Sunshine

Wanted: Scrabble buddy

2009-06-01T12:00:00.010+03:00

For years I kept thinking it would be nice to own a Scrabble game set. For years I kept postponing or forgetting about it. There was a time I was very passionate about it that I told whoever asked (including a few who didn't) that it would be an ideal gift if they were thinking of getting me something. For years, nothing came of my hints (I really should polish my hinting skills, or learn to be really pushy) but eventually Mr. Adam did the right thing and bought me one a few months ago. I was over the moon. It was not my birthday or any special occassion (those he has started forgetting-forgetting, shame on him, and I be too proud to remind him. I mean, the guilt when he finally remembers that he forgot an important day is well-deserved and satisfying for me.) so I really was pleased.

Now, I have the game, but I have been reduced to playing solitaire scrabble because he is usually too busy or uninterested to play with me. Or maybe he does not want to lose the game to me? He is usually very enthusiastic about playing Chess and he always beats me at it. But he knows that when it comes to word games I'm on the roll. Could it be all about the famous male ego?

Problem two is the little mintling who is growing quite an ego of her own. I can't do anything without her figuring she should be part of the picture. So a scrabble game is only so until she ambles over and turns it into a game of counting or roll-the-tiles or put-them-back-take-them-out-again.
So, nowadays it's twilight solitaire scrabble for me because I have to wait for her to go to bed, and then I can pull out the scrabble board. While Mr. Adam pokes around in his laptop and files, I sit on the floor with my scrabble.
It's funny how when you're not competing seriously, the good words and big marks seem to come easy. But it's not funny not to have a scrabble partner.

On the bright side, I'm loving the mental exercise (Hi, Ariaka, I have not forgotten).

Today's kids say darndestest things

2009-05-14T18:39:00.005+03:00

Minty (to 3-year-old Matthew): Are you happy?
Matthew: Noooo. I'm matthew.

Minty ( after narrating Sinbad the Sailor to 5-year old Dan): And that is the end of the story.
Dan (gazing longingly into a blank space): Is there a Part 2?

Michelle, 3 and a half years old: Auntie, I tell you something. My mum wears pampers.

This ring finger on my right

2009-04-01T14:46:00.005+03:00

I do realise this is a second post today in a drought-stricken blog, but I am feeling a bit concerned about a matter of great national importance. Members of our Parliament are worried about a swollen ring finger on the right hand of President Yoweri Museveni.

You see our visionary leader (It's a good thing that his vision is intact since it is not his eyes that are swollen - though many have observed that he is quite fond of bulging them during his lectures - and since he himself once said that doctors had warned him to tone down his schedule or risk blindness) has allowed his vulnerable side to show by wearing a plaster for more than two weeks now. I heard that the spicy piece of red vegetable has been on the trail of the finger that grew into a chipolata and now is 'the size of a sausage' (these last being their very words).

What is the point of this post? I have a request for all you analysts, experts, quack doctors, witch...I mean which doctors and conspiracy theorists: What do you think happened to that little (admittedly now large) finger on the president's right?

I know it was not a fish that bit his finger, because he did not himself go to Migingo Island to settle the dispute between Uganda and Kenya.

Personally, I became a bit suspicious after watching a skit on the comedy show 'Barbed Wire' when someone played the president ordering two of his ministers to prove their fitness by doing press ups.

When 'Namirembe' and 'Otafiire' fail to press even one up, the 'president' gets down to demonstrate his fitness. He shows several moves, suported on open palms, on bunched fists and even with one hand. Then he attempts to show how he does it with one finger...and collapses in a heap that only paramedics could uncollapse.

When five days later the plaster started appearing I wondered whether fiction had married truth.

So, people, hit me with your speculations.

Mucky Murphy's law

2009-04-01T14:13:00.003+03:00

Have you noticed that the whiter your shirt/blouse, the more likely you are to drop ketchup/sauce/soup/curry of a brightly lumionus colour on it during lunch?

That's why I'm boycotting lunch today. I have an important appointment this afternoon and I can't risk staining my top.

When they start to grow

2009-03-05T12:29:00.003+03:00

A teenage friend of mine was laughing about a baby in church who, after suckling at one breast, told the mother : “This one is now finished. Give me this one.”
Macline was so amused that a baby who can speak so clearly was still breastfeeding. I laughed along with her. But I shouldn’t have. My 20-month-old Misty still loves to nurse (notice the delicate choice of words) and is learning to talk. Recently she reported: “siyisht (finished),” after nursing at one side. She then turned to the other side and commanded, “eat,” with her hands already trying to dig around. I hope she will never get the chance to do that in public.

I’m beginning to see the rapid changes I have to make now that Misty is growing. When she started walking she loved to put on my clothes and shoes. She would pull down a blouse and struggle to wear it – usually it would end up as a dress-shirt or a very interesting baggy short if she decided to put it on upside down, with the sleeves as the leg holes. If it defeated her, she would drag it to the nearest adult and demand to be dressed or the World Cup of tantrums would ensue. Then she would proudly parade around the house in her latest fashion conquest.

Here she is in her layered look:

long sleeved red tee, model's own

sleeveless red polo neck, Minty's

Striped vest, Minty's.

Katikiti Mobile phone, Minty's!

A number of times I had to dive for my underwear before she got any ideas. One time she succeeded in putting one on but I grabbed her just before she walked out the bedroom door. Now all drawers containing drawers, so to speak, are off limits.

Recently I was lying down on my bed, she was sitting on my belly and we were having several disconnected conversations. She reached for my hair, ran her tiny hand over it and said, “Smaaaart.” I thanked her profusely and lied to her that her hair was also smart. A few minutes later, my hands were under my head as we continued to chat. Then she reached and pointed at the pit of my arm and declared: dirty! Now she was the one lying. Just because my skin is darker around this area! Shyaaah! No, no, it was not like Mabira neither was it like a golf course. It was smooth as a squash court.

Back to the girl chat, I had to cut it abruptly when her hands made as if towards the Central Republic of Me. Was she following a certain theme here? What was she going to do there? I jumped up before she had a chance to execute her evil plan.

Now I am considering instituting a privacy policy. Those things of following me to the bathroom have to end. In fact, I toyed with the idea of a blanket ban on the bedroom but that can wait a few more years.

PS: just so you know I have some cleverness in me, but some mercy on you, I considered leaving out the 'L' in Republic.

The triumph of Temangalo

2009-02-17T10:48:00.003+03:00

No he didn't. Oh yes he did. The president of Uganda ( and I still can't believe this) has made clear his stand on the controversial NSSF- Temangalo land saga. His latest cabinet list says so loud and clear that all you stupid fools who blew saliva on radio talk shows, who wasted airtime calling in to lambast those who used workers' money wantonly, who grew hoarse arguing on the floor and committee rooms of parliament, who spoilt your handwritings penning letters to the editors of various newspapers DON'T KNOW WHO IS BOSS! Hahaha.

What was that about 'he who washes his hands may dine with kings'? More like 'he who dirties his hands...' in this here cassava republic.
Just check this article from October 2008 about efforts to save Amama Mbabazi. And then check out the new entrants on the cabinet list. Educative.

For what it's worth, in 3000 words

2009-02-13T10:20:00.002+03:00

A quarrel

An apology

And a Kiss

Been too long in the rain. Make that murky swampy bog. With a silver lining, if that is possible.

Thoughts in Brownian motion

2008-12-15T16:07:00.001+03:00

Aka Random thoughts.

1. I want a break from work and yet I can't have it. I don't like the arrangement of having to work all through the holidays except on December 24 and 25. I want to have a sleep in weekend and an island holiday.

2. I have a feeling that the Serulanda Foundation will have their way inspite of the weirdness of their practices, and with the full participation of our M7. While the president instituted a comission of inquiry months ago, his government has at the same time been commissioning the investors and organising the legal framework under which the Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone will operate.

3. Reading about surrogate mothers in newspapers and the Internet is one thing, but knowing somebody who actually went through it is quite another thing. It hit me like a big block of ice when I heard that the beautiful young relative who had gone abroad for about a year, had actually gone to be a surro for her older sis. I should be touched by the whole giving thing, but instead I still feel chilled. I don't know why.

4. At what age do children learn to demand the bigger portion of everything? And where do they learn that if they screamed and kicked long enough you will eventually give in? Who teaches them to resort to endless nibbling especially when the cookie has become no more than the size of a pea? Is this an attempt to prolong the life of the swiftly diminishing cookie?

5. So on Tuesday last week Museveni and the LRA representative Nyekorach Matsanga meet and we are told the president agreed to talk to Kony one on one (on phone, by the way). Then on Sunday this week a joint Uganda-Congo-South Sudan force bombards the LRA hideout in Garamba. How interesting. Now if this is the same Matsanga who early this year reportedly wrote a letter to Museveni urging him to carry out swift military action against Kony, then I think the Tuesday meeting was about talking to Kony in the language of the gun.

Awards that are not necesarily awe inspiring

2008-12-04T13:57:00.000+03:00

This is Navio of Klear Kut receiving his Pearl of Africa Music Award for best Hip Hop something from the Commander of the Land Forces Maj. Gen. Katumba Wamala.

All good. But the PAM Award trophy is not all that, I am just saying. I have nothing against the spirit of the awards but that trophy is not inspiring at all. At first you would imagine they would have something shaped like Africa or if that was too hard, like a pearl. Wait. Maybe 'pearl' is what the organizers told the craftsman to make, just that he understood pearl to be a rare gem and came up with a diamond shape. That is my working theory.
Anyway, there have since beeen other groups stampeding to start their own 'Awadi' (In the last month alone, there have been adverts for Volunteer awards, Real Estate awards, just to mention the most intriguing for me) ceremonies. Not bad. However, there is going to be trouble if the organisers are too lazy to deviate from that glass triangular shaped trophy.

For instance, the winners of the 2008 MTN Kampala Marathon received fantastic trophies. Check them out.

Can you seen the glass thingy with the pointy end? If there was a sudden earth tremour, or someone bumped into one of these winners, or the dais went wobbly, would their eyes escape being poked?

Okay. Now at the inaugural Uganda film industry awards guess what inspired the trophy. Well as you can see, the prismic thingy showed up here too, albeit with a stylish looking stand.
Although there were a couple of variations, like this one here below.

The pointy apex was slashed off. Or the craftsman ran out of material too late. Or he had an idea of who would get this particular trophy and wanted to keep the old man safe from the deadly sharp point.

I hope these trophies come with a small text in the corner:

Fragile, Handle with care: If that thing dropped from a significant height, you can be saying goodbye to your prized symbol of progress.

Slippery, handle with dry hands: Oh, Oh, imagine that Katumba Wamala's hands were sweaty and with all the Clere Lotion he used, the Pam Award trophy slipped off his fingers, just before Navio received.

Keep out of reach of children. The sharp apex looks dangerous enough to be used in slaying the cat. And worse could happen, God forbid.

Then imagine that you won in all three contests then your mantelpiece would really be something to look at (not).
I’m sure it certainly beats receiving those infamous wooden ‘shields’, but if they want to continue employing the same bored glass cutter, why not venture into other shapes and better etch work?
Better still, what is so wrong with giving the job to a few sculptors, say at Makerere University, to do a serious job?

In other news:

Overheard on Power FM in the voice of Ben Mwine: They are a dime and a dozen to come across.

(And he was not even saying that THEY are many. Just the opposite.)

Monday's smiley moon

2008-12-04T09:52:00.007+03:00

By now you have already discussed and discussed the 'smiley' moon that showed in our skies on Monday night.

Anyway, when Jupiter and Venus came that close to the crescent moon, I was only too eager to try and photograph the spectacle. I have no fancy lens to my simple camera. I should have known the results would be awful.

The first try gave terrible results:

So, Mr. Adam offered to help me and he got this:

I politely snatched the camera back and got this one:

The right 'eye' in the smiley is barely visible but it's there. You can see it if you squint, squeeze your eyes near shut, put your nose on the screen or use a magnifying glass.

where in Kampala is this?

2008-11-25T14:28:00.009+03:00

I stumbled upon these interesting photos of Kampala in those days of our grandfathers. I'm young like that, unlike some of you who were in P6 already by 1960. Of course Baz I'm not talking about you. You are like us the youth of today (that is just a saying, not the title of that 1980s song by Musical Youth. Which I heard on the radio of course) and your latest Bad Idea had me in stitches.
Right, let's play a little game and see how many of us can identify which places are featured in the photos.

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Answers in the comments section Priiz. Sanx.

The Obamamadness is still with us

2008-11-19T14:57:00.003+03:00

Either Obamamania has refused to go away or some people just know how to make quick money. Ugandans love to party and any excuse will do.

Oh, well, at least I got to know that Blue Africa Restaurant changed names to 'Super Paradise' (how do you like the name, eh?).

Also, here's where I've wasted most of the Company's time today. I hope you'll understand why couldn't tear myself away from Cake Wrecks. With all my relatives, inlaws and outlaws, you can be sure I have seen some frightful cakes in my life. Maybe sometime I will do a cake wrecks special post on this blog.

Pix fest

2008-11-15T16:35:00.003+03:00

This little mintling is quite fashion conscious.

Of late she has taken to sharing some of my stuff.

Here, she commandeers my boots. Even if it means getting a little extra help to take those steps.

I must admit she makes them look quite battered. Maybe it's time to let them go.

You may stumble and fall, but each time pick yourself up and try again.

Even if it means walking the rest of the journey with only one shoe.

Enjoy the weekend all you good people.

Shouted on the rooftops

2008-11-11T17:17:00.005+03:00

There is this endangered species that is common in the Christian church, the species that have forced a past tense to become an adjective. Some members of these species, identified as the Marrieds, are sighted mostly around church buildings on Sunday afternoons. They hurdle together and whisper things that other species can only be curious about, and perhaps make a resolution to find their way into that circle.

Well, every once in a while the males and females of the species decide to meet separately, for better elucidation and unhindered discussion of certain gender-specific matters.

Sometimes some of the things that one hears at such meets remain with one forever. I have two examples that put the fear of Marrieds in my brave heart.

From the women's camp, somebody opened her mouth and delivered the lines that will just not get out of my head:

And the way they like IT in the morning! It's like they are always ready, yet you have things to do.

Only one person had the ill-timed judgement to agree, with an overenthusiastic "Owaaye!"

And from the men's camp, our agent, Mr. Adam brought back on a silver platter the following:

"The problem is that she insists on bathing with hot water at night, which just makes it..."

Sorry people, for some reason my mind has marred the rest of that line. I need to have the exact words lest I misrepresent, because I could fill it with any number of sad endings.

After that experience, you just have to make a mental note to dodge all the men-only or women-only meetings in future. Because after someone bares his/her soul, they will not be content until they have extracted a dangerous confession out of each one in the group. And like Minty and Adam compared notes, all the wives and husbands sure must have done the same. After that you don't know who is looking at you in a shiny new light.

I'd rather stay in the shadows, thanks.

Why Obama won: An African's speculation

2008-11-05T10:33:00.001+03:00

Barrack Obama had many more Yirizis (lucky charms) than John McCain.

I'm just kidding. Apparently such paraphernalia were part and parcel of the campaign strategies of both candidates.

