Kenyan Girl

Saturday October 10, 2009
9:40 am
Listening to the sounds of 5 women getting dressed upstairs

Today, I will be wearing a kanzu and my Ugandan flag lapel pin.
Today, I will be driving a manual car, without a license, all over Karen – I pray that the traffic gods are observing the Sabbath today.
Today, Celia and Sam will be getting wed at the Mucweru Golf Course.
Today there will be Tusker and nyama forever.
Today, I will get high and kiss a Kenyan Girl pakalast.
Aaah, Kenyan Girls … napenda sana bana!

The Quiet Ugandan

Monday October 5, 2009
20:53 pm
Listening to Hugh Masekela’s Greatest Hits

Tomorrow evening I will be in Nairobi, being treated to dinner by my friend Kumiko.
But knowing Kumi, that dinner might just turn out to be a nyama choma feast at The Carnivore. Kumi, in the most unlikely event that you’re reading this, scrambled eggs and some Ketepa Gold tea will do just nicely, thank you very much. But, I know you won’t be reading this so, go on and cook up a feast, I could use the extra pounds. Kilos I mean, mbu pounds, as if I’m in England. Ha!

I’m going to Nairobi because I haven’t been for ages. I’m going to Nairobi because I’m at a crossroads and every fork in the road looks good and the Good Lord is taking his sweet time pointing out the way in which I should walk. I’m going to Nairobi because I want to fall in love again. And I’m going to Nairobi because I should have been getting wed this Saturday but as fate and a whole host of other stuff would have it, that will not be happening, so I’d rather not wake up in my own bed and think, “today is the morning that I would have walked her down the aisle.” And Kumi asked me to go and I haven’t yet met Loice’s baby, or her husband come to think of it, and I hear Aunt Margaret’s kids are all grown up now and I’m dying to walk down Valley Road and reminisce about simpler times and happier days. Did I mention Akon will finally be in town? No, well, now I just did.

Nairobi’s always had a fascination for me. The sort of starry eyed fascination that my cousins in deepest Kisoro probably get when they think about moving to Kifumbira in Kamwokya to live with their big brothers and make money selling tomatoes in the market, the kind of fascination that Kampala bred kids have with moving to Boston, LA, Houston, London, Stockholm and Brussels. I wonder why none of them wants to move to Taipei or Venice or Paris or Bangkok or Madrid or Buenos Aires or Havana. I wonder! I’ve spent a couple of nights in beds and cities far from my own and none comes close to giving me the thrill I get walking about in Nai, whether it’s in South B or Riverside, Muthaiga or Embakasi.

Part of this fascination is because for the longest time growing up I thought we were Kenyan. We lived in Jinja and in those days, the late eighties, it was easier to get stuff from Kenya than it was to get it from Kampala. My mum got The Nation, The Standard and Taifa Leo every single day so of course that’s what I read and as far as I knew, George Saitoti was my Vice President and Baba Moi was the President but we all knew he’d had Tom Mboya killed. Wahome Mutahi was the funniest dude alive and if you didn’t read “Whispers” growing up, you were short-changed! Calvin & Hobbes, what was that?! Then I grew a bit older and went away to boarding school and the reality of Uganda set in and life was never the same again.

The other part of my fascination with Nai is that, with the exception of my first and second visits – with my mum, en-route to other African parts – every other time I’ve gone over on my own, by bus, I’ve fallen in love. There, I said it, there’s my dirty little secret.

