How One Little Boy Caused Grandma to Stop Snuffing Tobacco (True Story)

This is a true story. It actually happened in my family and I was there to witness it. While the identity of some of the living person has been suppressed, there is no prize in guessing who we are talking about here.

It happened somewhere  in the early 80s. One thing for sure is that the then little person in question was at an age where they had a degree of self-awareness and curiosity to do what they did.

You see, my parents had moved from Lusaka to Chama in 1979. It must have been mid 1979 because I do recall going for my school holidays to Chama for the first time in August of that year.

Recent Satellite Image of part of Chama town  – like frozen in time. No apparent change  from some that long time ago when I was last there

And so on this particular occasion I was on university break (from UNZA) in Chama and at that time my grandmother ambuya Amaliya was visiting from the village, which was fantastic because it meant I was going to be pampered as I was the special one to my grandmother. Having the name of my Father’s father and also, I am told, having been inseparable with my grandma when I was small meant that ambuya a Maliya pampered me so much to the point of wanting to put me on her back even when I was obviously a ‘big boy.’ Now, I am digressing from the main course of the story.

The story is at that time my grandma ambuya a Maliya used to sniff ground tobacco. This was common among her generation, something which was a legacy from the colonial history. The tobacco was ground into a dry powder and stored in these little tin containers they carried around. Once in a while the container would appear, and a bit of the dry tobacco placed on the palm of the hand just above the thumb or on the back the hand. Then the hand would be raised to the nose and in one fell swoop the tobacco would be sniffed by the nose and just like that it would be gone delivering a dose of nicotine straight to the brain. I observed this ritual many times having been a bit curious about what the fuss was all about with the snuffing. Needless to say I did try to sniff a bit and it was most unpleasant and irritating to the nose resulting in so much sneezing and discharging brownish goo of mucus mixed with the tobacco. But somehow most of the oldies seemed to take this sniffing in their stride and not being hit by a bout of sneezing. If my memory serves me right Grandfather A Best Mukonshya used to snuff too, so it was not just women. More recently in 2004, I was underground in a mine in Queensland, Australia, with this consultant with a strong Yorkshire accent (English) discussing all things mining when to my amazement, without butting an eyelid, produced a little tin from his pocket and proceeded to take a pinch of ground tobacco and effortlessly snuffed it up his nose and continued talking like nothing had happened

Picture of Powdered tobacco in a tin

And so it was that grandmother was there at home and of course mucking around especially with the youngest of her grandchildren. Since curiosity runs in the family, what grandma didn’t realise was that this little boy had picked up on this ritual and even at that age was curiously trying to discover what this was all about. To be fair to grandma she was very meticulous on how she kept her little tin of magic. But it just happened once on a particular evening that grandma had not secured the merchandise properly or had looked away long enough - long enough for this little naughty boy to pounce, open the tin and take a massive sniff from grandma’s tin of magic. The next moment the little guy was sneezing all over the place and becoming delirious. Grandma realising what had happened picked up the little man, came running and being all hysterical about what she had done. At that point the little one was in quite a state, mucus freely running down the nose, sneezing like there was no tomorrow, eyes running, hiccups, breathing in a funny way etc. The panic button was hit and before long we were all on our way to the clinic, on foot with grandma shuffling in tow, hands behind her back. I remember very clearly my grandmother lamenting all the way to the clinic and praying for the Lord to spare the life of that little boy, confessing her sin of sniffing the stuff and having brought the tragedy upon the family, and making a declaration that she would never ever sniff the stuff again. No amount of reassuring that the little fella was made of sterner stuff and would be ok, comforted my poor old grandmother.

Now the distance from our house to the clinic was maybe 2km - definitely more than a kilometre and life being what it was then, we walked pretty much everywhere in that little town. It was evening and there was a nice cool breeze from the stream on the edge of town. And so as we walked with grandma continuing her lamentations and prayers and confessions the good Lord in his kindness was blowing a cool breeze on the little guys face and his delirium began to wane, his breathing began to improve and progressively the sneezing began to reduce. I don’t recall what actually transpired at the clinic – I think mum went in with the little boy while we remained outside. One thing I do remember though is that we didn’t stay too long at the clinic, shortly after we were on our way back home with the little fellow happily enjoying all the attention from all especially from his grandmother who was most over joyed. For a long time we joked about this and gave grandma so much ‘grief’ about the incident as we teased her – I miss my grandma.

The conclusion of the matter was that as far as I recall that is how grandma ambuya amaliya stopped snuffing ground tobacco, and no harm was done to the little guy who is now a big man and a father.