The Malfunction

Any drycleaners will tell that that if you wear the trousers of your suit more often than the jacket, when it is time to have the pants cleaned, take both the pants and the jacket even if the jacket is clean. The reason behind this rationale is so that both the jacket and trousers fade at the same pace. Okay, so this intro does not make sense but as you read on, it will.

I am not a man for sandals. I feel sandals don’t make sense especially in this dusty city of ours. But recently, I was given a pair and seeing that it was a Sunday, I thought I would give them a chance. So I took a stroll round the neighbourhood and I felt kind of good especially with the breeze blowing between my toes but irritated at some of the small stones that find their way into the sandals.

As I continued to walk my left sandal started to behave sluggish – like it was sick and tired of being dragged through the dusty streets of the neighbourhood. It was falling back and was not moving in line with the scandal on my other foot. Looking down, I saw the problem. The stem (the bit that goes between your big toe and the next toe) had snapped. But how could it have snapped. They were new sandals, straight out of a kaveera. But then again, does anything that comes out of a kaveera mean that it is brand new and something worthy? In this case it didn’t because the sandals were manufactured by those small men from the Far East and who have ‘slits’ for eyes. The Chinese that is.

So here comes the problem. I am more than an hour’s walk away from home and one of my sandals has snapped. Do I walk back home wearing one sandal while holding the other in my arm or do I follow the dry cleaning rule and remove both sandals and walk back home barefooted?

I opted for the first but it only brought me more problems with one foot being higher that the other. Secondly, everybody who drove or walked past me looked at me like I was some kind of mulalu (lunatic). So I went in for Plan B and walked barefooted. Again, more problems. Everybody who drove or walked past me thought I was more than a mulalu and that I had been given new scandals for Christmas but didn’t want them to get dirty so I took them off and opted to walk barefooted!
Worse still, I got a phone call from my mother and the conversation went along these lines.

TB's MUM: Son, are you okay?”

TB: “Yes I am.”

TB’s MUM: “Are you sure?”

TB: “Yes I am. Why?”

TBs MUM: “A friend just told me that they saw you walking in town with no shoes on.”

I explained to her the best I could as to what had happened and while she listened, she nevertheless sent me some dime to buy new ones. Meanwhile I have an itch between one of my toes and I am terrified that I might have jiggers and that if I go to IHK and tell them my problem, it will spread round town like wildfire. Anyway as I type I am not certain if it is indeed jiggers or something else. And I wouldn’t even know if they are jiggers seeing that I have never had jiggers before. I will let you know the outcome next week.

Broken sandals and jiggers aside, Uganda still has a very poor service industry. Over the Christmas period I was lucky to be invited to Sesse Islands for a couple of days. We were booked into Pearl Gardens Beach and from the moment we checked in, there were issues.

In the bar as I placed an order for a Tusker Malt Larger – yes I am back on Tusker, when the beer was served, it came with no glass. When I asked for one, the conversation went along these lines.

WAITRESS: “But sir, the glasses are over.”

TB: “What do you mean they are over? I want a glass!”

WAITRESS: “But sir, if you had come early, I could have given you a glass!”

At this point there was a need to do a time check. The clock on the wall read 8:10 as did the one on my cell phone. I should also point out that it was 8:10 AM and not 8:10 PM! When Waitress was talking about me coming early to secure a glass, what time did she want me to start catching? At 5:00AM?! It turns out that all the glasses were in the dining room and that I would have to wait until breakfast was over before she could get me one. I let it slide.

Secondly, my room did not have a mirror and I duly informed reception about it. They promised to have one put there. Hours later and there was still no mirror so I reminded Receptionist who once again promised to solve the problem.

The following day there was still no mirror and once again Receptionist promised to fix it. By chance, I happened to pop round the room when Maintenance Man was trying to hang it up. But there was a problem. While it was a mirror, it was not a whole mirror. It was part of what used be a whole mirror. In fact, it was more of a strip. Obviously there was a need to have an exchange of words with Maintenance Man and the frosty kaboozi went as follows.

TB: “What is this?”
To my question, Maintenance Man retorted with a look on his face that read: What the f**k do you think it is?

TB: “I asked you, what is that you are putting up?”
MAINTAINANCE MAN: “A mirror?”

TB: “Be serious! That is not a mirror. That is a broken mirror!”
MAINTAINANCE MAN: “The mirror was broken by a guest sometime back. Now I don’t know what you want me to do. Do I take it back?”

TB: “I asked for a mirror and not a strip of a mirror! You can take it back!”

And just like that he unscrewed the strip of a mirror from the wall and he is gone. But I can hear him in conversation outside the room and he is telling his colleague that: “That man in room 12 is funny. He has been complaining that he has no mirror in his room and when I give him one he says he wants a real mirror. Kati Charlie wange, maybe I am mistaken but is this not a real mirror? Look, I can even see my reflection in it so it must be a real mirror not so?”

He went on to add that he is sick and tired of the people who come down from Kampala. Be’yita ba lordi (they think highly of themselves) mbu because they came from Kampala. We have bazungu’s who come from America and they do not complain the way people from Kampala complain. Even if you told the muzungu that rooms were fully booked and that if he wished, he could sleep in the gardens, he wouldn’t complain. All he would ask you for is a blanket. Tumbavu!”

Tumbavu?! Anybody who is an avid reader of my cowardly tales will tell you that I have a monopoly on the word, tumbavu. It is me who is supposed to say tumbavu and with that, I was out of the door unleashing a torrent of tumbavu’s while Maintenance Man hurriedly picked up his tool kit, strip of a mirror and fled towards Kalangala town and to the police station – no doubt to tell Affande that there is a lunatic from Kampala running amok on the island.

There is more to the story, but the itch between my toes is getting worse that I have to stop and give it a good scratch. I wonder if it is indeed jiggers? By the way, how do they get rid of them? Will I have to fund raise for surgery to be carried out in South Africa? Later.