The first bus trip, the ‘Vac workmate and I came clean with each other on a cold stone ledge, underneath the bright stars, outside the main Hall at the Daystar University Valley Road Campus. Ours was the great love that never came to fruition, we were two ships continually passing each other in the night and Valley Road was our final port of call far from home before we both retired to spend the rest of our days becoming rust baskets … I think I’m taking this ship allegory a bit too far. Then there was the trip where my best friend and I sat together on the drive back – thank you Alf for graciously moving seats by the way – and talked and talked and talked all the way back to Kampala. I talked the woman into falling into love with me and we flipped from being best friends to well, best friends with benefits (of the Christian sort). That lasted all of 4-ish years until I pulled the plug for reasons I don’t remember, suffice to say I think we’d reached the point where we could’ve either gotten married or broken up, so we broke up. Doubtless we made better friends than lovers. That’s my side of the story. Then there was a trip on which I discovered that, a guy and a chick – in constant emotional and physical proximity – can never be just friends! That was the genesis of my whole friends with benefits phase, which was most beneficial I must say. Most beneficial and I hope, mutually satisfying – some of them read this drivel I write so that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The last time I was in Nairobi was to shop wedding stuff for Myke and Char and at their traditional wedding is when I met the young lady that is now my ex – this was about the same time that Ex-bestfriend girlfriend had just emigrated to Canada, when she called the afternoon of her departure to bid me adieu, me I told her how I felt about her then she also told me how she felt about me then I wished her Godspeed and she left on a jet plane. So there I was, had just quit my job, flunked my very first Client account, Ex-bestfriend girlfriend’s gone and I’m finally past that; Ms. Ex is as if in the picture making it look all rosy and Myke and Char are going to Nai to get their gown and rings and teabags (those guys buy their milk and teabags in Nakumatt – Kenyatta Ave, none of this Capital Shoppers business). Of course I went to Nairobi – to clear my head – came back and asked Ms. Ex out and the next 2.75 years went past in a blur. With a fair amount of ups and downs and in-betweens. And somewhere in there I stopped blogging.

So, as you can see, I go to Nairobi to lick my wounds and come back roaring like a lusty lion. And now I’m listening to Eric Wainaina and remembering when he had hair shorter than mine and haven’t we all just grown so much older and none the wiser?! Here I am hoping to recreate the magic of youthful exuberance by sitting on a bus for hours on end because that’s the way it always happened in the past when it would just be faster and a lot more comfortable if I just hopped on a plane. But that wouldn’t leave me with hours on end to read my new Terry Pratchett or gaze upon the rice paddies of Kibimba, the tea estates of Kericho and the amazing sunset over the Rift Valley escarpment at Kijabu; that wouldn’t leave me with nowhere to go but inside to the deep dark places wherein dwells the truth of Sir Francis Bacon’s words, “great changes are easier than small ones”. Someone suitably wiser than me – and believe you me, there are precious few of those around – said, “in youth we learn, in age we understand”, there’s a busload of stuff that I would like to forget, like how could I have been so … mistaken … for so long? Or refused to see what those closest and dearest to me were afraid to tell me and how I failed to see their fear, for what it was. Was I, dare I say it, wrong? Should I have gone for form and substance not bright lights and potential? Should I have voted for Mama Miria Obote and not Dr. Besigye?

It’s going to be a long ride; Lord help me. I will return even more sorted, of that there is no doubt. I don’t go in search of answers for those I have. I go in search of confirmation of which answer(s). Will I return with that confirmation? I know not yet but this I know; I will return with a suitcase full of dirty laundry, a massive sleep debt from all that partying, a camera full of the proof, a severe case of constipation from all that nyama, and Eros willing, a notch or two on the bed post.

Delay is the deadliest form of denial – C. J. Parkinson
See y’all on the other side.
ESR

P.S. If you read this and idly wondered why I didn’t mention you by name, that’s because;
1. Your continued friendship is near and dear to me
2. You might very well be one of my answers in need of divine confirmation
3. I might want some benefits pretty soon

The AJ Chronicles

Monday October 5, 2009
8:19 am

Every weekend i go home to visit my nephew AJ.
he’s 4 years, 2 months and 1 day old now.
last weekend was no exception and this time i took him the PS2 LOTR as i continue my quest to turn him into a red meat eating, belching, nail biting man and not the sissy that hanging around his mum and her legion of female friends will surely turn him into.

i was mighty pleased to hear that a few days ago, upon being woken for his morning bath before breakfast, he told his mum that he would be bathing himself. that made me proud, my little man is manning up. then his mother continued the story …

…mbu he went into the bathroom and much splashing and piddling and pissing about followed. then there was a longish silence and just when his mother started to think that maybe the chap had drowned himself in his paddling pool sized basin, the bathroom door slowly creaked open and there he stood in his naked glistening glory with his eyes the size of gundi’s nipples and one of his hands on his butt cheek … then he whispered, in a stage whisper – boy gat drama – “Mummy, there’s a katuli in my bum-bum!”

