Don't Feed The Villagers This Christmas - They Have Uncultured And Uncouth Stomach's

This Christmas, District Level Peeps have to find their level!  Joy hails from Serere – wherever that is. Ivan is from Koboko, Joe is from Kabowhe while Hikmat feigns to be from Bombo but I’m most certainly sure she is from somewhere up north.

As you read this week’s drabble, most, if not all of them – and others too, will be alighting from a tedious bus journey in their respective districts where, they are set to spend the Christmas vacation. But as they alight to be greeted by District Level Peeps, one thing they (District Level Peeps) expect to see amongst the luggage, is something plastic. By plastic, I mean the two essential plastic things that District Level Peep loves the most – a brand new basin that glistens in the sun and gleaming new jerrycan – one that they can show off at their next visit to the borehole.

A New Shiny Plastic Jerrycan Is To Die For In Kyalo

Barbra Mulwana, who heads that Industrial Area based plastics company, must be watching in awe as the shelves of basins, jerry cans, plastic cups and chairs empty for just about everybody headed out to the district for Christmas would have bought one of them – except for Joy, Ivan, Joe and Hikmat who all dilly-dallied. Way before December loomed, I kept on reminding them to get a basin and jerry can as soon as possible and not to wait until December when a price hike due to demand hits. Did they listen? No. By the time they thought of going downtown, the prices had shot up.

Barbra Mulwana - The Queen of Plastics

Getting back, a couple of weeks ago, I spent time with Dr Martin Aliker and he tells an interesting tale about Christmas in his village in Gulu. Every January or so, he makes it a point of slaughtering two bulls, and throwing in some booze for Village Peep to make merry. But as the years have rolled on, he’s began to notice that Village Peep who turns up to make merry is not from the neighborhood but from some other place all together. For all he knows, they might have travelled down from Kitgum or Lira for the event!

Will Martin Aliker Slaughter A Bull For The Villagers In Gulu?

Christmas for District Level Peep, is a big deal - not because it’s the festive season, but because and if they are lucky, they get to eat different things in huge amounts and not the usual quarter kilo of byenda, or yams or posho left over from supper two nights ago.

When Kampala Peeps hit the districts, they bring food and drink to compliment their stay – Danish bacon rashes, Heinz baked beans, cornflakes, coco pops, Frankfurters, New Zealand salted butter, Heinz tomato sauce, Danish Blue Cheese and KFC. In the ice coolers are cans of Budweiser and Heineken along with whiskeys like Chivas Regal, The Famous Grouse and Glenfiddich that District Level Peep has never of.

The Village Taste Buds Won't Appreciate An 18-Year-Old Malt Whiskey

Obviously with all that, you so well know what stunt District Level Peep is going to pull. He going to forge a way to have Christmas lunch with Kampala Peep. Ok, so what that District Level Peep can get bitten by a gazillion mosquitos and not get malaria, drink water straight from the same stream the cows drink from, and eat rats with the same passion Kampala Peep eats a steak from Café Java’s and not get sick.

But once Christmas lunch is done, he’s going to spend the next eight hours hovering over the pit latrine or squatting in the mayuni plantation because a serious bout of diarrhea would have kicked in.

You see, District Level Peep’s have the most uncouth and profane stomachs that are not mature, vintage, refined, cultured or sophisticated enough to digest bacon, Heinz baked beans, Kellogg’s cornflakes, Anchor New Zealand salted butter, Heinz tomato sauce, Danish cheese, Budweiser beer, The Famous Grouse, Glenfiddich or Chivas Regal whiskeys. 

Salted Butter Will Give Villager A Stomach Ache

Have a good Christmas District Level Peep!

Pictures: oldliquorcompany.com, cn.jnkoulive.info, nice.co.ug, youtube.com

It's Time To Declare War On The Scroungers!

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a scrounger as: “Someone who tries to get things especially money or food, by asking for them instead of buying or working for them.” That’s an apt definition for men, as in men scrounge while women slay. For the record, a slay is: “Naïve girls who do not date broke men. They don’t work yet, they are able to afford and their apartments are aptly furnished.”

Scrounger One

Timothy – and not me I might add, hangs out with Alan and Angie in the suburb of Kyaliwajjala – a name that sounds and reads more like a dreaded disease than an upcoming affluent suburb hence, people who live there say “Charlie” rather than “Kyaliwajjala”. Getting back, Timothy, Angie and Alan meet up at least once a month in one of the local bufunda’s, to catch up and do a spot of gossiping. And when they do, rather than going through the tedious task of summoning Waitress multiple times to take their beer orders, they simply buy a crate of Castle Lite and tuck it under their table. However, when other ‘friends’ join and see the crate, none of them bothers to ask. They simply reach over, dip their scrounging hands into the crate and help themselves. Some go even as far as swapping the bottles of Castle Lite which, they don’t drink for their preferred brand.

