IT'S A CRUEL WORLD...

“When you move, you get to see things,” my late grandmother, R.I.P and God bless her beautiful soul, used to say. She was a jolly one, a plump brown woman who always smiled profusely and was extremely generous with appreciation no matter the size of your contribution. Always with a head scarf, it was rare to see her hair and once in a while, she would remove the beloved piece of cloth to have her head groomed, revealing a beautiful white mass on her head with slight traces of black, an angelic smile on her lips. She seemed to have a preternatural fascination for modern travel stories, so she would watch you intently while you narrated to her about wherever you had been and then she would suddenly clap her hands and then raise the left one to her lips in awe.

“Nyabura okugyenda kuteera kubona!” She would exclaim. Moving means seeing. Travelling is discovering.

My fondest memories of her are when as a kid, I would go to my grandfather’s in the afternoon. Mother being in the garden almost always, my brother and sister would return to school for the afternoon session and I being too young, would go to stay with granny till evening. Then I would find her, having secured a two-and-half liter jug full of concentrated, sugarless milk. I would then tip the jug over and drink my fill, leaving white drops on either side of my mouth like a kitten.                         

On a special occasion, I would have cluster of sweet bananas to go with it, little lumps of sweetness that can put chocolate cake to shame. Those were the times.

I cannot state with much confidence that at the time I understood what she meant by her favorite cryptic exclamation. Time has come up with cruel practical sessions, leaving me wishing she was still around…

A few days ago, I went to MTN towers. Big companies always reward their affiliation and so it was whispered to me that there was a Christmas voucher for every company employee. On a hot sunny Kampala afternoon, I braved the dusty streets and headed to plot 22, Hannington road. I had never been there before but I had a faint picture of a certain yellow storey somewhere around the Garden City area. Without difficulty therefore, I spotted the building soon as I exited from the taxi, so I headed straight in that direction.

It is like a dystopian universe every time I enter a corporate building. Getting past the security check, I headed straight to the reception, sighting four personnel and then carefully, with a dexterity developed over the years, I zeroed in on the Indian receptionist who looked like she eats dinner at Serena every evening. You know their kind. You need a microscope to find a scar on their skin. So I approached with utmost humility.

“Good afternoon madam,” Said I, bowing my head a little, “I am here to pick a Christmas voucher.”

“Oh. How are you? Head to your left, on the first floor.” She replied.

One of the things I have come to learn the hard way is that while in a strange environment (I mean government or corporate property), it is safer to express the highest level of humility. I will dish out several 'Sirs', 'Madams' and 'pleases' anytime I get presented with an opportunity.

I headed to the elevator direction. Then there are these ugly barricades that you have to open using either your finger print, access card or a combination. A gangly fellow came in, presented his index figure and proceeded. I came too, presented my figure to the brute and it lighted red. Finger print not recognized. I froze for a moment and waited for a siren. None came. I inhaled sharply and got stranded.  I had to step back to the security clerk, a thin fellow in a Blue and Black Saracen Security Uniform. He saw through my plight and signaled to the reception and then I saw them bend over, reaching for a switch definitely and then there was a clicking sound. Entry at last.

It was no walk in the park either on the first floor. Being literate however, I picked up a sign beseeching whomever it may concern to pick the vouchers at ‘this’ point and then headed to that direction. The lady seated right there looked like she had God on her speed dial. Dressed in a black and yellow corporate shirt, she only raised her head slightly to see me through her glasses, making me feel more awkward than I already was. I quickly addressed her as madam and let her know that I was there for a voucher and I was a company employee not a street kid like she was probably suspecting. She checked through the files but could not find my name. She said she was standing in for a colleague who had gone for lunch. So I had to wait, the fellow came in and couldn’t find my name on their godforsaken lists and I could not get them to give me a voucher, though I presented a company ID and an access card. Not my day obviously. Whoever had cast a spell that day had obviously not gone to the shower yet. Dejected, I planned my exit.

Lucifer was not yet done with me however. The door though which I had entered had been open at the time of my arrival. It was locked now. I looked for any tell-tale signs of a security lock but found none. So I proceeded with an artificial confidence to open the door. It did not budge however. So I tugged it with a renewed strength but it did not give in. I was stuck again. Damn these corporate prisons. I could not figure a way out. So I reversed my steps and landed on the elderly man that was now revising important looking documents through his sage glasses.

“Excuse me sir, the door is stuck!” I could not eliminate the agitation in my voice, try hard as I did.

A strange smile creased the old man’s face, he looked up at me, the way you look at a kid trying to catch his reflection in the mirror, or the kind that runs across your face when you see a dog chasing its tail.

