Why Do We Always Want Money For Nothing?

Everybody wants to earn for doing nothing.

I was the last ride in a secure carpark and as soon as Askari saw me walk in, as short and as fat as he was, he still blabbered over to the ride – obviously to give the impression that he had been standing by it all night and keeping watch over it. To increase his chances of getting some form of remuneration, he engaged me in small talk.

Askari: “There was a time when thieves used to come and steal indicators, but not today.”

TB: “Is that so?”

Askari: “Tonight has been quiet.”

He was still jabbering when I got into the ride – something about trying to get a cup of tea but by then, I was already gone. Looking back at him in the rearview mirror, his face was one of disbelief. How could I not have tipped him especially since he had been ‘standing’ by my ride and looking ‘after’ it. But why should I have given him a tip? Does he not get a salary from the security company that he works for?

After asking around, Thomas was introduced to Semakula by Mukasa. Mukasa told Thomas that Semakula was the right person to do some house repairs he wanted done at his home. After interviewing Semakula, an interview in which Mukasa sat in on, Semakula was given the job. Once Semakula had departed, Mukasa leans in and boldly asks: “atte ebyange?” So, Thomas feigns ignorance and retorts: “what do you mean?” to which Mukasa and this time with more gusto tells him something along the lines that he was expecting a finder’s fee or some form of commission.

A while back, I was at Serena in Kigo where a multitude of wedding receptions were taking place. I was not there for a wedding but for fwala. Okay, I wasn’t there for fwala because I don’t do fwala but, I thought it would be a nice place to go and read a book. Seeing it was busy, two ladies – bride’s maids at that, asked if they could sit in the seats opposite me to which, I nodded in the affirmative. At some point we introduced ourselves and got involved in conversation which I might add, was rather interesting.

An hour later when they bade farewell to go to their reception, we exchanged business cards and ‘promised’ to keep in touch with each other. And when I got up to leave, I didn’t leave with her business card – much that we had an interesting conversation, she was not a person who would fit in my social circle.

Ten days later and I get a call. It was from Bride’s Maid and she was straight to the point. “I am going to a function in Entebbe but I don’t have any fuel. Can you please lend me 100k?” Now let’s put this tale into perspective. We are talking about somebody I had only met a days ago and for less than an hour. Since when did she creep into my friend zone to be comfortable enough to ask me for 100k and just like that?

When Musa was having electrical issues at home, he of course called in Electrician. After assessing the problem, Electrician informed the problem was something to do with the power supply from the transformer to his home and thus required the input of somebody from Umeme. When Chap from Umeme turned up, he made it out that it was a big problem and if given an ‘incentive fee’, the problem could be fixed in a matter of hours rather than the six or seven days it would take if put into the Umeme repair system.

And that’s how Uganda works. For the slightest favour given, we expect something in return.        

Do You Know How To Beat Your Wife?

Usually when you walk into an LG store to buy say a flat screen television, fridge, kettle, toaster and so on, it comes with an instruction manual. That manual serves a purpose and that purpose is to guide you on how the gadget should be set up, its functionalities, how it’s operated, how it should be stored and so forth.

Now enter Al-Aziz Al-Khazraj, who is a notable sociologist in Qatar and I guess, has a thing or two about manuals. Not that he collects them or anything like that. Rather, he has written one and to be honest, his manual is most disconcerting, rude, abusive, vile and belittling to women.

For all his education, Al-Khazra has filmed a ‘tutorial manual’ which he posted to YouTube and wait for it, wait, for it, wait for it – the aim of the manual is to guide Muslim men on how they should beat, goof and batter their wives. If that has not already riled the feminists and the ladies at FIDA, then by the time they are done reading this column, they will be baying for his blood.      

In the tutorial, Al-Khazra tells Muslim men: “Dear viewers, many people – especially people who are married – would like to know how to beat one’s wife?”

