The other meaning of MCP

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Friday March 20, 2009 00:00

'What is MCP?' We would ask the bald-headed Mitchell, our attention now turned towards him as he leaned on his table. Laughingly, while shaking his head, the sage would retrieve a chalk from the cupboard and write MCP on the blackboard. And then, without uttering a single word, he would write the phrase in full: Male Chauvinist Pig. Over time, we tried very hard not to be pigs by ceding our chairs to girls in situations where conflicts looked eminent.

Now there is another MCP that looks set to become a byword in Botswana and Africa. It has got nothing to do with pigs, though by connotation it could have and should have. Many men and women in Botswana are guilty of Multiple Concurrent Partnerships (MCP) though there is a concerted campaign against the practice.

It is a practice that is certainly a sibling of other vices like prostitution.

A journalist I know said he was nearly skinned alive by his wife who had suspected him of having an affair. He dared to tell her that he could not eat only mealie meal everyday. He has to have rice and other staple foods some days (meaning he must have different sexual partners). 'She was so angry she refused to sleep with me that day. She chose to sleep in the other bedroom,' he told me.

And at a sports function, some dignitaries were exchanging banter when one of them revealed the things they do when they travel for official engagements overseas. He said they went into a duty-free shop at Heathrow Airport in England and he was surprised to see his companion buying two identical perfumes. 'Why are you buying two identical perfumes instead of one?' he asked. And the companion told him that the other one is for the 'small house'.

'You see, my wife is quite a discerning and curious person. The other day, she managed to pick out a scent I got from another woman with whom we had passionately hugged.

'This time I do not want her to suspect that I am hugging other women as I would be smelling of the same perfume like hers,' the companion explained.

Legends abound about how women also play their part in the practice of MCP. In the North East, people talk of a man from the South African mines who arrived unexpectedly one night to find his wife in a compromising position.

She had a male visitor, apparently the village headman who was said to have fashioned himself after King Mswati of Swaziland and would boast at mokuru (traditional beer) shebeens that all women whose husbands have gone away were his.

When the husband knocked and announced whom he was, the visitor scurried about the round mud hut and hid under the bed. There was very little space under the bed and he had to cover his bed with a cloth and some debris protruded by the side of the bed.

The husband came and sat on the bed and in no time noticed the grotesque protuberance and asked the wife what it was. 'It is an ironing board,' the wife replied in a shaky unconvincing voice.

The husband took a heavy object that was lying nearby and started pummeling the 'ironing board', which started groaning after the first blow. A few more smacks, and the ironing board let out a piercing scream.

There are more legends of this nature. In one, the husband unexpectedly arrived home and the illicit lover was shoved under the bed, which had ample space for hiding. There was a toddler in the house whose happiness knew no bounds. Inevitably, the father tossed a toy car to the boy before he sat down to exchange greetings with the terrified wife.

The boy who was squatting, started driving his car. 'Geeeeeem! Geeeeem! pe-pe-pe!' The car was tauntingly heading towards the man under the bed. 'Get out of the way if you do not want to be run over by the car. 'Geeeeeem! Geeeeem! pe-pe-pe!. This went on until the husband started taking notice and looked under the bed to see who his son was talking to only to discover a man lying in a foetal position eyes bulging with fear.

That was a way of life from the late 1980s, 1990s and even the early 2000s when talk about such practices was done as casually as if talking about the bag of mealie meal.

But there were exceptions. There were couples that would remain inseparable in the midst of these ungodly sexual liaisons. Sometimes the couples would elicit derisions from onlookers.

In the villages, people would whisper and pinch each other whenever a man who is always seen with his wife passes by.

Such people would call the man names like Pharamosese (skirt chaser) and accuse him of watching their women with a hawk's eye.

'O disa mosadi monna yo. You will never see the woman alone. Even when she goes to the toilet, he follows her,' people would talk.

At other times, the wife will be accused of giving the husband 'moratiso' (love potion).
'Kare o hemisitse monna. Bona fela gore ga a nke a kgaogana le ene. Ba nna ba tsamaya botlhe nako tsotlhe. Le mosadi a ya ko ntlwaneng tota. (She has bewitched this man. Just look at the fact that they are never apart. They are together all the time even when the woman is going to the toilet),' the gossipers will say.

Out in the villages and towns of Botswana, a man has to be seen a real man when he has many girlfriends even if he is married. This was encouraged by the fact that the wife is usually told never to ask her man where he comes from or where he was going.

The woman would be told in no uncertain terms: 'Monna ke phokoje, ga a botswe kwa a tswang/yang (A man is a jackal. Never ask him where he is going/from)'.

The advent of HIV/AIDS has not really affected the institution of bonyatsi. The maxim is still 'Monna ke poo ga a agelwe lesaka (A man is a bull not to be en-kraaled)'.

Another old adage that was taken out of context was that it was permissible for neighbours to use an axe interchangeably. Some men and women took it to mean that there is nothing wrong with a man having many lovers as he is like an axe to be used interchangeably.