“The door is stuck because you have to use your access card to open it!” He said.

I returned to the door, this time under the man’s watchful eye. He peered over to see me reach it.

“Do you have an access card?” the guardian angel asked.

“Yes I do.” I pulled it out of my front pocket, laughing nervously as I did.

“Swipe it over that black patch there.”

I did as instructed and the treacherous door beeped meekly and then I pulled it with the little energy I had left. This time it acquiesced. A deep and warm gust of blood covered my face and had I been white, they would have been able to see the beet-red blush of shame as it eclipsed my facial features. Luckily I am coal black. I thanked the man and headed out.

Reminded me of the time, having checked into Nordic C hotel in Stockholm, we headed up the building with luggage in hand. Into the elevator we went and checked into the room too. The journey downstairs was one to remember. The elevator doors do not require security. Inside the elevator however, it is a different story. You have to insert the access card into the machine and keep it there till the end of your descent. Poor I swiped the card and pulled out for over fifteen minutes, till a blonde woman found me on the inside, pushed her access card into the machine and left it there, then we began the sweet flight downwards. Travel is discovery you say, but you know nothing.

If Grandmother Cecilia was still alive, I would head to Mukwano arcade and buy her a beautiful kitenge and a decent dress. I would jump on the bus to Kabale and head straight to her, hug her plump body and probably cry while at it. I would not forget a cold Krest bitter Lemon, her favorite soda. I would watch her hold it with both hands like a traditional gourd, make a sign of the cross and proceed to take large generous gulps out of the green bottle and then belch with satisfaction. I would tell her all about 1000 feet into the sky and all the places I have been and then let her know that I am a grown ass man now and that indeed travel is discovery.

May be someday...

JESUS OR JESUS PIECE?: Inside an 'international deliverance' church.

I went to visit a friend last Wednesday. In the Old Park, I boarded a taxi to Namugongo at around 18.00 EAT and Kampala being Kampala, we negotiated with jam, till at about 19.30 hrs. when I arrived in the vicinity. I am not friends with taxis and occasionally I always swallow saliva repeatedly to avoid wreaking havoc to my neighbors. It was with much relief therefore when I shouted at the conductor, a shabbily dressed fellow.

“Maasawo!”

I alighted just before crossing the bridge over the northern bypass and proceeded on foot along the Kamuli-lubaawo Namugongo bypass. By this time it was alarmingly dark and I fought several urges to take a boda. The Swahili always say it, there is no problem that travels alone. When shit is going south, expect a bucketful. My host made it clear that he had stepped out shortly. I had to wait on the outside. Turning on my mobile data, the battery level dramatically dwindled to fifteen percent. Great. Just what I needed. I quickly turned the phone to the ultra-power save mode and dropped it into the pocket. Mosquitoes of every bleed and race buzzed over my head, forcing me to pull over the hood of my sweater. They buzzed over me again, like the unwelcome visitor that I was. Then I decided to take a walk.

I hunched my shoulders, pushed my hands deep into the pockets and then proceeded on my forced tour. There was nothing much. Just a typical Kampala suburb, a saloon here, an aroma of freshly made chappatis, roadside sausage stalls and music. A cinema hall with V.j Jingo in full blast.

“Nga tuli Kasubu na kki?”

“N’aloo.”

I felt my pockets keenly, anticipating a call but there was nothing. My host was not yet back. He would call if he did arrive. No worries. I headed north, more uneventful saloons and chappati stalls. Nothing to get my attention.

I was about to turn back when I picked up an all-too-familiar sound. The sound of evening praise and worship from born again churches. I had never been into one before and I had nothing worthwhile to do. Why not?     

                                                              

I branched to the left, past an abandoned automobile washing bay and beyond. Just like I had pictured in my mind, it was an iron sheet structure. It shined in the dark, the pale moon light reflecting on the ‘walls’, signifying the presence of the Lord, I mused.

prayer and divine healing ministries international.

The blast of music hit my face with such force as I entered this holy iron sheet structure. Sounds of praise and worship, akin to the midnight atmosphere at Rock Catalina filled my ears and it was sheer providence that my eardrums remained intact. A tremor run through my body. Inside the house of the Lord, I felt like s stranger and expected to be bundled up at any time and thrown on the cold outside in case someone noticed the devil ridding on my shoulder. I was not roughed up however, not at that moment and not in the hour that I spent looking at frenzied worshipers.

