Did Your MP Bring His Kyalo Table Manners To Kampala When You Elected Him?

There is something about the Speaker of Parliament, the Right Honorable Rebecca Kadaga to shout out loud about. Not only is she the first female speaker this country has had, she is a Musoga at that - which, gives me bragging rights because I am a Musoga. While I do know Ms Kadaga, I wish I could have gotten to know her in my own right, as me – Timothy Bukumunhe. However, there is another Musoga who is more eminent that I am, and whose name has far more clout and it’s through him, that I met Ms Kadaga. PST Bukumunhe so they call him. But I can live with that – I think.

Parliament - Home To Uganda's Unruly And Uncouth MPs 

Ms Kadaga is a jolly woman when you meet her socially and despite the high profile job she holds, she seemingly has no airs or graces – unlike the Members of Parliament she presides over during the course of her duties. The thing about our Members of Parliament, is that they have this air of ‘entitlement’ simply because they have the MP title after their names. They strut about town in oversized and ill-fitting suits they bought clandestinely from Hawker in that dark restaurant – Maddona (just across the road from Parliament), if not, from Hawker who discreetly plies his trade between Amber House and Social Security House.

Our MPs don’t derive their bravado or bragging rights from debating in the chamber or giving interviews to reporters on the steps of Parliament after a session. Rather, it comes from public functions because they love the attention they get from wanainchi when introduced as they sit in the covered pavilion sipping on a cold Coke while, the rest us, swelter in the scorching heat drinking oven temperature mineral water. But, it’s when it’s time to eat that the real swagger of MP shines through. 

MPs Like Free Food And Especially Drinks Which They Hoard Under Their Seats 

The men adjust their suits and ties then pretend to be busy in deep discussion with Colleague when Usher turns up to guide them to the buffet table. They keep Usher waiting for at least ten minutes until one of them looks up at her ‘annoyingly’ and says: “Can you wait, because I’m having a discussion with my honorable friend on matters of national importance.” Let me hmm and even roll out a LOL!

At the buffet table, MP has traits similar to that of Villager – when they see the amount of food on offer, they feel Easter lunch, Idd lunch and Christmas lunch have been packaged into one. They want to eat everything so they serve themselves everything. In the process, they also hold up the que as they once again, pretend to discuss matters of ‘national importance’ as they try to deflect the attention of Server from their now overflowing plates of food.

When It Comes To Eating, Most MPs Have The Most Vile Table Etiquette. The Kyalo Eating Habits Will Never Leave Them 

 Once content that they’ve served themselves everything they walk back to their seats. What MP doesn’t know is that at the end of the function when the cleaners come to clean up, they always know where MP sat because there is a trail of gravy on the tiles from the buffet table to their seats.

At this point, many of you are probably thinking I’ve concocted this analysis, but I haven’t hence the need to bring in Ms Kadaga as back up.

With the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference starting tomorrow – Monday 23^rd at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort, she imparted some advice to her colleagues. “When you load your plates, don’t overload, don’t mix dessert and meat, pineapple and matooke and the soup. While eating, even when hungry, don’t rush.”

 

It All Fell Down To Rebecca Kadaga To Give Advice To MPs On How To Behave At Meal Times 

She cited an incident where one MP was choking that M7 told his then ADC, Lt Gen Wilson Mbadi to go slap him on the back and when he did, meat flew out and landed near visiting President Jakaya Kikwete.         

After Dishing On Byenda, Quaffing Club And Bell Beer, MPs Take To The Dance Floor Paka Chini Like These MPs

              

Despite Kadaga’s advice, watch Bukedde’s Agataliko Nfufu tomorrow to see if your MP embarrassed himself. 

Pictures: elgondaily.co.ug, independent.co.ug, ugandajournalistsresourcecentre.com

When The Wolf Stalks........

He hadn’t yet sauntered into Mbabazi’s, but you could hear him. Whoever he was talking to, must have been on the phone because I couldn’t hear any responses. He was hollering at the top of his voice in Luganda about how he had done this and that, and that the deal was successful. He was all full of grandeur – boisterous at that, but annoyingly, he wanted everyone to know who he was around and that he had just pulled a deal.

Disclaimer - This Is Not The Man In The Story

Popping his head round the door, I wasn’t expecting what I saw. He was a man who was just ‘there, there’ – in a faded polo T-shirt, green trousers (who wears green trousers?) and sandals. And as soon as he sat, he began barking: “Stella, bring me a beer, you know how I do my things.” For one reason or another, Stella was reluctant to serve him so he pulls out his phone and from where I was sitting watching him, it was a pretend phone call. After a wild conversation about how he’s already in Soya, he calls out to Stella saying that John is on his way and has bought him two beers. Again, Stella refuses to serve him.

On that, he dips into his pocket, pulls out three crumpled 1k notes and Stella serves him a warm Nile Special.

For all his boisterous self, Dude, so I later found out, was a petty house broker – dealing in houses that rent for no more than 80k a month and second hand taxis. His phone was a kabiriti that he had configured in such a way that whenever it rang, the torch would flash on and off. Talking of trying to stand out – hmm!

