Bad songs and badder lyrics

Read with sunglasses accompanied by church hymn of your choice.

I have just heard this utterly deplorable song on Kubbiri Akaboozi radio. Actually, 'song' with the added forceps of inverted commas. I just kept hearing repetition of the Luganda word 'akasolo', which technically is the word for 'animal'. So the man was saying something like we should allow the hunter to eat his meat, or something related. But the word akasolo is also used to refer to a certain creature that dwells in a certain jungle in a certain junction of the male body.

What! What are you blushing about? Every body is feeling free to write up ribald lyrics so why can't I also be a bit vulgar? Uganda's musicians commonly labelled 'local artistes' (Roco Artis, a clever man named them) fancy they are some kind of Kiganda Shakespeares. They pride themselves in a twisted ability to play on words and their meanings.
Yeah, okay, there have been lots of terrifyingly obscene songs from America, Jamaica, and lately Nigeria, etc. But you know how when things are said in a foreign tongue nobody cares that much because the idea appears a bit remote. At least the kids are spared hearing the unmentionables in their own language.

In local culture we are taught to be discreet about certain things, hence the phrase ‘bad manners’ is one of the first things a child learns.
baganda for instance have always been the most discreet. This is evident in the fact that their language is notoriously dependent on innuendo. The aunties will labour very hard to train the younger ones on their manners and especially no 'bad words' are tolerated.

So how musicians became rabid merchants of bad manners is a mysterious thing. And how the people take to them, is equally amazing. There was that Teacher song, whose whole purpose appears to have been to show us how many ways the singer could hide vulgarity within innocent words. So they are very clever, these rocko artis, but they are also very depraved if that is all they can think of to sing. Really, better songs can be written, without telling us about strong 'animals', bottoms that wobble and sexually oriented classroom lectures.

I have to conclude that the national bad manners policeman, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, was right when he said our society is morally bankrupt.
Why, the name of the station that was playing the akasolo 'song' - 'Akaboozi' - could itself lead to odd places. Anyone who knows Luganda should know that while the word 'kaboozi' means conversation, there are certain types of conversations reserved for adults! You don't need me to explain further. In case you hadn't caught their naughty play on the word, the radio's tag line emphasises that this kaboozi is the type that has no age limit.

By the way:
Red Pepper had their warehouse burnt by armed arsonists? What has this society come to? Why wasn't I informed to go and dance around the bonfire? Anyway, at least they had CCTV and they spent their day watching something non-pornographic for a change.

Matooke off the shelf

I got all excited when I found matooke in the supermarket, peeled and ready to cook.

It is packaged in polythene and branded ‘My Matooke’ and priced at sh1000 for 12 bananas. The same number of unpeeled bananas would go for sh500-700. Some market women will peel the matooke for you and still charge the same price, but assuming you don't have the time to wait or pass by a market, then My Matooke may come in handy.


There is still a long way to go in preservation techniques though, as these were already starting to go dark around the edges and the best before date was still three days away. But if you have done juakali like me, you know that you can scrape off the top and still make a good meal.


Now we await the matooke flour which should make a huge difference since a lot of fresh matooke goes to waste when it ripens.


N.B: The burly muyindi (Indian) man speaking on the phone told me sternly, ‘You are not supposed to take photos’. He repeated the dull phrase when I asked why not. All this time the phone was still against his ear and the person on the other end must have wondered if Prakesh was perhaps posing naked before excited onlookers.


**If you need an introduction, matooke is a staple in Uganda. The green bananas have to be carefully peeled with a knife - producing notorious sap stains - steamed or boiled and usually mashed. Matooke is always served with a relish or sauce.

A bit Misty eyed

I decided not to work on the Heroes’ Day holiday on Monday, which gave me a 3 day weekend. I really enjoyed being my baby’s mother.
It was such bliss trying to decipher her jabbering language, drinking from the sparkling pool of needless but endless giggles, savouring her baby fragrance, her face buried in my neck. For moments like those, I know there is no price.
It’s that stage when she is just one month shy of celebrating her first birthday. So many things change in such a short time and it is amazing. I worried when by eight months she had no tooth to speak of, but one day I touched her gum and felt something scratchy. At 11 months she has only two lower incisors, while some babies that age already have six teeth. I have learnt to believe the dictum passed on sympathetically from one mum to the next: all babies are different. An eight month old I know can stand alone, while another started walking at eight and a half. Misty has only been cruising around the house on all fours or getting by with support from table to chair, to Daddy’s knee to curtain. She has the crawling speed and enthusiasm of a motorbike racer. But I was shocked when she deftly climbed onto a bench and shinnied to the other end of it so she could stand and reach into a bowl of water on the counter. I really gaped. When did she practice this stunt??
Later she put on the performance I have been begging, cajoling and holding my breath for without much reward for weeks now: she stood unaided and clapped her hands for a full minute. She did several encores but I could not take pictures. Knowing her, I knew the show would end the moment a camera came out.

In other news, the little one delights in digging into my purse to extract and examine the odd articles in there. She loves to reach the end of her mission, when she can practically turn the bag inside out and then call it a day. She gets so busy and happy that I can take several photos without her lunging for the camera or stopping to glare at me indignantly.

So many boring green papers, smelly as old socks. What else does Mommy keep in here?

Voila! See what I found!

Is there more under this baggy bag?
*******

As you can see, it was not a bad time of the month. And we have hair from Fantasialand, thanks to the adventurous babysitter.

Finally: To you BS, congratulations on your lil' lollipop.