A Nsenene Chronicle

2008-11-02T19:23:00.000+03:00

(Photo snatched from www.spaech.blogspot.com)

The Baganda call this month Musenene, the month in which, from ages past, the edible and well loved grasshopper (Homorocoryphus Nitidulus) literally fell from the sky. November is the main nsenene season, the other being April, when a swarm of the delicious locusts converges on the areas around Lake Victoria from the greater North.
The season was heralded by children and adults alike gathering round street light posts to catch the dazed insects. Mindless about street traffic, with eyes fixed on the zooming green and brown nsenene, many people put their lives at risk of road accidents. Those with bright security lights benefited from the juicy visitors that whirred by during the night. In the morning chattering children, many of them in school uniforms, would be seen chasing after the nsenene caught in the dew of the grass.
The insects would be caught, one at a time, and stuffed down the neck of a bottle or into a cup of hot water – either route being a point of no return.
Then the harvest would be brought home with much excitement, for the wings and legs to be twisted off, leaving only a slender naked abdomen and knob-shaped head.

These would then be stirred over a hot pan until they turned a deliciously crisp golden brown. Crunchy and somewhat salty, nsenene is a cheap source of protein, calcium, and unsaturated oils.
To those that have acquired the taste, nsenene is the object of undiluted greed for many Ugandans of all ages. A favourite joke is to tease a husband about finding himself on the receiving end of his pregnant wife’s tantrums if she asks for nsenene in the middle of the night, moreover on the wrong month.
During the month of Musenene, everyone was sure to get a mini harvest and neighbours would freely (maybe grudgingly too) share their catch.

Well, the romantic story of nsenene of old is no more.
Today most of the grasshoppers that make the long trip from the Abyssinian heights end up at commercial harvesting rigs set up by ambitious greedy capitalists who have monopolized the catching of nsenene.

Weeks before the first insects are expected, building sites with top floors are booked and leased for the sole purpose of catching the most nsenene possible. The ‘combine harvesters’ consist of rows of huge barrels fitted with shiny new iron sheets and crudely wired light bulbs. The fluorescent lights bounce off the iron sheets, at once attracting and blinding the insects. When they hit the iron sheets the nsenene slide all the way down to the bottom of the barrel, literally. Security guards are hired to keep watch, and sometimes live electric cables are wired around the area to deter thieves.
This way the monopolists lag home tonnes and tonnes of nsenene, and close out the ordinary people who used to get free ‘manna’ from heaven.
The commercial nsenene production includes wholesale trade in sacks of nsenene, transported over distances as long as 150km to the city in order to get the best price. At the market places like Nakasero in Kampala, vendors use ash to dewing the insects and set about selling them raw, fried or preserving them. To preserve nsenene, they are boiled briefly in water then sun dried to a crispness.
With the preservation, nsenene can be available all year round, rather than in the month of Musenene.
While this makes it possible to preserve, market and even export the delicacy, the natural balance has been upset.
Commercially harvested nsenene usually starts to smell as the live insects interact with dead ones in sacks loaded on cramped vehicles. This smell lingers on to the last. The quality deteriorates significantly with the passing of time. Sometimes at the onset of the season traders are not ashamed to sell last season’s nsenene as if it were fresh.
Many people cannot afford a dessertspoonful of fried nsenene – barely enough to satisfy a craving - at between sh100 and sh300.
The social activity around the collection and preparation of the grasshoppers is no more and I fear that a strong part of the Kiganda culture is died with it. There are old songs about grasshopper gathering, which no doubt are not being sung by the commercial harvesters.

I write this as I thank God for the handful of fresh nsenene popping in my mouth. I write as I mourn the way comercialisation has overtaken the rich tradition and taste of the versions we traditionally caught and prepared ourselves in days gone by.

The mini version of a rant

2008-10-27T15:13:00.000+03:00

Bathe, baby, bathe

When invisible walls are closing in
Can you part the stench curtains
And stick your nose outside
Hoping to drink in some fresh air?

How do you crawl
Out of the dark chocking depth
Of an office cubicle
Turned stinky dungeon?

Where can you hide
From these territorial claws
Of co-worker’s odour
Reaching with anti-perfume hugs
Of sweat-buttered,
Armpit-hairy,
Crotch-suffocated,
mouldy-toed,
Unwashed body?

*This is the short version of a very eloquent rant I have bottled up since last week. I'm about to report to work in a space suit. How do you handle?

Food on my mind

2008-10-23T16:25:00.000+03:00

Office Katogo*

He has a plastic fork in his hand
Gripped between two fingers and thumb.

Like a pelican, the fork dives into a red dish.
When it comes back up,
A piece of matooke is impaled on its tip.
His eager lips collect the harvest with one bite.
The fork goes back in to swim in the gravy.
Another piece of matooke drips with slick juices
As it balances tantalizingly on its way up.

He looks up.
I shift my gaze to the window above him.
“It is raining outside,” I manage to say.
“Do you want some?”
“Some what?”
He pulls out a fork from his drawer
And starts to hand me the dish.
“Ah...No, boss. I just had lunch.”
He rewards my discretion with an oily smile.

*Katogo is a meal of matooke (cooked green bananas)* in a rich relish of meat or offals or beans or peanut sauce. The word is also commonly used to describe a confusing or disorganised situation.

*Is there an easier way to translate 'matooke'?

No meat month update

2008-10-13T17:57:00.000+03:00

This is my last week in my no red meat month. Before that, I hardly went two days without eating beef. I put it down to the buffet kind of service at the office canteen. First of all, white meat like fish and chicken is more expensive than beef. Secondly it is easy to just go with the flow without even thinking about what you are doing.
So I decided to break the tight hold that red meat had on me by snubbing it for one month. Warrabout!

Week 1
I am so determined to stick to the deal. I have decided to build a buffer zone by telling as many people as I think will be around me during meal times. The logic is that they would remind me in case I made the mistake of ordering beef mindlessly.
This did not help me on the weekend when sitting next to my house help I ordered chips and sausage at Java’s restaurant at City Oil. Actually, I chose the meal because it was one of the cheapest on the menu and I was just waiting for the four wheeled Esperanza to be serviced. I only remembered my resolution well into the second sausage.
And then, two days later I had a lunch at Fang Fang restaurant as part of a group. Without thinking, I chewed on beef among the fancily prepared meats they served. Arrrgh (but the chilli beef was too good. I am glad I let down my guard for it).

Week two

I think I am already feeling different. I wonder whether I am not psychologically biased to expect good results. There is a certain lightness and I don’t feel tired in the afternoons (after lunch) like I used to.
Well, the other truth is that visits to Mr. John have been less stressful. So Cheri’s colourful description of what red meat does to the colon must be true.
On the two days the rest of the house was eating red meat, I ate my rice ‘dry’. Poor planning. I should have stocked some alternatives. I could see my house help thinking: “This is no way to live!”

Weak three
No mishaps this week. I was wise enough to buy a tin of tuna and somebody sent us two fat cabbages so I have been covered nicely. I commended myself for resisting the juicy looking liver stew like a Hindu.
I still feeling gooder than I have felt in years. For real. I am not sure if this feel-good-ness is due to the no-red-meat regime. I have been waking up earlier every day and with less of a verbal and physical tug of war to get me out of bed. This is great!

Weak four
I am having problems with chocolate cravings. I have eaten many bars of chocolate, lunch bars and TV bars in this week than I have in the last two months. I must be trying to convert my catholic resistance to beef into indulgence of anything not forbidden. This is not good.

Today
It is two days to go. I want to celebrate with a platter of the P1G, flanked by avocado, kachumbari and cassava (I am drooling at the mere thought) on Thursday.
Over all, this is something I will certainly hope to do again, if only to feel less enslaved by things that seem to have a grip on me. Plus, my mind has come to accept that lunch at the canteen can be complete without beef. I am going to be stricter on the amount of beef I eat from now on.

Simple and fuss free contraceptive...for goats!

2008-10-07T13:11:00.000+03:00

Have you ever heard of the 'olor'? A BBC story (click the link in the title) reports that Maasai pastoralists have found it necessary to prevent the unnecessary expansion of their goat herds during this drought season using a barrier to prevent goats from getting erm, reproductive. The logic is that there is too much competition for pasture and water to afford more goats now. In november the cowhide 'condom' (or goatdom) can be taken off and free copulation can take place.
The Maasai have had this technology for generations, even before wazungu brought this idea of condoms as a barrier method of contraception.
This makes me think that the idea of iron underpants for philandering men can actually work.

NSSF-Temangalo deal, what gives?

2008-09-29T12:20:00.000+03:00

I'm sure you will agree with me that what started as a land transaction between the National Social Security Fund and the security minister Amama Mbabazi and his associate Amos Nzeyi has morphed into an octopus with too many arms to keep up with.

If the powers that be wanted me completely baffled they have done a commendable job.
it seems that the stage has been set with some superb actors and some terribly lame ones. I can't get my head around the cast but I wish someone would explain to me the plot.

Why are there so many diversions from the real issues? Here, there's a side circus of Barnabas Tinkasimire, Margaret Muhanga, Banyenzaki, etc. Then the Jim Muhwezi monkey act is given a new twist when the disruptive monkey is rounded up for having escaped its cage. There's this angle of the so called foiled robbery at Garden City (it's been ages since a bank robbery was foiled by our police, what vigilance!)Not to forget the chief court jester, Charles Rwomushana resigned or sent packing from the internal security body for talking too much.
Who is policing who in this mix?
What part is the media playing in all this?
I can't keep up with the letters to the editor saying exactly the same thing, almost word for word. I have seen Mbabazi's face and heard his haughty voice on more talk shows this month than in my entire TV-watching and radio-listening life. Suddenly the NRM secretary general who was recently accused of being unavailable has become too available because he has to defend his controversial sale.

Is there more going on masterminded by the top circus master at NRM?

Are NSSF managers such fools that they would hand in all of sh11bn for land whose acreage, occupancy or topography they hadn't confirmed?
Was the discovery of the deal accidental and the land titles hurriedly handed over to cover up for the irregular doling of workers' savings?
When shall we know the truth?

Goodbye red meat. See you in one month

2008-09-18T09:01:00.000+03:00

This is an announcement. I have made a decision to resign from my post of chief beef eater for a month. Unlike some stubborn ministers in our government, I have decided to step aside for a while to allow investigations into the report health effects of red meat to go on.

I confess that I am an over-consumer of the stuff, which worries me considering that there's all this health talk about what meat can do to the human body. Plus, beef prices have gone absolutely crazy, so I should be able to save some money.

ciao ciao baby

Of course there are those who complain that today's scientists don't want us to eat anything that tastes good. In today's world sugar is bad, soda is bad, salt is bad, white bread is bad, etc etc.

Well, I had a dream last night (heh, just kidding). It's just that I would like to test the red meat argument for myself.

I want to know how my body (and mind) will do without meat for 31 straight days, starting today. I have heard that in fact the body gets a boost when it does not have to deal with red meat. I shall see.

This means picking mainly greens and pulses off that buffet table and saying no to those scrumptious meat samosas from the office canteen. I will only eat fish and the occasional chicken, but no pork (which is technically red meat although it appears white).

Now the reason I am stating this here is, I need to be accountable. Otherwise, without witnesses the whole deal will fall through. I am not exactly Miss Clean when it comes to sticking to some hard decisions.

To keep myself in check, I will be writing a daily diary about how I am feeling, although only occasional extracts may make it to this blog.

Wish me luck as I take the plunge.

Mob justice at the old taxi park

2008-09-09T11:59:00.001+03:00

Downtown Kampala
Monday September 8, 2008
Time: 19:26hrs

His trousers were bunched painfully around his groin, his feet barely touching the pavement as he was forcefully dragged by his belt. As they semi-hopped from one side of the taxi park to the centre, everyone turned to see him. What had he done to make the crowd so excited with the unrestrained need to release their anger? Had he been caught cutting someone’s handbag? Was he a pickpocket or a much grander thief?
There was no time to find out. The mere fact that three people were dragging him was condemnation enough.
So they set upon him with sticks and stones. They hurled him to the tarmac yard and kicked and kicked. There were shouts that he should be killed on the spot. Others wondered that a woman can give birth to a boy who would grow up to be a thief.
When a wide gash on his temple begun spewing thick red metallic-smelling blood, only then did someone decide that he had paid for his crime. They let him stumble away, hardly seeing for the blood dripping in his eye.

Suddenly, as if reminded of some duty she had left undone, a woman, neatly covered in a blue apron, got up with such fury. She swept up the stool she had been sitting on and made her way to the man who had just been released out of mercy. She aimed the stool at him and clobbered him with all her might. She did it with all the dedication of someone who was going to get paid for the job. Then she turned, disgusted at the fact that she had got blood on her stool, and walked back with a scowl to her snacks and sweets stall.

Idle blogging

2008-09-01T17:58:00.000+03:00

So I hear you chaps who go for BHH are so unserious, you only talk trivia, discuss boobs and generally play kawuna? I am never coming for a BHH. But I can get myself a job as a waiter at Effendy's so I can keep a surreptitious eye on the goings on. Obviously, the now famous Thomas Smyth missed out on quite some fun by walking out.

Now, let me share my very serious and of public concern boobs story. In the video for the Dream Girls' song ‘weekend’, the girls dance and play, presumably in a jungle. Well in the jungle dress, there are some bits that escaped from their tiny confines. So we have a small glimpse of boob in that video, around the first mention of the word ‘weekend’. It took a lot of homework to bring you this tid bit, mind, so when you go a-looking, you need to squint real hard to see what I saw. By now you are wondering why I didn't just post a video clip or something. It is part of the blogger deficiency on my side. My PC doesn't allow those intarekchuo things of You Tube. Anyhow, I just keep wondering if any of the Dream Girls members or their managers noticed, whether they just can't be bothered to edit that out, or it is intentional?

And also, I have a moobs picture too. Man-boobs at the Pyramids Casino tent at the Goat Races in Munyonyo.

Frightening! I have to run from my own blog.

A mini portrait of Kampala

2008-07-28T14:04:00.000+03:00

.... when no one is looking

Who are they trying to keep in or out at University Hall Makerere with razor wire? Are the students wont to scale the walls (and roof) or have thieves become a problem?

Talk about biting off more than you can chew. Right in the middle of traffic on jinja road, the matresses started 'pouring' off the boda bike. I don't know how long it took to pick up all the pieces.

A dead marabou stork lies uninterred at the foot of a signpost on the traffic island just opposite the Lugogo Mall pedestrian entrance.

Went back to check out the progress of disintegration two weeks later. Only the beak (triangular things in the right foreground) a few bones and feathers were left. Nature is really thorough. Makes you think about how much space would be saved if we stopped building 6 feet by 2 concrete houses underground for every dead being.

This picture is not that good. I was looking at the rooftop of the Madhvani buildings opposite Barclays Jinja road. There were some places CHOGM did not kiss.

P.S: I'm still waiting for someone to review Prof.Dr.VicePresident (house-like-a-hotel, now-Hotel-like-a-housing-block) Upland Rice (when does he do vice-presidenting?) champion's book. Gilbert Bukenya recently launched ( that word bores me) ‘Through Intricate Corridors to Power’ (what kind of an overbearing luggage of an insufferably long and terribly worded title is that?). Has any one read? Please I am dying to know if a Ugandan politician can really write an autobiography or it's another altobiography ( hastily made up term for altered bio). I am not eager to read the late Noble Mayombo's 'An Officer and a Gentleman' though.

P.P.S: I will be out for about a month while I do this annual leave thing. Enjoy your good and funny selves.

