Do We Lack Personal Hygiene Morals?

Have our personal hygiene habits become less than desirable? 

Ali, is one of those people who never carries a handkerchief about him yet, for the best part of the day, he has his finger up his nose picking away. He prods with his index finger – not at the entrance, but deep down its hairy depths in search of that mucus that’s troubling him. The thing about Ali, is that he does not take himself away to the washrooms or somewhere private, but he does right there and openly. When he eventually seizes control of the mucus, he gawps at it – almost like he’s accomplished a feat that’s worthy of a gold medal podium finish, rolls it between his thumb and finger before flicking it away. I think trajectory is all important because he has this look of reverence as it soars into the air. If he doesn’t flick it into the air, he will smear it off under the table or seat. On the few occasions that people have reluctantly borrowed his ride, there is a need to wipe down the steering wheel because the first time I held it, it felt all sticky – and slimy at that.   

CAUGHT: Did Obama forget his manners and pick his nose at a press conference?

As for Dennis, he’s just something else. I should have revealed his tribe, but many would deemed it as me being tribalistic.  When he goes out to eat and the hot towel is offered, it’s almost as if its shower time. He starts off by wiping down his face, moving on to his bald head and then – wait for it, wait for it, he undoes the first three buttons of his shirt and gives his armpits a good toweling down! Now no matter how appetizing the food looks when Waiter presents it, after seeing Dennis have his ‘shower’, you will have a loss of appetite. These days when I go out eat, and a hot towel is proffered, I decline it – just in case it’s the towel that had been in Dennis’s armpits the day before.

WET TOWEL ETIQUETTE:  In restaurants, wet towels may be served before the meal - to clean your fingers and around your mouth. It's not polite to clean beyond these areas - your neck, head, behind your ears and certainly NOT armpits. 

With the next tale, I will probably have to circumvent the pork place for a while, because this particular person is a regular there and does read Sunday Vision. I don’t know him, but whenever he walks in on Sunday, clad in his golf shorts and sandals, we give each other a polite nod of acknowledgment. He has a habit – that of picking his toe nails. Even when the pork is served, he will have one foot up in the chair picking away as he eats. When he feels it necessitates the use of both hands, he simply licks the pork grease off his fingers, delves in and does what has to be done. And deprived of thought, he’ll dip his fingers straight back into the pork when done. Surprisingly enough, none of his fellow porkers, ever seem to complain.

MANNERS: You don't cut nails during meals

There is, something about having a drink with Matthew that’s stopped many having a drink with him including, yours truly. When he’s not drinking he’s okay – with impeccable manners until the Johnnie Walker Black Label is cracked open. After every other sip or so, he just can’t stop spitting. A hiss spit at that. Like James and his nose picking, he doesn’t take himself away to do it. 

ACQUIRED TASTE: Double Black Label

Nonchalantly, he just spins his head and spits – be it on the wall, the shrubbery or on the floor. When he’s invited for house parties, Host encourages him to sit as far away from the house as possible - near the boundary wall shrubbery – to which he complains: “bulijjo bantuuza munsiko”(they always sit me in the bush). What makes Matthew interesting, is that in all the time that I have known him, he is almost innocently naïve as to why Host wants him sit in the bush. I think.     

Picture Credits: dailydish.today, the oshiboricompany.com, shutterstock.com, amazon.co.uk

If You Going To Steal, Steal With Plan!

Have you ever stolen anything? Most of us as small children or even as adults have done so. Socrates says that no one knowingly commits an evil action, evil is turned into good in the mind. Most people when they do decide to steal, they do so with a plan. They don’t just blunder in. The mission is to the point. Break in, pack up the loot and get out without being caught. However, some people while they do have a plan, sometimes the plan does not come to light and gets compromised.  

Reggie used to own a supermarket on Wavamunno Road – the one on the way to Speke Resort Munyonyo and not the Wavamunno Road in Entebbe. Three months after he opened up, Goon and his friends broke in to it during the night in the middle of a heavy rainstorm which, provided the perfect cover. Except, once they got in and after breaking into the cash room, rather than make off with the loot, they spied the spirits shelf. Do you know what they did next? They sat down, made themselves comfy and went on a binge. Of course, in the process they got rather blazed and passed out that when Reggie opened up the following morning – well tell a lie, he didn’t open up because Goon had already done it for him, he found them slumped and passed out – unable to wake up even after they had been kicked and slapped about.

The first time Goon paid me a visit when I still lived alone, he left a trail of evidence that made catching him ever so easy. I had been to South Africa along with Kalungi Kabuye and Robert Kasozi to cover M-Net Face of Africa finals and while there, in our media gift bags, we were given impressive photographers jackets.

Some months after our return, I was stuck in traffic outside Electoral Commission on Jinja Road and weaving through the traffic on a bicycle, was a man wearing the M-Net Face of Africa jacket – something I found rather odd since I knew there were only three jackets in town. Calls were quickly placed to Kabuye and Kasozi who both confirmed that they had theirs. Getting home hours later, I tore the house apart – and after tearing it apart twice more, I realized that it was gone.

