Nursing The New Year's Day Hangover

Just about everybody I asked about this month – December, and what it means to them, they all had a sob story involving that man with a beard and who wore a white robe – Jesus. No offence to him – Jesus that is, but, there is much more to December than him.

In the real world, December is about three things – bonuses in the form of dime, feasting or as Laban Musoke, who sells alcohol for a living says: “pushing volumes of crates of beer.”

Laban and Kafunda Owner have, for the past 27 days not been thinking about Jesus, but about the tills and the money going into them. As you read, people are in church doing the needful Sunday prayer thing – so is Kafunda Owner but hoping that after church, you will see it fit to pass by and have more than a couple of beers – well at least enough to leave him a tidy profit.

With most people off work until the start of 2016, there is little to do but, to find a kafunda, ‘catch’ and talk politics till Riot Police deploy and unleash kibooko.

But there is an issue - that hangover and what to do with it. I have done everything from popping ibuprofen, crying, ‘dishing’ a whole tilapia fish to taking in a steam bath, but still, I ‘paid’. Seeking out Hangover Expert, she told me to try the following. I did, but alas...

Monday - Bananas: I’m not keen on fruit, but still ate because they supposedly have something called potassium. At school I was no good at chemistry, so am afraid I can’t tell you what potassium is and why it’s good for hangovers. I ate three before going to bed as was recommended because ‘it starts working faster’. The following morning, guess what? I had a hangover. So I went in for plan B – eating three more with honey. Hmm, just to give me a dose of flatulence.       

Tuesday - Orange Juice: She told it would raise my blood glucose level and that would offset the symptoms of the hangover. Orange juice has a tendency of playing play tricks on my stomach and it did. I got dios.

Wednesday - Water: I am really not a fan of water because it has no taste. However, it’s supposed to rehydrate us but hmm, all it did for me? - to bloat my stomach and give me a stitch.

Thursday – Fry up: This should have done the trick except, it didn’t. I think it had something to do with the smell of the fried eggs and burnt oil. I threw up. Hangover still there.

Friday – Milk: I like milk when it’s mixed with coffee or in a strawberry flavoured shake. It messed up my stomach and three hours later I was in the toilet – more dios and still paying.

Saturday – Kilo of pork, five very baridi TMLs: I should have waited for the pork before popping open the TMLs, but what the heck. Got tipsy and the hangover went.

Sunday – Kigere and Club-u: Despite telling Waitress that it’s pronounced Club, she’s set in her ways and to her, its Club-u. The kigere was piping hot, so hot that it gave my mouth and lips third degree burns. 45 minutes later, the hangover was gone and the Club-u’s flowed endlessly.

Water, Coke, milk, ibuprofen, salt and vinegar flavoured crisps and the rest don’t work. They are just a ruse to get us to buy stuff we don’t need. 

By-the-way, this Friday, is New Years Day and if anybody wants to nurse their hangover with me, I suggest we hog on pork and do beers at Chogm Pork in Bunga at 11:30am. What say you?  

Kyalo For Christmas and Jiggers? Nope, Not For Me

Christmas Day, is but five days away and it’s the season I term the ‘silly season’ because, people take leave of their senses.

For example, I am at a loss to figure out why people wake up on Christmas Day to realize they have not shopped, then get vexed when they find the shops closed, prices hiked and Butcher, has nothing to sell but byenda? Can you imagine having byenda for Christmas lunch?

Why do people go to church on Christmas Day? I’ll be honest, here - people go not because they are Christians, but go because they don’t want to be criticized by society if they didn’t go.

And whose idea was it that on Christmas Day we should go to All Saints or Rubaga wearing new clothes? Just watch the men all wearing straight-out-of-kaveera Chinese imported shirts with enough static on them to light a sigiri, while the women look unhappy because in the shop, when Tailor held up the tailor made dress for them to see, it looked fine, but on Christmas Day when they tried it on for the first time, they realized it didn’t quite fit them.  