With that, he starts his sickening rant: “She needs to feel that you are a real man. First, we must understand that the man is the leader of the house. A leader has authorities, just like a company manager.  The leader of the house may decide to discipline the wife so life can move on. How does a husband beat his wife? He gives her a disciplinary beating out of love. He loves her. Now, let's see how Islam teaches how to beat your wife. Let’s imagine that this young boy is the wife. How should a husband beat his wife?”

“First, he must admonish her – in other words, he should advise her. Then, he should refrain from sharing a bed with her. If all of this doesn't help, we resort to beating as a last resort.”

Using a young boy as a prop, Al-Khazra demonstrates by slapping him on the shoulders, grabbing him and shaking him, and saying loudly: “I told you not to leave the house! How many times do I have to tell you?”

Then in an utterly perverted and most twisted move while still validating beating techniques on the young boy, he looks into the camera and without any shame or sense of guilt says: “Some people punch her or slap her on the face… That's not allowed. The Prophet forbade striking the face, slapping the face, hitting the head, punching the nose – all of this is prohibited.”

“The beating is for discipline. The beatings should never injure women and hitting in the face is against Islamic law. This is a painless beating that does not leave bruises or cause bleeding. The beating I just gave the young boy is the true gentle beating in Islam.” So the trick here, is not to leave any bruising. But as the sadist that Al-Khazra is, I am sure he knows that it’s possible to beat with bars of soap and not leave bruises but inflicts agony on the person.

Out of all this ‘How To Beat A Wife’ babble, the one person I feel truly sorry for is that innocent young boy used as a prop in the demonstration – Nayef, who at most is 12-years-old. Suffice to say, that by the time he gets married, he will have been so indoctrinated into the woman beating culture that he will see it as something normal – almost like having a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast.

Pictures: Memri TV

Is Having Full African Lips The In 'White' Thing?

One of the most sought after comics to read when I was growing up was, Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny’s Asterix and Obelix. The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BC. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures and in many of the stories, they travel to foreign countries.

When it came to the illustrations, Uderzo was good at his craft and certainly knew what the game was about – especially when it came to depicting Africans. He always drew African’s with huge pink or red lips and large ears.

How Black Lips Are Drawn In The Comic Book Asterix and Obelix

Meanwhile at school, I was always asked: “Jeez TB, why do you Africans have huge lips?” And I might add that most of the questions I got asked did not have any racial undertones. It was just that they had no clue about Africa.  Others, asked why African women always have ‘enormous bottoms’. Basically in that era, white England - well at least the ones I was involved with, didn’t embrace African culture.

Is This How African Lips Really Look

In the 90s, they found it hip to be associated with an African cause – ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, ‘End Apartheid’, ‘Live Aid’ and ‘Ending Famine in Africa.’ And of course world music was also breaking – Hugh Masekela, Mory Kante, Youssuf Ndour were all climbing up the charts while, having an African friend – not a West Indian, but a real African friend was en-vogue.

White Man took it a step further by growing dreadlocks and wearing the rastacap or tam and trying to speak in a West Indian accent while, White Girl was seemingly simmering and waiting for her turn to shine, waiting for that one African association that would put her on the map.

And then she found it in the form of having big African lips and a large booty to go with it. So she started Botox and lip implants - something that the British government is launching a campaign to crack down on with women describing being left looking ‘like the Elephant Man’ after lip filler procedures went wrong, describing ‘stinging’ pain and feeling like their lips would split.

Rachael Knappier almost lost Her Top Lip

Rachael Knappier, a 23-year-old nurse from Greater Manchester, was left with hugely swollen lips after her £120 treatment ended in disaster. She said: “My lips swelled that big within half an hour of the beautician leaving, they looked like they were going to pop. My top lip was a lot bigger while my bottom lip was touching my chin. My lips felt really sore from the stretching, I felt like crying as my neck, jaw and throat were hurting too.”

Another woman who had the same procedure, 32-year-old Lora Evans from Swansea, was horrified by what happened to her: “My lips were just increasing in size hour-by-hour and were literally starting to split. I was more worried about the long-term effects of it, thinking, have I completely destroyed my lips out of vanity?”