80k A Month Housing Units

I also found out that the Soya waitresses, the ba-fumba emeree brigade, the car mechanics know of him as a failed broker who likes to talk grand but in reality, there nothing grand about his talk except a web of lies.

In one of his conversations – to a woman, he talks of how he doesn’t like it when he calls and she takes her time to answer. Then he added: “I am here in Soya, you come and pick money.” Following on, it would appear the mystery woman didn’t have any money on her to come over because next, he was telling her how he didn’t believe in sending money via mobile money, because they are thieves.

Are Mobile Money Agents Thieves?

He did though, promise to pick her up because the car was parked at Haas petrol station just up the road. He finished off his beer as he tried to vybe Waitress then left. I watched him walk out towards Hass, except, he didn’t get as far as Hass but to the stage and boarded a taxi. So the ‘car’ was a taxi?

Stella says that since she started working in Soya, Dude hits on all new comers within hours of their arrival. She describes him as ‘not attractive, smooth and brash’ - so smooth that it’s impossible not to believe him. He always turns up in different cars. Sometimes he would change cars three to four times a day.

Where Was His Fleet Of Taxis?

There is the story of Waitress who was just off the bus from Bushenyi and worked for Charles who has the best chicken in Soya. Waitress was brown, tall, good looking but, daft and taking her to work in Soya, was simply throwing her out to the wolves and Dude didn’t waste time in pouncing.

His ‘fleet of taxis impressed her’ as did the number of ‘HIS’ houses he would visit in a day. So mesmerized she was by his spiel and how he claimed to be a low key man but loaded, she quit her job.

No need to tell you how the tale ends except, she got burnt and has resorted to loitering outside Capital Pub in revealing skirts.  

Pictures: qz.com, monitor.co.ug, newvision.co.ug, voanews.com   

                  

When Greed Turns Into Blackmail...

One thing Juliana was so fixated with by the time she and boyfriend Andrew graduated, was she didn’t have the patience for him telling her how he would be loaded by the time he hits 40. She wanted him to mint ‘their’ money TODAY and not twenty years later.

To be honest, Andrew was rather dim not to figure out that Juliana had no desire to cohabit with him in a rented hovel in Naalya and play happy families while he builds up ‘their’ fortune. She wanted the good life immediately, and if Andrew couldn’t provide, she would hustle. However, she didn’t want to be known as a hussy who sluts it from bed-to-bed looking to snare a man to give her the good life.

By graduation, Andrew had found a house for them – in a Naalya estate and the rent was affordable – 300k-a-month which, his parents agreed to meet until he found his footing. He was, so he told us, in ‘temporary housing’. Of course Juliana sneered at the ‘temporary housing’ saying she “can’t live in a house that has mabaati for a roof.” So she gave him an ultimatum. “When you get your act together, let me know.” Ouch!

When he next heard from her, she was inviting him to her flat in Bukasa, Muyenga. He went over with an open mind bearing in mind he knew her job a lab assistant in a private hospital didn’t pay well. But when he got there, the flat was impressive enough – three bedroomed, tiled, granite kitchen and so forth. Quickly guessing, he estimated rent must be in the region of 900k + a month yet, she was barely earning 400k. He suppressed his thoughts as to how she was able to live in an upscale flat on her meagre pay.

On that visit, the flat was almost bare but on every subsequent visit and to plagiarize from the NRM Party manifesto, there were signs of ‘steady progress’ - a 40-inch curved Samsung screen, a six burner gas cooker, microwave, and stainless steel saucepans from Game Store. Again, he suppressed his thoughts as to how she was able to afford those luxuries on her pay.

Meanwhile, he was still incarcerated in the Naalya rental and while he had a job that paid 900k, he just couldn’t afford the stuff Juliana had in her flat. He still had to make do with cheap or second hand clothing from downtown. And shopping in Game Store for stainless steel saucepans, was out of his realm. He bought cheap ones from a roadside stall as he walked home from the stage.

Over time they began to drift apart. All updates on what she was doing, he got from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And when he saw the pictures, the haunts they used to visit while dating on campus because they were affordable, had been replaced by outings to swanky high end joints - La Cabana, Skyz Hotel, Jazz Safari in Munyonyo and wait for it, wait for it, securing herself an invite to Rajiv Ruparelia’s wedding anniversary bash – yet Rajiv and Juliana live in different worlds! But he still had hope in her because in the pictures, there was never a photo of a recurring man hovering in the background who might be her financier.

But all scams eventually unravel. Juliana wasn’t whoring around as Andrew and we, his friends suspected but, using her position in the HIV lab to blackmail clients into keeping their statuses under wraps. Obviously she got fired, was blacklisted and went underground. The last Andrew heard of what she might be doing – hustling in Hoima.

By the way, Andrew – so he tells us, bought two acres of land somewhere off Entebbe Road. He might just be true to his word of being loaded by the time he hits 40. 

Picture Credits: psychologytoday.com, differencebetween.info