Of course I have issues

Would you sing if you knew you were dead?

2012-02-01T03:49:00.001-08:00

A while back, my mother took to playing Jim Reeves cassettes all day for many weeks. My brother, then about 6 or 7 years, must have loved the tunes for he eventually asked her who the singer was. My mother, a teacher who is never off duty explained. “Jim Reeves. He was American. He died in a plane crash while travelling from the UK where he had gone to sing for the queen.” My brother, also the best student any teacher could ask for, mauled this information for a while and then came back with a follow-on question. “Now as he sings, does he know that he is dead?”
Hehehehe! Tell me. Would you sing if you knew you were dead? I am not sure I would sing even if I knew I was dead. But, if I knew I was dead, I would not cry either. What would be so bothersome about the promise that forever you will lie there and not be bothered about the hustle and bustle of the human circus? You know something? I might even laugh out loud if I knew I was dead.

The thing I hate most about being in my 20s

2012-01-17T07:52:00.000-08:00

I have always hated many things about being my age. I was a precocious child so I absolutely hated the fact that I had to join in the playing of dusty games just to fit in. Now I am a 28 year old living the single settled life of a post menopausal woman. Of course I hate my age on very many levels. But, if I had to pick that one thing I hate the most, it would be this – having to act like everything is casual. It absolutely is not. But I have to do it because my peers think it is cool and I want to get along with them. Call me tightly wound if you will but from my perspective, very few things are causal. The following things are especially not casual.
My job
It is absolutely not a casual affair whether or not I get hired for that job I am interviewing for. So, don’t you dare laugh at me for wearing high heels on that day. It is definitely not casual whether or not I do it well once I get it and it would break my self-esteem forever if ever I was fired for non performance. So, if we have a task to complete together, freaking invest yourself in it or I will kill you. Of course, I will only kill you in my mind. On the outside, I will be faking your sloppy attitude to fit in. Another thing, I will kill you for – forcing me to fake sloppiness.
My sex life
If I sleep with you or even just kiss you, don’t wake up the next day acting like we just high fived in a bar. We did a lot more than that. And yes, now you owe me a completely respectful and long term relationship. What? Now you say, it is still complicated with your ex? I am so going to kill you.
My money
Whether it is in the form of car fuel, the bar tab or shared domestic bills, please use the things I spend my money on sparing. Better still, fuel the car when you use it, pick your own bar tab and give me your share of the rent on time. Also if I am not home for a month, don’t keep the water bill waiting for me to pay half of it when it is carried over to the next month. And now, if I lend you my money, freaking return it on time and not in those little installment of 50k off a sh1m debt. I watch my money like a hawk and when you slip up on carrying your own financial weight in whatever partnership we are in, I notice. Even when I act casual about it, I bear a grudge. I will be cutting you off soon.

Grateful for Dusk

2012-01-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

They, she and he love the dawn
In the golden rays they watch arise
She reads of a promise refreshly sworn
He wills yesterday’s slate to cleanly erase
But I am grateful for dusk that announces night
Mine own half of the clock owed to none
A shade to lick the wounds of today’s fight
A slack to let be what today has not be done
Calmly I think of tomorrow’s war
Already half won by this night
Its peace will blanket those that war
The night will calm the aggressor’s fight

Prayer for this year: A Good Man

2012-01-06T01:44:00.000-08:00

Dear Lord, Buddha, Fate, Coincicende or whatever whoever you are the makes things happen, I have a request for this year. A good man who comes home to my bed every night. Or atleast with some regularity. I am not asking for too much. Just the following.

Comes home at night with some frequency. Ummm… thanks for the men you have sent my way so far. They were all sort of okay. But, the one you sent me in my early 2000s did not come home after our first crisis. The one after was knocking on the door when he had a toddler giggle inside. He u-turned never to be seen again. Then there was that exceptional man who slipped out of my arms into the world to be even more exceptional. And, please, don't take me back to those days, when they all used to come home at 2am after drunken nights with the boys. I have no stamina for fidelity patrol anymore. Just send me a guy who likes my china satin sheets, okay?

Grown and secure: Lord, I have noted with concern that you might have accidentally pierced that guy who sits across the office from me with a cupid arrow doused with my blood. That was an accident, right? At least I assured him as much when he confessed his two year love for me. I am asking for a man. Not a baby who throws tantrums every two hours, still believes in that S.2 nonsense of being seen with the cool crowd and literally metarmophises into a cheap entertainment clown every time he gets the attention of the room. I am a mother already and you know my one child policy. I ain’t adopting another. A man, Lord, a man. Thank you.

Should not smell: Coincidence, if you happen to bump into a nice looking guy you figure is a good match for me, please pass him by Capital Shoppers first. To the left of the entrance is that aisle for all things good for his armpit, two aisles behind that is the one for socks. They are known to absorb things that would otherwise make his shoes provoke me into committing murder. Also I am happy to beforehand lend him my Naaki, the laundry lady. She washes all odour out of clothes and even shoes. She simply is a miracle worker!

Show off Workaholic? Only pass me his ATM PIN dear Fate. You will not under any circumstances lead me to that guy who only confirms Friday night date at 9pm of the same night because he was too busy all day to send a text message. Msshcwwwt…. As if he was fixing inflation. Nonsense. I don’t want.

An artistic man: Thank you. I know you are delivering on this one already. Just so you know, I am more of a poet’s kind of girl. But, I wouldn’t turn down that guy who sings a smooth tenor in the Kampala music school choir. I have heard that Uma Tete is sort of young but GNL Zamba is not too much younger than me, is he? Okaaay, any of the Urban Legend guys? Come on!! You said you were delivering already.

In the name of the Lord, Buddha, Fate and Coincidence. Amen.

The Annoying Opinion of Older Me

2011-12-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

I have a multiple personality disorder of some sort. I also have an unhealthy fancy for mental illness. This is the 8th major mental problem I have diagnosed myself as having. But let’s stick with it. I have a benign multiple personality disorder. Benign because the other me is still as harmless as the original me, just older, wiser and with more life experience.
Wiser, yes she is but her wisdom is rather inconvenient. For one, it often intrudes on my perfectly age appropriate activities like nights of beer and sex talk. It also has an annoying disdain for the collective wisdom of my friends and I. Following is some of the more annoying opinion she has expressed to me.

What’s with the childlike frenzy to find a life mate?
First it was the girls. Like a wild fire, this notion that one must find a mate to lock up as soon as yesterday, spread from one pretty head to another like a wild fire. Those with more persuasive skill than others did manage to trot a none-the-wise guy up to the altar. Others didn’t manage to drag that horse beyond the kwanjula and others yet settled for tying them down with a baby or two. By chance, poor scheming skills, average looks and character that is not universally appealing to the male specie, you managed to escape that net. Now it is the boys. Do me the favour and do the bothersome maths. What percentage of the men you have socialized with in the last few months has mentioned intentions to get married and asked you about yours? 90%? Okay I will make a more generous margin. That leaves us at 86%. I swear to you if you bring anyone of those guys home for a two nighter, they will never leave. Then one day you will be old with nothing to think on but how completely unremarkable your romantic life has been. Good luck with the mid-life crisis that will surely come of that revelation.

Alcohol does have some undesirable effects on your body, you know.
No I am not talking about the fact that it increases the chances that the following day you will retrieve that body from a bed unknown to you. That particular tendency is a naturally occurring consequence of your age. One that thankfully continues to delay your lack in finding that life mate. One whom you desire only out of the vague youthful ambition to get everything without even trying to earn any of it.
To put what I am talking about plainly, if you drink on Thursday night, your body will function below par if at all on Friday. If you saturate your blood with alcohol every weekend (Thur to Sun), you will function below par all week. That indeed is the one and only explanation why you have barely moved a notch on your career path for the last three years. You got an official regular salary back in 2009 and that has since ensure you can afford unhealthy amounts of alcohol.

A similar effect is accrued for all night parties
And no, don’t sulk like a child whose toy I just took away. You are goddamn 28. That is 10 years beyond the date you were certified to have some sense.
The least you can do is merely act like an adult.

No, you are not too smart (or sexy) to have that guy for a boss
First, you would have to be smarter than him for that delusion of yours to hold. That you well might be. But the more difficult part is that you also would have to act as grown up as he does. Looks like it is going to take you another 10 years just to try.

Oh and about that dream of retiring at 35
You have read one too many self-help books of the one minute millionaire type. Just saying… as you young people nonsensically quip.

Okay, someone get this old hag out of her. Shoo, shoo… you cow go away. Go smoke some tobacco pipe or whatever it fossils that haven’t left the earth do.

Sometimes I Pray

2011-12-20T14:02:00.001-08:00

I am not a religious person. I never could bring myself to believe in big brother up above watching and waiting to reward or punish. I all too often get no reward for good deeds and about as often get away with certified evil. It doesn't add up.