The tin ting

2008-07-22T17:29:00.000+03:00

Tuesday twosome it is then.
Well I just felt it necessary to post this here picture of the Imperial leather solid brilliantine I posted about in the last but one (do they still say that?) post.
Reason: many of us ran all the way to the alleys of memory lane and dredged up long-forgotten reminiscences of bath soaps gone by. The likes of Lux, Venus De Milo and Rexona(shudder) complete with their varied perfumes (!), shapes and colours have been filling my brain. But Imperial Leather soap is still so much in business, as many of you testify.

Anyway, the brilliantine in question is the one that looks like this. Now you can go ahead and picture its cousins Yolanda, Lux with the pink polka dots, Limara, Gift of Zanzibar and Cobra (thanks, Antipop).

A limerick, perhaps

2008-07-22T16:49:00.000+03:00

Stung by baby’s shock nibble
Mama’s poor painful nipple
Does not like this game.
With no sense of shame,
Kid leans back with a giggle.

Have solid brilliantine. Will share.

2008-07-10T14:33:00.000+03:00

As part of my excitement when I went a-shopping yesterday - I won’t tell you where as I’ve done enough advertising for one day- I saw Imperial Leather solid brilliantine and decided to buy it just because I could. Okay, for silly sentimental reasons and because it was not that expensive. It reminded me of those good old days of Obote and Tree Top and Peoples (bus company), three of the biggest brand names of the day. I have fond memories of those things of Yolanda, Gift of Zanzibar hanging around the house and the lingering fragrance. To tell you the truth I never saw any of them being used and never knew whether it was for the mama or the papa or the teenagers or the baby. Whether it was for her arms, or his after shave, or their pimples or its bottom, I had no idea.
Up till now, I did not know what solid brilliantine was used for, and the container does not say. I just remember the numerous alternative uses we had for the empty tins, like keeping marbles and other odds and ends. Plus, if they got even the slightest dent, that was the end, for you could never close or open the tin again.

So since I am now a proud owner of a small tin of brilliantine, I decided to google for some answers. Turns out it’s a super luxury cosmetic product. Most of the results referred to men’s grooming though. You guys who want shiny hair, a la Michael Ross (Don’t let the name fool you, he’s certified local artist. rocko artis), this brilliantine does wonders for those waves. Iwaya, imagine, she’d marry you today-today.
What about soft lips and smooth elbows?
Oh, one result referred to its use around the ears, eyes ...and muzzles of horses.

Live life, Love life's little pleasures

2008-07-10T13:05:00.000+03:00

Pleasures and pressures, as my mama poetically put it (she has a luo accent, so you have to appreciate how neatly the two words ryhme)
Anyhow,
There's this Jungle Energy Bar I am loving to a sinful level. This is one of the only 'Proudly South African' products I've wholeheartedly loved, and it is finishing all my spare shillings. I can't get enough of them; I buy several bars, mbu so I don't have to go back to Game stores for more the rest of the week. However by the time the hour is up, all of them are gone. All chocolate-covered medley of oatsey,toasted rice and nutsey scruptiousness. Droooool.

Uh, I had something else to say; something about life's pressures, but i have been overwhelmed by this urge to dash out to Lugogo Mall right now.
Arrivederci.

One evening, three cripples, three ways

2008-07-04T18:07:00.000+03:00

Last evening I was going home when I encountered, separately, three cripples going home their different ways.
The first one was coasting down Jinja road toward the traffic lights at Kitgum house. His means, a cool looking black scooter with two little wheels on either side of the back tyre. As I was admiring the vehicle, I looked twice to make sure I had seen his metal-encased lower limbs properly; yes this was not just another fancy bike, but a cripple's funky car. (At this point I beg leave to use the word cripple, for lack of a better word.) I was impressed by the fact that he was very smartly dressed and would not be surprised to find he owned a company. I wondered if he was crippled before or after he was rich - for he looked rich.

Twenty minutes later I get into this taxi and before I know it I am ensconced next to another cripple. This one is a common sight in town: the man with his legs bent forward at the knees. He is also smartly dressed although in cheaper clothes. He has this huge red bag, about one metre wide, in which a huge radio cassette player fits snugly. This is the guy you see at the street corner dancing vigourously to the music from the system. If you like his stuff, you drop some money into the plate. The dancer gets a lot of cash, given that he is trying his best to earn a living. Compared to some bafeere - idlers- who do nothing all day and either steal or beg for food, he has a lot of sympathy.
I sat looking at his feet waving just inches from my nose and it was all I could do not to act weird. He would try to make conversation but in a low mumble that I never managed to catch. I tried to ask him to say it again but he obviously was not that interested in telling me what he was telling me.
As we made our way up the Jinja road to Banda, we all noticed another cripple trying to beat the evening rush hour on his wheel chair. This wheel chair is the kind that has to be propelled by turning hand pedals at the front. Sometimes he would power ahead so fast, probably to get a head of a car that showed signs of eating into the pedestrian walkway that was his highway.

Everyone in the taxi was saying things about his stamina, and what amused me was the cripple next to me also joining in with his muffled voice. He said something about the strength the man can pump out of his arms. In the slow moving traffic, there was a lot of time to observe the guy outside as he passed us sometimes, and then we caught up and eventually left him behind.

At Kireka, the dancer hopped off the taxi and said a grateful 'webale baba' (thank you father) the kind driver who would not charge him for the ride and who was no relation of his. He plonked off in his unusual way into the dark, swinging his red bag around the tall legs of barbecue stoves bearing skewers of sausages, meat and gonja.

These three men made a serious impression on me that night as they hurried home to their wives and children. Yes, they have wives and children.

Bad songs and badder lyrics

2008-06-20T12:57:00.000+03:00

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

2008-06-13T12:40:00.000+03:00

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

2008-06-10T14:54:00.000+03:00

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.

Thoughts in a Commuter Taxi

2008-05-29T15:31:00.000+03:00

1. The Obnoxious Abomination* that is the conductor’s body odour is making my journey an Excruciating Conundrum*. I could drown in the oniony-rusty-fishy wiff swimming towards me from the sweat Amazons in his jungly armpits.

2. They’re discussing big women who wear spaghetti tops on the radio. It is noisy, it is hot, it is smelly in here. Aside: I have read three Mzungus refer to the Matatu** as a 'Mutato' and I am wondering where they are getting this from. Is there a tourist phrasebook out there with the wrong spelling?

3. Must switch seats. That student behind me is getting off at the next stage; I can tell from her uniform she goes to that roadside school. Leaving this seat for the one behind should send this steaming cauldron of a conductor a loud message.

4. Safe at last from the suffocating reaches of stinky conductor’s aura. Let him spread his love to that poor chap, ha ha; I can see him trying to inch away from the conductor as if he fears the smell will somehow become tangible and smear something nasty on his crisp light blue sleeve.

5. Wooohh, looky here. What a handsome fellow standing at the taxi stage. He looks suitably impatient . Must have a really important job that he is late for. See, he bunches his face as he scrutinises his phone. Reading a ‘where are you?’ text message from the boss? Checking the time?

6. Okay! He’s going to get into this taxi since my neighbour has just gasped a sudden ‘maas’awo’ at the lightning conductor. That means he might sit next to me. I don’t want him to sit next to me. He might catch me stealing glances, breathing in wafts of his cologne, studying the way his fingers curl around that file folder. Be discreet.

7.*Sniiiiiifffff* (soundless sniff-sniff) Uh, oh. That is certainly not cologne of any kind, not even Sure deodorant. Sabuni Kanga, perhaps? *quick side glance* Nice finger nails, though. Well trimmed beard, well matched tie. Bachelor or live-in girlfriend? I notice there’s no ring.

8. What, I know I’m married. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the rest of creation now, does it?

9. He anounces ‘ku Spear’. He’s getting off at the Spear Motors Junction. Probably works at URA. A tax collector or one of those guys always chasing deals around the tax offices? What else is that side, Nakawa Magistrate’s Court? Could he be a lawyer rushing to meet a client?

10. Ahchachacha, the shoes! It’s always in the shoes. Should have looked there first. You can see he polished them with so much love, but even love can be wasted, especially if the recepient keeps kicking you in the teeth. First of all they are sort of loafers, old and wrinkly. Then the edges are so cracked and frayed, I fear he cuts his feet every time he has to push them in. To crown it so beautifully, with every step there is a polite clap of left shoe to left ankle. It is so subtle that you get only a second’s glimpse of peach-coloured heel peeping through boat-shaped hole in sock.

11. That is enough to provide numb meditation for the rest of the journey.

*Terrible titles of The Ebonies’ plays.
**Kiswahili word for commuter taxi

Because I was tagged II

2008-05-13T12:47:00.000+03:00

Cheri wanted to know

Four jobs I have done

Chief Retail Traffic Manager (I can't just start telling you I worked as a shopkeeper in S.6 Vacation)

Teacher (A Level, Literature in English it must be emphasised)

Writer

Documentation consultant

four places I have lived (countries)

Kenya

Uganda-Katuna

Uganda-Jinja

Uganda -Entebbe

Four movies i would watch over again

Love Actually

The Mask

The Bourne Identity

Sound of Music

Four TV shows I love

Two and a Half Men

Malcolm in the Middle

Plannet's funniest animals
Friends

Four places I've been on Vacation

Ssese Islands

Mombasa, Kenya

I don't have vacations

I don't have a Life

Four of my favourie foods

rice and peas

chapati and chicken

butter or garlic Nan with anything meaty

Spinach (for real)

Four places I would rather be now

At home with him and her

On Bulago Island searching the beach for shells

Eiffel Tower

Athens

On Reading and the African Reading Challenge

2008-05-02T12:39:00.001+03:00

I have always loved reading; have been hooked since the age of four. I exaggerate not. Anyway, I still love reading, but now I realise that there is a distinction between loving reading and loving books. I look at all these insightful book lovers and I see myself pale in comparison where the book-love is concerned. Some of you love books, yes, but I can't group you with Dee or Tumwi yet, because you have never properly reveiwed books like them on your blogs, so...

I read books to finish them and then I’m on to the next. I struggle to remember titles and struggle to keep oohing and aahing when people are talking ‘book’. I cannot tell you that this or that book changed my life. I will not die if you chew my books; just wince or whine, but not be infinitely mad.
So will anyone teach me how to love books? At least so that I can write a proper clever book review. The last time I tried, I ended up with some ridiculous tale that gave little credit to the book.

Is there a way to become a book lover in that real and passionate sense? Or is it one of those things that you either have or don’t have, full stop?

I heaved myself onto the bandwagon (in a good way- like a Jeep Cherokee bandwagon) of the African Reading Challenge. The challenge - to read six books about Africa or by an African author, or set in Africa this year - is a wonderful opportunity to get intimate with the histories and current affairs of different parts of the continent. I love the challenge. I did not make a prior list, although it definitely includes Dave Eggers’ What is the What, which I have not yet laid hands on.
I will not be able to post reviews of Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, which I’m almost certain half of you have already read. Anyhow,both Dee and Tumwi did good reviews sometime (I'm still searching their blogs for the links ).
The Shackled Continent by Robert Guest was quite informative and insightful about the troubles that dog Africa and how these could be solved with sensible and sensitive leadership.
I am reading ‘God’s Bits of Wood’ (which Tumwi also reviewed. Yes, she's way ahead as always. Get some sleep, gal) on the side (while I finish another cheesy title). Meanwhile I am loving Sembene's way with words and his eye for the funny things about people.

I also came across the true story of the Ugandan boy who grew up as a girl and only reverted to being a man after school. You all have heard the From Juliet to Julius : In Search of My True Identity story?

After reading it I realise that if you only read the newspaper version that raised the dust some years ago, you went away thinking Julius Kagwa was a sex-change case or a transvestite!! The true story written simply even manages to include interesting insights into the Obote II times in suburban Kampala of 1980s.

As you can see, the real challenge of the ARChallenge for me is writing the reviews, for which I beg mercy, please. Let me just read, enjoy and report that I have read. That should count, hm?

First, we pay our debts

2008-04-25T13:07:00.000+03:00

I realise I have many debts to pay, mainly in the form of tags (they still exist?). I’m gonna have to give Tandra her six things (love dat gal, T. She has the art and drama to describe the oddities of this life to a T). later, I should give the Buttercookie her multiples of four, and then on to other interesting things.

So here are the six things about me that you all had better not be knowing-knowing.

1. Tongue! (Not in that sense, you!) When I was a little girl, I got my self involved in this dangerous cult composed of my sole self. It involved an unhealthy obsession for sucking on my own tongue, the way other kids such their thumbs. Just as it is impossible to get a young child to stop sucking on a thumb, they had battles trying to get me to stop. I even had a personal sentry posted to pinch me whenever I unconsciously slipped into my cult mode. After a while the habit petered out on it own, although when I’m hungry or deeply hurt, I’ve noticed that behind these pursed lips, tongue is busy doing its own things.

One of the difficult things in being a parent is seeing your bad habits replicated in your little one. Misty already has a thing about sticking out her tongue and sucking on it. If only she knew how hard it will be to get rid of that habit.

2. Tongue and lips in tandem: I love to whistle. Always have. I was always irritating more traditional relatives who believed that it is abominable for girls to whistle. Those threats, that whistling at night will cause snakes to come a-dancing to your house, never worked on me. I still love to work my lips around a well loved tune, but will not be intimidated by a little known one either. To make matters worse, I have absolutely no idea if I am being out of tune as it all sounds like, well, music to my ears. Until Idols or Project Fame starts a show for whistling, that is the verdict.

3. Like two peas in a pod. No, I don’t have a twin. The item in question is the peapod-like birthmark I have on the inner thigh. You should see it (that is an expression, not an invitation, thank you). Three depressions in line, just as if three little peas had fallen off and left evidence of their existence in the skin. I think it’s quite the cutest thing ever. That’s enough info on that.

4. Footprints in the sand. I have flat feet, which makes it easy for anyone to tell if I trespassed on their property barefoot. We once had a house help who had a similar but different problem. She would always be caught if she walked across the floor with wet feet, chiefly because the deeply arched feet left the only crescent-shaped footprints in our household.

5. Anatomy spy. Now this one I am not proud of, and yet I can't seem to help it. I have this bad habit of trying to judge the book by its cover. I keep discovering that I can tell people’s character from the shape of some or other part of their body. Usually it’s the lips or the eyes, the gait or the fingernails and usually the assumption turns out fairly accurate.
It probably started with the cousin whose smallest toe never touched the floor no matter how much the foot was pressed down. His siblings joked that such feet identified a thief. Thing is, their brother could make things disappear with such precision, that I ended up taking the joke seriously. Dude could foil every strategy his mum came up with to keep him from stealing her money. That is the guy who taught me how to fidget through the metal burglar proofing of their windows, feet first followed by a shoulder slide –the most difficult part - and head and arms last.

6. Dude, where’s my waistline??? Nuff. Said.

Anyone hasn't yet been tagged? Didn't think so.

Hello, Is anybody listening?

2008-04-18T09:44:00.000+03:00

Apparently, I can live for two months on a good compliment, so said the great George Orwell, and so saith I. What exactly happened here?, you ask. From the giddiness in the last post, the one of like 1984 or thereabouts, I must have become too high on being nominated for the Uganda Best of Blogs (surely you remember those, don't you?) that I thought I might as well get away with just being on your marks.

Well, I have a lot of house cleaning to do; just look at all these cobwebs!!

P.S: Blogger tantrums made it difficult for me to comment on most blogs, but just so you know, I'm reading, I'm enjoying, I'm learning from all of you.
I'm out for now.

