped into the surrounding towns. Zambians covered the songs they heard and naturally imbued them with their own unique sound and when an economic boom kicked off, Zamrock was born. Barely 5 years later the whole thing crashed, the economy, the music and the rockstars themselves. A war in neighbouring Rhodesia meant the Brits bombed Lusaka and curfews were imposed. As the economy faltered, the movement crumbled. Then AIDs hit. Zamrock lost many of its greatest musicians.

Today barely a handful of Zamrockers survive. I’d had the pleasure of meeting three of them. Jagari Chanda, the WITCH’s enigmatic frontman named after Mick Jagger, was one. I’d spent an afternoon with Victor Kasama, the ‘Zambian Jimi Hendrix’ and Jagari the year before in Lusaka but the one I had been most interested in was Keith Kabwe. A freedom fighter turned rockstar turned preacher, I’d gone on an expedition to find him, hitchhiking across the country to do so.

It was fitting to be hitchhiking to see his old friend Jagari performing.

Jagari (left) and Victor

            Hitchhiking in Zambia is a very different thing. Unlike in Britain, it is still widely practised. Some are sceptical of calling it ‘hitchhiking’ because there’s always an exchange of money, but I disagree - you’re still getting in a stranger’s car. Because it is so commonly done, there are well-known prices for each journey so from Mbala to Kasama say, it might cost you 100 kwacha or from Kasama to Mpika perhaps 150. Of course, negotiation was encouraged but it generally wouldn’t get you that far. The hitchhiking price was usually about the same price as the bus. 

            Nevertheless, as with anywhere, it was well worth doing. The thrill of climbing up the rusted ladder of a lorry cab or piling into a crammed minibus bus full of people and their various iterations of luggage was just as exhilarating as jumping into the back of a car anywhere else in the world. The characters were just as interesting too and in Zambia most people speak 7 or 8 languages so English was widely spoken. It was a great way to see the country and those that lived within it. 

            Hitchhiking to Manchester that day bought back fond memories. I remembered pulling into a rural town at dusk in the cab of an arctic lorry. The driver was a friendly man and though I never got his name we’d had a long chat. As we came in he slowed up and wolf-whistled at a sparingly dressed lady on the roadside below. It was his “second wife” he told me with an excited grin as he set about making his lorry nice and tidy. As she climbed up I was asked very politely, yet with a certain salivating urgency, to vacate the cab immediately. I did so and watched as they pulled away slowly to find a quiet spot somewhere in the purple evening.

            One driver I had I’m sure was on drugs. We rushed down the long straight roads, bouncing up and down mercilessly in the springy cabin. He was hunched over the huge wheel with his jaw clenched. His eyes never left the road and he answered my questions with curt, one-word replies. He had pulsing, pumping music blasting from a tinny speaker next to him and sometimes he’d take both hands off the wheel and groove his shoulders to the music for a while before fixing his grip firmly back on the wheel. We stopped for a very short break and he leapt out onto the tarmac and did a burst of rapid sprints, rushing back and forth frenetically for a few minutes before flying back into the cab and racing onwards.

It wasn’t uncommon to find yourself travelling with another hitchhiker. On one long journey, again in the cavernous cab of a lorry, I was accompanied by a man named Milo. He sat nervously on the edge of the bed behind the driver, watching every mile anxiously. He was on his way to the capital Lusaka for a job interview. In a car driving 120km an hour with a clear run, Milo could have expected to make the journey in 10 hours. We were chugging along at half that speed and it had taken him most of the day to get just a third of the way. Without any work in his home province and a family to support, Milo was forced to find a job in Lusaka. When he was told he had a job interview in 24 hours’ time he had run out to the road and hitchhiked his way south. It was approaching 5 and he thought if all went well he could be in the capital for 6 the next morning, just in time for his 9 o'clock deadline.

“Is it a good job?” I asked.

“It’s a job,” he replied, “Any job’s a good job.”

He explained it was to be a cashier in a supermarket.

Hitchhiking in Zambia.

Back in a Wolverhampton service station, I wondered how Milo had got on. I stood smiling awkwardly at cars as they eased passed back onto the motorway.

Eventually, a beaten-up Renault stopped and I got in. It was driven by a bald man with a big grey-brown beard. He was very glad to be helping me out and his name was Aaron.

“I saw you there mate and I thought, ‘e wants a go Manchester.” He nodded assertively and swept his hand in the direction of the great city.

Aaron was quite amazed to be picking me up. That very morning he’d been speaking to a friend in Pakistan who’d asked him whether he picked up any hitchers. He said he hadn’t for years and then about two hours later he drove past me. Strange coincidence.