But I understand the need to be religious - to believe in a thing higher than yourself. Infact, I some times cap a religious feel. In those moments when I am tongue tied with gratitude for a substantial gain in my life, I quickly invent or borrow the God of Israel and thank him for the blessing. In the thin hour when I have tried everything I can but failure still remains eminent, I ask the Lord to take over. Even in that moment, I don't believe that God of Israel exists and cares about my little world's valleys and hills. But then again, I never objectively believed myself to be drowning in a pair of eyes yet I have quite a few times successful convinced a guy and myself that was the case.

Today is one of those days when I chose to pray. I pray because it is 1am and a dull pain lies idling in my chest. I know not where it comes from, why it comes and when it intends to leave. Does it intend to leave at all? I pray because if I don't make believe that someone or something bigger than myself can take control of the situation, I just might take matters into my own hands. I will pray for no one likes the sight of bloodied hands.

Numbness

2011-12-09T21:53:00.001-08:00

A vast vale exists between my heart and my mind
I see the kindness in my friends’ eyes when they reach out for me
To lightly touch my hand and say they will hang around until it is okay
But I do not feel the smoothing caress such kindness should bring

My mind is awed by the love of my family impossible to frustrate
No number of unanswered calls or misses at my door stops them
Unrelentingly, they call, they knock, they go in circles trying to get in
As if perceiving a mere byte of fact I register the love that represents
But still and dark as the night, my heart stands apart from it all
It blankly stares and I know not how to snap it out of its stupor

My theory on why a pack of condoms has three pieces

2011-12-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

In most things, I am an average girl. I never fail but am also rarely excellent. But there are a few things I excel at. One of those things is that I think as fast as I can speak especially when the subject is off colour. Today, I got just the moment to shine.

This being World AIDS day, the AIDS Information Centre came by our office and placed packs on condoms in the loos. Which got one of my workmates wondering, “Why does a pack of condoms contain three pieces. Why not four, one, two , five or ten even?” He asked just the right person on such subjects – me. I didn’t even have to think about it or catch a breath before I answered.

It is genius marketing. We all know that the average guy can do two rounds. So, for purposes of protection please don’t give him only one condom. But you want him to buy the thing. You gotta falter to persuade him. So you throw in a third to make him feel like you think he is more than the average guy in these things. Now, don’t make it five. The customer will feel small – like his two rounds fall far too short of the expectation. God help your product if you cram some 10 pieces into that pack!

Hehe! I am so proud of myself. I think on my feet! Griiiin!

Letter to my 418 Facebook Friends

2011-11-24T23:17:00.000-08:00

I liken my life (maybe all lives but I will speak only for myself) to a kingdom in reverse. I am the monarch, the major going concern, in the establishment. But is it in reverse because I have next to no power in the kingdom. Like a monarch who allowed his subjects to get carried away with their ideas of people power, I am a slave to the community that peoples my kingdom.
In my kingdom, the community I slave for are my friends, family, colleagues and all other sundry individuals that dot and chain the network that my life is. All my aspirations can be summed into a sentence – things that will impress my friends. All my values are one thing – that which my family approves of. All my day’s labour is but a means to get ahead or at par with the league of workaholics I spend my daylight with.

It is not just that they influence me. My people also have real power over me – information on me.They own my life story. Theyv have been there to witness my most inglorious episodes and moments. The drunken confessions, the lapses in common sense inspired by the folly of new found love, the dark venomous rants of my anger, the shameful moments of greed and selfishness, the animalistic ecstasy of winning of the small wars of my life, the stumbling of my convictions. They have seen it all. They remember it all and they could break me with it if they chose it.
Of course they try to soothe with declarations that they would never chose to break me. But still I sit shifty in the knowledge that they hold it to and perhaps subconsciously delight in holding it. Power is power and the powerless always resent being held at the mercies of the powerful even if only in a merely academic and theoretical way.

I suppose it is some of that resentment that drives me to promiscuity in friends. Promiscuity liberates me. If my life story is scattered in hundreds of status updates each remembered by segments of a universe of 500 friends, then no single person holds enough to have real power over me. It does not empower me but it certainly tips the balance. That is why I amasse you in hordes, dear friends. You are my liberating promiscuity.

Today I flirt with one, tomorrow another. I offload a dark confession and in minutes switch the conversation to a flighty joke. I am a belly dancer and you are my molten audience. I seduce and you come along only to have me shoo you off. Then you turn the game on me. In turns we go each a getting their chance to be a seductive maiden with the universe of oglers. Of course we have intimacy issues and together we feed our well loved disease.

Journos, ever conduct interviews via Skype? You can record them too!

2011-11-22T05:25:00.000-08:00

Is there a Ugandan reporter out there who is so tech enthusiastic that they no longer labour across town to meet the source for an interview but instead send an outlook or Gmail calendar appointment request and at the appointed time place a Skype call from the comfort of their office desk? I hope so. And if you are still wasting your employer’s money by conducting phone interviews or travelling to meet with sources you could have reached via Skype, I will not defend you when I learn of how little they pay you. Also, I am not going to give you a Skype tutorial. In fact I have stopped addressing you.
Addressing the truly tech savvy reporter who does conduct interviews via Skype: Now you can record them too! I was about to launch into a lengthy justification for why you need to record your interviews but then I remembered you went to journalism school. So, on to the mechanics of recording your Skype interview. First: you go to this site and download the app; http://www.jiteco.com You will get a 14 day full function trial. You know the drill about installing apps; just click yes and next whichever the prompt is. When you are done, a purple icon (Riveira for Skype) will place itself on your desktop.
When you are going to start your interview, get onto Skype, open Riviera too. Soon as you Skype call, Riviera will ask you if you want to record it to which you will of course say yes. I have tested it. The recordings sound as clear as you hear over your headsets. I wonder if that means they are broadcast-able. Try it and tell me about it.
Also, I am made to understand that you this app can be useful to long distance lovers who want to win the next argument on who said what snide thing during the last conversation. I haven’t tested that obviously.

Love Profound or Profane

2011-11-16T22:21:00.000-08:00

I am not a hopeless bubble head of romance. Not a frivolous lover of the physical and inconsequential. I am a true and deep lover of the soul. In truth that does not stumble, I love as completely as I ever know. With fierce loyalty, I erect protectorate forts around the defects of the object of my love. With worshipping love, I build outstanding monuments atop their shining elements. I give all that’s in my breast and when it is not sufficient I go fetch some more. I hold nothing back, leave no walls erect, lay myself bare.
I could control and reserve some of myself but I refuse to give without truly giving. I despise lovers whose offering is made in calibrated portions. What cowardly profanity! They don’t deserve to love or be loved in any measure.
Yet, when all is said and done, love profound or profane are twins just about identical. Be your love epic or fanciful, the day after its warm, in a clumsy stampede of emotions, you will find it mingled with the muck underfoot.

How Children Make Your Life Perfect

2011-10-26T07:51:00.001-07:00

I am her mum. That means that when I am driving, she sits still in the back seat and God screaming help us should she not buckle her seatbelt. It also means that as long as she is seated in the car, I keep my hands firmly on the wheel, my mind on the traffic and my eyes on the road. What if we hit a big pothole and my baby breaks her tender spine. It is boring I know. That is why God gave mums childless friends.
We were blessed by a visit from one such friend the other day. Driving into my compound, she allowed my five year old to sit on her lap (lie really) and step on the brakes while she drove. Oh Lordy Lord, did you see that little face? No you did not for half of it was covered by a grin bigger than the mouth you put on it. The other half was blindingly lit by the pure joy behind the grin.
The moments we live for.

Once we sang patriotic songs. Now we are just cool

2011-10-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Remember the little girl who used to sing Ekitiibwa kya Buganda, well, she went to school and met your ol time music teacher and came home to find Hanna Montana on TV. Here goes;

Suppose you were a thief

2011-09-26T01:31:00.000-07:00

Suppose you were a thief. Not one of these big fancy thieves who still millions to go play in Las Vegas. No, supposed you were more of the regular kind of guy. A thief who still steals the old fashioned way – breaking, entering and retrieving sundry possessions. Suppose you were a thief who specialized in car radios.
Tell me. How many radios would you have to steal to satisfy regular needs like guaranteeing some kind of sauce for the family dinner every day? Would black market sales of one or two car radios in a month provide two eggplants for each family supper that month? Supposing it could, tell me how many more car radios it would take to meet slightly more demanding needs like facilitating the births of offsprings who seem to breed each other? How many radio thefts does it take for you to be recognized by your peers as a real thief anyway? I mean, the community seems rather crowded by numbers and types. How many car radios would you steal before the partying thieves of millions even notice that you exist among the ranks of their brigades?
Are you beginning to see why it would annoy me if you stole my car radio? First, it wouldn’t make a difference in your little miserable life anyway. But worse, I would then sit in this silenced car and reflect on the embarrassing fact that the lout who took my radio is one with absolutely no ambition. In a time and country where millions of cash appear to surrender themselves into the long palms of thieves, he is still stealing car radios. That is like being a subsistence farmer in the Canadian prairies. How bad a loser does one get?
Oh by the way, how would you explain taking my child’s school uniform off the line in the backyard, leaving the more useful blanket behind? I don’t suppose your child would need a school uniform, would they? You are a lame thief without prospects I agree but surely even you wouldn’t be that daft. You wouldn’t take your child to school, would you? I mean, they would have your DNA. What could be achieved from taking them to school with intelligence inherited from you? Then again, I wouldn’t suppose that a goal to simply overcrowd schools would be too light for an imagination like yours.