Around the hood

2008-02-07T14:28:00.001+03:00

The past week in UG blogistan has been like a boda boda ride down Luwum street when there's a traffic jam.
Guys being so annoyingly creative that they got us shouting 'fight, fight'. We had gathered in a circle and the line in the dust had been drawn. Kiwaani!
We had guys darting in and out of lanes, some bodas we had not heard of in eons; some we misssed terribly and others we wondered how they were getting on.

People telling us goodbye. Will he return?

Bloggers reveling in the UBOB (Uganda Best of Blogs) awards. Go there and cast your vote.

Wait, is that us? Oh Hey, we've been nominated for Best Blog in Uganda. How do you like my beard now? eh?

Love to all that nominated this house. Funny thing is even I will be voting someone else. Is that betraying the cause? Alright, if you feel me so, you vote for me. Here's a bar of soap and a packet of salt. Tick the wide brimmed hat.

A bit too random and linksy but...

2008-01-25T13:58:00.000+03:00

i.e, Totally randomesque like Tandra, the queen of randomsies.

0. Hi all. Ya fine? Good.
1. I so loved The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency that I was excited to find out it’s been made into a film. The elderly Precious Ramotswe is quite a charming character that Alexander McCall Smith created based on his years living in Southern Africa. She sets up a sort of private investigation firm after selling cattle inherited from her father. The agency hardly makes a profit, but the odd cases keep Ma Ramotswe occupied solving problems with her motherly wisdom. The movie will be released around Easter. I saw a preview on TV (Al Jazeera’s The Fabulous Picture Show? Not sure) with Jill Scott looking a convincing well endowed African woman.
I’ve read four of the eight books in the series and would give them 5 stars (although my 21 year old bro was so offended after reading Tears of the Giraffe, mbu it is too juvenile). Me I think they’re charming. Surely the making of a movie is just proof?

2. Totally loving Ayiesha Woods. Aaiiyahh, girl can singggg! Three weeks ago, besieged by a combination of flu and cough, it was all I could do not to burst my vocal cords imitating Ayiesha Woods. (Replace her deft key fingers on the piano with my halting stubby ones on a temperamental guitar) Only with the sore throat could I pull off a voice like that on ‘Happy’, and ‘Big Enough’.

3.My Happy-ness and faith in God’s Big Enough-ness was tested a week later when I came down with a terrifying fever. The parasites did a good job of hiding behind the platelets floating in my blood, coz the doctors could not detect anything wrong. I was so tempted to box God in when the prayers seemed not to be working. A round of self-prescribed anti-malarial tabs sorted me out eventually.

4.Dilemmas:

a). How many of you have felt like Jaz here? Put ya hands up you, you and you. Even if you will never do it. Just to acknowledge and then purge them thoughts.

b). What would you do if a good friend decided to marry someone much older? What if fiancé(e) has kids? Teenage kids? And if (s)he’s a widow(er)? How about if (s)he is living positively? That is, a Person Living with HIV/AIDS? Is it discrimination to think older widow(er) parent of teens PLHA is unfair? Is it unfair to be having unhappy thoughts about the joyful union? Can you be smiling all over the place as you go about helping with the preps? Dilemmatrics.

5. Good to see the Lissing one is blogging again.

Building for the future

2008-01-22T17:09:00.000+03:00

Why, I’m losing my mojo. It got killed by the madness over in Kenya. Having a few close relativesin the thick of things has not helped. Some have been faithful in giving daily updates while others insist on keeping eerily silent. Thankfully they are safe.

In other news, at Makerere ‘tis the season to be merry. Business people are cashing in on the graduation frenzy. The gowns are coming out in all shapes and sizes. The confectioners with their book-shaped cakes, struggling restaurants with gardens offering venues for parties. Oh, and long lost relatives campaigning to be at the 'high table.'

The party budgets are being passed around. The reasons for spending thousands of shillings on parties are personal. Don’t ask. Just contribute and hope that they will not be knocking at your door again for upkeep and job connections.
And come to the party with a gift. No water glasses please. Monetary gifts are more than welcome. You know Junior hasn’t got a job yet. Will not have a job for the next seven months.
Be good. Do not rain on anyone’s parade. Give them some money when they come with their budgets. There will be time for revenge speeches later. Promise.

2007 to 2008

2007-12-31T17:47:00.000+03:00

I am thankful:
For God, what can I say? You are my shield, my strength, my portion, my deliverer, my helper, my friend in 2007.

For Misty, my dear little one, months of anxiety, weeks of counting and calculating, days of anticipating, minutes of waiting and wailing silently, the second you shot out of there like a cannon. You were the best thing that happened to me in 2007.

For Adam, patient, faithful, loving, protective, funny, teasing, tough, teaching, learning, the constant joy that characterised my 2007.

For Money, you know what you have done with all my problems, even as your shilling value kept erroding.

For blogger, and all the wonderful people you have enabled me to interact with virtually, some even physically. For still being here after I abandoned ship for five months in 2007.

I'm hopeful,
for more of these in 2008.

Happy New year everybody.

Carol me bad

2007-12-21T18:04:00.000+03:00

Last year I was so inspired at this time I played with a Christmas song here. No such pretensions this year. The Mobile telephony companies here have put mud in it with their contrived versions promoting kabiritis, Katikitikis and kibokos on radio. The 'three Ks' are miniature (physically and technologically) mobile phones given Luganda catch words (to hook us up, we understand) by rivals MTN, Uganda Telecom and Celtel Uganda. Additionally, they are priced cheap, cheaper, cheapest respectively.
Back to the point, their Christmassy jingles are painful to listen to. They are certainly not singing sweetly o'er the airwaives. It has taken the wind out of my sails, ergo, I will not do such things again.

To each one of you good people: Have yourself a merry little Christmas

PS: Was going to stop there, but a sneak peak at the Goddess’ place reminded me to thank all of you for being just who you have been since …ah, this should be in a transiting-into-the New-Year post. I will have time for that next week. Till then.

Overrated, over and out

2007-12-17T17:06:00.000+03:00

Let’s just say that I am completely miffed at the haughtiness of:

Justice Faith Elizabeth Kalikwani Mwondah, The Inspector General of Government: She started out fine and her institution is doing a good job. But she needs to separate IGG from Faith. I never though the day would come when I’d think, ‘What is she running around like a headless chicken for?’ Alas, that day came and went. And is likely to come and go again. I do not see an honourable end, alas.

Kassim ‘the dream’ Ouma, Middleweight Boxer: He deserted the army for a boxing career in America. He became our hero with his winning ways, until the army pardoned his sins. He became a poser. He is in Kampala for a while, keeping a surprisingly low profile. WBS TV interviewed him recently and I swear he was speaking English, just his own version. I heard him say, “Ynowamsen, I like, yah, I’m ynowamsen…” Totally shattered my dreams with that.

Dr. John Sentamu Archbishop of York: He has done Uganda proud, no doubt. But I am suspicious that he wants to become the next Desmond Tutu or something thereabouts. His gimmicks are a bit hollow and showy and calculated and I wish him luck.

These are well loved Ugandans, but right now I can’t find one praise-singing bone in me for them. Well maybe I can sing the only song that comes to mind. ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall…’ You know the rest.

Strange but true

2007-12-06T16:39:00.001+03:00

Things I’ve become

1. Fresh Dairy – Being a lactating (weirrrd word, that) mother means I have to bear this heavy rack of a bust for a number of months. I feel like Dairymaid, seeing as these here globules seem to have taken over my life. Of course to the little Mintling, they are her life. Now that she’s grown a bit, she knows how to dive for them like a Kingfisher after a stray sardine floating on water. Never to let go, hands and gums firmly securing her territory till she's had her fill.

2. Caterpillar - I still have the Pirelli round my flank. Looks like it will take a Goodyear (forced pun plus product placement oyee!) to shed all the rolls of fat off. I’m not even actively working on it. (Four push ups on Saturday mornings don’t count)

3. Absentminded Professor: Being so busy marveling and charting Misty’s progress that some things take the back seat. We only remembered our third wedding anniversary a day after it had passed and even then, did nothing to celebrate. Must be careful to reserve some oohing and aahing for the first love.

4. Praying Hands: Insurance is asking God every fifteen minutes to protect her. Thanking him every 30 so he can keep her alive, safe, healthy more. And getting rebuked by the saying on the back of a matatu: Katonda talya nguzi- God cannot be bribed.

5. Forever Young: Age is just a(n obscure) number, so please don’t ask me how young I am. I still can’t believe, nay, won’t believe, how increasingly I think of my age in vague terms the closer I inch towards 30. Being twentysomething is so sweet, I can’t think of changing that left digit to 3 and higher. Do I see myself among those notorious thirtysomethings who slice their age when that time comes? I may not be bold enough to tell a lie, but perhaps it is time to start sharpening those roundabout answers, dodging tactics and playful rejoinders.

Must I have a title all the time?

2007-12-06T10:42:00.000+03:00

There is this fellow who thinks up really plausible absurd ideas, sort of good idea bad ideas. One of my favourites is this here doodah. It really made me laugh, but how sensible! Think how it would save so much time and energy. I want one, haraka haraka.

Update from way back when..: I finally got a peep at the MIL's imported artificial toe. Nice piece of work, I must say. I stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth, when it started demanding to say things like, 'Is that the toe, the other one, you know...' Surreptitious glances confirmed that it is a sort of rubbery-celluloidy thimbly thingy that fits snugly over the stump of the missing toe and makes it look whole, complete with African looking toenail. Actually the toenail is a real piece of work. You know how our zeeyis have sort of greyish nails? They had it designed exactly like that. Sorry, no pix could possibly be taken without betraying the cause.

Remember these guys?

2007-11-30T10:37:00.000+03:00

Jog your memory, you sure remember this guy...some of you may have claimed he was your relative from Gulu, someone called Billy Ochen...

He done growed but Billy Ocean of these days is still cool like that.

While we are still at Memory Lane, guess who is in the Cambridge International Dictionary of English?

Rambo (pl Rambos) someone who uses, or threatens to use strong and violent methods against their enemies. Others: Rambo-like, Rambo-style, Ramboesque

And Im here thinking, 'What shall I do to get myself a permanent seat in that dictionary? What???!'

Welcome to Show-gm

2007-11-22T13:04:00.000+03:00

Dear CHOGM delegate

We have been working hard to bring you a once in a lifetime show, 'A different Kampala'. Okay, some of us have also been eating hard in our Chowgum preparations, but that's not the point.

I hope you understand that this is just our way of giving you the best. Ordinarily we have people on the streets. In your countries don’t you have people going into and coming out of shops, banks, post offices, barbershops? We also have them. We sell and buy things on the pavements too, where you could have bought notebooks, pens, wallets, toffees, old books and magazines. We have sweaty young men selling pyramids of oranges in blue basins and clay candlesticks spray-painted in silver on traffic islands.
Yes and hundreds of cars chugging wildly along the narrow roads, competing jealously to get where they are going before anyone else. Cars of 1954 have come back to the roads, not to commemorate the Queen’s last visit, but because the yearly road license fees were scrapped. We also have Hummers which can barely fit on some of the roads.
You will not see any lightskinned things sashaying suggestively on the streets, but you may find some in your hotel lobby. Just ask a waiter or two for 'service'. He will point you to someone with a large name tag dangling off the neck.
Understand that we hastily declared two public holidays, and hastily trained Special Police Constables to protect you from all these things. We are sparing you the stain of Kampalaness, the corruption of Uganda.

When this is over, the street children will be back to ask for 'just sh100 for lunch' and so will the man of the stump at the city square who always has one coin on his green plastic saucer, but is always eating sumptous 'katogo'.

By that time you will be long gone, showing off neat photographs of the Pearl of Africa, Gifted by Nature. For that we will be eternally grateful.

Please, if you want to come back for this show, give us two years' advance notice, we beg.

Sincerely yours,
Chowgum Ugandan.

Happy faces

2007-11-21T12:12:00.000+03:00

Aren't sunflower's just the happiest of flowers? In my opinion, they are the original smilies; that's why smilies are yellow. Some theory there, heh.

I have been dreaming of planting a garden full of them for months. I took my time (read procrastinated) until recently when I discovered that the seeds had somehow gone missing and I started fretting (they were here just the other day, who moved my seeds, I'm sure I saw them somewhere around here, etc, etc) because I had finally prepared the patch.

I went out and got two happy faces for inspiration.(Someday I will plant those sunflowers. I must plant those sunflowers, haki ya mungu etc, etc)

Someone clean my ears

2007-11-16T20:46:00.000+03:00

I have one of the best fathers in law. He is such a great personality, humble and yet full of dignity, funny and amiable. He makes a great grand father and Misty loves him (I think, he seems to calm her instantly). When I visit, he takes over the baby and together they are so calm that I need not interfere, except to change or feed her.
He is also very religious, and not it a bigot-ish way. He has raised good and principled kids, he is a model father.

So, imagine my utter amazement when in a moment of disgust at some people’s behaviour he uttered a sentence with the words ‘bl**dy f***ing.’
It took all three of us a moment to register. For ten seconds, Adam gaped while the old man allowed a weasely smile to break his face that had been angry just moments before. I kept my eyes fixed on Adam, my face battling various muscles whose function it is to register things like shock. It was as if someone had called out ‘freeze’. That is one tableau I will never forget!

**************************************************
On another occasion, I was visiting my mother with two of my sisters and my little bro. Mama had invited a couple of her friends over for lunch and we were all basking in the aftermath of a meal cooked with love. Then Lil Bro gets up for a short walk, availing everyone a generous view of his undershorts. You know the drill. Young men letting their jeans sag all the way to the knees with a pool of trouser-leg collecting at the heels. The oldies in the room could not let that pass without a comment:

Oldie 1: Eh, what is wrong with your trousers? Don’t you know your size?
Oldie2: Don’t you know? That is part of their style.
Mama: I hear it is called ‘shagging’.

The oldies continued their debate, but the rest of us had flown to another planet. Cheeks were suffering from pressure as guffaws were desperately held in. Sister Lo sped to the Kitchen as slowly as she could only to burst in giggles and sniffles. She revealed that she nearly told the oldies that in our language that word means something else, but she didn’t. Would it have made things better if she had told them?

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2007-11-14T10:12:00.000+03:00

Don't you think it's a great thing that a clean shaven head is trendy? Because, these days a good many gentlemen are balding away. I'm talking young men in their 20s. Are these effects of global warming?

These days more men are showing all the signs that in a few years they will have a shining pate. And the funny thing is, they look kind of nice.

Some caucasians manage to carry a pony tail alongside bare scalps, even if said tail consists of mere wisps straining to meet each other from either side of the head. But imagine the horror of trying to team a balding head with an afro, or dreadlocks! Wait, some of our fathers are still clinging to their greying afros, even as the forehead keeps extending it's territory inward. Who will tell them it looks so odd? Like a desert and savannah in the same terrain.

My Adam has been staring at the inevitability of a receding hairline that can become a shiny disc by the time he is 35.

Hm, even the mintling who came with a full head of lush curls has developed a bald patch - from sleeping on her back.

Meanwhile, you may find this story hair raising.

Kampala sibizimbe

2007-11-02T14:02:00.000+03:00

Bobi Wine wears a T-shirt, designed by Xenson, I think, with these words:
Kampala
Si kibuga kya ba fala,
bwoba fala
Ofa oli fala *
or something thereabouts. In otherwords, Kampala is no place for the naïve.