The floor was covered with red woolen carpets that had seen better days no doubt, with plain white chairs scatter across. The lot of them however had been bundled to the sides, creating an expanse of space in the middle. The altar  was a different dimension. Ornately constructed with stone and painted immaculate cream. A glass stand was elected thereon with the church Logo gloriously emblazoned, the mark of the church. This juxtaposition is usually symbolic… flamboyant shepherd, wretched sheep.

Inside this house of the lord, it is a different universe. I felt like John Carter on his first day on planet mars. The worshipers were marching, like army recruits, pacing back and forth. Sometimes they picked up pace, like in an Olympic race walk, mumbling a heavenly dialect that I could not fathom. I felt ill at ease, shifted from one leg to another till I settled in the corner and keenly watched the proceedings. I could see the lot of them and more than half were young women not yet into their thirties obviously and about half of the latter had babies slung over their shoulders, young mothers perhaps?

The leader of this praise and worship was an equally energetic young man, spotting a plaid shirt and a black trouser that looked worn out from a distance. And occasionally he would pump words into the microphone. His voice, so powerful had by now grown hoarse and constantly he would pose for a breath before barking bark into the microphone again.

“Twaala okusaba okwamaanyi!”

“Twaal’emikisa gya Yeesu!”

A young lad probably gripped with the holy power, circled around the church and finally linked up with a young lass, they joined hands and prayed so powerfully that the young man’s abdomen shook, the young lady shaking like an autumn leaf in the wind. I know nothing about praise and worship rituals so I just starred in awe like a teenage boy having extracted a word from the girl of his dreams.

It took me a while to realize that the microphone had changed, to a young lady this time. The lady’s voice had been no different from the young man’s that the transition had gone unnoticed. Hers in fact was over the top you would think we had a lion growling in the church. Her predecessor, visibly exhausted made his way to the altar, to the glass pulpit and picked up a glass of water, took a long swig and then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He then paced around the altar and shook his head in appreciation, like a man inspecting a half days work.

Waking up from the eerie, I could see a young man who had now lain on the floor, like an expectant heifer about to bring forth its calf. A young girl, oblivious of the lad’s intentions went up to him and shook him, probably fearing the worst. He did not budge. She then imitated him and spread her miniature body on the carpet. Her mother came and whisked her away, admonishing her to stay put.

Inside the house of the Lord, I did not feel any different. I looked at the men and young ladies pacing around in prayer and mumbling in tongues and wondered if it was not a hoax. That deep within, they were just problem-laden people looking for release. I remembered a time a friend of mine showed up with a string of new beads on his arm. Keith is not really the religious type so I was a little bit shocked to see the word Jesus etched on the bracelet.

“Uh. So now you are a believer.” I had exclaimed, a strange light shining in my eyes.

“Turn it around.” he had said.

I twisted his arm around to complete the bead maze.

Piece. It said. Jesus Piece. The Game’s fifth studio album...

Aren’t most things usually like that. Look once, it is that, look twice and it is a different story.

I felt in my phone pocket for my Tecno m6. It was getting late really. I stepped outside and just then sly thing started ringing. It was my host come back… Time to go home old boy. I pulled over my hood and pushed north, beyond the praise, beyond the worship, beyond the music. 

ISIAH 1.15

I love solitude. It is a love so strong I would pay a hefty price to be left alone to think. So last Saturday I happened to land on the chance of a life time. My brother having left to the village and my sister long gone to work, I stayed in bed, long enough to savor the delicacy of the silence and let the aroma of privacy waft past my nose. I jumped out of bed, shed the last garment I had on my body and prowled around the room, like the alpha lion making sure that it was alone in the lair.

I set about brushing the carpet but no sooner had I landed on my knees to start on the Sisyphean task than I heard a knock on the door. The footsteps I heard definitely meant that I had an entourage of people at my door.

“He is around!”

I froze. It was a female voice. The last time I had heard that phrase used was long ago when I was knee-deep in debt. You would start to look to the nearest corner for cover.

They knocked. I waited, may be it was a wrong door. The second knock was much firmer meaning they were sure it was the right door. So I frantically looked around and landed on a baggy pair basketball shorts (I don’t play the sport, it was a gift) and slipped into it, no time for a shirt and then I opened the door. The female voice was my neighbor's, with whom I have never exchanged a single word, not even a hello. She left soon as I had opened. Her companions on the other hand, they stayed. I instantly recognized the two gentlemen, they were the Jehovah’s Witness preachers who had got quite friendly with my brother. Once in a while they show up and preached to him, I had never ventured to reveal myself, I would casually stay in bed while they preached away, citing evidence from the bible when the occasion permitted.