"How do they make people?"

2011-09-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a most bizarre conversation with my soon to be five year old daughter. She seemed thoughtful at the breakfast table to I asked, “Hailey, what do you think about when you keep quiet like that?” Her: I am thinking, “How do they make people?” It is the second time in a year she expresses that thought so I decided I would try my best to satisfactorily answer it this time.
Me: Mummies give birth to babies. Babies grow up and become people.
Her: Yes, but how do they get babies?
Me: When a mummy wants a baby, the baby starts growing in her stomach.
Her: What is those things they do when they get drunk?
Me: (In obvious shock). What? What is getting drunk?
Her: When they drink those things. What do they call them? Wine.
Me: Baby, where did you see drunk people
Her: On TV
Me: What did they do when they got drunk
Her: Those things.
Me: What things
Her: They make babies.
Oh dear me! Parents, you can quit the lying. Kids are so onto us already.

A Lonely Feast

2011-09-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

I believe that love gives you a painter’s eye.
With love, you see beautiful patterns in what others consider ordinary things.
Your mind is held still by the bold colours that delineate these patterns from their backdrop.
Much like a painter, you may well be the only one that sees those patterns.
You may be the only one in whose mind’s eye, the backdrop so completely fades
It’s a fortunate thing for lovers I suppose
For if everyone saw what you see, a royal mess it would be
Yet again, it is a cage for a lover without a painter’s hand
How do you make the curious world see what they can’t see?
How do you share the feast in your eyes with them that are effectively blind?
And if you can’t, how do you enjoy a feast if you are the only one at the table?
It is a curiously lonely place to be
In love with that whose beauty is subtler than men’s common sense

Village Memories: Distant, Exotic, Romantic.

2011-07-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

The food at the cafeteria today tasted like the food we ate at the wedding of Ssekiwunga, son of Muzeeyi and Mukyala Matiya. I think he was marrying Maama Jimmy. It may have been the oily extravagance the caterers made of the gravy or the taste of over-steamed matooke that continues to burn the tongue several seconds after you swallowed it. Something about that food has my mind filled with images of that day so long ago.
A troupe of women is dancing that fruit picking Bakisimba stroke under the old jacaranda tree in the Matiya housestead. ♪♪♪Kikyo! Kiliwa ekimuli? Kikyo! Kiliwa nkinoge? ♪♪♪ Hmmh! Apparent they were picking flowers not fruits.
Cousin Nassali (RIP), wearing the boldest red of lip-stick, is donning a green dress of fake silk. Her eye-brows are as thick as elephant grass leaves. She pasted them above her eyes with a burnt and still hot piece of rubber torn off the family bicycle’s rubber taping – the taping that holds goods onto the carrier. Funny, the image of her hair on this day does not come to mind but I know what it must look like. She combed it straight and dehydrated using that old fashioned hot comb that you put in the fireplace. Its red-hot fingers do wonders to a head of hair that has been generously dosed with Shanti petroleum jelly.
Ummh! The image of a dome-shaped tent made of out dry banana leaves just flushed. They only made those for short staying or sleep-over visitors. I believe the one that just flashed by is being built for a Ssenga travelling all the way from Masaka to Mubende for the wedding.
Memories from a very far away world. They seem distant. Romantic. Exotic. And indeed they are all these things. That wedding was at least 21 years ago. By regular measure, a whole generation has gone by. It happened in a world I departed nearly as many years ago. Nassali, barely 14 at the time, eloped with a stranger from the city in the wee hours of that wedding night. That disgraceful occurance made my mother decide that I needed to leave the village - go and live in a more constructive environment. Thus, my days as a child who slept in her grandmother’s bed (for there was no more sleeping space in her house full of grandkids) ended. Oh but I miss dancing my little fingers through the layered wrinkles of her elbows. It was a lullaby like no other.
Alas my finger are small no more and her wrinkles are no more either. She is no more. Ironically, there now is sleeping space in her house - for all the grandkids have left for more constructive environments.

A ghost in my family

2011-05-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

A cousin of mine recently passed away. RIP his poor soul which was claimed by a truck that knocked him off a boda boda on Yusuf Lule Road. And may we the living go on to live, telling hilarious stories as we send him off.

You know how when the extended family comes together, one branch of the family will automatically be picked on as theme of the day. If during this funeral Ssalongo and his successful sons are the topic, at the next, it will be Kojja Sentamu and his ill-luck as evidenced by the fact that all his children die early. At Lutaaya’s burial the Janes got the dishonour with the story of how Jane’s mother’s ghost recently came to possess Anna their youngest sister. A hilarious story indeed. Here goes;

1. The ghost landed.
Late one Friday night, Anna fell off her bed with a strangling fit. Out of her closing voice box, started to come scratched metal sentences. Her sister who live nearby were called. They deciphered that it was the voice of their mother and she was saying, “telephone Saulo now and tell him to bring his car here!”
Editor’s note: Dear Reader, please note that Jane’s mother died in 1985, long before the advent of mobile telephony in Uganda. She was born and lived out her entire life in a little remote village in Mpigi. I swear she never saw a desk phone. I therefore believe its utterance above to be empirical evidence that the dead are not dead. They keep abreast of events in the on-going world. Wait till your grandfather’s ghost orders you to Skype your brother in London.
2. The summoned arrives
Saulo may never really have known the woman whose ghost summoned him – he was less than 10 years old and lived at least 20 walking miles away when she lived, but when the ghost summoned him, he showed up with complete willingness to serve it. It then followed that the ghost demanded he sets off for a 70 km drive into one of Mpigi’s less discovered folds - at 11 in the night. Little wonder they run into a gang of apparent robbers – shirtless men sitting silently in a parked minivan on the sides of a forested route on the bumpy Mpigi road.
Editor’s Note: I would like to bring your attention to the storyteller’s observation of yet another piece of empirical evidence that this is authentic stuff. She said, “Okumanya, they were travelling with a powerful spirit, those robbers did not even bother them.”
3. A twisted journey
First, they had to visit the ghost’s ancestral home where on arrival the possessed Anna made a bee-line to her mother’s grave before coming back to sit outside her grandmother’s hut. There on the veranda, she spent about two hours throwing random insults at the old woman. Then they drove another twisted 20 km to the ghost’s once marital home.
Editor's Note: You do realise that this is happening at the aptly ungodly hour of 4am, right? Oh I forgot to mention; Saulo is recording snippets of all this on his camera phone. Told you, ghosts keep abreast. You remember how in the olden times they abhorred light? Ah well, they have moved on. They are not even camera shy these days.

4. Climax
Having re-united with its once-husband, the ghost eventually decided to state the reason for its coming by. “Anna’s planned introduction must be cancelled!” Apparently, mother long dead, was incensed by the fact that a certain relative she had a bitter grudge with during her life on earth had been invited to the occasion. She vowed that she would make the bride a widow in no time if they dared so ahead with the occasion.
Editor’s note: ghost are still as enflamed as they have been since golden time. It did not even offer the option to cancel offending relative’s invitation.
5. Ghost disappears
Editor’s note: Yeah. Just like that.

I need you guys

2011-05-23T03:30:00.000-07:00

A muzungu friend and I are attempting to have an honest discussion about muzungu's in Africa. In past discussions, I have basically told him that, "twakoowa muzungu interventionism". His response is below. Give me your thoughts on it.