In Kampala city everyone ups their game. Can you see that guy sitting so comfortably on the car like a good Muganda girl on her grandmother's mat?
This smartly dressed beggar took advantage of a traffic jam to ask the driver of this car to give him some money.

The driver gestured with open palms, meaning he hadn’t any. This was obviously a lie, but who cares? Beggar cares!
Beggar dude repeats his request, car owner repeats his gesture.
Beggar then jumps onto the car’s bonnet, sits there and folds his arms across his chest. He will not be moved until the man gives him money.

Luckily, a traffic warden showed up and shooed off the cocky beggar.

*edited, thanks to Edislahh.

Really, Mr. President?

2007-11-02T13:40:00.000+03:00

Why does my computer’s automatic correction give me the words Amusement and Uneven when I try to type the name of our dear visionary president Museveni?

Does it have anything to do with this story?

Im still wondering at three things the president said aloud to the Ugandan community in the US:

1. That Mo Ibrahim's $5m prize means zilch to him because he is too rich. Yet he always claims to be a simple farmer.
2. That he will only leave power when his mission is over. So what is this rubbish about elections?
3. That he is so hard on the corrupt, he even dismissed his own brother, Salim Saleh from the army for drinking in 1989. Why punish Saleh for a sin hardly anyone knew about and forgive him for many others the whole country cares about? Has Saleh stopped drinking? Is Saleh at Alcoholics Anonymous, or isn't he now a minister?

This is it, innit?

2007-10-26T14:33:00.000+03:00

At last a template I completely like!! Methinks it looks happier around here. I'm chuffed to my eyebrows.

Big man's curse

2007-10-25T13:00:00.000+03:00

You talk big
'cause that’s the way you learned
to be the man you are:
the wispy occupant of the peasants' minds.

you thrive on the fruit of your lips.

When the fruit begins to ripen
and stays unmoved for long
it attracts all the flies.

But the flies that are swarming you
Have come to lay their eggs
that hatch into maggots
that eat away at the soul
even when the outside seems good.

Sooner or later the rotting fruit must drop!

Of men and their choices

2007-10-17T10:46:00.000+03:00

On Sunday I was at Speke Hotel and espied, with my little eye, our diminutive gay rights activist, Victor Juliet Mukasa and some pals comuning with what I think were foreign paparazzi. They had these beeeyutifull black T-shirts with the Rainbow colours and the Ugandan flag on the sleeve.

It follows that a gay African living in Africa will be a darling of world media. A gay person claiming persecution will draw them like bees to nectar. So I suppose Mukasa was giving powerful interviews regarding their Court case.

Ayah, I thought, if Museveni and co. think they are ready for CHOGM, let them wait and see what Mukasa and pals will do to their cherished image.

But this is Uganda’s year to face the music, since the spotlight is pointing this way for the common wealth meeting. The gay rights people have been harping on about it in other lands, now here they come with the persecution complex, although you never hear of arrests or incarcerations under that law.
We must start facing the possibility that Mukasa and friends (or lovers) could win the battle to have the law scrapped from the penal code. It may not happen this year or the next, but someday as we keep striving to be modern, along will come a president who will not refuse to sign such an ammendment, should it ever get through parliament.

When that happens, it will be every man for himself and God for us all. Parents will have to equip their children with skills to stand their ground when the recruiters ply them with pornography or try to seduce/rape them as is common in boarding schools. (That's one disturbing element in the whole gay thing- the frequency of coercion and pornography in the mix). It will be a time to send your children to school cushioned with a thousand prayers for their protection and preservation.

I do not know any homosexuals personally, or at least none has confessed their orientation (?) to me. The few people who we knew/suspected of practising lesbianism in school are now in heterosexual relationships.
I have no reason to hate a person that confesses to be gay. you will not find be in an anti-homosexuality demonstration. But I cannot bring myself to say that homosexuality is okay, is natural/inborn. I shudder with revulsion at the thought of how gay people get intimate.

Let me draw a parallel with smoking. Both habits are acquired by choice , both are associated with health problems eventually.
I suspect that gays would not like their children (children? how?) to be gays when they grow up just as most smokers beat the day lights out of a son who picks the habit.
And, it is hard, almost impossible to come off the lifestyle, but not so impossible with a strong will and God, and sometimes a health scare.
It's been said that if God wanted us to smoke He would have put a chimney on top of our heads. Simillarly, He would have made all human beings with provisions for transexuality so that we could choose whichever way to go.

Let me say that I would not like my child to become a homosexual. I cannot stop somebody from choosing these lifestyles but I would like to see preventive measures against the tendency to seduce others (often younger ones) into joining the club. Why do some fellows work so hard to introduce others into what is supposed to be a 'normal thing'?

Meanwhile, does anybody know what else Victor Juliet Mukasa does for a living?

Okay, I've heaved my beans and potatoes on the matter. Let me let those who are bent that way (sick pun, I know) be the way they want to be.

Sunshine Boulevard

2007-10-08T11:32:00.000+03:00

First of all I just can't believe this thing has opened up on my office Computer (Whoops of joy, dancing on my desk, typing this with my toes).

When it comes to these techy things, my office computer is at the very bottom of the pile of manure in the neglected shamba corner. So seeing this Create Post window opening peacefully and allowing me to put words on its face is so exhilarating. I feel like the rest of the Teletubbies congregating around the TV belly on the chosen tubby. Calling out 'Again, again' when the movie clip ends. Ahh, such bliss. Let the sun shine!

(Yes, I watch Teletubbies. Some people watch 'Side Mirror')

Okay, (now typing with my fingers) this was supposed to be a little offering, a bowl of steaming stew specially for you. Can you smell the aroma wafting bloggerways?

A picture of the little Mintling. Over to you, girl.

'allo 'allo, testing testing, one two.

Hi, I am Miss T but you can call me Misty.

I've been waiting to meet you. I'm sure we will meet again. Thank you.

Ode to my ‘Atieno Yo’

2007-10-05T11:57:00.000+03:00

For E

What is troubling you so
My Atieno Yo
From the land of the Kenyan Luo?

The kundi-show*
The hems so low

The tight dress
So out of place

When first you came
You played no games,

Now strange men note
You’re looking ‘hot’

So, where’s your sense of shame?
You certainly aren’t the same.

*Ugandan slang for cropped top that shows the belly button

Remember that silly (but pregnant with meaning) poem in one of those English Exercise books at senior one? The housemaid/babysitter morphs from humble servant to pompous woman who turned out to be pregnant, I think. I was reminded of the poem recently when I started having house-help woes. My help is actually from the land of the original Atieno Yo and she has been absolutely fabulous. But for some reason she is convinced that we are sabotaging her plans to marry one of my in-laws. Said suitor does not know A from Z of what she’s babbling about. Poor chao, time to ha-ha! So that is why she started preening-preening herself, yet when she came things like long hair, short skirts and tight clothes were a no-no. Anyway, she is still with me until year end, when she goes home for Christmas – and for good.

I've got a baby, you?

2007-10-01T14:47:00.000+03:00

Anyone who has been around first time mothers long enough will know the usual routine. New mothers can't stop talking about their babies. Also, they are sensitive enough to give each other opportunity to gush about their kiyoooot (read cute) babies. You will be encouraged with questions about what you feel now that you are a mother.
One of the questions I get asked about most often is, 'What is she doing these days?'
Progress reports. I find myself taking mental notes of what she is doing, even crafting the best way to present the report next time I'm questioned at the New Mothers' Symposium.
And let me not lie. A part of me takes absolute delight in the noting and reporting, even the hyperbolising (allow me make that one up).
Back to that golden question, about what she is doing these days. Sometimes all I'm concerned about is what she isn't doing.
See, this baby of mine is not moving her bowels often enough and I want someone to tell me about that. She gourmandises everything she can, but goes days without a big one. Apparently, that is okay as long as she is not costipated, but it is scary. I find myself fretting from sunup till sundown, rocking her in the right places (heh!) and resisting the temptation to ply her with water.

Note to self: be bold and ask other moms next time.

Got to go.

signs of life

2007-09-23T13:47:00.000+03:00

Whoever said procrastination is the thief of time described my malaise aptly. Let me declare it again: PROCRASTINATION = THIEF, MUBBI, MUIZI, JAKWAL(O) OF TIME. Learn from me, i am a bad example.
Believe me, there was not a time in my five month absence that I wasn’t thinking: Must blog about this, or ‘that’s something I should share with the blogren’ (at last, I get to use the term), or something else that should have sent me running for the nearest internet connection while the fire was still raging hot. Alas procrastination always won the day. Here’s an excuse that would not be admitted anywhere else: I wanted to but just never got round to it..

So then I’m not dead.

A meme...hopefully the last

2007-04-27T19:12:00.000+03:00

This is a meme or 21 questions. And can I tag the rest of you Ugandan bloggers? That means you post the same queries with your own answers on your blog – that is if you please. Here’s mine.

1. Where is my cell phone? On the table, next to a glass of juice.

2. My Vehicle? a streetcar named Esperanza; She's getting bigger tyres fitted

3. My hair? In a lazy puff, with wiry bits, thanks to spritz overkill at the bridal salon.

4. My father? A one-man woman who has had five ‘wives’ so far

5. My favorite thing? that keeps changing

6. My dream last night? Slept like a log; Can’t remember

7. My favorite drink? Tropical fruit juices

8. The room I am in? Office

9. Iam? feeling tired and sleepy

10: I love? Adam (much), the smell of rain on a dusty road, my BUMP (Baby Under Manufacturing Process)

11. What do I want to be in 10 years? Self Employed, mother of three

12. Who did I hang out with today? The Adam in my life; workmates

13. I am not_______? A fool (I went to school…)

14. What would not be in my fruit salad? jackfruit

15. One of my wish list items? A house with a swimming pool

16. Today I must________ ? Get that Martin to pay me

17. The last thing I did? Visited the Ladies’. Had a nice time, thanks for asking.

18. What am I wearing? Tent-like tunic and trousers. (Wardrobe woes abound these days.)

19. My pet(s)? None. There’s a dog that ‘ties’ on us, and a pregnant cat trying to get into the house.

20. My computer? Has a mind of its own.

21. My Shoes? Dark blue, Leather version of those plastic sandals we used to call tangas/ sandaks

Last sato

2007-04-27T19:10:00.000+03:00

A fully-pregnant, bursting-at-the-seams, taking-advantage-of-the-slow-march, Maid-of-Honour? Better believe it. All of Saturday I was very busy escorting some friends down the aisle.
I bet you want to know what I wore. I bet you want to see what I looked like. Hehehe, fat chance! Just imagine you picked a prize-winning pumpkin, placed it atop a camera tripod and draped the whole ensemble in lilac. There you have it.
The days running up to the big day were so hectic, with little sleep and too much to do. Thankfully the grace of God was sufficient and that is now done with.
May God grant the vivacious couple a beautiful marriage and bountiful years together –AMEN!

The falcon cannot hear the falconer

2007-04-19T15:56:00.000+03:00

Once he wowed them. The dream weaver, the vision bearer, the liberator strove to be the only voice that mattered. He spoke the glories of rebellion by which he had come to be falconer, and the falcons listened.

Then the falcons learned to fly, to rebel, to attack. They no longer need to come home to roost, for there is nothing to feed on there. In a short while, there may not be any branches to perch on either, if they let him be.

He has made himself visible, through black mambas and tear gas. They see but they still do not hear him. And why should they? He has not begged them to come back. He is incapable of capitulation; entreaty is not his language.

So they have another vision – of being rid of him. Now his threats and chest thumping cannot reach them.

Can it be seen in the distant horizon, Is it possible, that the falcons will one day get bored with circling the sky? Will swoop down to pluck out the unseeing eyes of the ‘visionary’ falconer?

Phobiamania

2007-03-16T19:26:00.000+03:00

I am human. Indeed I am. I am scared of the future. More than I’ve ever been scared before. I like to entertain myself every now and then with visions of how the worst thing could possibly happen. It has a lot to do with this toto inside me, doesn’t it?
The feeling that I have lost control of my life; that this new life is going to take me over so greedily I will just be swallowed up.
It’s a phobia bonanza in my head (it has to be the head – somewhere far away from my heart, a place where, if I really put myself up to it, I could purge the doomsaying brain cells by sheer willpower) but I am holding on to bravery. I have to.

This should have posted last wednesday but...

2007-02-28T14:56:00.000+03:00

Her Modest Redress

On this day named Ash Wednesday
I bring my forehead your way
Bruised and battered by the hand
Of one you made me call husband

In this vaulted cathedral
Lining up to let you draw
That ashen sign that should erase
My angry guilt with just one glaze

In this place where once we stood
To wed and also cleanse our brood
I won’t confess where now he lies.
By sword he lived, by it he dies.

Have a great weekend, will you?

2007-02-16T18:07:00.000+03:00

And a record. The mini-est post ever. Here at least.

I am not celebrating St. Valentine’s Day

2007-02-14T12:09:00.000+03:00

And this is not a walloping post with clever witticisms dissing the Valentine’s craze. For something like that try here.

So I finally got connected with Prison Break after watching the first season. Trouble started when we (actually, Adam) decided to borrow the second season from a shady looking Video Library in Kitintale. I have never seen such obsession since, well, er, the Obsessions, I guess. Adam is so hooked, you should see him fidget with frustration when the DVDs start to skip like most pirated ones are wont to. He just won’t give up even when it’s obvious the thing is dead. As far as he is concerned, the dead horse can not only be flogged, but be made to get up and drink water as well. He has watched several episodes without me (thus breaking a cardinal house rule – no one watches without the other) and even stayed awake into the night. He just won’t stop. I think he is going to need a Prison Break out of this madness himself.

Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, former ‘In Your Face’ minister of information, and current minister for Ethics and Integrity has finally learnt to lie low. Where once he lambasted journalists from his moral and cabinet high chair at press conferences, these days he is in the business of writing tiny letters to the editor in the New Vision. Is this how?

Not that I like to see people fall. Take some friends of mine, born again Christians whose morals are supposed to be way above the door post. Some have had miracle babies after getting married (seven-month-pregnancy kind of thing); others keep smiling bashfully and ask you what it’s like being married (‘you know, the other stuff’ – their words) only to come confessing 3month old pregnancies. It is happening all over the place, it’s scary. I know it is tough waiting and that mistakes happen but where are people’s heads? Suppose you caught something worse in the process of frolicking with your fiancée, boyfriend, whatever? I don’t get it. Church youth = endangered species.
They need an education. If you have to get that close to your girl/guy and you do not want to regret afterward, remember three things:
1. Do not touch/look at what you do not have on your own body
2. Do not touch what you cannot touch when in public
3. Do not touch/look at what you have never seen outside that room.
But as they say, it’s a free world.

Am out now.

My MIL is getting a new toe

2007-02-08T09:11:00.000+03:00

That's my mother-in-Law and the toe should be arriving next week. Don't laugh, it's serious. That she has not been able to wear sandals for many years because of a missing toe (I seem to remember that gap in the set of digits, but not very well so I can't tell you which one it is). Now at her prime age of about 58, with only the dewy eyes of her one and only love to gaze at her, she has decided enough is enough.
If I am allowed to be honest, I have never seen her wear closed shoes ever. it has always been sandals. All I will say is that you don't often bump into closed shoes in her size. But if she wants a replacement toe, then she's got to have it.