“Johnpaul is not around. He left, I mean he went to the village and he won’t be back till may be Wednesday.” I was definitely not sounding welcoming. But they were men of God anyway so the stayed.

Well I got to know that one was Ukrainian, I could have guessed by his thick eastern European accent, the second was Ethiopian. They started doing their thing, preaching to me with that phony attempt all preachers usually make to seem friendly. I have always had some questions that I could not find answers to. So I guessed this missionary would offer some answers.

“Do you believe in predestination?” I asked.

“No!” his reply was too curt for a preacher.

“And why is that?”

“Well I have my own reasons.”

“Did you grow up as a Christian?” I asked.

“No. I did not. Back home, people are atheists. They do not teach religion so people grow up when they do not know about it.”

“So why did you choose to come to Africa while folks back home are more in need of salvation?” I asked. I was not giving him rest this one.

“Well, it is not because they did not want to listen to me. They are many of us, well so me I was sent to Africa.”

Perfect.

 I was at this moment that the preaching started to hook my attention in earnest.

“Do you think God listens to our prayers?” the preacher asked.

I told him I did believe He does. He then handed me the bible to read.

Isiah 1.15 “when you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look. Though you offer many payers, I will not listen, for your hands are full of blood.”

Interesting.

“So imagine a battle field,” said I hoping to make sense of this quote, “there are two warring factions. Both have taken blood and shed some. They are all praying, who does He listen to and who does He let go?”

“The answer is no one!” the preacher said.

I was baffled. So what he was insinuating was that there is actually an ‘autopilot’, a situation when God just abandons all of us and aids none. In this case, all fate is in man’s hands. 

Now I imagined, what if God was to forsake us? What if he was to put the universe in autopilot and let the sleeping dogs lie?

The answer is America!

If you want to know what a godless nation looks like, look at America. Guns on the street, drugs, prostitution, robbery, murder, suicide. The worst situation of a godless nation is when men start to think fellow men are women. A godless nation is doomed. Has no peace and there is chaos anywhere. The first time I got to know that there were psychos and serial killers was in American movies. Read their literature, watch their movies and you will get to know what I am talking about.

I have heard about murdered judges and people who were shot for scratching cars, all in this our Uganda. There is a drug ‘cartel’ in my neighborhood and the ‘kifeesi’ group really rhymes with the crips and the bloods and the Crenshaw kings, American style gangs.
Is Uganda becoming a godless nation?  

CRY for THE BELOVED COUNTRY!

I work in the night, late night actually. Its not what you think. It is a legitimate job and I am paid per month, not per round.

The limited time I have spent in the customer service center of a telecommunication company, serving the low value customers has given me a fresher perspective of my beloved mother land… and it is not an encouraging picture. We are so lacking as a people that we may need the second coming of Jesus if at all we are to have any glimmer of hope. I mean the situation is so bad that sometimes I break down and cry (take that with a grain of salt, or two for that matter)

For starters, the levels of illiteracy are alarming. I honestly maintain that it is more a result of a crippled education system as much as the lack of one. So you will pick up a call, about twenty minutes after mid night and the sub is in need of help.                                                                              – “My Facebook is not working. Every time I try to visit the site, they tell me that ‘error’!”                                        

 –Have you used the internet on your phone before?                                                                                  _No!                                                                                                                                                           –Do you have an internet bundle?                                                                                                            –No!                                                                                                                                                      Of course after running the number through the system, you will discover that the sub is using a Nokia 1200, a rudimentary non-internet enabled device.

I have also realized that the poverty is biting. It is so loud it can be picked up on a microphone. The poverty is of an audible kind. One of the results of this is a people so susceptible to deceit they are wonderfully gullible and prone to petty theft. It is normal to pick up about ten calls a day of people who have been conned clean of their yearly savings. The man comes on the phone, and from the deep solemnity of his voice, you can tell he is in the mid-thirties. They will usually ask if it is true that they have won. You will proceed to ask them if they have been part of any promotions and they will repeat in the negative. You will ask them then why they thing they have ‘won’ and they will dive into the well-known story.

“Someone called me today morning at about three thirty in the post meridian, he said that I have won with this company. That I am a lucky winner of three million shillings and a brand new Toyota Premio. He said that in order to claim my rewards, I should buy airtime of ten thousand shillings and read out the voucher pin to them so that I can be registered. Then I should also send them one hundred thousand shillings on their mobile wallet so as to be insured before I claim the prize. I did not have the money so I hurried to my wife’s purse and borrowed the ten thousand and then ran to the shop and purchased the airtime, which I read to him.

I could not solicit the latter part of the funds so I told him to deduct it from my bounty. The man has disappeared in thin air. I have tried calling the number now and it is off! Can you imagine?”

