Are You Ready For The Christmas Silly Season?

The silly season is here meaning that in three days, it will be Christmas. The Silly Season it’s called, because everybody takes leave of their senses. This is how it plays out.

Promotional Trucks Selling Christmas Themed Songs

The noise pollution trucks that make it a habit of stopping outside my kafunda while blaring Luganda Christmas carols at very high decibels are very annoying because you can hardly hear yourself think or talk. The back of the truck is laden with concert sized speakers and an about to break down generator that advocates of climate change would have a problem with because of the plumes of smoke that it emits. There is also the main MC who does the kalango’s and how always wears a thick winter jacket and who is flanked by his ‘nigga’s’ bopping their heads trying to look all hard. Then there are the foot soldiers whose job it is to invade every kafunda in a bid to sell a CD or two. But in today’s Uganda, who still buys CDs? Everybody I know, stores their music on a flash disc.

No Place To Walk On The Pavements

The pavements have been taken over by Hawker. The usual hawkers selling mangoes, saucepans, rat poison and so forth, are being displaced by Hawker selling something with a Christmas theme if not, a shirt, blouse or dress that sparkles enough that someone is tempted to buy it to wear on Christmas day.

The Downton Thieves at the Bus Parks

The silly season represents end of year bonus season for all petty criminals who hang downtown and especially by the taxi parks and bus terminals. They know that at Christmas, nobody travels upcountry without cash. They pounce on the poor unfortunate soul so has decided to do a spot of last minute shopping like buying a shiny new basin for the people in kyalo. They watch for the slightest lapse in concentration as the hapless victim pull out the wad of their December earnings then pounce and in flash, they’ve disappeared to look for the next victim.

Where Is My Christmas?   

Then there are the ‘Where Is My Christmas’ peeps. Waitress who normally serves you, Office Messenger you send out on official business, or Gateman at your office who you’ve been sharing a polite greeting whenever you drive into the carpark, will be loitering by your ride when it’s time for you to head home. Why would he be waiting by your car? Has something happened to it that he wants to tell you about? Nope. He wants his Christmas. To get round it, as soon as you are on him, beat him at his own game. Ask him for your Christmas before he gets a chance to ask for his.

Gifting Kyalo Peeps    

Kyalo peeps, apart from wanting to come and eat Christmas lunch with you and waiting for that chance to drink Black Label or Jameson’s instead of the usual cheap waragi from a kaveera will wanted to be gifted. They know that the chances of getting cash from you is bleak so the book items of clothing that they see you wearing. “Eh uncle TB, that shoe you are wearing, you will leave it for me when you go back” so they say.

Vitz Drivers Will Have A Blast

The best part about The Silly Season, is that Kampala will be calm and peaceful. All those pompous ‘VIPs’ who think they are entitled to break traffic regulations including that judge on the Land Commission Probe who has a habit of getting her bodyguards to seal off the road at Standard Chartered Bank, Nile Avenue when she uses the ATM, will be out of town. All the sirens and all the monster 4x4 rides will be in Mbarara, Nthungamo, Bushenyi and beyond. It’s good news for Vitz drivers who will be able to drive without being intimidated or being forced off the road.

Otherwise have a good Christmas or Silly Season. 

Pictures: risingstarministries.com, allafrica.com, chimpreports.com, countryliving.com, dreamstime.com, cars.co.ug

        

Wapi Shida?

I have four given names and one nickname – TB. You all know the Timothy name, but I will not divulge the other two. My surname is actually hyphenated – Tenwha-Bukumunhe, but as a kid, it used to take forever to write out, so I ditched the Tenwha part and stayed with Bukumunhe.

Timothy 'TB' Tenwha-Bukumunhe

However today, trying to get documentation – say bank account, driver’s license, SIM card, Tin number is fraught with the question: “Which is your surname, because on your passport is says Tenwha-Bukumunhe, but on your driver’s license, its Bukumunhe.” That is then followed by a lengthy explanation as given in the opening ramble.

However, all that is beside the point. Some years ago I found myself on a ‘sojourn’ at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi – not because I desired to go there, but because somebody out there, had identified Henry Mukasa, my then colleague at New Vision and I, worthy of benefiting from being indoctrinated with the NRM ideology.

As all who have been to Kyankwanzi will attest, during your stay, you are kitted out in army fatigues and arranged into something resembling an ‘army brigade’ along with a commander to lead the brigade.

For some strange reason, I was designated to be the commander of this brigade over a number of boys from Lumumba Hall who, saw their stint in Kyankwanzi as a stepping stone to getting into the Internal Security Organization, the army and more importantly, The Presidential Guard Brigade. Plus they were also fluent in Swahili, unlike mine which, was limited to three essential words; pombe (beer), mwanamke (woman), chakula (food). Beyond those words, I was a greenhorn at the language.