Yes, you can get an artificial toe from London for the price of 104 Pounds (about Ush 350,000), excluding shipping costs. Don't ask me how it's affixed to the foot, all I know is that no surgery is required.

When the toe is finally appendaged where it's supposed to be, I wonder if I will notice; and when I do, will it look too artificial throwing her a hug to congratulate her?

Thunder in the distance

2007-02-02T13:50:00.001+03:00

First, apologies to anyone who was rankled by my previous post. I guess I just needed to get the whole thing out of my system with a ritual of sorts. May the sun (of righteousness)shine on us and make us leap like little lambs (Malachi 4;2).

In other news, my tummy’s roundening so determinedly. It is not shy anymore, and I swear the change happened in two days, max. Two days of agony when I was almost doubled up in pain. I thought the doctors would give me bad news about my liver/spleen/kidney, or some other serious thing. What did I get? That the tot is just growing.

I had my first ultra sound scan and laughed when I saw the baby, very fidgety, kicking and boxing like she was high on coca cola. Her naughtiness is the reason for the pain that was killing me. And no, I did not find out if it's a boy or girl, I just don't want to say 'it', and 'she' just sounds right - for now.

Anyway, suddenly, just as if there is some crankshaft adjusting screws on it, my belly has become the size of a ka-small malwa pot. Today my little brother came to see me at the office, and the first thing he said was, “You are pregnant.” Eiih! He has been casting wary glances at it in the past few weeks whenever we’ve met but today the light bulb positively popped its filament.

Now that the pain is gone (a bit) I am feeling robust, waking up to mornings when I just want to dance as I prepare for work. Having seen me in real torment just days earlier, Adam and the house help (did I tell you I got one?) think I have to be mad.
Well, let me shake some bone while I can; before I take on the shape of Barney and start trudging along with my hand at my back.
Enjoy the weekend, won’t you.

This is going to be the question: To be or not to be

2007-01-31T13:34:00.000+03:00

I am a blogger. I found that label here. There are other bloggers, some who have been here long before I, some who started after, and some who chose to quit. All individually interesting, full of fire and joie de vivre.

There’s a hunger on blogger now. People calling themselves ‘anonymous’ and ‘curious’ sniff around for information that seems really unimportant.
The curiosity is always in the air. Do I get a certain satisfaction from knowing the identities of the authors of certain blogs? I suppose so, but that fades when I realize that they have the licence to say anything, fact or fiction.

Do I want to know each and every blogger? No? Why then do I spend minutes scratching my head, back reading old posts and rereading profiles trying to deduce identities? why is it disappointing when I come up empty after such a race?
Why do I feel a certain spark when someone lets some detail slip?

All I come up with is how almost all Ugandan bloggers are interconnected in some way:

The Buganda Road pool
The Jinja – Victoria Nile school – Busoga College Mwiri connection
The SMACK boys
The local Newspapers –Mass com dept (MUK)- media people
The family – as in blood relations- family
Others who are yet to reveal whether they share a connection
The deathly anonymous

Do we want to be anonymous? Some of us do, some don’t, but many freaked at the Sunday Monitor and 'It’s Friday' Monitor articles.
Others (ok, I) freaked out of attending the Uganda Blogger’s Happy Hour for fear of being bared. Will it kill me if I came out in the open with my identity? If I said, “Actually I am Betty Kamya,’ or ‘Straka ‘Pamela Otti’ Mwezi’, what then?
Would it send some bloggers scrolling back to reread old posts with a clearer photographic imagination? Do I then pack my virtual bags and run away or to start another more anonymous blog?

What if some enemies start a headhunting campaign, dropping nasty comments here and there?

What is this post about, really?

There’s a time for everything

2007-01-26T12:23:00.000+03:00

Wisdom from Ecclesiastes 3:5-7

Ecclesiastes 3:5: A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them: When we live in glass houses we know well enough not to cast stones. But if you add 'Bishop' before your name and portend to become a political figure, you set yourself up for a fall. When it comes to love relationships such people are particularly vulnerable. Margaret Wanjiru had better have her helmet on.

A time to embrace and a time to refrain: Why is it that these days people feel compelled to give you consummate hugs when all you proffered was your dainty well-manicured fingers? Some linger on oblivious to - or perhaps enjoying- your wriggling as you try to extricate yourself.

6: A time to search and a time give up: Like when you are sure you put your keys on the bedside table but they cannot be seen in, on, under, besides, around; relax. When you chill for a while you would be delighted to find that they never left your pocket.

A time to keep and a time to throw away: That old jug will no more make a charming flowerpot than will Y.K. Museveni sport a French cut. If you need somewhere to carry your juice to work, buy a flask and dump that Rwenzori mineral water bottle. Time to throw 'Holey' socks, inkless Parker pens, old broken 'spider' umbrellas, last year's calendar still on the wall...
And when is Paramount Cheese planning to throw out whoever is in charge of their TV adverts?

7: A time to tear and a time to mend: You know you shouldn’t have kept that letter from a dude who called himself ‘John Rambo’ when you can’t find it any more and little brother starts dropping choice lines like ‘How are you inhaling the Atmospheric Cosmogany my candy lollipop?’.

Humming to: Come Walk with Me on the Water- Oleta Adams

what's in a name?

2007-01-12T14:12:00.000+03:00

Okay. The name Esperanza for the car is in.
However, the bad news is that the Adam in my life and I are bickering over what the baby will be called. The real baby, that is. Frankly, the arguments started way, way before we were married –mostly at my instigation, I should confess.

But contrary to what I believed about men, this particular Adam has pretty strong convictions about his offspring’s names.
He is determined to give them names from the Bible, which is not bad. I, on the other hand, can only admit four Bible names: Matthew, Mark, Timothy and Joshua, in that order. But that is only when pressed in a corner. Otherwise I think there are enough guys with those names to spread the goodness all around - our holy parents took care of that. Also, as you notice, there are no girl names in my list.

That basically is why we are still arguing: I am hoping, like all women, to somehow sway him in the end. (I wish, I wish)
I have been compiling a list of names that other parents have happily given their babies yet I’m sure Adam wouldn’t look at twice. My oint when I show it to him will be that with the kind of names out there, surely ‘Bethany’/Jordan (my choices for girl/boy) can’t be that bad.
First place for inspiration: Spanish telenovelas.

Prudencio
Providencio
Emperatrix
Chucho
Pipo
Katyuska
Paloma
Kike
Octavia
Guillermo
Guadalupe

Next stop: our politicians (Sorry if your parent’s name appears)
Severino
Longino
Balbina
Serapio
Deusdedit
Geraldine (not so bad, but…)
Remygius/Remigio
Washington
Tress
Princess

and finally, your suggestions, if you will please.
The full list will be gilded, framed and preserved so baby can see how s/he survived.

This baby will be home in a week

2007-01-08T16:31:00.000+03:00

If all goes well, we'll be bringing this baby home a week from now. We have already prepared a nice cozy place for her to sleep and we can hardly wait. Earlier examinations show that her body is mostly blue-black, but the experts do not see anything wrong with that, so we are not worried either. I have already decided on a name, although I doubt Adam will be as keen. He would much rather have her nameless, but I have decided on ‘Esperanza’.

She has four legs by the way.

Teeheehee. Okay I admit that’s some dull red herring. This baby refers to another new entrant, a set of reconditioned Japanese wheels, and not the Expected One.

Sometimes I wonder if it is the right decision or whether I will keep up with the expenses that come with it. And, I feel guilty that I am adding to the environmental pollution with this…haha, I’m just bluffing there. My name is not Ken Lukyamuzi – and even he owns a famously battered jalopy that’s totally bad for the environment.
Truth is I’m tired of skirmishes with taxi parks, stages, touts, conductors, drivers, UTODA scouts and, without malice, other passengers. From the smelly and the rude, to the loudmouthed and the lewd.
I have had it up to here with trying to argue in lame Luganda, getting my tongue bruised. Tired of waiting along with 30 people for one taxi and getting toes minced just to get into it.
And mostly, I am a certified hauler – when I go shopping I come out with enormous baggage and too few hands to carry it. I remember one time that set the limit for me; the ‘Never Again!’ moment in my taxi commuting life. I hope you have time, it’s a bit long.

I had gone shopping at Nakawa Market, to emerge as usual covered in numerous polythene bags – heavy bags. I waited at the stage 15 minutes before getting a taxi. A kind gentleman noticed my burdened state and offered to take charge of one of the heavier bags. I felt guilty letting him but I needed the help. The taxi took one of those bumpy back roads that have everyone rocking and praying for mercy.
Well, some way into the journey, the floor suddenly felt elastic, or was it my shoes that had new wheels? It later emerged that a sea of peas had carpeted the floor. They were raining out of a hole that had been accidentally pricked into one bag. The bag in the kind man’s charge. You know how you tell yourself that this would never have happened if you were the one in charge, yet at the same time someone has done you a big favour.

Anyway, when I alighted, the kind man helped me buy a new bag while I stood there feeling embarrassed and grateful, at the same time hoping I would never meet him again. Good thing it had become dark and hopefully my face was in shadow. I let him believe my journey was over at that point, yet I had to take another taxi. I did not want him offering more sympathy. I don’t know if you understand.

That incident sealed it for me. I knew then that I would not feel guilty or afraid to get a car. Anything to save me such kavuuyo (chaos).

So join me in welcoming Esperanza home. I hope I will be good to her and she to me.

I look to Steve Taylor - again

2007-01-03T15:31:00.000+03:00

This one is just for just. When I get bored I look to Steve Taylor for some inspiration with bite and zing.
I suspect the song will be unfamiliar to most of us, but in the quirky lyrics there's a message somewhere there that reminds us all that life is not forever and true peace and security comes only from God.

The Lament Of Desmond R.g. Underwood-fredrick Iv

Ah, the news of my impending death
Came at a really bad time for me
Yeah, the news of my impending death
Any other day might have been ok

I was starting to track with
my inner guide
I was getting in touch with my feminine side
But when the doctor starts whistling "happy trails"
Tends to take a bit of wind out of the old sails

Chorus

Desi Ray, if I may be so blunt
Galahad, bag your agnostic front
Underwood, hire a good undertaker
Freddie, get ready to meet your maker
***

Ah, the news of my impending death
Came at a really bad time for me
I was far too young to depreciate
When they read me my expiration date

I'd built iron man stalls in the northern wild
I'd played cabbage patch dolls with my inner child
Now I'm getting sealed bids for a granite vault
And I'm pretty sure this is my parents' fault

(chorus)

Ah, the news of my impending death
Came at a really bad time for me
When they cancel your breathing policy
Tends to
steal a bit of the old joie de vivre

I'd just
found the lost key to my mythic life
So I bravely shook free of my kids and wife
I had seminars booked as a second career
Until a still, small voice screamed loud and clear

(chorus)

This is off 'Squint' (1993)

Another year goes by

2006-12-28T17:15:00.000+03:00

I can hardly believe the things that have happened in the last 12 months.

Last year on December 31 I waltzed into the new year at Kampala Pentecostal Church's All Night Sing with Adam and our landlord, who was doing an overnight thing for the first time in his life. It was breathtaking as usual and another chance to pray in a new year in the company of others. Many of my prayers and plans for this year were answered, with a few surprises thrown in.
Doesn't the good Book say 'the blessing of the lord makes rich and He adds no sorrow with it'? (proverbs 10:22)
This year, I'd very much like to do that again, but Adam thinks in my 'delicate' state I should not try to stay awake all night. So I probably will be dreaming rather than singing this time around.

Je, what are you doing to bridge 2006 and 2007?

Meanwhile, feel free to hum along to Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot and days of Old Lang Syne?

For old lang syne, my dear
For old lang syne
We'll drink a cup of kindness yet
For old lang syne.

I shall certainly remember y'all as I slink into 2007.

Long time EGO in Kampala

2006-12-22T14:28:00.000+03:00

Out with Rudolph, here's to egomania.

Minty, the besieged blogger
has a very tiny tum
And if you ever saw it,
you would never know it’s firm.

All of the other bloggers
used to laugh and call it names.
They never let poor Minty
dodge questions or play mind games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Someone came along to say:
Hey Minty with your tum so tight,
won't you pop the tot tonight?"

Then all the bloggers , looked here
they asked "are you next in line?
And you, stop pussyfooting,
We think this blogger's just fine!"

And a happy christmas to you all.

Some post of mine done vanished

2006-12-19T13:31:00.000+03:00

Kale I was so sure it had posted that I didn't visit my blog for days without any guilt. Yes I do feel guilty for taking hibernations off blogger. Okay I found out soon after that the post had somehow been gobbled by cybermonsters. I think the PC at home started having javascript problems (oba is that what it's called) which made it impossible to make posts and comments on other blogs. So it's back to loafing off office internet (always a delight, btw,)now that I'm back at work. At some point my gas just pinged out on me and now I hope I can pull off a seamless return to blogger.

In other news, Bionic Woman has finally agreed to take a back seat - not like one of those chauffeur driven millionaires who relax drinking champagne and smoking cigars until their destination - but like those family members who still want to give directions and poke their heads round the front seat every now and then. She shows up less frequently and I have found a way to shut her up when she gets too overbearing. Well, sometimes.

I gotta run now. Cheers to you all.
And to Cherie, I wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. Here's your x-mas tree.

(you won't believe how hard it is to come by a good tree on the net)

Oh, Baz, your sockies days are so threatened. See how you've made me spell that -I'd have thought 'sokies' more appropriate, but well... And it just hit me why you asked me to go try it at The One's blog...haha. Plus, I'm buying my copy of 'Worst Idea' today, so you can now stop all this shameless peddling.

OK, am out.

It's time to introduce...

2006-11-27T09:59:00.000+03:00

So I did let you know that there's someone new in Minty's life -a nasty little woman. Before I could finish typing, some clever chaps had started jumping to conclusions, I'm sure there were some broken legs.
Well I did say CLEVER chaps, although most of you really got carried away. I know a writer does shed her sickness on paper sometimes, but aren't some of you just too psyched?
Well the news is that Minty's life has been taken over by BIONIC Woman.
At this point I should inform you that BIONIC stands for Bun In Oven Now In Charge. In the order of things, neither Minty nor Adam can dictate, predict or plan anything without grovelling before this lady.
Bionic Woman is as fussy as they come, only worse, at least according to me. Her priorities are staying flat in bed and finding somewhere to throw up. Everything else is subject to those two needs. She has to stay in bed because the momment she gets up, the urgency to retch is too great. Gravity is a traitor, I have found. Whatever goes down has to come up. Bionic Woman is anti-social and hates food. She only agrees to eat when every strength has been sapped out of her body.

It's a good thing that this period coincides with my Annual Leave, and my Adam is also on Leave, so together we are battling BW. Remember I had said I would be on the road for some days? Well that trip was surrendered in honour of BW. She's that powerful.

Sitting up typing this is taking all the will power I can muster.
Another side effect is that Minty can't be bothered with typos. Blame it all on Bionic Woman.

Some Cerelac

2006-11-22T13:47:00.000+03:00

Hey friends,
I'm missing y'all. You are really funny funny chaps, I've just read the comments in the previous post-priceless.

It will be a while before I be back full swing. Meanwhile my life's been taken over by a nasty little woman. you will get to meet her soon.
I'm chilling at home, listening to Muziki, watching BBC and reading all your blogs. Blast you guys, how come I cannot comment on most of your blogs????!

Toodles for now.