I, of course, am the intervenor. As I told you, I had my own personal motives for coming to Uganda. But my job certainly was about intervention; I came courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which believed that by promoting better health journalism I would create pressure on the Ugandan government to increase its spending on health care. And since, as you rightly point out, many muzungus do define themselves by their jobs, I spent a lot of my time preoccupied with that task.
I was pretty successful, but the truth is that the job was relatively easy: I found many talented and idealistic journalists who happily accepted what help I could give them to do exactly the job Gates and I hoped they would do.
It was a heady professional experience for me. In fact, I started telling my colleagues that Uganda is a “target rich” environment for a journalism trainer. Borrowing a term from the US military term probably wasn’t the best way to describe my peaceful intervention, but it was an apt description. Uganda is full of amazing stories, crying needs and enormous opportunities to make a positive difference. I think many muzungus find this when they come to a “less developed” country like Uganda. That’s one reason why we become obsessed with work: We have much greater opportunity to make a difference than at home (and usually relatively little time to do it).
We also have the means to make a big difference. Our money, of course, helps a lot. So does the peculiar drive that characterizes us. But the real key, I think, is a set of skills we acquire automatically by growing up in the highly organized “west.” These include a habit of specialization and the specialized knowledge that only well developed countries can offer. Just consider my journalism career compared to that of the typical Ugandan journalist. While Ugandan newspapers can’t afford to let their reporters specialize, American ones can. So I was able not only to earn a good income but also was to work in a variety of beats and organizations that gave me a wide range of experience, skills and specialized knowledge – the very things that gave me value in Uganda.
More importantly, I think that growing up in a highly organized society gave me a greater ability to work with others toward a collective goal. It made me immediately see the benefits that journalists could gain from having a professional association of their own. And it gave me the skills to build such an association: the ability to build a personal network, to bring diverse people together to work toward common goals, and to lead not by holding a position of authority but by understanding and helping others achieve their personal objectives while working in concert with others.
Much of what I did was almost intuitive – a skill acquired simply by growing up in a society where we learn almost from birth how to work with people unrelated by family or tribal ties. You can see it in everything from our (relatively) strict obedience to traffic rules to our passion for joining associations and working in large organizations. It is reinforced by our complex system of laws, but just importantly, it is a big part of our value system. Henry Ford, the great American industrialist and capitalist, summed it up nicely: “Coming together,” he said, “is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

Ironically, in America I would be considered pretty second-rate at these “modern” skills. I am not much of a joiner. I frequently have run away from organizational life, spending much of my career shunning employment for the solitary life of a freelancer. And no one would credit me with leadership. But compared to many Ugandans, I was a master organizer and leader. I felt almost like the main character in the H.G. Wells short story, “The Country of the Blind” – a mountain climber who accidentally finds himself in a lost world where humans have lost eyesight. Struck by the rare power his eyesight might have in such a world, the climber finds himself repeating an old proverb: “In the Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

That sounds pretty arrogant, but it isn’t when you learn – as Wells’ one-eyed man did – about the limits of such supposedly unique powers.
For one thing, modern day intervenors are constrained in the exercise of their powers. In colonial days, the Europeans felt no compunction about using their superior organizational skills to control and exploit places like Uganda. But today, geopolitical realities – and, I’d like to think , advances in morality – preclude that. So today, we in the west try to intervene in more benign ways: we come to help, and we try (at least most of the time) to respect principles like self-determination.
For me, as you know, the possibilities and limits of intervention played out over a professional association, the “Uganda Health Communication Alliance.” From the outset, I saw a professional association of health journalists as one of the best ways I could imagine to support improved health reporting. Over two years, I worked tirelessly in the name of UHCA. I’m sure that is why you first perceived me as the stereotypical muzungu workaholic. But to me, the work was worth it. The association grew to the point it was widely known and well-respected. Scores of journalists benefitted from its programs (and made me feel like a king with their appreciation). I could trace many examples of good journalism and positive social outcomes to its activities. Perhaps most importantly, I think UHCA helped promote concepts like professionalism, mutual support and self-directed learning.
But there was one problem. UHCA’s Ugandan leaders were strangely passive. To put it bluntly, they contributed almost nothing – they had almost no ideas, they rarely worked and they give little time to the effort. “Their” organization was built almost entirely by a muzungu and some young volunteers. Eventually, as the organization became successful, the leaders did start showing an interest. But it wasn’t a very positive one. They seemed to want just one thing: to tighten their grip. They remained aloof from their own members. They frequently failed to show up for UHCA functions. And they ignored their own commitments to expand membership and provide for open and democratic governance.
Eventually, this led to tensions. In one of just two times a Ugandan played the “race card” against me, the leaders chided me for being a “northerner” who was in too much of a hurry. One said I wasn’t doing things “the African way.” And while remaining happy to accept anything I would give them, they dismissed my repeated recommendations that they run the organization democratically, insisting that I as an outsider was not qualified to discuss governance in the African context.
Their attitude had a striking parallel in the bigger world beyond UHCA. About the same time I was telling UHCA that my continued support depended on their willingness to establish democratic procedures, international donors started putting pressure on Ugandan President Yoweri Mouseveni to ensure open, fair and democratic national elections for the whole country. The president replied just as UHCA’s leaders had replied to me. Donors, he said, should keep sending money to Uganda, but otherwise should mind their own business; “I am already an expert in governance,” Mouseveni proclaimed. “Who can lecture me about governance?”
I spent many sleepless nights wondering about the authoritarian bent of UHCA’s – and Uganda’s – leaders. I am sure poverty had something to do with it; while people often join associations in the US with no expectation of reaping financial rewards (at least directly) and relatively few politicians go into public life to enrich themselves, many Ugandans see these activities primarily as a way to make money in an economy that doesn’t provide many such opportunities. When I found it, UHCA appeared to be just one of many “briefcase NGOs,” paper organizations that exist to attract donor money. I’m sure that the existence of such organizations is one of the not-so-nice legacies of modern-day western interventionism. In any event, I think it’s safe to say that UHCA’s leaders sought to retain personal control in the expectation that the association would become an easy source of income for them.
But I suspect there may have been a more fundamental cultural issue. Perhaps these Ugandans hadn’t fully absorbed an essential skill of modernity – namely, the ability to operate a complex social mechanism. For individuals, this involves finding a niche – a way to find a special place in a complex and impersonal society. For leaders, it involves the ability to ensure that the social organism has a life of its own based on principles, values and rules; that, in turn, requires an ability to articulate a clear sense of direction and cater to the needs and aspirations of members. In short, the social mechanism requires both leadership and “follower-ship.” UHCA was weak on both scores. Its leaders wanted to have authority, but they didn’t want to – or didn’t know how to – earn their authority by building a relationship with followers. And, with a few exceptions, I didn’t see many examples of strong support emanating from the ranks either; indeed, almost from the outset, I heard many members speak disparagingly of their leaders, and most declined my urgings that they talk to the leaders and demand democratic reforms.
I do agree with UHCA’s leaders in one respect: Governance is an issue Africans must resolve themselves. I also recognize that my way isn’t the only way, although I believe that democracy, for all its flaws, is the best way yet devised to balance the need for collective action with the rights of individuals. But obviously it takes time to achieve it. I came to Uganda from a nation with more than 300 years of practice at democracy – and its exercise of democracy is far from perfect. Uganda had fewer than 40 years as an independent nation, and much of that time was spent under despots or at war.
Where does that leave the intervenor? Perhaps in a position somewhat like the male leader of the Ugandan family: respected, used and maybe even appreciated for what he provides, but still on the outside.
In H.G. Wells’ short story about the land of the blind, the lost mountain climber eventually discovers that eyesight brings him no advantages in a society that operates by its own logic, and perceives no need for his special abilities. Eventually, the people of this society conclude that the climber is insane and he flees. I don’t think that outcome is likely for Uganda. Democracy will come.
Whew! I apologize for the diatribe. Can you give me a Ugandan perspective on all this?

Kipin' On Kipin' On

2011-04-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

When he said he was leaving in less than a month’s time, a chilling fear run my every nerve. My faculties instantly and involuntarily found a monomaniacal task – to actively fight the image of a day, days, that would not have him at the end. I knew I would have to go not just days but a lifetime without him. And I knew I would do it. But, in that hour, I had only one need – to fight the image of such days. I knew those would be days I would wander around lost and soulless. Days I would not care enough to feel anger, pain or joy.

The days have come and I was wrong. I am not lost. There is enough in my world to keep me here. I am not without my soul. Humanity still intensely affects and inspires the person he made out of me. I feel anger, pain and joy as much as I ever was capable of.

You see, I have failed to round that corner, with the signpost that says; “life without him starts here.” So, I continue to make believe that even though our life together strangely appears like a retreating ghost, it isn’t. Alone I attempt to pump enough wind to propel the causes that were for two. Like the disciple of a Lord ascended into the clouds, I keep the rituals and routines of our yesterdays. I tell myself that if I don’t move an inch, we won’t have moved an inch. I choose to believe that is a perfectly rational perspective and choice. Only occasionally do I stop and cry with the irrational fear that perhaps I am not entirely sane.

Eleven going on twelve … facing the world of pricks

2011-04-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

I sit at the coffee table ironing my little brother’s beddings that still smell of urine despite the maid’s energetic wash and a day’s worth of scorching sun. Across the small room, at the big dining table sits my uncle with fire in his eyes and spit jetting out through the gap in his teeth. His words to me are spat not spoken. I contemplate the hot iron with gratitude that it sits between me and him. He looks like he will be jump up and beat me to a pulp any time. I couldn’t take a beating today. I am shaken enough as it. A bad violent thing happened to me already. A thing so violent I am still shaking from the trauma of it. Yesterday, a boy wrote me a note that had the L word.