In the wee hours of a cold morning, and after less than a few hours’ sleep because the previous night, Henry, a few others and I, had absconded by slipping out of the confines of the institute near the Quarter Guard to go drink pombe, we took to the parade ground and assembled ourselves the way we had been taught since arrival.

On this morning, Real Army Commander was agitated and annoyed. He kept barking out orders in Swahili, was not happy with the way we had presented ourselves and certainly not happy that some people were missing.

And just like that, I saw him forcibly striding over to me, his staff stick flapping about like he wanted to strike me and there he was – in my face, baying over and over again: “Wapi shida?” Hmm Shida, she must be Moslem and my mind battled to try and remember who she was, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t reminisce.

And still, Real Army Commander was snarling down my throat like I knew Shida was and was deliberately not telling him. When he eventually paused but not after slavering more than a mouthful of malusu in my face, I tuned to the brigade and in a very crisp and booming voice that seemed to reverberate round the entire institute, I asked: “For Christ’s sake, has anybody seen Shida?”. Silence. I asked again except this time, I dropped ‘for Christ’s sake’ incase I offend some mulokole and roared: “Has anybody seen or knows where Shida is?”

There was laughter from Real Army Commander which, I didn’t take lightly and took him on. “What is so funny?” Still chortling, he asked how good my Swahili was. Then came the most excruciating moment of my life when he explained: “shida, is Swahili for trouble. I was merely asking where the trouble was.” Short of peeing in my fatigues, I was mortified especially as for the rest of the sojourn, I was nicknamed shida. 

     

Boutros Boutros Ghali

On a parting note, does anybody know why former UN chief, Boutros Boutros Ghali and Cameroonian footballers, Alberto Fujimori Fujimori and Eric Djemba Djemba have two same names?

Pictures: Telegraph.co.uk, Google Maps

The Reason Gerald Sendaula Dumped His Slay Queen

Gerald Sendaula, not the former Minister of Finance, but a random chap, bagged himself a slay queen while out with friends at Nomads – a joint on Ggaba Road. Slay Queen came across as having money, exposed, and had travelled – except, after every two minutes of forcing English with an accent of sorts, the words failed her that she reverted back to Luganda which, she was more accustomed to.

Not This Gerald Sendaula, But A Different One

Two days after they hooked up, came the first request. She needed 20k to buy data. He said he would send it sometime before lunch and when lunch came and went, she sent him a WhatsApp sad face with tears emoji. The next was an angry faced emoji till she finally broke silence: “Bae, my airtime.”

Crying Face Emoji

As the relationship progressed, so did the WhatsApp messages from her to him. “I feel like chicken, I am in town but don’t have transport home, my friend is having her birthday party and I can’t go without a present for her, I want to see you but my hair is not looking good.”  Gerald being Gerald, always met her needs. On the other hand, he didn’t make any ‘repay me in-kind’ moves on her - if you get my drift though, he did hint at it a couple of times but always got shot down.

When Slay Queen felt Gerald, her cash cow might up and leave because she’s not meeting his needs, out of the blue she calls him inviting him to spend the weekend her place in the depths of Kawempe Zone B, an area he thought all Kampala’s boda’s and taxis go to park at the end of the day.

After battling through the jam for three hours and getting lost multiple times, he finally found her place and no sooner had he walked in, he was greeted with: “But bae, I am hungry”. No hello, no it’s nice to see you.

He’d seen some road side chicken just down the road so off they went except, when he stopped at the first stall, with no shame Slay Queen tells him she wants pizza and from the Food Hub where the former Nando’s used to be.

Slay Queens?

He tells us that he should have blown a gasket. I mean he’d spent three hours battling traffic to get to Kawempe and now she wants him to drive back to town for pizza and then all the way back to Kawempe? Just as the gasket was about to blow, he glanced at her – short skirt, brown thighs, blouse showing more than ample cleavage coupled with the thought of his needs being met.

So he drove back to town with busungu, swung her 50k for a 24k pizza with the change going straight into her purse then, drove back while battling through traffic – this time for the lesser time of two hours.

After she had had done swift justice to the pizza, he made polite talk for twenty minutes which, he thought was ample time for the food to digest before he got his groove on with her.

No sooner had he felt her up than out came: “But bae am sick.” He had just died in his own movie. Seething with rage, he deliberated driving back home but, the thought of battling traffic again put paid to that thought.

Angry Face Emojis

When they got into bed, he turned his back on her, faced the wall with his nose literally sniffing the Sadolin paint off it. The following day he was up at 6:00am, showered and on his way but, not before being asked for salon money and transport to go to a friend’s party in Kiwatule. “I will send MM” he told her. He didn’t and through the course of the next two days, he kept on getting angry faced WhatsApp emoji’s.            

Pictures: Legit.ng, Philip Bates, Monitor.co.ug