Ko his mother, “wait for Auntie Chantal to come back from England and she tells you what that katuli is for!”

I died.

Peace & Love,
Julius.

Redemption Song

Damn!

I’ve missed Friends with Benefits!
Gals, holla at a brother, I’ve got some new tricks!

Peace & Love,
Julius.

Here Comes a Golden Oldie!

March 26, 2007
I am an insomniac.
Some days are better than others.
The last few weeks have been horrid.
This is an account of a typical night for me.

12:30am – Sis wakes me after I fall asleep on the couch awaiting The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, to stay awake I grab the last chocolate chip cookie from tea at Charlotte’s place earlier today.

1:30am – elec bursts. Shoot. I’m going to bed, besides Top Gear aint even coming on no more. Bloody hell. Send Sheeba a text, she prolly just having dinner right now. Bloody mosquito is back, wonder where’s it been last few days

2:00am – say the first of what will be many prayers, decide to wear jeans and wingtips tomorrow + Cherie’s Red Ribbon

2:15am – I think its gonna be another of those nights, get up and go fetch a banana from the dining room, eat it in bed, drop the peel on the floor, will throw it away when the sun’s up, lock the bedroom door, think abt sleeping in the buff, might help

2:30am – shit, last Saturday was baby bro’s birthday and even tho I told Sis about it I then forgot! Damn. Double damn. Dats why he wanted to take me out for drinks! And I turned him down (Lenten season and all), oh I’m a bad bad person

3:00am – get out of bed and turn on the light switch just in case, decide to leave it on anyway, think longingly about the quarter of gin in the dining room, Ms. Swan’s packet of fags in my wardrobe, maybe even a joint, anything to knock me out

3:20am – Baby bro gets up to take a pee. I know its him from the way he flicks on the light switch, waits a beat and turns it off when the lights don’t come on. But most of all I know it’s him coz he don’t flush after tinkling. I stopped fighting that, Live and let live is my motto

3:30am – decide I’ll buy baby bro a book for his birthday tomorrow. Reread my text messages for like maybe the 20th time tonight, must drop in to say hello to Geoffa my dentist he’s sent quite a few reminders that I need a check-up and cleaning – yeah I do. Sheeba’s telling me about visiting Birmingham and getting her hair done in cornrows, gud 4 her, she promises pictures. Stella’s sent me the petition to boycott Lugazi sugar for what they wanna do to Mabira forest, I’m down with that. Kalyegira’s fishing 4 info on where I used to work, I be diplomatic in my answer – never kick people wen they’re down, lest they get up n put a hurtin on u – then he wants to write a story on my uncle’s death in the Raid on Entebbe, mmph, mummy rarely speaks of it, wonder if I can get Jajja to do so

3:47am – damn mosquito is back again, maybe DDT isn’t such a bad idea afterall, my ingrown toe nail starts throbbing, must be time to trim it again, oh dear, the blood and the pain

3:50am – take out pen and paper to start writing this stuff down, my memory’s starting to get stretched, use the light from my cell phone to do the deed

3:56am – thank God I sleep alone, the tossin and turning and contorting, I belong in a circus or sumthin, duvet hit the floor long ago, only got a sheet covering my modesty, drumming in the distance, who the hell throws a party on Sunday nite/Monday morning?