What you really want to shout to the man is how stupid they could have been but you cannot. First of all, it will get you fired and well you know it is not their fault. Any poor man will light up at the sound of a few shillings and famous people have been conned before, only on a grander sale. They have been already robbed anyway, and the only thing you can do is apologize and issue stern advice on the level of vigilance needed when it comes to the matters of ‘abafere’, like they are usually termed in one of the local dialects.

This kind of job opens you the doors to the lowest rung of humanity and all the salient issues that rock their world. Of people that neither read nor write, yet they are the back bone of the nation and they live and die like that, only slightly aware of the basics of civilization. May be I will become a humanitarian, in my next life, if reincarnation is a theory to be trusted. This all breaks my heart and it is literal this time.

ANGELS ON MY SHOULDER!

Typical I is not exactly a daredevil. I am however not easily shaken by events that would be quite unnerving to the average man, for instance, I have brushed moving cars before. The most remarkable being when the car, a green Toyota VX, grazed me with such force that the side mirror was pushed backwards, out of place. Naturally I kept moving, like I had seen rat crossing a village path. That was a normal day to me. Today however, I have been left shaken, sweating, panic-stricken…

It is a normal morning. I have not worked the previous night, so I kick the beddings early enough, yawn widely like a hungry crocodile and as usual I remember too late to hold on my mouth. No one is seeing anyway, so I don’t care. It’s going to be a busy day, I have to go back to campus, pick up my clearance form and then panic my way to work in the afternoon. So I brush, take a cold shower after much hesitation and just as am getting through, the lights go off.

“Damn it!” I swear angrily, majorly because I had postponed ironing till the last minute.

So I get a back pack, pack my clothes and move to my sister’s. There, I am doubtless that they have electricity. They do not share the Yaka calamity with us. So I iron my clothes and put on a black tie. Well it’s a Friday, but then I want to meet her and the idiot in me (which she magically induces) decides that I will put on a tie anyway.

I hold one of those Ironman-Captain America arguments with my brother-in-law. Apparently, he thinks he can get off the grid, live without electricity or fuel and eat organic for five years. I think its bull-shit, he thinks it’s not. No point in arguing with him anyway. It’s hard to find a man who has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication Engineering and is a film maker. He is taking music lessons. He wants to be a farmer next and a lawyer lastly. You watched concussion, right?

It’s getting late, so I jump on the Boda-boda, half denting my daily budget through. I am feeling like Trump today, so I will fly to school, I say to myself quietly.

Flash-forward. I am in the bursar’s office, the whole place is buzzing with people, desperate students and staff alike. I sift through the heap of clearance forms, haphazardly strewn on the table and I solicit for the help of as friend because they are four piles of clearance forms and I don’t feel like spending the whole day sifting through the forms. I find it, I am not happy. I do not know why.

My phone rings. It’s Damien Marley, so I listen to the first lines, because my ringtone is my favorite song.

“Affairs of the heart, together we grown… if ever apart…”

Am not getting apart from anyone. Not soon. I still want the idiot in me anyway. I jump out of the eerie and pick up the phone. Kiiza is on the other end of the line. It’s been long since I saw him. Half a year? I do not know. We set up a meeting. I see him, it’s always a pleasure old boy.

I meet bae. Things do not go fine. I am having the teenage mood swings although I am decade past that. It’s amazing what love can do to a man.

By this time it is getting late. I have to go to work. So I walk to Nakawa Park. It’s a packed taxi, hot and murky like a coffin in the Sahara afternoon. Jesus Christ. I can see why I want a Mercedes cross country as soon as possible. Public transport in Uganda is pathetic. It’s my economic status however, so I curse under my breath and endure. I am humming the ‘we shall overcome tune’ and it’s stuck on replay in my head so I hardly realize that we are at the Electoral commission. I jump out. I give the wretched conductor a one thousand note. Of course I know that the fare is 500. He stares at me like the undertaker so I lose the courage to ask for my balance. No point in meeting my death over the price of a bun. Not today.

I cross the road and stand on the middle pavement, I still have another lane to cross. That’s when I am saved. I prepare to jump into the road and as soon as I put my foot into the road, I feel a swoosh coming towards me. A white Toyota Prado is setting upon me with such speed that I freeze in the moment. I can see my grave so clearly and for a moment I knew my maker was not far away. Then in a trice, I instinctively step back onto the pavement. People whistled. A loud mummer spreads through the taxis behind me as people stare at me like I have green eyes and webbed feet. I am dazed. I am shaken. I am blessed. I stand there befuddled. The white mist sweeps past me, it’s the car. All that in a second. Painful tears trickle down my face but they are invisible. All the while am thinking, of the Angel that pulled me by the collar like the kid I am not, right out of the road right before I met my maker. I have a second shot at life…

It’s 10.23 pm and am using the company computer to write a testimony. Who gives a dump anyway? I almost died today. It’s such providence that I had Angels ridding on my shoulder. I live to die another day.