“I love you”? Oh dear Jesus! My mother would have killed me had she set her eyes on that. I didn’t let the matter that far out of hand. Soon, as I saw the L word, I darted to the back of the house in a dizzy run for the latrine. Calm returned to me as I watched the crumpled piece of evil fall into the darkness of the pit. Perhaps the odorous heat that rises out of the pit would destroy it even before it hit the depth. Perhaps not. To cover all ground, I pulled up my skirt,squatted over the pit and summoned a weighty escort to give the evil piece of paper some gravity should decide to linger on a protruding rock. Ah, there. I was safe then.

Or was I? Dear Lord me, I will never know safety for this very morning, the boy crossed the compound between our houses to demand a response. Sitting as close as skin to me on the veranda where I sat scrubbing the sole of my sapatu, he pinched me and between jeers whispered, “I saw where you took my note. Do you want to say you don’t love me?”

No, I don’t want to say I don’t love him. I don’t want to say anything at all. Not even to tell my mother sipping tea just inside the house that he is pinching me. You see he is 17 and I am 11. Also, my mother says that he smokes marijuana and his father who was a truck driver has AIDS which has made him mad. He is a dangerous person. You don’t say anything to him when he does bad violent things to you.But, you could tell your uncle. He is 17 like the dangerous boy and is in secondary where they teach sex education. He can tell you what to do when a boy writes bad letters.

Perhaps you don’t tell your uncle after all. When you do, he starts spitting words at you. “You will get pregnant if you are there playing with boys. I see you all the time talking to him. Do you want to say you did not want him to write to you that letter?”

Oh no. No. I don’t want to say anything. If I could see in the future I would instead want to do something. Something like take this silver hot iron and ram it into uncle’s groin. ButI don’t see into the future so I don’t know that this evening, uncle will come to my bed. He will fight me as I try to stop him from pushing his two middle fingers into my susu. Tonight, I will learn that 17 year olds are not as dangerous if you bite them. Angry, they stop trying to push their fingers into you and say they have forgiven you. Otherwise, they were going to show you what happens when you play around with boys.

The West is not what we should be talking about

2011-04-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

“A people betrayed. The role of the west in Rwanda’s genocide.” Now, that is a masterful piece of journalism. The author, Linda Melvern reveals very disturbing facts about how some western countries, each in their own way enabled or allowed the deaths of up to a million Rwandans. However, masterful as that book is, I have often felt that it should have been the second in a sequel. Where is the equivalently meticulous work of investigation that explains just how it ever happens that a human being would take a machete and hack his brother to death? More, where is the book explaining just how it happened that not just one insane man did that but whole communities of Rwandans/Africans, (with all our famed sense of community) turned into dens of bloodhounds thirsty for the lives of their next door brothers? Why do we have a book that beats the hand that fed the beast without one that puts us to shame for being that beast?
I continue to be surprised and saddened at how often discussions about Africa’s derailments begin with and center around the midpoint – that point where we blame the west; be it for meddling or being indifferent. For forty some years, Libyans have lived with the enigma that is Ghadafi – a leader who appears to have empowered and suffocated them in equal measure. We didn’t have much opinion about the fact that even as he gave Libyans universal education, Ghadafi forbade them from airing the thoughts in their learned minds. Most of us didn’t even know that while he supported parents in providing quality lives to their children he also quite often orchestrated Amin-like disappearances of the same children when they grew old enough to question his omnipotence. Oh but now that the west has come into the picture, we have strong opinion about the Libyan situation. A facebook status update with the word Libya will get at least 15 comments. Office days begin with arguments about America in Libya and lunch hour is devoted to discourse on the double standards and self-interested motivations of the west.
Meanwhile, Ivory Coast is steadily slipping into a coma at best. More unfortunately, it is quite likely brewing a political tsunami soon to sweep across it in a devastating wave. Darfur, DRC, Liberia, Somalia, name it. All those are tragedies made and maintained by Africans, black and not so black. I don’t read or hear nearly enough opinion on that fact – that Africans motivated by the most dumbfounding self interest and quite simply evil-mindedness are holding a continent at ransom. Rather sadly, we more often use these situations as convenient arguments in our rants against the west when we say things like, ‘the west has double standards. Why are they intervening in Libya when they did not do anything about Ivory Coast or Darfur? ”
Granted, they may have double standards but do we not have any standard at all? Why aren’t we as loudly holding each other to that standard if at all it exists? You want to talk about double standards? Talk about the double standards in being the population that never takes action against the evil in our midst but feels called upon to analyse and point out flaws real and imagined in the efforts of those that bother. You want to talk about wars being lost? Talk about how poverty continues to beat us hands down. If you want to talk about flabbergasting self-interest, talk and don’t stop talking about the minister who built a helipad on his rooftop with money donated to immunize children.
Now that is not to say that we should not call out the west when it sabotages us or unconstructively meddles in our affairs. I just wish we could be more like the clan leader my mother once listened to at a funeral. This man’s clan was so torn and riddled with fights regarding religion and a miscellany of other family issues that for two days they fought over which clergy would pray over a deceased relative. The deceased who had been born into this staunchly catholic family had like a number of other rebellious family members converted to Pentecostalism. The family eventually allowed a Pentecostal pastor to pray over the body. The pastor took this as an opportunity to further the fight in favour of the family Pentecostals and so devoted a considerable amount of his time to calling out names of the family Catholics, imploring them to get saved. When the clan leader stood up to speak, he certainly did not shy away from reprimanding the family members about their chaotic conduct over the previous two days. Calling them name by name like the pastor had done, he shamed each member for their contribution to the conflict. That took about 99.9% of his graveside speech. With the last few seconds of his time, he turned to the pastor and said something that would loosely translate into, “Now Pastor, you might want to get into the habit of speaking only on matters that directly concern you.” End of speech. Obviously, this leader felt that the pastor’s unconstructive meddling was A point that needed to be made. And, he did make it. He just did not allow it to distract him from make THE point – which was that the family needed to get its house in order. After all, if they got their act together, there would be no inlet for the pastor to so unconstructively meddle. Let us borrow a leaf from him.

Announcement: This blog is changing direction

2010-08-11T04:52:00.000-07:00

It turns out that I don't live a life interesting enough to feed both a weekly column and blog. Thankfully though I happen to have a mother who is a great story teller. She has also made life choices that led her to the places where great stories are born. She decided to use her degree in lingusitics to teach primary school English. The choice certainly hasn't led a stream of money into her pockets but her pupils bring her way the most interesting stories. Think kids' say the darndest things? Yes, you are right. Wait for it here.
My mother chooses to take her diploma in music to the local church choir. A totally lost cause if you listen to them sing during service. Did you know a choir can sing one song in as many keys as there are singers? again, we are not complaining. We just choose to skip sunday service and wait at home for the stories about all those parishioners (who incidentally are her closest friends)and their church. Currently, she has one about how "the sheep in her church are threatening to knock down the sheperd." I guess you could say that the parishioner are planning a coup or impechment against their priest but that is only because you are not my mother. You don't have that degree that equips you with colourful language.

Anyway, the short of it is that I will be telling you the stories that make visiting my mother both a delightful and painful experience. Delightful because i laugh so had and painful for that same reason. My face muscles literally hurt for hours after. They are not accustomed to that kind of exercise.

Wait for it ...

My eyes water, my heart contracts in pain

2010-07-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

She is called Lydia. I never met her in life but here I meet her in the obits page of a newspaper. That could have been me. That certainly was the woman I aspire to be. Lydia: described as a wonderful mother, beautiful woman and loving friend.

Since I heard of the bombings, I have been numb, waiting for news of the death of any one of my closest and dearest. When the day brought all my own reporting as safe, I counted myself lucky. Thank goodness they had not hit quite as close to home.

Yet now, the smile of this woman I have never known brings their blow not just close to home but right into my soul. That could have been me. The children who are going to miss their wonderful mother forever would be my own daughter. The friends who are broken with pain would be mine. Every time I reached out of myself to touch another heart would now be a source of pain for that heart touched.

Oh, dear God, why did these people have to pay for a crime never committed?

May I sync up with you again?

