Some of our friends play for the other team.

Have you ever noticed how one of or a few of the guys you know are just … different? From childhood all the way to date, there’s always been something sneaky or uncertain about them. It starts early in your friendship but becomes more pronounced as life begins to happen. 

You know your circle by now. Some of us have a close knit group who we do deals with. Others drink together every weekend. Holidays. Name it. Your friends are an extension of who you are. You’re grateful for them. 

But sometimes, something is simply off about one or two of them. 

Growing up as boy in Zambia, football was the bond that brought boys together. One thing that was common to hear would be the words, “Apaya bola”. Loosely translated, it meant one of the boys always failed to keep the flow of the game moving. Misplaced passes, rough play, losing the ball. Crying loudest when fouled.

The chap was always a liability to the team. 

Some boys carry these traits into adulthood and find themselves a liability to the collective. Where a circle of friends is moving together with goals, challenges, wins and losses, there will be one playing for the other team. 

The one who is constantly in trouble. Drunk driving. Chronically cheating on his wife or girlfriend. Involved in land or gold scams. Fist fights with strangers. Playing for the other team. Causing fouls, handballs, missing penalties, getting red cards and scoring own goals.

We’re quick to see someone sabotaging the game plan of our lives when they’re people we know through work, business or social settings. But we rarely see this in our own friends – whether we grew up with them or met them as grown men with certified NRCs and TPINs. 

Kupaya bola reveals itself in many ways when you’re adults. It’s when you’re having lunch at a matebeto restaurant, updating each other on life, career, business and your friend’s girlfriend walks up to the table and splashes water at him for swindling her husband. 

Or when you get a phone call from a strange number, revealing that your friend has been arrested for assault or drunk driving. 

You will be dealing with the very real issues of university fees for your children, plumbing problems at one of your flats or a relative in hospital. Only to get a WhatsApp message asking ya ma diapers for the baby a grown man recently had with a young, fit university student. 

There’s a point in our friendships where we look at intent. How you move. Not what you say or claim. Not innumerable baby mamas, arrests, drunken episodes, GBV, fraud, chaos.

This is when you accept that your friend is clearly playing for the other team. Team B with its lack of consistency and seriousness, showing up late or never at all, dropping the ball. Killing the game. 

While we can be sympathetic to it all, the clock is ticking and it’s almost 90 minutes, mwana.