OF INJECTIONS AND HOSPITALS... AND STRANGE DISEASES.

A stitch in time saves nine. We always hear that said and we do have but a slight idea how the saying works if it was to happen to us.  I think what it really means is that procrastination does nobody any good. Get off your behind flesh and get things done. A kind of don’t-wait-for-tomorrow deal. It’s costly.

A few weeks ago, I happened to wake up with a rare pain at the back of my throat. It is an extremely disconcerting experience and you wouldn’t want to be in my shoes. Being the African that I am, I relaxed. It would go. I would rest it out, I said to myself. A day later, it was getting worse.

I had had an encounter with a tonsillitis patient before, so it wasn’t an entirely alien ordeal. On consulting with google, I decided to assume a bachelor’s degree in medicine. I would be my own doctor. So I got two teaspoonful of salt and mixed with water and then gurgled away. It looks stupid, this gurgling thing. You see an adult making those weird baby noises and water splashing out of the mouth, I tell you it’s not easy.

Flash-forward, its three days later and I have not budged, the pain is getting more intense and this time I cannot eat. The day a savvy meal tastes like a punishment is the day you realize that heaven is not in the solar system. I was beginning to think of lunch with much apprehension. Then sleep became a problem too. One thing about tonsillitis is that liquids somehow hurt more than solids, so it is hard enough to swallow even one’s own saliva. I would keep storing the enzyme in the mouth for about ten minutes till I had enough, then I would swallow, or spit depending on my location. Swallowing is funny too, you crane your neck, like a flamingo, then tilt your head at an acute angle to ease the pain and then push whatever the burden is down the esophagus…

Thursday night was hell on earth. My throat was in so much pain. I could neither swallow nor breathe without making a fist. It’s annoying too. You see when you have a facial pimple, you can scratch it or squeeze it and feel better. This, you cannot squeeze. Any attempts to push your hand any closer to the throat and you are singing the national anthem. So I had this huge and excruciatingly painful lump in my throat that I could do nothing about, except gurgle salt water and skip meals.

I woke up, dark rings around my eyes, obviously because I had not been making much love to my bed lately. I am haggard, ghostly pale and only but a shadow of the man from the south west. It’s amazing how much weight one can lose with a week of starvation. That morning I cried. Like a baby. I don’t mean this manly red-eyed crying. I mean the painful whimpering of a scalded puppy, free flowing tears and all. Jesus. That’s when I made the resolution. I was going to see the doctor. No point in becoming a saint at 22.

See the doctor I did. So I explained my pain. You would think I was a pregnant woman.

“Doctor the pain is too much.  I can’t swallow, I can’t eat. I am a dead man.”

He got the flashlight and commanded me to open my mouth wide. (I brush quite frequently, so normally I have no difficulties with such checks). You should have seen the look on his face.

“When did you get this?” He asked.

“Last Saturday,” said I.

“And what have you been doing all along? You are in trouble young man. If you had seen me last Saturday, antibiotics would have been enough. Now it is an open wound!”

I almost screamed.

I still had a burning question. But I needed the courage to ask.  

“Doctor, is this disease infectious?” I asked.

“Well if you mean whether it spreads from one person to another, then yes. If your saliva gets into contact, the other party will definitely contract it…

Where the hell did I get the malady?

He did what doctors do, you know. Scribbled quite illegible statements on my examination card and gave me to take to the treatment room. Naturally I assumed I was going to be given a hoard of tablets and let loose. I was wrong because as soon as the lady arrived, a mean looking Acholi woman, she told me to ‘go behind’ and ‘prepare myself’. Now you know what that means. I hadn’t had a single injection in about a decade and a half. I panicked. I sweated. I contemplated Scofield moves. I almost fainted.

The worst bit about an injection is not when that needle tears through your flesh, it’s the sixty seconds or so that you spend lying on the bed, a cold breeze blowing your bare buttocks, pants down, waiting for the guillotine. I had quite lost my touch with injections. All I remembered were the basics. Do not try to harden or ‘tie’ your buttocks, lest the needle gets broken from inside and that would be a different tale for sore ears. The night mare was quite not done. I was instructed to pull up my sleeves and prepare for an intravenous injection. You know like those in American movies with junkies pushing God-Knows-what up their veins. She did this thing with the syringe and two drops formed at the needle tip, reminding me of the impending doom and then she pushed the needle up my vein. It’s not as painful.