3:57am – realize the neighbourhood stray cat hasn’t turned over the trash pails tonight, since I missed supper, I guess that means we had like beans or something, that cat only come when we have meat or fish, in my mind Phoebe from Friends starts singing “Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you?…”

3:58am – I need a phone with radio, like the one girlfriend took from me, contemplate getting out of bed to go get another banana, insomnia makes you hungry like that

4:01am – tired of unlockin the phone every 5 seconds so I can write by the light, definitely going to get that banana, then I’ll have to find another warm spot in my bed that allows me to lie still for more than 5 minutes, wind picks up outside, seems like a drizzle coming on

4:06am – sheesh man, even AJ hasn’t woken up to feed tonight, that’s strange, are they giving him brandy again, I was just joking about doin that! He’s still a baby

4:17am – after holding his peace all nite the neighbour’s mangy flea bitten wound infested cur adds his yelping to the general chorus of dog mayhem out here, sounds like a version of the musical DOGS, as opposed to CATS, chest hurts from leaning over the side of the – wooden – bed to write this on paper on the floor, def. going for that banana

4:24am – banana is finished; fight with sheets to untangle them, think longingly about Valium, again, no rain yet

4:27am – maybe Charlotte was right and I can’t sleep because I’m worried about stuff, then my worries must be for CHOGM! Let’s see, there’s my impending break-up to makeup with Boo, rite now I want the break-up but she comes from a good family, she’d make a great wife, what? U thought I was marrying for love? bambi

4:29am – uganda needs an all nite toll free trash talk show like they have in Manchester on Capital FM or Radio One, the station with Chris Moyles in the morning, that station was wicked, I think the show was called Barbage with this DJ just dissing other people and their ridiculous “problems” like the 16 year old who wanted to drop out of school, have a baby with her 17 year old unemployed boyfriend and then get a council flat coz she would be a single unemployed mother, on welfare, know what he said to her? School first, sprogging later, get ur head n hormones straight – I cant repeat the other disses, they were too war

4:37am – sky’s beginning to lighten, ever so subtly, where’s the chorus of DOGS + CATS go? There’s just that far off lone dog in what sounds like Bukoto-Kisaasi

4:40am – earlier today saw an episode of Smallville in which Clark saves Lois + Lex Luthor from a bullet shot at them by this chameleon assassin – he make himself invisible n stuff – who Lois had fallen for, then because Lois and Lex were both cowering in fright and didn’t see Clark stop the bullet – supersonic speed n all – she thinks Lex saved her life then she falls for him and is now gonna date him –despite Clark’s warning not to- since she broke up with Clark?!!! Small wonder no one in the house ever caught on to Smallville, it’s like the Barbarita thingy, why cant women take constructive advice from their ex-es on the men they wanna date? Just coz we didn’t work out don’t mean I don’t know what’s good 4 u

4:42am – why’d the contestants in “The Apprentice” seem so dense? Aint they the best and brightest that Stato has to offer? Now my entire foot is throbbing like the blood just started flowing back into it, pins and needles here

4:44am – if I had to which would I rather lose? An arm or a leg? If I was being tortured? U cant waltz without a leg –unless u’re Heather Mills ex McCartney- but then u cant make love with only 1 arm, oba a nipple vs a finger? An ear or a … cojone (can u lose just the one?) does Kony give his victims a chance to choose? I’m fed up hearing the sound the phone makes when it’s locking the keypad!

4:49am – 2 days ago Cedric at the shop pointed out my impending bald head for the 2nd time in less than a month, oba I start wearing a clean shaven head? Is my hair receding that fast?

4:57am – the music in the background? Definitely lingala, at this time on Monday morning? What sort of moron is awake to be listening to it? Well, apart from me of course?