I thanked him and told him most are too scared these days to let a stranger in their car.

“Well you know what, mate?” he had a Mancunium-Pakistani accent and said mate like ‘mairte’. “You know what mate?” he continued, “How many fraudulent people do you see on the motorway? Go on. How many?”

I tried to think if I’d ever seen any.

“Fuckin’ none mate!” He gave another assertive nod.

I wasn’t sure about his logic but given that I too had never seen any fraudulent people on the motorway I realised I couldn’t fault it.

We drove on and Aaron told me all about his job. He was a second-hand car dealer and had picked up the Renault that morning from Newport. It was a good find and he was extremely excited about it. 2005 with only 5000 miles on the clock all it needed was a scrubbing-up and an MOT before it would be ready to go. He was planning on getting it up tomorrow and the sense of satisfaction was immense.

“It’s important to do what you love, mate.” He nodded. “Me, I do do this for the money, but I also get a massive buzz out of it! Right now this car has zero MOT, zero tax,” he counted them both out on his fingers, “You drive this mate, you get pulled over. Straight away, no question. Me? I don’t. I can drive it wherever I like.” He flashed a smug expression my way.

“Hold on a minute,” he rustled around in his tracksuit pocket for his ringing phone. He found it and pulled it out with a flourish. Within seconds he was bellowing down it at his son with deafening volume. Then he hurriedly passed me the phone and asked me to call the estate agents, reassuring me that he never used his phone while driving. I did as I was asked and handed it back setting off another shouting match with some poor clerk.

“…I know what I signed dumbo!” Aaron yelled, “I’m not stupid you know! Alright fine. Cancel the deal then! We’ll pull out. Go on pull out! I dare you! HIT THE BASTARD IN THE BOLLOCKS!”

He put the phone down, huffed a sigh then turned and said calmly, “Did you ever study Islam?”

“Ask me any questions you want mate. Anything. I’ll answer them.”

“Do you pray every day?”

“Without fail.”

Suddenly the jerking, rustling bonanza began again as he searched his pockets for his exploding phone. This time he swiped it open and held it up in front of him, beaming at the laggy picture that emerged on it. A moment later he was shouting in Urdu and waving the phone erratically. Every now and then he’d remember he was driving and jerk the car aggressively back into lane.

It turned out to be the very friend he’d been talking to about hitchhikers. He thrust the phone back in my hand, I looked down at the face sitting somewhere 4000 miles away.

“As-salamu Alaikum!”

Suddenly Aaron leant over and roared extremely loudly “GOGARRLL!” His friend shouted it back and a great shouting match began, back and forth several times before Aaron goaded me to weigh in too. Despite being slightly shell-shocked by the sheer volume of Aaron’s request, I did. “No, louder!” he insisted. “And g-o  g-a-r-l…. GOGARL!!”  So the three of us shouted “Gogarl” back and forth at the top of our voices until we all got tired and his mate hung up. It turned out it was a nickname.
            In the end, Aaron took me all the way around Manchester after a communication error and dropped me on the opposite side of the city. I had to get a dreary hour and a half tram to my mates’ house in Altrincham. In truth I was glad of the peace and quiet after the full-frontal experience I’d had in Aaron’s battered Renault.

I briefly caught up with my mates but couldn't convince any of them to come to the gig with me. 70s Zambian rock music is a hard sell (although anyone in the know knows of course that it shouldn’t be) so in the end, I headed into town myself.

The gig was brilliant. At 75 Jagari had all the energy of his namesake Mick, and he came out onto the cramped carpeted stage holding a colourful hat full of fruit. He proceeded to nibble on the various bits throughout the show, momentarily stopping his twisting gyrations to pop another grape in or have a bite of his cucumber. The crowd was mostly people my age, dressed like they were from the 70s, cavorting to the woozy rhythm of the electric guitars.

Jagari and the WITCH in Manchester.

Halfway through, Jagari, glistening with sweat, observed with a laugh, “You know, when we Africans dance, we dance with our bodies,” he shook his hips illustratively, “When people here dance, they dance with their heads, like this,” he bobbed his head stupidly and everyone laughed. During the next song, I noticed everyone making a special effort to dance with their bodies more.

After the show, I went up to say hi to Jagari, unsure if he’d remember me. It turned out he did. “Do you live in this city?” he asked with a frown, “I thought you lived in London?”

“I do?”

“Did you not know we are playing in London on Tuesday?”

I realised as I looked at the tour poster that he was right. I could have gone a few days later just a few miles from my house. The entire trip in a sense had been completely pointless. As I walked back through the dark, damp Mancunian streets though I was more than glad that I hadn’t noticed the London date. Sometimes the pointless journeys are the best.