A bad day is a bad day. I watched as shade of red poured into the syringe and I could tell from the look on her face that things were going south. More complications. How convenient.

“Do you feel any pain?” She asked. Of course I was feeling pain, even men do. She withdrew the syringe and scavenged my upper arm for a veins until she found a spot and pushed again. Lord.

You know what the Swahili say, ‘hakuna msiba usio na mwenzao’. Problems usually travel in packs. My eyes almost fell out looking at the bill. My entire month’s savings all gone in a trice, because I was a couple of days too late…

OF SCHOOL AND THE HUNGRY NIGHTS...

SCHOOL. I mean the place where kids and adults go to gain extra knowledge (and to fool around for quite a bunch). Well, the definition of school is heavily dependent on who you are.
To a parent, its months of relaxation  in a beach side condo in Hawaii, complete with fully paid expenses, a chauffeur driven limousine with occasional visits to Vegas.
To the teacher its a sheep farm. A very desolate place full of slow-to-understand mammals who seem to have heads specially forged from steel. Worse, every single one of these woollies is seemingly intent on accomplishing all tasks, apart from those for which they were called.
Its quite a different picture for the student. Imagine Guantanamo bay, liquid diets fed through the veins, punctuated with solitary confinement every week.

Back in the day, in primary school I was sent to boarding school. Grand mama cried herself to sleep that night because according to her, the child who was barely weaned was being sent 'overseas'. It was not overseas, it was just the next district, Kanungu. You note that am born in the land of rolling hills where kids learn to wield the hand hoe when they are still breast feeding. Anyway I was sent packing to this boarding school. Mama filled my head with hideous stories, if I ever dared to step foot out of my humble abode, she said, I would make make a delicious stew in Congolese pots for supper. I prayed the full rosary that night.

Not all was thorns and vinegar though. The new chapter came with a wide assortment of luxuries. After all I would finally get to wear shoes for a whooping five days a week and for mass on Sunday with the exception of Saturday. It is at school that I found the strange ritual of breakfast at 6.30 am, break tea (or was it break porridge?) at 10.30 am, lunch and supper.

The hardest part of school was hunger. Somewhere in the middle of the school term was a period, a terrible episode custom forged with Lucifer's own specifications. Pockets were dry, meal times took a tad too long to approach, stomachs got so empty you would wonder whether you even have intestines in there. As if that was not enough, appetites seemed to be artificially heightened. For one reason or the other, one was always wondering when they last tasted anything. At this time, the usual dish, half baked maize bread and beans in water, tasted like a french recipe. Times got so bad that we would decimate our toothpaste reserves, not by brushing constantly of course.
There was a brand, ABC Dent it was, that doubled as food. It was not to be hogged down though. The victim would gently squeeze the tube's bottom, applying enough pressure to release a calculated mound of white toothpaste, then quickly and skillfully scoop it up and spread it on the tongue. An alloy of tastes came into play at the moment, a burning sensation like sulfuric acid on skin coupled with a sweet backdrop. The latter was the prize. After thirty minutes or so of these calculated moves, one would get satisfied and happily head on to the playing ground. Those were the times.

Desperate times like these surely called for desperate counter measures. On one of those lucky September nights, the mango fruit season at its peak, we would sneak out of the dormitory, armed with sharp sticks and a strong towel, which we would use to transport our produce. Woe unto him that was caught on running errand. Your backside would be whipped sore and on an unlucky day, the teacher would reveal your 'witchcraft' in a class full of young belles, ruining your chances of ever landing one of these angels. Then you would know how deep the depth of feeling low really is. Fingers would be pointed, laughter stiffed and the culprit shamed to death.

That that did not take us to the grave definitely replenished our strength. We made it out, unharmed but bruised nonetheless. That, was twelve years ago, deep in the southwest of the pearl of Africa.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE.

The times are changing. Change is always upon us no matter what and inevitably we always realize that time has nothing in common with a tortoise. A cheetah may be, although I cannot claim with much confidence that the latter can levitate, later on take to the skies.

On one of those cold city mornings, in a congested suburb east of the capital, I lie in one of those single room shacks that go for a quarter million a month, albeit being the size and feel of a sheep pen. I am haphazardly strewn on the bed, time check is about 7.30 am and am beginning to squint my eyes, beseeching them to make love to the light. My sister on the other hand is on her way out being the early bird that she is. The previous night, she had brought my nephew along.
He is barely three years old my nephew. At that age however, he can operate a Tecno tablet with much ease, select a DVD of his choice, slide it into the player and skip, forward or eject when in need. I told you the times are changing.