So how did Goon get caught? Goon would come round once a month to cut the grass of the four houses in the estate and on this occasion when he came, he came riding a bicycle – a bicycle that looked familiar, but just couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. Then it dawned – outside Electoral Commission, the man wearing MY M-Net Face of Africa jacket. After his arrest and going to his home in the not so nice part of Namuwongo, Police uncovered a hoard of treasures, all stolen from the houses in the estate.

But the real winner of a Goon in this Sunday tale, is Jimmy Oteng, a habitual thief who broke into the crib of Bernard Seruru, who, just happens to be a magistrate in Okute district – wherever that is. It is said that Seruru when into shock when Oteng was arraigned before him wearing his stolen clothes. To make matters worse, Seruru, had released him the day before for stealing a bag of sesame because Plaintiff did not come forward to court to testify.

So upon release, Oteng went on the rampage breaking into Seruru’s house and making off with a suitcase of clothes and two 20-litre jerry cans of water which he mistook for cooking oil. Ouch!

I really wish I could have seen the look on his face when he got back to his den to find out that that all along he had been lugging jerry cans of water!                      


PHOTOS: New Vision, Daily Monitor, M-Net, URN

Are We All Difficult People?

We all have traits, things we do that delineate us - you could call them peculiar habits. Sometimes those habits are taken too far that those on the outside can’t fathom why people go to great lengths to do what they do.

Melissa would rather not sit at a kafunda for pork and wine (hmm) but, she has no choice because everybody in her circle goes to the kafunda for pork and beer – not wine. On the occasions that she does show face, she lugs a huge handbag that has just about everything in it save for the kitchen sink. Before she sits down, out comes a rag to dust the plastic chair. That done, it’s time for the wipes to give the chair a second and thorough clean right down to the legs. When Waitress presents her with a coaster to cover her wine glass, she won’t use it because and as you have already guessed by now, in her bag she has a stack of her own.

The thing about Melissa, is that she never gets the chance to drink the full glass of wine she paid for but only mere sips. You see, sometimes she forgets to cover the glass with her personal coaster that when she looks round, she finds a fly swimming in it. Waitress is duly summoned, wine poured away, glass washed and fresh wine poured. In the course of a sitting, it happens four to five times. But in kafunda culture, the norm is to simply scoop out the fly and carry on drinking – something Melissa can’t bear to do.

The Horseman as people who know him refer to him, is a Navio look alike. He too has his quirks in that as soon as he sits down and Waitress approaches, he has a list of over twenty very risqué questions he asks before he places his beer order – “Are you a virgin, when did you last have sex, what about a threesome….” 

When I first met him, I thought he only targeted Waitress but no. He does not kusosola (segregate). He doesn’t care that you are a graduate or petrol pump attendant. And whenever one of his male friends invites female company, there is the need to plead with him before her arrival that she be spared from the sexual inquisition.                     

Peter Sematimba MP, is organized. Nothing wrong with that except, he takes his organization to a different level. I was in his Super FM office and as he sat behind his desk he was always making sure that everything was aligned. The model car had to be allied with the pen rack. His two phones lay side-by-side with a meticulous precision. And the New Vision newspaper looked like it had been re-arranged, for all the pages were even – almost as even as neatly stacked wad of $100 bills just off the printing press.

At some point Tea Lady pops in with mugs of coffee at which Peter literally jumped out of his seat to proffer two coasters for the mugs to rest on. Taking my last sip, I didn’t place the mug on the coaster but on his desk which, left a neat little coffee ring. I saw him glance at it but didn’t think much about it until we returned from a brief foray on his balcony.

While out on the balcony, nobody entered his office, not even Tea Girl because from where I was perched, I could clearly see the door. Peter though, did go in for a split second. Anyway, getting back to his desk, his mug was still there as was mine, but the coffee ring stain that my mug had left, was gone – as if it never happened. If nobody walked into his office while we were on the balcony – then, who wiped away the stain? There’s only one ‘culprit’. Peter himself….  

PICTURES: themissionschurch.net, ingodsimage.com, amazon.com, science ofpeople.com, wikipedia

The Curse Of Entitlement

Entitlement – “The belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” In Uganda, people take entitlement seriously – almost like a way of life, the way it’s supposed to be.

The power bank and cable were on the front seat of the ride and partially covered by a carelessly thrown jacket. That day, save for I, the only other people who had been in the ride were Friend and his Girlfie. Friend sat behind me while Girlfie, took up the front passenger seat. By the time she put butt to seat, she would have noticed the jacket and I presume common sense prevailed in that she picked it up and just didn’t sit on it. She would also have noticed the power bank and cable and again, if common sense prevailed, she would put it in one of the compartments between the two seats.

But dusk had set in by then so I don’t know if she evoked common sense. Anyway, by the time I got home after dropping them at two different locations, the jacket was on the back seat of the ride but, there was no power bank or cable. The car was torn apart and no, it was not there.