No network

2006-11-13T10:32:00.000+03:00

Hi people,
I have been away quite a while and will be out of network for a few more weeks. A combination of factors. I have been too busy in a week that has had my body rebel against me and then I had guests over the weekend and then I am going to be on the road from this week. A combination of factors.
I will be back.

'Bibiri'

2006-11-06T11:19:00.000+03:00

Farida came to my door on Saturday. The door was half open and there was no one in the living room. I found her half-way inside when I walked out from the bedroom. We were both startled but she spoke first.
"Bibiri?!"
"Huh?"
"Bibiriii???!" She insists. It then hit me that she wanted me to give her 200 shillings (bibiri). Once the stars in my head cleared I spoke to her in Luganda.
"Are you selling something?" Chick shakes her head.
"bibiriiii?"
"You want me to give you sh200 just like that?" Farida's head bobs up and down vigourously. By this time I am thinking it would be great to do a good deed, give her sh200 and get her off my neck. But something in me refused to budge. She looked about fifteen, well fed and not at all like a destitute. Her semi-muteness did not seem reason enough to make her a beggar. Had she seen the coins on the shelf and would she have taken them had I not suddenly appeared.
"What do you want the money for?"
She looked shocked that I would ask, but she was ready for me. Brandishing a small kaveera (polythene bag) with a torn shoe in it, she made like she needed the money for a cobbler. She never said any other word apart from 'bibiri', which she repeated after the shoe demonstration.
I wasn't so convinced. Soon it was 'tunda'- she needed the money to buy a drink. I asked her name and where she lived, and was lucky to get monosyllabic answers. And the mandatory 'bibiri'. I asked her to go home as it was lunch time and she wouldn't be hungry if she was not roaming around the village. She became stubborn then, planted her palms on the door posts and said, 'No'. I told her I would call the police. She smiled so brightly and nodded 'yes'. Disarmed,I told her I was not giving her any money so she best leave.

Farida changed tack. Still 'stuck' to the door posts, she gestured that she'd clean my porch for said 'bibiri'. I wasn't impressed. After a while and several 'bibiri's later, she turned and walked away. Before she left, the semi-mute Farida threw me a line:
"Fala!!" This Luganda slang word stands for anything from amateur to primitive idle fool. I was too glad she was out of my hair to mind. She was helping me justify not giving her the money. Girl had no manners.

But she wasn't done. A few steps later, she called out for my attention. I looked. She lifted a corner of her blouse to show me something. Tied to her waistband was a transparent kaveera bulging with coins. She flipped it a few times to let the coins jingle before turning into my kind neighbour's home.

Next time I will just direct Farida to this place.

Excuse Me Mr. President

2006-11-03T16:15:00.000+03:00

Of course I have my issues with the Sanyu FM 2000 Ltd breakfast presenter, but this is not about him.

Neither is it about Mo Ibrahim’s $5m offer to a retired African president who did his country most good while in power, which is good news. Perhaps it will encourage others to utilise their time in office honestly, and to retire when the constitution (unmanipulated constitution, thank you) says so.

It is not even about the late Tanzanian legend, president Julius Nyerere, even though he is likely to be canonised once process of verification is complete. And for those who say he never performed any miracle, what about his leaving the presidency voluntarily?
(Unfortunately my president Yoweri Museveni is not a Catholic, he does not believe in saints, so that may not influence him to retire honourably. O St. Nyerere pray for us.) This is not about M7 either.

This is about former president of Kenya,namely Daniel Arap Moi. I know leaving the presidency was a painful thing to do, and I sympathise. But at least he can put more effort into his job reading the 9:00pm news on WBS TV . I think he got a facelift and dental job because nga the man can smile at the camera. No, beam. He beams brighter than a fluorescent tube. Actually it’s the only thing he does well on the TV. Perhaps too relieved he made anchor, up from the dusty work of field reporting, Moi has never gotten over what would excusably be first day nerves. He is always stumbling over words, begging our pardon, speaking before the prompt, and most importantly -if you are working on the Close –Up ‘what-a-mouth’ account- showing his teeth. To make matters worse, he is so transparent, even an absent minded viewer can tell when he glitches.

Ten Things

2006-11-01T15:45:00.000+03:00

The crack in the curtain of my profile seems to have been torn wider. Beyond reasonable doubt, I have reached the conclusion that I cannot possibly do an AMA (Ask Me Anything) thingy. Jay, Darlkom and Savage, you are brave. Me, I’m here peeping from the corner, yes, the one hiding behind the broom shivering in her boots. Not with piranhas like Cherie out there, no. But I will make a small concession with some insight into my boring life.

Ten things you might not know about me

1. I don’t like cooking matooke. I have never learnt how to peel matooke deftly. The way our grandmothers used to: legs folded gracefully under their hips, head cocked to one side, right hand doing swift trips up and down each banana cradled in left palm, before being cast nonchalantly into waiting container, conversation flowing unhindered. When I peel matooke, concentration has to be maximum, and even then there will be dents on the bananas, and more banana with the peels than in my container.

2. I can get into the bathroom at 7:15 and get out at 7:18am fully bathed and squeaky clean. Adam suffers a lot of vertigo trying to read and reread the clock with jaw agape. Me, I don’t see why I should stay in the bathroom if I’ve washed and rinsed from head to toe.

3. I hate polishing shoes. If ever I never enjoyed school, that has got to be one of the reasons. I would get by on wiping them for days until they practically would crack.

4. I have this nugget of a nose. You have never seen anything like it. Nostrils exactly like the double pipes that witchdoctors puff on. The slope of it will remind you of the bonnet of the VW Beetle. Now I have the flu and I got nasal trouble that swelled the poor thing almost double.

5. I once wet myself while sitting in an examination in Primary One (P.1). It was that classroom at the end of the block next to the playfield and there was an anthill just outside it. The teacher had said nobody should move a muscle during the exam. I shouldn’t have counted on my sphincter muscle to listen to her, or me. Now I was wearing a white organza hand-me -down dress from someone’s past flowergirl stint that would have dried in minutes. However, in a bid to hide the new translucent patch I went and sat on the anthill, not to be moved. Unfortunately the rich red earth and wet dress worked diligently together to produce the greatest brown patch ever, thus I became a much worse centre of attraction.

6. A year before I was born, my mother lost the boy I should have come after. The boys in my family are first and last, leaving a set of girls in between. Travel (pronounced trah-vale; don’t ask, my parents had a thing with names) would have come right in the middle and broken the monotony. I feel cheated that I never got to see Travel, never got to make toy cars out of wire and sapatu, never got to climb trees and scrape knees together, never saw his first crush or tried to hide mine from him, missed seeing him become a man and stop playing those games... I really believe we would have made such a great team. It’s silly, but I still wonder, ‘what if?’

7. When we were younger, my sisters and I had some strange way to help those who did not believe we were related. If they argued, “Noooo. You cannot be from the same mother, same father (that phrase - only in Uganda!)” We’d go, ‘I swear. Look at this.” Then we’d face each other and let our tongues touch. It was all gooey and shocking at the same time. I think we enjoyed doing it for the thrill that raced down our spines as it happened. Yucky, I know. But nowadays all anyone has to do is listen to us talk. It’s all like rapping with lisps and bursts of senseless laughter thrown in. Now we have people asking, ‘You guys are sisters, aren’t you?” This happens even if someone who’s known me meets one of my other sisters independently.

8. I used to come first in my class, all the way through primary school. Those were blissful years bringing home glowing reports. And the truth is that it was a mystery how it kept happening, because I never studied hard or anything. I lived for the day someone would beat me so that I could see a different figure in that ka slot. Well, that day came and the reign of terror ended in the second term of Senior One. I've come first intermittently over the years but never again as consistently.

9. I have a stepmother. Actually two stepmothers. Make that three, if I add the latest Spare Tyre who hasn’t mothered anyone, but is linked to the Casanova daddy of mine.

10. I wish I was still totally anonymous on this blog.

Sankyu. (I saw that written on the side of a Toyota Hiace taxi omnibus.)

A conversation at 6:32am on Sunday morning

2006-10-31T11:45:00.000+03:00

Minty: (half a-snooze) I was thinking that the food I ate at that wedding yesterday was the reason I was feeling cranky. Now I remember I did a lot of yard work (OK she did not really use that word -editor) in the morning. I guess that’s why my body’s all aches and joint pains.
Adam: You need a massage. (starts to work on M’s shoulders)
M: Mmmm. That feels good.
A: Maybe we should book you into a massage palour for a full body massage
M: That would be nice. I think a male masseur would do me fine (giggles). Or we could go together.
A: No way. I fear massage palours. What those women won’t do.
M: Some argue that they are the modern-day cover for brothels.
A: If at the barber’s those ladies who massage the head and neck can make you feel…eh eh… (He goes to a salon on Workers’ House where they give a mini massage after the hair is cut and washed.)
M: (growing alarmed) Is that so! I think it’s time to uproot you from those specialist barbershops. But must you be let them give you ideas? Just tell them to cut and wash and nothing else, thank you.
A: (Going on as if he hasn’t heard) I wonder if some of them are not doing it intentionally. They start with the head, massaging gently. Then they let the fingers slide down to the neck and shoulders and continue pressing. Then you start feeling really relaxed and I’m sure some people start thinking certain things. Just then she asks you in this silky voice, “does it feel good?” Ahh, dangerous! (He’s got this far-away look that suggests he’s not about to give up this good life)
M: (hoisting herself on her elbow and pointing ominously) Thank you for that description. You are right. A massage parlour is the last place we should let you visit, thanks for the advance notice. As for those women at the barbers…(fade out)

Souper market II - Germ Alert

2006-10-27T10:40:00.000+03:00

I followed Ninsiima's link to the grocery list website. The first thing that hit me there was this story:

Putting the wash before the cart

"That grocery cart you're putting your food, handbag and toddler into? It's teeming with germs. Consider the handle. It's been touched by untold numbers of hands that have changed diapers, mopped up runny noses, picked up packages of raw chicken and meat, and been coughed on, sneezed in and drooled on... A start-up company in Green Bay, Wis., believes it has a remedy. PureCart Systems, a sort of drive-through washer that sanitizes grocery carts, made its debut last November at a Festival Foods store in De Pere, Wis., and was installed recently at another Festival in Oshkosh. It works by coating the carts with a safe mist of a peroxide-based disinfectant. The same solution is used to clean dialysis machines and poultry processors."

That sent me thinking on all the times I've eaten right after leaving a supermarket; the grand array of germs I have ingested. Eeeeeww!

P.S.*checking self frantically* But I am still alive.

Souper market

2006-10-24T16:56:00.000+03:00

Do not go shopping when hungry. I've read that in magazines and e-zines many times but had never really decoded it.

As you enter one of those megastores, there's a deliberate blast of yummy bakery smells in the air. Soon you follow your nose to asault your eyes with delicious sights of cookies, swiss rolls, croissants, muffins, the works. If there's a deli, your fantansies will be interrupted by the juicy aromas of fried things. You find it hard to choose between the sweet goodies and the spicy meats. So you reason, 'let me get both. I will offer one to Maria and I will have what she doesn't take'. When you finally find Maria she will have neither because they were both YOUR choice of bites. Or maria is not immediately availabe to partake of your generosity, so you see no harm in wolfing down both items.

Besides, when you go shopping on a rumbling tummy, that is when you remember all the things you don't have in the kitchen - those you need, and those you dont urgently need but you never know when they will come in handy. After that you feel obliged to throw in what I call guiltshedders, one or two items that are not related to food at all, or that you will generously give away.

I recently went into a supermarket to get a set of AA batteries and came out with:
1.barbecue flavour chips
2.pack of doughnuts
3.pack of scotch biscuits
4.carton of ready to drink juice
5.bottle of juice concetrate
6.tomato paste
7.white pepper
8.yoghourt
9.tea cloths

N.B: They did not have the kind of batteries I was looking for.

Yes, I was hungry when I went in. I felt ever so foolish as each item slid across the conveyer at the till. But I pretended to be so satisfied with my purchases like some idle housewife who'd been waiting all week for her shopping trip.

Listening to: Let My Words (purchases?) Be Few by Phillips, Craig and Dean.

Blogology*

2006-10-17T11:14:00.000+03:00

The thing about blogging that niggles Minty

I started this blog with no real purpose. I suppose after one and a half years of being married I was starting to feel restless with the inevitable merger of myself with Adam. I could almost not recognize who I was before I got married. Not that it was a bad thing. I like being Mrs Adam. I like the way 'two become one', to the extent that some even begin to resemble each other. (That hasn't happened yet for us, but I can see certain mergers taking place already)

I was saying that this is my ultimate goal in being married to Adam, to be one in every way. Nonetheless there are times when I am alone and he is not there and I have to be Me. I was finding that being Me was becoming harder and harder to do. And while I am not sure whether that is what made me finally start a blog, I realise that something changed afterward. I think I rediscovered Me.

I did not mind being anonymous, as long as I knew Me. (How many 'Me's? Yikes! But you get the drift) All I wanted was to have a place to sweat out some things that might be in my system. Somewhere I could roll in the mud, paint my face, be mad, be sweet, be horrible, holler all I wanted, even not make sense (like now?) without caring who knows.
(Some clever blogger sidetracked my goal of anonymity not too long after I started the blog, tsk, but life goes on...)

Even as I enjoy myself and find that I'm getting more involved in the lives of the people on blogger, I wonder if I am cheating Adam. There are things I can say here that perhaps I would not tell Adam, or even want him to hear me say.
I ask myself sometimes whether I would write differently if I knew he was going to read each post. I also wonder whether I shouldn't let him in and even allow him to post every once in a while. That would be another cool way to merge, ha ha. Perhaps one day I will. (TI guess that answers your question Iwaya) I just hope that will be before he discovers it for himself and starts feeling cheated. Ho! Still I think he is happier with a happier me.

Another thing about blogging is that when you give a handshake, people soon start to clamour for hugs. I have to accept it, since I have myself been on the 'We want more!' side of the picket fence.
So ma Cherie I need time to consider the one about posting personal photos (I like the way Ninsiima says 'foroz')and doing a brave 'ask-me-anything' like jay and darlkom.

Cheers for today.

*forgive me for that lame one.

Groan will I ever see the last of these flower and feathers doohickeys?

2006-10-16T10:34:00.000+03:00

I thought it was going to be one of those blasé fads that sweep over the land and be gone as fast as a tornado. No sir! Up till now, women are still finding it romantic to perch one of these, ostentatious, grandiosely obsequious hair clips on their crowns.

Seeing it today sitting defiantly against the flaming maroon locks of the woman in the commuter taxi, my restraint stood up, tore it’s garments, put on sackcloth and ashes on its head, and came here to blog about it.
This here blue thingamy is one of the more sober ones. There’s the orange bird-of-paradise one, the red dragon’s-fiery-breath, the brown dole-y’ebyaayi (banana fibre doll) and the black evil-smelling-crow. Gross, gross, gross, all of them.

IMHO, of course.

Money, money, money

2006-10-12T19:56:00.000+03:00

I forgot to mention it earlier. A couple of weeks ago I won Ugsh80,000 on a radio call-in quiz.

Then someone sort of related to me died and most of the money went into that funeral. Yups. Easy come, easy go.
Yet I must be thankful that the bucks was there when I needed it.
In related news, I am thinking of making a career out of it. Calling radio stations to win money, that is.