When my nephew finally bids farewell to my sister, he issues several curt commands.
"Bring me Yorghut from the supermarket." he says.
"And cold soda plus crisps," he adds.

At the age of ten, I barely had an idea that a place called a supermarket exists. I would have probably sliced my tongue pronouncing a single word for dried pieces of fried Irish potatoes and I cannot certainly say that I had tasted an artificially frozen drink.

You see!

What I and my peers knew was the feel of cold stream water on our naked bodies as we took a dip in the afternoon sun, having slipped away from the garden, away from the watchful eyes of our parents. What we really knew then was the angelic taste of cold yellow sweet potatoes, consumed with a sugarless cup of concentrated milk, fresh from mother cow's udder. A typical meal was sweet potatoes (unpeeled and in their natural state) alone, and on a good day, accompanied with a thick sauce of green peas...

Hell, I did not own a phone until late into university. If you did watch the full Back to the Future trilogy, You have a slight idea of how I feel.

I am in no way envious of the current generation and their privileges. in fact, I would pay several drops of my ounce plasma to get back to the days when we were just as guileless as new born babes. The time when entertainment constituted of ancient stories around the fireside about ogres and mythical monsters (am not referring to Apocalypse or The Joker). To those times when we roasted fresh cobs of Ebikyoori, like giant marshmallows (i have no idea what the latter taste like, like I told you, the times are changing). Back then, stories of three year olds playing candy crush or Fast Racing were stories reserved for the English Bible. Back then, life was amazingly black and white... but not any more.

Nostalgia is bad for anyone, even an armature blogger. May bee that's why I should kick you out of my head and bid you adieu. i remain yours truly, the man that gives sound to silence.

OF OLD FRIENDS AND NEW TRENDS...

Lately, I may be mistaken for a workaholic... I always leave 'office' late in the night (if 21.00 hrs qualify for late night). It's not the case anyway, because the last half of my Customer Service Advisory training dictates that i start at 14.00 hrs, basically it's an afternoon shift.

Yesterday as I was leaving the aforementioned office, I bumped into an old friend, he is not an old friend really, campus was done two months ago and this guy is my best friend. Considering however that I had not seen him in ages, I had to stop. Here is how our  conversation usually goes;
Him; You guy, Wassup?
Me: Wassup you guy?
Him: S**t is tight
Me: s**t is tight
We usually repeat the above for about five minutes or so and it is really our ritual.
Anyway I bid farewell to two of my colleagues who I was moving with and headed to the opposite direction. He dropped his bag at the Club amnesia security and off we went to Greasy spoon. It is a great spot and often in my best of dreams, it is always three am as I saunter, half drunk, out of club Amnesia, head to greasy spoon and order a steaming plate of gravy, white rice and fries... Those are the times.

This time round I settled for a cold bottle of Krest bitter lemon. The night did not begin to get strange until I wanted to get home. I would naturally jump into a taxi but it was late and I was about to halt a Boda Boda when he told me to use Uber. You can imagine the shock that registered on my face. It's not that I do not know this Uber animal, it only had never occurred to me that I would at one time order an Uber and it gets me home. When I think about Uber, my mind flashes to the streets of New York or to the Kenny Reeves movie ( which I didn't complete by the way).

Anyway I downloaded the application after hours of honest conviction from him. He ventured to divulge the information that I would get a 'free ride' which I also didn't think I would use the same night... Then the water hit the fan... he went into my phone and set a pick up location as I looked on dumbfounded... then they sent a message to my phone...
'PAUL IS ON HIS WAY TO PICK YOU UP... HE IS DRIVING A TOYOTA PREMIO NUMBER BLAH BLAH..'

You don't know who is coming to pick me up?, I asked to which he nonchalantly replied with a blithe 'no'. Then I  knew I needed more than just prayers to get through. Paul did arrive and I did board the car but what amazed me was the comfort.  A very clean vehicle it was with Congolese ballads playing, and the interior smelled fresh. All the while however I was worried... my pocket weighed about twelve thousand shillings and had I exceeded the budget... Well I didn't because I actually did not pay a cent, the first ride being a free one. Ugandans and freebies are a match made in heaven.

The catch is, I can keep getting free rides if at all Santa can show up with a list of people to use the app under my persuasion. I am certainly not sure when I will get to use the service again but all I know is  my dreams just got a whole lot more comfortable....