2010-07-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

IN my old job, being able to speak and write (especially write) simple English was a real skill. A newspaper must be written in language so simple that even a primary school kid can read, understand and hopefully be engaged by the news.
Simple English capability was of course a means to an end but since it was a very important skill to have we took great pride in having it and mercilessly poked fun at those that seemed to lack it. Mr Lugubrious for Apollo Nsibambi definately came out of one of the newsrooms. He is one of the best examples of those that speak ‘English that feels the mouth’ as Chinua Achebe once described it.
Another good example of them species would be NGO workers. They leverage potential to empower resource constrained communities blah blah blah. I actually wrote a piece about them some time. See if you care to. How we loved to poke fun at their heavily worded reports. Guess what? I now work for an NGO. I just have a field day every day listening to my workmates.
“Lydia, can we sync up for a while?” He is asking me to attend yet another meeting
I was hoping you could leverage your media connections to the benefit of our launch – he is asking me to call journalists and ask them to come observe as we send the first SMS response to a farmer’s question. Hopefully the reporter will find that insipring enough for their next news piece.
We leverage ICTs to empower the poor climb out of poverty. Our project is about sending SMS size bits of information like “some of the signs of pregnancy are nausea, general weakness and heightened sense of smell.” Dude we just told a 16 year old that she is indeed knocked up and about to drop out of school. Empowering the poor climb out of poverty, I gather.

Chelsea are Champions. Whatever, Cult Futbol.

2010-05-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

A five year old watching athletes run the 100m sprint turned to the mum and asked, “ Mum, who is chasing those men?” A very deep question especially if you consider how captivating the sight of men sprinting after the wind can be to so many.

Take football. It is just a game. Oh, of course members of Cult Futbol hasten to add, “ but what a game!” Yeah right! Like it is much different from any other ball game. All ball games (football inclusive) are about three basic things; fetch the ball, get rid of it and then make noise when common sense prevails and some one decides not to catch a ball they won’t get to keep!

You might be deceived into thinking football is a branch of knowledge when you hear members of Cult Futbol talk about back passes, bicycle kicks, pre-match predictions, post match analyses, offside traps, terrific headers, resilient players, Dutch masters, Football Professors (yeah right!), analysts, critics, galacticals and the like.

Well let me break it down for you;
Back pass – A footballer kicks a football with the heel of his foot and it then runs in the natural direction - backwards.
Bicycle kick – A footballer tries his hand at gymnastics and by luck manages to kick the ball with both of his legs in mid air.
Pre-match predictions – Fans try to guess which side will win the match. They are usually only two sides to guess at.
Post match analyses – Forget the English meaning of the word “analysis.” Here one describes to his audience (the majority of whom watched the match) who kicked the ball in what direction. Many times it is done by a panel where the panelists agree or disagree for the sake of it. What is there to disagree on anyway when the bishop is preaching to the converted? Very analytical, isn’t it!
Football Professors – It is alleged in Cult Futbol that Arsene Wenger is one but believe me there is no such thing. Infact rare is one in the world of football who holds a university degree and he most likely will be the team doctor. In Cult Futbol, a team doctor is equivalent to temple cleaners.
Dutch Masters – These will be canonized saint in the hereafter of Cult Futbol. Basically they are footballers who happens to kick the ball more frequently than others in the right direction. Many come from Holland for some reason.
Football Analysts and Critics – These are Bishops and sundry clergy in Cult Futbol. It is their responsibility to keep the followers interested. See post match analyses for a clue on how they go about it.
Resilient Player – A footballer who continues to run after the ball without showing signs of boredom for all 90 minutes of the match. Never mind that the lucky among us mortals work an 8-hour day.

None of the other terminologies they might add will make any more sense believe me.

My point? None. Just taking this week to show you the writing sample that got me my first writing job.

It's a week made in hell but this ad is made in Uganda

2010-04-22T02:11:00.000-07:00

Mine is a week sent by special mail from hell.

You know that guy who cooks? I left him and now my heart is in pieces. Plus, I have to suffer my maid’s cooking every night of every week now. Oh, I am a wreck.

As if I need any more heartbreak, police in Soroti is holding a dear, dear friend of mine. He is family too but always was more of a friend. His accountant stole the organisation's money while my friend was distracted trying to complete a masters’ degree. The accountant has disappeared and UWESO his employer needs a police record for accountability to the donor. Why look for the actual thief when handing the supervisor in, is as good for the needed police record? There. Poor fellow might even end up serving someone else’s jail term.

Oh, I also have work issues. My boss gave me a tongue-lashing for being distracted and disorganized. That I surely I am, as you might guess. But also her … First of all, that meeting she is angry I didn’t attend was after five. The other one was before nine. This supposed to be a 9-5 job.
So am walking down the street with this load of anger and pain when I come by this.

Obviously I am not a lover and I don’t have any pleasant emotion to take to that bed but if you do, there you go.

Just why is every visit to the bank such a royal pain?

2010-04-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

If guns were easy to come by in this country, bank staff would have the highest mortality rate and I would not be sympathetic. Like boda boda riders, you approach a banking officer knowing without a doubt, that by the time you are done doing business with them, you will truly and madly hate them. It happened to me. AGAIN!

I have for weeks now looked for my ATM card in vain but avoided going into the bank for a replacement. Everyone who has any premium on their good spirits does not to go into the bank but I am now too broke to continue affording the luxury. I spent most of the morning steeling myself for the assault I was planning to walk into at lunch time.

Hey, it is not going to be so bad. Look, there are only a few customers in the banking hall. Nice. Everyone seems quiet and efficient. Well, everyone except the woman I am being pointed to. She is shaking her head and shrugging at way too many customers. All five customers ahead of me seem to have walked away unhappy. Maybe they are semi-illiterates who failed to fill their forms out correctly. I have always been pretty neat about this form filling art.

It is my turn. “Hullo, Lydia. What happened to your card?” See? She is smiling and addressing me by first name. I told you this was going to be the one good time. “It must be buried in my stuff at home but I can’t find it so I will just pay for another one. “ Tick, tick, tick," she approves every sentence on my form. I told you am good at this form thing. Oh oh! I am gloating too early. She does like that I have filled out the name of her branch on my humble form.

Banker: “Your branch is Muyenga Tank Hill. You have to go get the card from there!” She slips my form back to me.
Not so fast, sweetie. I slip the form back.
What I should have said: I opened the account at this branch, borrowed a cripplingly big loan from this branch a week later and got both account opening and loan advisories declaring Jinja Road my branch. Now change the field that says Muyenga Tankhill or I will say something that will make you cringe.
What I said: Your machine might be misreading my account details. This is and has always been my branch. All my paperwork from account opening through loan acquisition and repayments says so.
Banker: I have told you Tankhill is your branch. May be you opened the account with a sales rep who was attached to that branch.
What I should have said: Ah, how stupid of me! I should have asked for her letter of posting. Afterall, of what significance is it that she was sitting in this branch building?
What I said: Ma’am, she was sitting here in this branch and told me without my prompting that this would be my branch.
Banker: If you had opened it here, it would show automatically that you belong to this branch. Tankhill is your branch. Go there.
What I should have said: Ma’am. You figured me right. I usually like to skip lunch just so I can go play little lying games with banking staff. You are wasting my freaking time. I am certainly not going to spend sh3000 and 2 hours going to Muyenga to pick a card that costs sh5000 and 5 minutes to make. Give me a damn ATM card here and now. When I walked into this branch to open an account, did it even occur to your staff that I might have done so because it was a more convenient one than Muyenga?
What I said: I have never lived or worked anywhere near Muyenga. That would be possible to migrate my account back to this branch where I opened it in the first place since it is more convenient?
Banker: Your branch doesn’t matter. I have worked here for two and a half years and you are the first to complain about which branch your account is in.
What I should have said: I am just a difficult customer, am I not? What is two hours and all the joy out of my day if at the end of the day I will eventually be blessed with a card from a branch especially selected for me by Barclays Almighty?
What I said: Please just move my account
Banker: We cannot move an account. I can’t help you.
What I should have said: You have also not managed to help any of the five customers before me. Is there some way I can help you start helping clients?
What I said: Don’t take this personally but I think there can be a way you could help better. You have not helped any of the five clients before me.
Banker: They are all from different branches and they want ATM cards. I can’t help them.
What I should have said: I thought you said randomly posting customer accounts into branches of yours that you feel need some numbers’ support did not matter. You are really pretty dumb, aren’t you?
What I did: Sigh …
Banker: I cannot help you. Just go to Muyenga. It will take only five minutes.
What I should have said: Oh, how nice. You are chartering a plane to get me there. I knew I chose the right bank.
What I did: Sigh …
Banker: I can’t help you.
What I should have said: Actually; I am beginning to get the feeling you can’t.
What I did: Sigh and walk away.

I managed to get the manager to approve that the card be issued at the Jinja Road branch, lined up again only to be told I could not get the card because I did not have a police letter declaring it lost. Yeah, I am going to the police tomorrow to explain that I need it recorded in their crime books that an ATM card of mine seems to have disappeared into the heaps of paper that forest my bedroom.

She sings like Sgt Kifulugunyu but looks cute all the same

2010-04-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

I usually hold my blog to journalistic standards so I try not to gush about my daughter too much. But here is one video worth gushing about. I hope you can stream video. This sure is worth it.