Frankly speaking, there is no point of going to church. They get crowded and if you don’t get there early, you will have nowhere to sit but, stand outside wondering why you didn’t heed my advice and stay at home – especially when churches these days beam the service straight into your home on television. And even if you did get to church early enough to snare a seat, there is a good chance of being thrown off it because a minister or VIP has arrived and they have no place to sit.

Meanwhile, in the alternative churches – where miracles supposedly happen, get ready to pay heavily when it comes to sitting. In those churches, you sit according to how much you intend to toss into the offertory basket. The more you toss then the closer to the front or the closer to ‘God’ that you sit. People intending to give 1k or coins, their place is outside in the kasana.   

Christmas Day is also a profitable day for Thief. As you bundle the family into the car and drive out to church, he will be watching from across the road and will know the house is empty. While you’re at church having your cell phone stolen by Thief next to you, he and his friends will be unscrewing the Samsung plasma screen off the wall, rifling through the house and carting away your valuables.

However, some people will give All Saints and Rubaga a miss and go in for the kyalo plot - which is the norm for most Ugandans, but not for me because after doing the economics, apart from Pajero fuel, the kids want to go with bottled water, KFC, mosquito repellent, DStv… this and that, and all that’s a budget breaker.

 Kyalo has it challenges – there is the never ending sick fund, the church development fund, the food and malwa fund for the locals and seeing we are in the middle of campaigns, we have to factor in the election campaign fund and it’s all too much.

Whenever I go to kyalo for Christmas, I give out presents but get nothing in return from Kyalo Man, unless getting jiggers, a running stomach and being invited to sit round a malwa pot which I bought qualify.

I know I am not going to bump into any of you in church on Christmas day – because I won’t be there, nor will I see you in kyalo, so it’s best I say it now – have a merry Christmas and especially my peeps at Sunday Vision.

Time To Celebrate - Oba?

Somewhere in the lyrics to Celebration, Kool and the Gang belt out: “Come on now, celebration, let’s all celebrate and have a good time.., celebration, we gonna celebrate and have a good time...”

We all celebrate for one reason or the other – birthdays, wedding anniversaries to passing exams. The celebrations can take the form of a boat cruise, going out to dinner, a mega bash or simply going down to the kafunda for drinks. While we are supposed to ‘celebrate and have a good time’ as Kool and the Gang tell us, sometimes the celebrations hit a flat. Peeps might decide to crash the party, ice runs out, melee’s kick off or at the worst, Umeme decides to load shed midway into the party. However, some celebrations don’t even get off the ground and are over no sooner have they started.    

In 1993, when Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday in the final of the League Cup at Wembley Stadium, one player – Steve Morrow, didn’t get the chance to celebrate by walking up to the royal box to collect his medal or hold the trophy aloft. Moments after the final whistle shrilled, with the team celebrating on the pitch, team captain - Tony Adams, in his excitement clumsily tried to hoist Morrow onto his shoulders. That didn’t happen. Instead Morrow capitulated onto the pitch, broke his arm and left the pitch with an oxygen mask clamped to his face and off to spend some days in hospital.

When my daughter Natal was born, of course there was just cause to go and party. In the dead of the night, as I drove to pick OPP and rounded the bend just past Chogm Pork joint in Bunga, it all went wrong. I think you can guess where this story is going, but just in case you are not with me, the Pajero took leave of its senses and direction and drove me into the swamp.

I didn’t panic. I merely engaged the four wheel drive but the desired effect didn’t happen. Instead, the car began to sink prompting an SOS call to OPP.

OPP did swing into action and promptly took charge of Rescue Pajero Operation from sinking. A boda was dispatched to Clock Tower to bring a breakdown and by the time it arrived, all that was visible of the Pajero were the windows and roof. The rest of the ride was submerged. The breakdown – a clapped out Isuzu truck, at least did the needful and hauled the ride out.