This necessitated a call to Friend to ask if he had picked it up in error. No, he hadn’t. So, I called Girlfie and she had, because she had exercised the entitlement clause. The conversation went along 

these lines.

TB: “Did you pick up my power bank in error?”

Girlfie: “Yes, it’s with me. I am going upcountry to a place where power is not so stable.”

TB: “But did you ask before you took it?”

Girlfie: “I don’t see why you are getting all heated up, it’s not like you need it!”

TB: “Regardless, you just don’t take things without asking!”

Girlfie: “I still don’t really see why you are making a big issue of it!”

Malcom on the other hand, had recently returned from a work trip to South Africa. While there, he had done some shopping – especially for socks since there was some sale going on in one of the big department stores. The socks were sold in packs of ten and he bought twelve of them. Back home in Uganda, he was on an outing with Girlfie – and not a live-in girlfie I might add, when he noticed she was wearing socks that were exactly like the pack of twelve he had bought in SA. 

Getting home that evening, and going through his wardrobe, two packs were missing. Seeing he lived alone with no house help, there was only one suspect – Girlfie. And when he asked her, she too evoked the entitlement clause – “But it not like you will be walking around without socks – you still have ten packs!”

Muzee, aka Horseman or Cyclops – depending on how well you know him, is a simple man though can be ‘complicated’. When it’s time to catch, he goes in with a bang and ends on an explosion. He swings crates of Club and bottles+ of Jameson. But he swings them for his close friends – Vinta, Doc, Paulo, Julio, Kayos and TB. Invariably, once he swings, the leeches who don’t even know him slither out of the sewers, evoke the entitlement clause, pull up chairs and comfortably edge to the table with comments like: “Eh, a full muzinga and crates, let’s drink!”

And once Leech picks up the Jameson, he is never modest about his measurements. He comfortably sits back, legs akimbo with groin thrust high in the air for the world to see and pours almost half a glass like it was he who had bought the bottle. The final straw is the audacity he has to call over his own friends and pour them the Jameson he never bought!    

Pictures: adivineencounter.com, hustleoverentitlement.com, medium.com, alan-neal.com                  

Will Waitresses Ever Grasp The Concept Of Multi-tasking?

Not that it was busy and there were a stream of customers that Waitress had to attend to. In fact, the kafunda was so docile save for next door, where a group of grown men – yes, a group of grown men who were on the verge of pummeling themselves over a game of ludo. From what I could make out, the guy with arms as big as a gym had cheated and the boda guys were not happy at being fleeced out of the 2k they staked as a bet. Cutting the tale short, shirts got ripped, there was some grappling and rolling about in the dust and the foam (wooden bench) was broken.

Despite the mayhem on her doorstep, Waitress hardly budged. She had her head flopped on the bar while twirling an opener in one hand with her eyes flickering between what was showing on TV and we taking our seats outside.

I don’t know what she was thinking, but if I was to hazard a guess, she was most probably hoping that we were not customers but people resting a while. So she firmly glued herself back to the television which of course, necessitated Danny having to go over to her to get service. Danny could have made life easy for her and ordered at the bar, brought over the beers, opener and glasses himself but thought the better of it. Instead, he told her to come take our orders.

In our seats, we watched as in slow motion, she scraped her head off the counter, straightened herself and in the process got distracted by Waitress From Next Door who, was asking for an opinion on a bag that Hawker was trying to flog her. This went on for a while. In the meantime, we were waiting and so was Hawker too next door. Eventually, they got done but after taking a couple of selfies.

When Waitress looked down at us, we could almost see her brain trying to flicker on – almost in the same manner and style a fluorescent light flickers into life when switched on. Except of course, when her brain flickered on, there was no Eureka (!) moment because she couldn’t quite remember if she had tended to us or not. Then it hit her she hadn’t.

She sashayed herself over to the table without a care in the world and when she arrived three hours later, she stood there all mute. She looked at us and we stared back at her - waiting for her to break the silence with something along the lines of Plan A: “Good afternoon” which of course, was wishful thinking and not forth coming. Plan B of: “What can I get you” didn’t materialize either so we just blurted it out for her – one Club, one Castle Lite, cold and with glasses.

I don’t think she liked the tone I used when making the order for she sort of sneered as she set off on yet another three hour hike back to the bar where once again, she got distracted by Waitress From Next Door.

When she eventually got her act together, she returned with a Club and Tusker Lite – the wrong order. Rather than leave the Club at table because we knew what was going to happen next, she took booth beers back and as expected, returned with a Tusker Lite and Castle Lite.

The Tusker Lite had to go back and exchanged for a Club. But, she had to take it back once again because she’d presented a warm one instead of a cold one. After some effort we both had cold beers. But she forgot the opener so she went back. There is more. We didn’t have glasses so once again, she had to go back for them.

With every visit we hope to see some improvement in her, but alas she takes two steps forward and four backwards…..                 

Pictures: ugabox.com, facebook.com, softpower.ug