Now I will explain why I have not been blogging for this long. Naye do you need me to?

Anyhow, I got this job where two of my bosses are mzungus. You have no idea. They think even me am an expat without a life outside work. I hope that explaination suffices. More, next time.

Cooking fat and the stronger sex

2009-12-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

They say men are the stronger sex and I believe them. Gwe my dad beat the crap out of a rat the other day. I just could not believe it. Me, you say ‘rat’ and I will shoot out of the house so fast even the rat will come out into the corridor and laugh its tail off. But, my dad ran after this monster, turned every piece of furniture upside out and poking every pockets in the house like Osama bin Laden in it. When he finally got it, woooo! You should have been at the sidelines watching. I was literally dancing and singing, “Go Baba. Go Baba. You are the guy.”

Now THE guy, the real one … He has me doubting this stronger sex thing all over again. One of our love’s strongest bond is the fact that he can cook and I can’t. He does not even cry when he cuts onions. He is the bomb. That is until the onions threaten to become the bomb.

Somewhere in his culinary classes, a pan once caught fire when onions were thrown into overheated cooking oil. The incident has the poor soul traumatized to this very day. Trauma makes for a class act in the kitchen – as in class act drama wise. After my man has cut onions without shedding a single tear or even sneezing, he stands a good three metres away from the pan in which he intends to fry them. Then like the true basket-baller he was back in school, he picks a palmful of them and throws a volley of the lethal stuff in the general direction of the pan on the stove. Before the onions can even get halfway to the pan far far faraway, he has turned and jumped into an even further corner of the kitchen.
Tell ya! Even if he could not cook a decent meal, I would have this man cooking dinner every day.

Christianity is their damn religion. So what if they want to amend it?

2009-12-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

I am a Christian mostly by circumstances. I am a spiritual being and due to circumstances beyond my control, my only instruction in spirituality was skewed towards some imported beliefs called Christianity. So, on that day, when I was lying on a surgical table, I gave my life to Christ. I immediately took it back after surviving the surgery.

Now with introductions out of the way, let me tell you about my current stress factor – Christian jihadist on the internet. They are black, Ugandans in my case and God, aren’t they passionate? Now, they are out to recruit me.
First they disguise as people who somehow know me and send me invites to be friends on facebook and twitter. Knowing my poor scores at recalling people I once knew, I accept the invites.

They then send me little sweet notes about living a purpose driven life, fulfilling God’s promise in me and being a saint. I tend to kid myself I can do everything I set my mind to so I gracefully accept the notes telling myself that perhaps one day when I find the inclination to, I might actually turn this irredeemable and unrepentant sinful soul of mine into a saint’s. Might be intellectually rewarding to compare the two experiences.

Guess what invite I get next. “Let us strongly support the Anti-gay bill in Uganda!” "Join the protest against gay bishops in the Anglican church'. Blah blah blah. Jeez, you guys need to take some lessons from al-Qaeda on how to cultivate recrutits. I am still talking myself into going to church next Sunday and you are asking me to kill for Christianity? That just sends me into a furious pan- African spirit.

Why the hell am I, an African to the last ancestor, being asked to defend a western religion from western influences. It is their damn religion. If they want to amend it, then give me a call after they have written the last amendment so I can go to church and worship according to the final text.

It is like me throwing a protest because the Queen of England wants the past tense of Go to become gone not went!

Crush the fags but make nuclear weapons too

2009-12-01T02:30:00.001-08:00

Mbu the anti homosexuality bill seeks to pull Uganda out of all international treaties and conventions that do not have an explicit anti-homosexuality component. Hehe! I hope we have the capacity to make nuclear weapons because I would hate for us to become an isolated nation without a bargaining chip.

When the anti homosexuality bill first made news, I thought to myself, there we go again Uganda. Having failed to protect our children from death due to diarrhea and worms or give our tax payers decent social services, we have found something we can do decisively and in unity – crush the few hundred Ugandan fags underfoot. Heee! The world is going to fear us. This country they think is well on its way to being a failed state is going to show them that it can be decisive, strong and effective when it feels strongly enough about an issue. Having had my patriotic bone broken eons ago, I decided I would all the same just go on trying to hold down a job I despise and put food on my baby’s plate. When the world begins to fear us, I will join the crowd and thump my chest, proud to be a Ugandan.

Then, somewhere along my pretence at doing my job I stumbled upon the same bill. I think I like it. Infact, I think it is my ticket to becoming Uganda’s Tom Stoppard. Figure a movie called ‘Uganda Doped Up’ by Lydia Namubiru. Just so I am not accused of plagiarism since I fully intend to lift the text of the bill into my script, I am going to marry David Bahati. So make the byline, Lydia Namubiru Bahati.

In the first scene, we see a brigade of Uganda Police cops getting into attack positions around a mud and wattle home in Kinawataka. The cops are armed with big muzzled guns and protected with bullet proof vests. A chopper hovers over the home, with paratroppers ready to jump at the word.

In another scene, police detectives pore over high definition video footage showing the comings and going of two men. “Every late afternoon,” one of the detectives explains to the others, “these two men enter this house and lock themselves in for unnaturally long hours.” Remembering an important detail the detective, abruptly cuts the explanation and radios the troops in the field commanding them to widen the operation by surrounding the next mud and wattle house as well. “This house,” he turns back to his collegues to explain, “belongs to one Anasitazia Nakamatte, mother to one of our suspects. She is believed to be an accomplice in these men’s criminal activities.” We see more footage showing the said woman delivering food to the son’s ‘hide-out’. The footage also gives us a small glimpse of the son’s bare chest when he opens the door a little to take the food. Hullo? No one writes a movie without a bit of sexy in there!

Getting approving nods around the table for the mission, the commander radios his field troops and curtly commands, “Attack!” A paratropper jumps out of the chopper into the target hut through the tin roof which he spectacularly shutters in the process. The two male occupants of the room scamper to the furthest edges of the wall away from him. The men are barely dressed save for their small and torn-in-places underpants. With Jack Bauer speed, the commando handcuffs the men leading into waiting police vehicles. Another cop is seen leading an elderly woman into another police vehicle. The scene ends with the twelve police vehicles involved in the operation driving away with their sirens blaring.

Next scene is in court. The two men are being prosecuted by the state of Uganda for homosexuality while the elderly woman is facing charges of aiding homosexuality.
In court the men admit to sharing living space for economic reason but the state produces evidence such as their nearly nude state at the time of arrest and the fact that there was only one bed in the house to show that indeed they were homosexuals caught in the act. The papers are awash with stories of the case, quoting statistics that show that the men’s claim does not hold water. “Although 50% of Ugandans live below the poverty line, there is no statistics to show that men choose to share beds with other men as a cost saving measure,” the leading daily says. “Cultural experts rule out any truth in the suspects’ claim saying that African culture abhors the idea of men sharing beds,” it goes on. The court process goes on and on (am still working on the story line here) but eventually the two men are found guilty as is the woman. The men get life sentences while the woman gets seven years. Proud Ugandans match the streets of Kampala in celebration of the land mark case. Back in Kinawataka, naked children run around throwing themselves in the slimy muddy in their compounds as they re-enact the police operation of many months ago. Uganda makes international headlines and my husband Bahati is invited to speak on TBN hosted by your truly, Pat Robertson. I tell you, we are gonna be big, aren’t we?

Yes, we are destined for big things but I am afraid my big budget movie won’t make it to the big markets once we become an isolated state. The bill proposes that we pull out of international treaties that are not explicitly anti-gay? Cooool! Boy, aren’t the treaties going to miss us! But, now look. We need a plan. If we are going to pull out of the UN, de-register ourselves from the World Bank and even nullify that little treaty banning the use of landmines, we need a plan. No nation goes down the isolated country road without a plan on how it is going to remain a world wide concern nonetheless. Either you sacrifice a whole generation by exposing them to radiation as you try to make nuclear bombs under poor conditions or you turn your land into the most dangerous place in the world. The former is working for North Korea and the latter for Somalia and Afghanstan. We need to take our pick if we are going to remain on world maps at all. If the international press gets too nosy about the consequences of whatever path we choose, the state can always send me to the Western world. I will sell them my movie as proof that things are so ok in Uganda that even mundane careers like the arts are flourishing.

2009-11-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

Uganda House Parking Now Open
The English had it coming. They came here, stole our land, politically raped our kings and forced their language into our education and social systems. Now we even subjugate our own mother tongues with theirs. Surely the least we can do in retaliation is murder their language. Yes, we shall ‘eat the money’, ‘chase people from their jobs’, chastise friends for ‘being lost’ and applaud them for ‘putting on nice clothes’. Serves them right. Those British are just fake!

