Lusaka woman receives beating over unpaid beer

A friendship of three women of Lusaka disintegrated into slaps, wig pulling, and biting each other after one of the ladies failed to contribute her fair share to settle a bar bill.

Eyewitnesses narrated to #Kalemba that Gertrude Musanya, Anita Yumba and Queen Mwebela; all females of the marriage age of above 30 are well-known patrons of local bars with a reputation of emptying big Black Label bottles without a single blink.

And so it was, that as parts of Lusaka were being flooded by rains, the trio also went to flood their bellies with beer, and if opportunity shows, also secure a man or two for the night.

But as fate may have it, only Queen secured a man for the night who lavished her with bottles of Black Label; the beer loved for being as bitter as traditional herbal concoctions used to perform unsafe abortions.

Seeing her friend had struck gold, Gertrude chose to move her high bar stool close to where her friend with her new partner were seated.

Conveniently, she called for one beer after another under the belief that the newly-found buyer would also pay for her bill: but she was wrong! After drinking his beer, the buyer took Queen to a nearby cheap Guest House where he put her to good use.

With his zip closed and belt strapped back, sense returned to the buyer that he would only pay the bill he had racked up with Queen and he would deduct from the payment he owed Queen for the guest house outing to cater for her friends bill.

However, the loss of K120 that she had earned from hard work on a noisy wooden bed did not sit well with Queen and she engaged the services of her other friend, Anita to recover the money from Gertrude in the morning.

When asked to pay the K120, Gertrude claimed that Black Label made her forget things as it formatted her memory like a USB Flash Drive and as such she did not remember drinking beer worth K120 off someone’s account.

This cheeky response annoyed Queen and Anita who decided to jog their friends memory with a painful lecture. The two women attacked Gertrude.

Kicks, slaps, hair pulling amidst a sound track of insults were at play.

By the end of the ordeal, the duo had ripped off Getrude’s clothes such that only her alleged forgetful 32-year old body was left naked for all to see.

Humiliated and shocked by her buddies ferocious debt-collection tactics, Gertrude sued them in the Matero Local Court for compensation.

Arraigned before court, Queen and Anita denied ever knowing Gertrude or ever beating her over an amount less than the price of a 25 Kg bag of roller meal.

However, eyewitnesses who rescued the forgetful debtor, among them, a police officer, told the court that indeed, the two beat up their friend and also attempted to insert a cob of maize in her private parts so that she could also feel the pain Getrude endured when servicing the buyer the previous evening.

Shocked and awe at the callous violence of the women, the court ordered Queen and Anita to pay Gertrude K3000 each as compensation for the torture they subjected her to.

By Buumba Mwitumwa

Kalemba February 22, 2023