5:01am – do we have trains near Kisaasi? Cause I hear a train or the humming of heavy machinery, like a convoy of 60 foot trailer trucks, a very long convoy indeed, shoot! Tis now 5:02am! I concede the fight to fall asleep now, ah well, we’ll just await sunrise then

5:10am – sumthin bites me on the right elbow, scratching it I do a mental checklist of everything I’ve tried before to fall asleep; Sade (Love Deluxe always works), reading, tea, coffee (caffeine relaxes me, not the other way round), physical exhaustion (a couple dozen situps and push ups), yeah I need valium, the trains are back, faint rumblings of thunder in d distance, that’d be nice, rain whilst y’all go to work Monday morning so I can get some sleep, rain’s soothing like that

5:18am – rain sweeps up from the valley, thank you Lord, at least now the dust will be dealt with

7:55am – I open my eyes to electricity after a rather tortured dream in which I was an Italian carabinieri marching upto the gates of the Italian embassy and demanding to be let in … too many late nights my boy? Hmmph?

Making Memories

If it was the last time you were holding her hand, how would you do it? Hold her hand I mean? If it was the last time you would feel the bones in her delicate fingers, would you stroke them ever so gently, to feel every ridge, abrasion and fold of skin or would you let them just rest there in your palm, drawing strength from the many countless times that these same fingers had stroked your cheek from the lobe of your left ear down to the cleft in the middle of your chin.

If it was the last time you were sitting next to each other in the backseat of a car while someone else did the driving, how would you seat? Would you stay at opposite ends of the backseat, looking out the window at the passing buildings, people, vegetation and sounds of night-time Kampala, remembering countless taxi rides you’d taken together in backseats and how you’d snuggled so close to each other, your bodies fitting into each other with a snugness that seemed so easy and natural it was all you could do not to cry in joy.

Or would you sit like you used to, your knees touching every time the car jolted and bounced over a Kampala pothole, sending a jolt of pure excitement coursing through your every last nerve like an avalanche of white hot lava, till it was all you could do not to cry out in anguish, that this would be the last time your bodies would be this close together, your legs touching beneath the fabric of your jeans and her blue and white silk dress.

Would you keep your hands in your lap, holding hers, or would you stretch out one hand over and behind her shoulder, like in the days of old, so that she’d cradle herself in the fold of your shoulder and rest her head on your shoulder, her rounded forehead nestling in your neck, her nose and lips just inches from your lips, so close you could feel her breath whisper in and out of her nose, even as your bodies of themselves started to breath in tandem like a well oiled machine running in sync, yet so far away because you would never again taste the delicious fullness of those lips again, that elixir like mix of tenderness, sun, heat, Fair & Lovely, Apple lip gloss and sweet baby breath that always made kissing her such a heady experience.

Would you let the moment exist, would you close your eyes and breath deeply of her scent, that bewitching mix of youth, musk, sweat, lotion, soap, womanhood and deodorant? I would, that this moment would forever be imprinted on the eye of my mind, that in months, nay, years to come this last drive along Mukwano Road would grow in significance till it became a thing of myth, of lore told to one’s children and grandchildren beyond them, a thing to rival the greatest love lost stories of old, one that belonged in the annals of history with Cleopatra’s asp, Napoleons’ letters to Josephine, the love poetry of Elizabeth Barret to Robert Browning, the endless locks of Rapunzel, the silent repose of Snow White, the culmination of these last three years distilled down into the stretch between Makindye Kirundu and Shell Jinja Road on a warm Saturday night.

And when it was over and done and you were bidding her goodnight, for probably the last time in your lives together, would you reach out and hold her in a hug that seemed to reach far back in time beginning the day you walked into a living room on the university campus and saw her sitting there in excited animation, and, stretching far forward for all time and times that you’d never get to slip your hands under her arms and behind her back, enveloping her in your arms, holding on for dear love while all of your body inhaled ever so deeply one more time, and releasing, letting go, unlocking your arms and heart even as the pent up breath begun its sigh from the depth of your innermost being, up and out, swirling above your heads into the mists of time, dissipating and scattering to the four winds even as you felt yourselves slipping away, slowly and finally.

And then it was over.

ESR.
Saturday April 18, 2009
10:30pm

Me I want Michael Jackson!