It is fun all the way until you see that big banner outside reading, “Uganda House Parking Now Open.” Seriously, is the word parking now officially a noun? That is not an act of continued sticking it up to our former colonialists. It is just laziness.
Yes, the taxi conductor has to command his driver several hundred times in a single day to find packing space so two days into the job, he cuts it down the command down to handy dandy ‘parking’. His passengers take the cue and start shouting ‘parking’ every time they need to alight. Now Uganda House hired a sign writer who won’t be more bothered? That is why I won’t vote for UPC

2009-11-11T23:45:00.000-08:00

The damn pictures won\t even upload here. Aaaargh!

2009-11-11T23:32:00.000-08:00

In Arua and cant find gmail and yahoo wont send my pictures so am publishing them on my blog so the people at the office can download them that way. I am so computer illiterate. Upcountry reporters send pictures all the time. I cant find the apostrophe key on this computer either. Sigh!

I am the lame duck in aerobics class

2009-11-04T00:36:00.000-08:00

I am
I have always been a bit of a mzungu dance i.e an not the most nimble or coordinated of dancers. However had never realised just how uncoordinated my body can be until I went to aerobics class last weekend.

Doctor says I need to get a little more active and boyfriend says he is willing to pay for it so I drag my feet to the Africanna gym. I have only been to a gym once in my life before and I remember hating the stationary bike and gym instructor then. I find that I still hate the bike because I cannot ride the damn thing, my feet prefer to move in the direction opposite to that in which the bike was designed to. The gym instructor however I like. The gym instructor however does not like my tummy. Mbu, its big. I swear it is not. Hmm! Is it? Why was boyfriend so willing to pay for my gym sessions? Eeeiiih, that man! Now I am being punished with a mirade of tummy tucking exercises. I think it relationship is getting passively abusive.

Phew! It is time for aerobics. Damn! It is time for aerobics. From the word go, I can’t seem to get my foot onto the step in time. The image being reflected back from the wall length mirror is disturbing. I seem even more awkward than the guy next to me and he is a 60 something mzee who won’t take off his wide reamed spectacles even in earobics class. Oh, it just gets worse. The instructor is out to get me. Apparently it is not enough to jump up and down, you also have to do the steps in two, threes. Now its fives. Oh God! This is getting really complicated. Step up, kick twice, turn around, now to the left, to the right …
Ok, I was told I was signing up for aerobics not dance class. This is using advertising to deceive clients. Mr. instructor, I think my daughter who is eating chips in the café next door now needs my attention. Thanks, it was much fun.

I ain’t no Shakespeare and gladly so

2009-11-02T02:17:00.000-08:00

Last week, I read a facebook thread that in part was a critique of Ugandan newspaper writers especially the humourists. Munange, I didn’t even get a mention except in a line that listed writers whom the critic called ‘tired guns of the Obote caliber.’ That should have hurt except that I know the same critic has ever written me a note saying I am one of the writers he admires. He is just posing now mbu he can be hard on writers!

Still, it sort of hurt that I am not even considered a writer. Yeah, yeah, I just type my column but that is the way we do it these days. Writer, I may not be but I am a proactive person on when so laterI run into one of the critics, I asked why I did not get mentioned. “We were discussing humourists. You are not a humourist, are you?” Auuch! Auuch! That really hurt. True am not funny in real life. I am this super serious short woman with ‘respect-me-by-force’ complex known to afflict people of my height. On paper however, I can write funny. Infact reliable independent sources over the weekend confirmed that I DO WRITE FUNNY. Ok, only two people confirmed that I am a humorous writer and one of them happens to be a guy I am sleeping with but still, I should have got mentioned. But, since my love interest thinks am funny, I will for now drop it. There were far more interesting things said on the thread anyway.

Not funny actually. Annoying is the better word. Like the comparison of Ugandan newspaper writers to Scott Fitzgerald! I don’t know who that guy Fitzgerald was but according to the critics he is the best prose stylist ever ever. What is prose once again? Never mind. The point is Ugandan newspaper columnists of the 21st century are being compared to some guy who am sure lived somewhere around the time Bitamaziire’s grandmother was born. Seriously? I am not even going to comment about Fitzgerald’s writing because like I said I don’t have a clue who he is. When people were being introduced to the likes of him back in A level or whenever, I was being punished with lessons on the mechanisms of the chemical reactions of benzene compounds. Yeah, you have no idea. Neither do I but the PCM combination I had been assured was the easier path to government sponsorship.

Back to this thing about Ugandan writers being criticised for not being able to write as well as the ‘best prose stylist of all time.’ Well, they shouldn’t. If they were as good, they would not be writing for your newspaper. Who is gonna sell you a fresh new Fitz –whatever weekly column for the price of your newspaper?

Also, no 21st century writer good or bad should write like an 18th century one even if he was the best stylist ever ever for the simple reason that today’s writer is not writing for an 18th century audience. Today’s reader flips through their weekend paper in the car as they wait for their wife to finish getting dressed for church. Spare them the “doubteth thee that the sun riseth from York’s eye but doubeth not that I love thee.” By the time the guy gets through a piece like that, his wife will have sought, interviewed and hired a driver.

And what is this business about stylists? I am figuring that the greatest stylist ever ever used to put irony in the right place, slotting in satire, sarcasm (and all the other tools of style your literature teacher mentioned) with the same finesse. Good for him. Not necessarily good for today’s writer. See, during Shakespeare’s time, the elite were the audience. They paid for the work. The elite in their long leisurely lives would have found the time to go to class and learn the tools of good writing and therefore could appreciate a writer who used them well. It made sense then for a writer to outdo themselves in the effort of fine if somewhat mechanical writing. In our times, the economic model that has proved successful is distributing to the masses. Guess what? The masses are not about to go to literature class. Remember that, if you are writing to get read. If you are writing to win the Cannes award, you may go revise your literature notes.

Do remember though not to copy Shakespeare’s style too closely. Even Cannes won’t give you any awards for being the Ugandan writer whose works displays the best knowledge of 18th century English works and styles. Writing, like every other art, after all should (at least in part) be a record (even if disguised) of life at the time the work was written. If you are going to record life in the 21st century, it just might be a better idea to do so using language as it is used today.

To the facebook critics; I needed an entry point into this post so be easy. I didn’t take you as seriously as it might appear.

I just want an f*** online crossword puzzle

2009-10-28T06:26:00.001-07:00

When I report for work which is usually late, I switch my computer on, launch outlook, yahoomail and facebook. Because I reported late and the network has loads of people already pretending to work, it will take some time before any of these application launch. So, I busy myself with the one thing about the hard copy paper that still interests me – the crossword puzzle.
I almost always have no pencil and so have to commit the abominable sin of filling it in with ink. Oh God, I beat myself to death for that every morning. Well, I am thinking like a facebooking 20 something so I begin to wonder, why doesn’t my news service give me an online puzzle? If it did, I would not have to look for a pencil every morning or kill myself for using ink. It would also save me the foreign set puzzles (which currently are the only ones available online) that have clues too alien for me to relate to. An online version of the very same puzzle I have been filling since I was 12... That would be a very good thing.
Well, I work for my news service so it should be easy to give them my user feedback. I will just walk upto the head of the website division and tell him I want an online version of the New Vision crossword puzzle. In exchange, the New Vision website would be assured of an extra visit every morning. Traffic is good for a website. I go off for my sales pitch.

The website boss hears me indeed but just when he is about to promise to give it some thought, his deputy badges in. “Ha, crossword puzzles are too expensive. It costs about $20,000 and that is just for the annual licence. It is too expensive because it takes a lot of programming. It is just not feasible,” deputy tells me.

"What if you went to all these mushrooming programming agencies and offered them a deal in Ugandan shillings?" I ask. Surely, there must be a broke but brilliant programmer out there who could do something decent for peanuts. Or, you could go look for a geeky university student who for a small fee and facilitation would pour himself into the project and perhaps come up with something. “Naa, that would not be up to market standards. Those students have not yet learnt to marry their mathematics with the technology,” I am informed. Yeah, like no online puzzle at all is upto market standards and never mind that it is the same students who after university head IT departments in companies around town or open up IT consultancy firms. I have it on good authority that the IT head of KCB Uganda never bothered himself with any computer projects more complex than burning CDs while he was at uni. But now he has a job description and is very well finding ways to marry the technology and mathematics.

Deputy is now laughing mockingly at me saying, “By the way your idea is not new. It came up in 2004 and we talked about it in the boardroom with William Pike. We researched it and now I am trying to give you the background of it but you are just set on your idea …”
It is not my idea. It is my want. My demand as a newspaper reader. I want the crossword puzzle online if I am going to continue filling the one offered by your service. Think through your zillion hurdles and either give me one or don’t. In the latter case, I will be logging onto the Washington Post every morning. True, I cannot even guess half of their puzzle but you see the beauty of this whole online thing is that it allows you to cheat.