After spending almost three hours in the swamp with Uganda’s finest mosquitoes drawing more blood from my veins than I have ever donated to Nakasero Blood Bank and while watching my ride almost sink, the last thing I wanted to hear was Kool and the Gang belting out “... celebration, we gonna celebrate and have a good time...” Instead, it was straight home – all sober, and very muddy to no lighting and a cold shower because Umeme had done the needful and into bed.

In 1990, Lieut. Mwamba Luchembe staged a coup against then Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda. By all accounts, the coup was successful and Zambians took to the streets to celebrate. But the celebrations faltered almost as soon as they started – not just for the ordinary Zambians, but for the coup leader Luchembe as well.

While on state radio and after giving his reasons as to why the coup was necessary, rather than leave it at that, he went on to send “celebratory greetings and love messages to Girlfie and her mother.” The love talk greetings enraged senior army officers who had initially supported the coup into switching allegiance and promptly had him arrested.     

   

$7thaou-a-month To Fart In Emloyer's Face? Give Me That Job!

I feel for House-ee, because usually, they get a raw deal and treated like slaves and dogs by Employer.

House-ee, worked for a family in Bugolobi - a very affluent family that money was not an issue to them. Husband is a ‘hustler/importer’ while Wifey held down ‘two jobs’ - one in a salon, the other at Serena Hotel. Okay let me rephrase. She didn’t exactly work in a salon or in Serena, but was in the salon on a regular basis to have her nails and hair done and then to Serena for long lunches with her girls.

When the household went to school and to work, everything was locked up. Not just the master bedroom as tends to be the norm, but the entire house was locked down with House-ee being locked outside it.

Before Wifey left for ‘work’, she was always thoughtful enough to leave Kampala Meat Packer bones to feed Husband’s dogs and beans for House-ee. One day when Wifey returned early from ‘work’ and found House-ee eating posho with meat sauce, she went livid, accusing her of stealing and gave her a hiding.

Another House-ee who went to kyalo for her first holiday in three years simply never returned. So Employer did the needful and had her arrested. When LC asked why she had absconded, she said: “I always got paid on time, but mummy would sit with my money and deduct for electricity and everything I ate or drank. I the end I had nothing. She would also shout and beat me for not rinsing the clothes properly or for making food that her husband liked - telling me that I am not the wife of the house.”

The list goes on and on. House-ee, as far as Employer is concerned, is at the bottom of the human chain – there to be ridiculed, abused, humiliated and often beaten. However, not all employers are like that. Some are very kind and treat House-ee like part of the family.

One such Employer, is the Saudi prince, Prince Majed bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Prince Majed is loaded - enough to spend his summer vacations in his $37million LA mansion.

By all accounts, he does not beat House-ees’, nor does he treat them like dogs. He pays very well and whenever he goes on holiday abroad, House-ee is part of his entourage – often flying in private jets, staying in luxury hotels or cruising about on his mega yacht that’s moored in Monaco. Basically House-ee was living the highlife that most house-ee’s can only dream about.

Despite all those privileges, House-ee found cause to complain. Er, wait a minute – complain about having to fly in a private jet, holidays in Los Angeles, luxury hotels and cruising luxury yachts?

Indeed. House-ee complained about the working conditions because Prince Majed liked to humiliate. And this is where it becomes tricky. He wouldn’t humiliate them – oh no, but he would get them to humiliate him! Yes, you read right. Prince Majed loved being humiliated by House-ee.

One of his favourite passions according to court documents filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, he would get Male House-ee to fluctuate (pass wind) in his face. When he threw parties, he would call him and while he (Prince Majed) was on his knees, Male House-ee would press his butt crack right up to Majed’s nose and let rip. And the more the stench, the better.

Male House-ee was on a $7,000 (sh25m)-a-month salary but couldn’t handle the passing of wind as his JD stipulated, so he quit and is now suing the prince. 

Given that pay cheque, I would happily work for Majed and let rip with wind after gorging on a plate of byenda and nakati for the stench, is for World Cup.