Monday July 20, 2009
21:20

Tonight I arrived home to the enthusiastic hugs of my little, well not quite so little, 4 year old nephew. There I was thinking he was really happy to see me kumbe where! He had his own agenda! The minute I put down my rucksack he announced rather conspicuously – in his mother’s hearing – that him he wanted “Billy”, who? ‘Billy”, “Billy who?” “…uncle, me I want Billy of Michael Jackson!” aah… Beat It! Yes Uncle you dimwit I would like you to play for me Beat It on the computer! Umph, Jordan, its not a computer, it’s a MacBook …whatever old man…play the song already!

So I dutifully unpacked the Mac and played Beat It…then he wanted Dangerous… then he wanted “For Pe” that one just jammed! We went through the entire Off The Wall and Greatest Hits albums before he decided that “For Pe” was infact “Heal the World”. Now he’s here bullying me nti its not the one… infact he wanted “Smooth Criminal”… I’ve haha’d! when did pre-schoolers start knowing their Michael Jackson from their teletubbies? Dude has jammed to put on his jammies and go to bed! Does he like know MJ is …in the thug mansion with ‘Pac, Biggy, Elvis, Luther & P-Tech?

Richard Branson II

Sunday March 22, 209
8:00pm

Today I was upcountry visiting a rice farm in Isikiro village, Buwaaya subcounty in Mayuge district. That sounds like it’s far away though in reality it’s only a two hour drive from Kampala. So, there we were traipsing all over hot rural dusty Busoga learning all about the planting of upland rice when it became necessary to find and speak to a potential supplier of electric power to power the rice mill which would hull the rice before its sent off to the buyer, you.

We then went looking for a guy who we knew had started the process of getting an electric connection to learn from his experiences. When he came upon him, he was supervising the felling of a tree in someone’s compound. This is where the fun begins. Apparently our guy, lets call him boda-boda businessman, BBB, had gone to a village youth, VY, who had a couple of extra trees on his acreage and bought a living tree from him. When BBB turned up to harvest his tree with a work crew in tow, he had them fell the tree and slice it up into planks of timber. The bicyclists he’d hired to ferry away the timber were loading it up when we arrived and shortly after is when the drama started.

VY showed up in a huff, interrupting our own meeting with BBB, and demanded his rightful share of the bounty from the tree cutting. Apparently, VY expected that he’d receive the tree bark and the branches, leaving BBB to ferry away the stem, now sliced into planks of timber. Even though BBB was gracious enough to request VY to let us finish our meeting before his issues could be resolved, this was too good to pass up on so we insisted that VY gets his issues sorted first. And sort them out BBB did, with a style and panache that knocked the socks off my feet.

BBB politely informed VY that when he, BBB, bought the tree from VY, he “bought the entire tree” right from the tips of its outermost leaves to the depths of its deepest roots. Therefore everything at both ends and in between belonged to him, BBB. For good measure he added, if he wanted he would be within his rights to carry off the roots and all the leaves that had fallen off the branches during the felling process. He had after all, bought the tree, all of it.

That alone made my Busoga trip so totally worth the time, heat and discomfort.
ESR.

Taking the mickey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugandan_english

Where have all the men gone?

1. when was the last time you went to a bar, looked at a couple and the dude was the one sipping on the hard stuff?

2. when was the last time you went to a Home Cell meeting and the cell leader wasn’t a woman?

3. when was the last time you were at a seminar/workshop/retreat and the most active participants weren’t women?

4. when was the last time you met a responsible single father?

6. when was the last time the newspapers profiled a successful young “corporate”/businessperson and it wasn’t a woman?

7. when was the last time the marketing manager and/or PR person of any company wasn’t a woman?

8. when … before GNL – May He Reign 4 Ever … did you feel a musician before first checking out their ass-ets in the Red Pepper?

9. when was the last time you started a genuine friendship with a man?

10. when was the last time you stood up to be counted for more than the phone on your belt, ID ’round your neck and keys in your hand?