Do not take them to your house

2006-10-05T18:41:00.000+03:00

If you live in what can easily be tagged a ‘multi-million shilling house’ or even a ‘plush’ or ‘sprawling’ mansion, and if some odd-looking people come up to your gate asking to see the houseboy or to take your water-meter reading, search them for any fancy well-hidden camera gizmo before letting them in.

Never before in the history of Uganda has it been more hazardous to take people to your house. Worse, to allow them to come in with their cameras. You may invite guests for a housewarming bash, or baptism bash and people start taking pictures, only they are standing miles away as they shoot, like it’s landscape pictures they’re taking. If your expensive mantelpiece and faux Mona Lisa painting fills the background of any shot, danger looms ahead.

You understand why all those impenetrable eight foot wall fences are going up all over the place. It is important. A strong perfume of nugu (jealousy mixed with malicious intent) floating in the atmosphere has decended upon Kampala's innocent hills. One look at your Jacuzzi and tongues start wagging. Next thing you know, your dogs are kept busy tearing the worn jeans and Bata safari boots of stray photojournalists within a space of two days. A week later a photo appears mysteriously in a newspaper.
Several Ekimeeza radio talk shows pick it up and people take turns to bash you. They outdo each other in demanding why you live too far above the poverty line that they, with their Uganda Baati iron roofs and red oxide cement floors will take eons to catch up. Every job you have ever held is recalled and the salary you earned vis-à-vis your other businesses dissected carefully. Very soon you are the subject of a government probe and your day job is at stake. You find yourself explaining viciously why you deserve to live 'decently'.

Ask Robert ‘Lakeside Mansion’ Kayanja, Gilbert ‘Castle in the Air’ Bukenya, Jim ‘Rural Hotel’ Muhwezi, Mike ‘Bullet Proof’ Mukula. There are several others lined up. Coming soon, the gold trimmed prayer room at pastor Dash’s sprawling villa, the cushy horse stables of the Minister of state for Dash, the underground jet hangar of the Commissioner for X, and the indoor ice skating rink of the Managing Director of YZ Parastatal.
If you are one of them, you will need to keep a bull dog, trace electric razor-wire fencing above the brick wall, and slap a moratorium on mass-invite bashes at home etc You don't want your crystal ceiling in the press, I assure you.
-

Reporting from my Rose Garden

2006-10-04T14:44:00.001+03:00

Sunday wasn’t so bad. I think.
The guest list dramatically shrunk to 21 people. The MIL, FIL and Nani5 were all out of town and so they couldn’t come. That little development saved me the kalo dilemma, since the parents and Nani5 are the chief kalo aficionados. Nani6 was off to Europe and her hubby was busy too.

I acquired meself one giant sigiri and one gigantic saucepan in time.
I had my lil’ SisterJ over and she was really a good sport. She did so many errands that I did not have to get all hot and bothered. She also helped with the kitchen.

I made: Saffron rice, matooke (which wasn’t quite as yellow and soft as I wanted, *kicked myself again and again*) beef and chicken curry (mild, for the kids), potatoes, chapati, sweet potatoes, peas and cabbage. Served paw paw and pineapple afterward. Yup, we really like to eat in this here country. The food was delicious, even if I say so myself. I had to replenish the serving dishes and I did not have to stand guard, Hyacinth Bucket-style to make sure they swallowed.

Forgot to prepare: the green beans that had been winking at me all day but hid out of sight and out of mind at the appointed hour.

Forgot to serve: The juice of passion and orange that was so painstakingly prepared by SisterJ, but got forgotten in the fridge once the crate of sodas came out.

Narrowly survived: disaster after my gas ran out suddenly. Good new giant sigiri carried the day while boda boda man sped off -in the rain- to get another cylinder.

From the time the guests started streaming in 30minutes earlier - probably chased by the rain - my concentration flew out the window. That’s why some things like the string beans were easily forgotten. Children were numerous and hard to contain. Into every single corner they went, pursued by apologetic parents carefully prising fragile objects out of unwilling fists. We got to test our flimsy driveway and discovered that it is too small and needs a lot of work.

Overall, it was a lot of fun having them over. I must admit though that it is not something I want to repeat soon.
After everyone had left, we did the dishes and tidied the house (which was a right mess, then we lay down to watch Jim Carrey’s Fun with Dick and Jane.

Adam couldn’t stop saying, “I love you!” and “you are a good woman!” Let me tell you here and now that that is translated as, “You did great and I am so proud of you I could explode.” How do I know he wasn’t just being polite? Well, several times his words were accompanied by the helpless need to hug me very tightly, including those nice surprising hugs that come up from behind. Me, I was my unflappable self, turning absentmindedly each time to ask, “Hm? What’s that for?” Haha, as if!!

(But really, can it be that easy? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach: it is officially confirmed!)

I have you, my blogger friends, to thank. Each of you who showed me the ropes and promised to chip in with virtual sigiris and mingling sticks, you all made me feel much better. JKB, Joshi, Savage, Eddie, Anne, baz, Just Rich, Mataachi, you helped me relax the rest of the week and I was cool as a windowpane on Sunday. Thanks a zillion zillion.
And so in appreciation, I dedicate a virtual glass of passion juice and one green bean to each one of you.

For Inktus (and any other Curiousi)

2006-09-29T18:12:00.000+03:00

The proof that Adam's for real and that the knot was securely tied to make sure he's going nowhere. (Neither am I, lol).

The gold band that sings 'she's married'.

His and Hers toothbrushes. You guessed it. Nice House of Plastics, Ugsh300 each.

More His and Hers thingies href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6953/3252/1600/H%26Hpurses.jpg">

And lastly, Steppers

Guess who's coming to... er, lunch

2006-09-26T19:52:00.000+03:00

This weekend I have the blessed fortune of playing host to my relatives ‘from the other side’. Adam’s people are coming over, and they are not few. Let me count. There’s the parents and there’s nani1 and her husband and son, that’s five. Then Nani2 and hubby plus their three girls and niece plus housemaid– that’s 12. Teka wo Nani3, her hubby, two kids, and new baby, plus compulsory ayah = 17 (baby doesn’t count). Add Nani4, blissfully single and Nani5, also single, so that’s 19. You see where I’m coming from now? And there’s still Nani6 and her hubby =22, and finally Nani7 =23.

Now in addition to those, a lady friend and her son are coming too, =24. Give or take 3 extra people, depending on who’s visiting at who’s home and cannot be left behind when such blockbuster things are going on, I have roughly 26 guests to lunch this Sunday.

Am I under siege? No. They were all invited, with many nods and a wide beam on Minty’s face. Well, actually, Adam did the legwork, and his dutiful wifey is presumed behind him all the way, happy to be obliged.
And I am. I really am happy to have everybody over. There’s enough room for two dozen people (plastic chairs and some mats to the rescue) and enough plates (oh, sensible wedding gifts!) and more than enough glasses (only time the 100+ gift glasses come in handy). Cutlery...wait. I have to buy some more, but no big deal there. The food - another excuse to go shopping. So if all that’s sorted, what am I pernickety about?

I am scared of a flop. In front of the in-laws. I am just not the most confident of persons right now. I am in a week-long panic until Sunday. Adam will send the requisite sms reminders but when crunch time comes, keeping the conversation flowing is all he will be good for on that day. Oh, he’ll also help tidy the house while I’m a-cooking, but…eh, this is starting to sound like a rant.

Meantime I so desperately need:

*Three big saucepans (why didn’t anyone give me one of those drum-like sufurias I’ve seen as nuptial gifts on kwanjulas?)
*Two big sigiris (jiko, brazier, charcoal stove, whatever y’call it);
*One patient maid/housegirl/houseboy/errand boy –frantically need.
*A highly recommended menu with rave reviews (yes! I want the assurance of praise afterward)
*The nimble skills to mingle that kalo (millet meal) I have been neglecting to hone.

Anyone have any of the above that I can borrow for the weekend? Will send a kabangali (pick-up truck) over, thanks in advance.

Why not?

2006-09-25T12:37:00.000+03:00

I may not be the mental caligrapher, nor the soulful silent cymbal, but there are some places I have to go today. Sorry if this genre disturbs you (though I always wonder...).

I see you but...

Mottled, distorted, extended limb
Determined, disturbing, painful limp
Stiff head sitting on worn neck brace
Eyes pleading, fixed on my blank face.

Single coin on tray of stainless steel -
“Too little to afford me a meal”-
One silver coin beckoning for more
Belies the fact there’s lots in store.

Yes, you may be sharp with me
Yet this pavement links us eternally.
So this prayer, with a twinge, I return
That each day I shall cautiously learn
How to relate to your constant yearns
And yarns.

Minty: (bent over, hands on knees) *huff**puff* now that's out of the way.

A dog's day

2006-09-20T16:01:00.000+03:00

This rogue mongrel insists on lounging in my backyard. I have not done anything to encourage it to stay, and I do not remember sending out any invites. I did not put any classified in the local papers for a stray dog to keep me company. Still, this male dog and often several of its contemporaries congregate to compete for the one female or just generally do things together as boys are wont to.
This dog, who I will call Beaver (for he looks mousey, eager enough and won't budge once he's onto something) likes to sit down on my verandah and tickle off his fleas.
This really makes me mad for he leaves muddy footprints that are hard to scrub off. And there's no knowing with those fleas.
(Mental note to self: must catch him one of these days and shampoo the daylights out of him).

Last weekend, it started to rain very heavily. Some of the other dogs took off to find shelter regardless of the pouring rain. Not Beaver. He stayed and infact shifted base from the verandah on the sides of the house to the front porch. Try as I did to shoo him off, Beaver refused to move an inch. Out of mercy, I let him be and went in to prepare lunch.

About 20 minutes later I came out to pour water I’d used to rinse the mince. I decided the rain would wash it off the grass, and anyway I'd heard that such water was good for plants.
Presently, the bloodhound in Beaver was awakened. Suddenly all things were possible. He sprung like a yoyo into the pouring rain and went a-sniffing, trying to find the source of the meaty smell in the air. How I laughed as his frustration at not finding any meat grew.
Poor Beaver took all of 15 minutes before giving up, thoroughly flummoxed. By this time he’d realised that he could stand in the rain and he loped off to join his buddies in some dog business.

Did Newsboys rock, or What?!

2006-09-18T11:42:00.000+03:00

They stepped Right Up to the Microphone

For those who need a little more introduction to The Newsboys, this might help.

You needed to have been there to appreciate the euphoria.
Woo Hoo!
When the Newsboys stepped onto the stage at Uganda Christian University Mukono Main Hall, the crowd went crazy. It was to be one and a half hours but the crowd kept demanding for more and they ended up rocking that place for 2 hours. A wave would hit and coordinated calls for a song would rise. And each time the newsboys would put their heads together and then give it to us. It was Good Stuff. When the crowd chanted for 'Love, Liberty Disco', the Newsboys decided to turn over the mike to whoever knew the lyrics. Eager hands waving and shrill voices crying 'me! me! me!' ended up with Lucy C. of Spirit FM getting it. She tried.

Other offerings that night:
Blessed be your name
He Reigns
Million Pieces (Kissin your Cares Goodbye)
Joy
Entertaining Angels
I am Free (off new album)
Breakfast
Take me to Your Leader
Shine
Go (Title track for upcoming Album)
It is You

The audience was all that and more. Seeing so many Newsboys fans made it all worthwhile. Even Isaac Rucci confessed he had no idea Ugandans were this conversant with Newsboys music. Lead vocalist Peter Furler said that it was one of the most awesome experiences the band had ever had. (That we were their best crowd ever. Those things.)
To put the ball in, right there and then it was decided that they could shoot some footage for the video of Something Beautiful from the album GO .
It was no joke. The crowd had to learn the song over three playings (it was rather enjoyable and easy to learn) and by the fourth take, people were singing along in frenzied passion like they'd been hearing it on radio for ages. it was awesome, I tell you.

So if there's one Christian video you look out for early next year, maybe on the music show 'Fast Forward' on Lighthouse TV, look out for Something Beautiful. Ugandan fans (plus a few zungus here) will be all over the place.

Peter was not afraid of Going Public with the message of the Gospel and several hands shot up to commit to Jesus.
I finally understood why people are crazy about Phil Joel. He has a personal touch that he isn't too mean to share with fans. A handful of diehard fans pursued and caught him one on one for autographs and photos.
Me? I got to take a picture which will be blown up and hung on my Ego Wall at home. Would have liked to show off here, but I'm shy.

The Newsboys will return to Kampala later this year or mid next. Only it will be tickets at the gates. So as Iago would tell Othello, 'put money in thy purse'.

PS: This must be hard on y'all who've never heard Newsboys, and I apologise. To compensate, here's the You Tube place you can watch the video for 'He Reigns'. Sorry couldn't blog it.

I wish

2006-09-13T13:54:00.000+03:00

I am not one given to buying things. Well, by a girl's standards anyway. I guess that's because I don't have much money. So I was scared when I realised that in the past one month alone, I'd somehow found the time and the money to acquire close to seven pairs of shoes. 'Yes really', for you one-black-pair-only dudes, and 'Only' for you one-for-every-dress-I-got belles out there. (I hope the Adam in my life does not happen upon this post. He might be moved to raid my closet to do a manual head count -should that be 'toe count'? -and demand an explanation I'd be reluctant to give on discovering 12 steppers he's never seen before.)
It's mostly shoes I'm big on though. When it comes to handbags, say, I am so moderate, I can easily carry the same bag for two whole months. Black of course.
However, should the chance and the money present itself, these here are some handbags I'd be very willling to risk owning (cost=$2470). If only...

My wish list if you please.

On a sadder note

2006-09-11T14:13:00.000+03:00

Five years after 9/11 the sorrow and pain is not over. For most people who lost their loved ones or directly witnessed the devastation, the emotional wounds are not healed yet.
However, for many others who might have been lauded as heroes then for helping in rescue efforts (even though many were not formally recognized), the pain is very real today. Pain and illness resulting from exposure to dangerous gases at Ground Zero is slowly killing them and some have already died.
Many helped in evacuation efforts after the buildings collapsed without using masks and inhaled minute particles of dust, asbestos, glass and other poisonous compounds. The Guardian Observer reports that a number of cases of damaged lungs and oesophagus directly related to 9/11 have been confirmed. In many of those cases, cancer and/or death is a certain possibility in the future.

To think this isn’t over yet.

We're Going Public with this

2006-09-08T16:14:00.000+03:00

Sunshine

Investigations are still going on, but the wind blowing in my direction suggests that one of the best Christian rock bands, The Newsboys, may be in Kampala next week.
The Newsboys will be doing a documentary in Northern Uganda and if all goes well, a concert may be possible. My fingers are crossed on this one. A concert would really showcase Newsboys' true worth and Im looking forward to that. Can you smell it too? I can hear the strumming guitars burning flaming ribbons into the night air; I can feel the tension of a crowd bonded together by the recognition that something historic is happening right in their midst. And forgetting to dance, sing along, raise their hands or scream, if only to savour the momment.

Selling the Good news The Newsboys, originally from the land of Oz have always been a great group since they released 'Read All About it' in 1988. But when they teamed up with the sharp songwriting and producing skills of Steve Taylor (see my July 25 and 27 posts) on Not Ashamed The Newsboys grew into one of the most loved music groups in christendom. Their subsequent albums were all hits with record sales, and garnered various Grammy, Dove and Stellar awards and nominations.
Now producing under InPop Records, The Newsboys will release 'Go' in October.

Me,I love The Newsboys, especially when they do worshipsome music, they really rock and I can't wait for their saucer to drop in Kampala.