Scrounger Two

At a recent Buziga party, Host laid on a good spread – everything, right down from food, beers and more importantly, an array of spirits. Johnnie was there as was Ug Wa, Courvoisier and Vodka. Amongst the guests, were Four Scroungers. When it dawned on Four Scroungers that there was a run on Johnnie, one of them did the ‘needful’. He casually scrounged his way to the table and scrounged the entire bottle. Returning to where he was sitting, he put it under his seat. Johnnie was no longer for all Johnnie drinkers but for him and his Scroungers. And when Friend of Host eventually found the bottle and put it back on the table, ten minutes later and with no shame, Scrounger took himself back to the table, scrounged the bottle and this time, hid it behind some shrubbery.

Scrounger Three

At the same Buziga party and while it hadn’t even yet caught fire, when Floss Slay walked in with her Slays, within fifteen minutes she (Floss Slay) was at the barbecue. Nothing wrong with that I might add. But there is an Except. The except, is that while everybody else presented Barbecue Man with a disposable plate, Slay opted for more than a rip of tin foil and once served, she wrapped it all up walked straight out of the compound and deposited it in her ride. The norm in this case, is that one waits till the party is over and for Host to make the kalango that: “If anybody wants to pack some food, they are free to do so.”               

   

Scrounger Four

After a Munyonyo ‘beach party’, KK decided that the night was still young. Piling a bevy of Slays into his dudu, off they drove to Cayenne in Bukoto along with TB – one of his tights. At the Mukwano junction down the road from Namuwongo, they encountered a police breathalyzer road block and no sooner had Cop stopped the dudu, than Slays flung the door open and fled. Getting past the roadblock after some palm greasing, they caught up with Slays at Shell Jinja Road and KK stopped for them despite TB’s protests. Upon reaching Cayenne and after KK forking out close to 100k to get them in, they vanished into the crowd. In fact, the only time KK saw them throughout the night, was when they slayed up to him in needed of more drinks then vanishing off!

  

In Greed We Trust - Until We Get Caught or We Lose Money

In Greed We Trust?

Bernie Madoff, was an American former stockbroker, investment advisor, financier and now a convicted fraudster who is serving a federal prison sentence for a massive Ponzi scheme that he ran. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies in which, he defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars – almost $65 billion that, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison. So what does Bernie have to do with today’s Sunday ramble so I hear you asking yourselves?

Bernie Madoff

Until Bernie’s Ponzi scheme collapsed, I had never heard of him (Bernie) just like I had never heard of Nasser Nduhukire until, pictures emerged on social media showing him being pulled out of a ceiling by the police. Don Nasser, as the baleebsi that followed his every move called him, literally popped out of nowhere as in, one day he wasn’t there and the next, he was.

Greed Got The Better Of Nasser Nduhukire

The swanky Speke Apartments in Kololo, was one of the places where he was a regular and when it came to rides, they were all personalised – Nasser, Nasser 1, Nasser 2  - right down to a Rolls Royce worth sh1.7bn. Like many mystery tycoons so a post on social media read “he took over the social scene and splashed wads of cash like he had a money printing press in his garage at home.”

So where did all the money come from? Does he really have a money printing press? Did he win the lottery? Did he inherit? Err not at all. Don Nasser was a just another Bernie Madoff except, he wasn’t operating a Ponzi scheme, but like Madoff, he had the gift of the gab to prey on peoples greed and John Hill, an American national, was just one of those people consumed by greed.

Is Greed Really Good?

Don Nasser preyed on Hills greed – telling him that he could supply him with 75kg of raw gold and just like Madoff convinced investors to invest with him, Hill did just that to the tune of $700,000 (sh2.62bn). Except there was no gold – but Hill didn’t know it just like Madoff’s investors didn’t know that he (Madoff) was simply running a Ponzi scheme. By the time the dust had settled, Hill had lost everything. He lost his job and had to sell his home.

Following on Don Nasser’s heels is Charles Nwabuikwu, a Nigerian national who landed here almost a year ago and ready to satisfy our greed. His scheme was too good an offer that with all our greed, you would stupid not to take him up on it. Simply buy a computer tablet at sh580,000 and every month the buyer would reap in sh370,000 in monthly earnings.

Charles Nwabuikwu's Greed Brought Him To Uganda

Better still, if a child bought an iPad at sh327,600, they would earn sh185,000 every Christmas until they were 21 years old. His Ponzi scheme was so successful that anybody who worked for him felt they had the dream job. He threw them monthly Request Night parties and lavished them with gifts. And when his employees went out do marketing, they didn’t use bodas or trudge the dust beaten streets of Kampala but, went by Land Cruiser Prado – 67 of them which he hired to drop his employees to cut business deals with unsuspecting clients. Then he targeted single mothers with soft loans except, they had to fork out sh1m of their own money to be eligible. And like all Ponzi schemes, Nwabuikwu’s scheme burst. The single mothers lost their sh1m, and the kids won’t be getting their sh185,000 this Christmas. 

Greed Is Good Until We Get Caught Or We Lose Money

Greed is good - until you get caught or lose money. But Madoff, Don Nasser and Nwabuikwu are not crooks. They didn’t steal our money. Rather, all they did was they rightfully took advantage of our unsatisfiable lust for greed. You see, we were too consumed by greed hat we didn’t even notice that the deals they flaunted before our eyes were the dodgiest of deals. 


Pictures: Spy Reports, Galaxy FM