Ok, so some African women bleach themselves in a bid to look lighter, but White Woman should take heart. God obviously dealt them a wrong hand and didn’t give their booty anything to cheer or crack open a bottle of champagne about – and a booty as flat as golfs 18^th green, is certainly nothing to cheer about.

Life is not fair but, it’s time White Woman accepted that booty will always be an African thing and without big African succulent lips, she will also never be able to delight in sucking out the bone marrow at a Wandegeya kigere joint nor, will she fully be able to comprehend what Col. Sanders is all about with his KFC slogan – it’s finger licking good!

Are We Being Too Politically Correct?

English, is usually uncomplicated and straightforward – except of course, when it comes to literature and having to read William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. At school, the only person I recall who understood what Macbeth was all about, was Kalundi Robert Serumaga. Of course, Kalundi would connect with Macbeth, after all, his father – Robert Serumaga – was an acclaimed playwright who is famed for accomplished masterpieces as, A Play, The Elephants and especially Majangwa, which is a classic.

Getting back, in today’s world, you have to be careful how you use your English. When I was growing up, the world had no issues with referring to somebody as being ‘fat, lame’, ‘blind’, or calling a young cat, ‘pussy’. Today, we can’t say those words. Fat people are ‘overweight’. Lame people are ‘physically challenged’. Blind people are ‘physically impaired’, while young cats are ‘kittens’.

When somebody says ‘family’, it’s pretty much straightforward - mother, father, and siblings, or extended family. There is no offence in the word ‘family’ – except at Google headquarters who, were forced to backtrack on its use of the word after staff raged.

After a presentation about a product aimed at young people seemed to replace the term with the word ‘family’ and leaving out various groups, one employee stormed out of a meeting and called the company’s poor choice of wording 'offensive, inappropriate, homophobic, and wrong’.

In a long incoherent rant, the person contended that: “This is a diminishing and disrespectful way to speak. If you mean ‘children’, say ‘children’. ‘Family friendly’ used as a synonym for ‘kid friendly’ means, to me, ‘you and yours don’t count as a family unless you have children’ the employee wrote. “And while kids may be less aware of it, there are kids without families too, you know”.

The rant continued: “The use of ‘family’ as a synonym for ‘with children’ has a long-standing association with deeply homophobic organizations and this does not mean we should not use the word ‘family’ to refer to families, but it mean we must doggedly insist that family does not imply children.”

“Even the wording, ‘suitable for the whole family’, which you might think is unobjectionable, is totally wrong too. It only works if we have advance shared conception of what 'the whole family’ is, and that is almost always used to mean a household with two adults, of opposite sex, in a romantic/sexual relationship, with two or more of their own children.”  Eh, did that rant make sense to any of you? I certainly didn’t get the gist of it.

Other Things We Can’t Say

“HOW DID YOU END UP IN THIS FIELD?" Asking a woman how she ended up in a field comes off like you’ve made the assumption she doesn’t belong there.

WHAT TO SAY: Ask them about their experiences that lead them there and congratulate them for their hard work.

“YOU’RE A SUPERHERO!” When you say it to a working mother who is expected to be a superhero to make ends meet, it’s short-sighted. They wouldn’t have to be like superheroes if society started accepting an equal division of household labour and paid women fairly for equal work.

WHAT TO SAY: Don’t say anything. Lend a helping hand and, if you’re in a position to do so, give the woman equal pay.

“You’re Being Oversensitive.” Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel, and some of us are just more sensitive than others. That’s not a weakness; in fact, it’s a strength.

What to Say: “I understand you’re overwhelmed by this situation. What can I do to help?”

“That's Crazy Talk!” We’ve all called someone crazy, especially for talking about a situation in a certain way. But referring to co-workers as “crazy” is a dig at those who languish in Butabika.

What to Say: “Why don't you look at this way instead?”


Pictures: Robert Serumaga, Google