Ugandan's Love The Slow Lane Life

Is Uganda in the fast track or have we embraced the slow lane? As a teen in the early 80s, Dennis listed Kenya as his only place of travel outside Uganda. I had travelled and whenever I was in town from England and linked up with him, he would ask about life in the UK.

‘Speed’ was something I always emphasized. “Dennis, in Europe, nobody waits for you. You have to be in the fast lane with them. If not, you are going to get left behind.”

Dennis was not the fastest or most active person that I knew. When we were at The Grange School in Nairobi, he was a winger on the rugby team, but was so slow that Billy, who was a prop and had a fat sumo wrestler body, had no difficulty keeping up with him.

After his A-levels and with a scholarship to Iowa State University in the US, and seeing I was in London, his dad thought it a good idea for me to chaperon him in London before he went on to Iowa. “Show him the ropes. He will learn a thing or two from you” he told me.

Picking him up from Gatwick airport off the Uganda Airlines flight, we promptly missed the first two trains into central London. You see, Dennis had that slow Ugandan shuffle about him that by the time he got off his platform seat, the train’s doors were closing. So I made him stand right on the red ‘do not cross line’ in order to catch the next train. When we hit Victoria Station, it was rush hour madness and it made sense in sitting it out in the Victoria Arms pub and having a beer till the rush died down otherwise Dennis would have ended up on a “Lost” poster.

Having lunch in Wimpy, when Girl Attendant asked him what he would like to eat, there was no response. She asked again and still got no response so she rolled her eyes and went off to serve somebody else.

Over the next few days, he came very close to being knocked down on Tottenham Court Road. He almost got pushed down the escalators at King’s Cross Station because the rush hour crowd couldn’t understand why he walked at the pace of a shy never been laid Jihadist walking into a room to claim his 72 virgins. At the revolving doors entrance to Boots, he would always go round twice because he never got out of the revolve in time.

After his ten day London sojourn, I took him to Heathrow to catch his TWA flight to Iowa and as I watched him disappear past immigration all was not well. If he couldn’t adjust to London’s pace, how would he cope in Iowa which is much faster than London and with no chaperone on hand?

I didn’t hear from him for two years until I met him on Kampala Road near Amber House. His Iowa experience was unbearably fast for him. “It’s like they don’t have time for you. They ask you a question but don’t give you the time to think about an answer. They want the answer that instant - no wonder Wimpy Girl Attendant rolled her eyes at him in London. It’s a fast food eatery. If I was lost and asked for directions, nobody stopped. They would give me directions as they continued walking.”

To get back into his slow comfort zone, he discontinued himself from Iowa State and transferred to Kyambogo University. Should I have wringed his neck or simply told him: “Bibbawo and put him into a taxi going to the land of the slow. Like Kiboga perhaps?”

To Pee Against The Wall or Not

It’s been a tad since I last called on Friend in his Wandegeya office. But then again, why would I when there is no longer an incentive? That incentive if you may recall, lay in a column I wrote a while back about Neighbours Teen Daughters.

From Friends third floor office, we could peer into Neighbours compound and see all that goes on. Better still, Friend’s office has tinted windows so Neighbour and Teen Daughters were unaware that we would spy on them as they had their showers on the veranda before heading off to school.

One Monday morning, they were no longer there. They had moved. In fact they had moved with not so much as a goodbye – something that I thought was rather rude of them.

Last week Friend called up to announce the arrival of a new lady tenant. “And you don’t have to be here early. Get here for 2:50pm because it all happens at 3:00pm” he added. Sure enough at 3:00pm, out walked Lady Tenant for her shower. But she is smart. She figures the best place to have it, is as close to the perimeter wall that divides her property and Friends office so people from the office block can’t see her. It does work because we really have to crane our necks to get a good look, but so far all we have managed to see is the back of her head, neck and shoulders. However, what we don’t get is that she never faces the perimeter wall while she showers. She faces a small unlocked gate which is not a private gate but a communal gate. Perhaps she is an exhibitionist?

Apart from Lady Tenant, there is another new neighbour. He is an elderly gentleman who must be a civil servant because he wears the vests our grand dad’s used to wear – you know the ones with the small holes in them? Well Civil Servant has a House-ee who must be a Kiboga village import because when she has to go for a pee, it’s not to the toilet. She pee’s by the boundary wall. Like Lady Tennant, she tries to pee as close to the boundary wall as possible, so we don’t see her from our 3^rd floor office. But we do see her. We have seen her.

That got me thinking. Men and women are very different when it comes to having a pee. When men are caught short and have to have an emergency pee out in the open, we simply don’t pull down our zips and start peeing anywhere. We pee with a plan. We have to find something to pee against – an Umeme power pole, a car tire, a wall, an anthill or a tree stump. Even man’s best friend - his male dogs that is, always find something to pee against – often a car tire, but in the absence of one, a wall, tree or an Umeme power pole will suffice.

Delving deeper into thought, when women have an emergency pee out in the open, it is done with no plan. They don’t face away from people in an attempt to preserve their modesty like we men do.  

OPP can testify about Lady Mercedes Benz driver we gave a lift to Entebbe airport and who needed an emergency pee after drinking one beer too many before we set off. Just past Bwebajja, OPP stopped the Range Rover and out she bolted. What did she do? She hiked up her skirt and peed while facing the heavy Entebbe road traffic (eek!) - unlike OPP and I who foraged tooth-and-nail into the shrubbery to find an anthill to pee against and with our backs to the road.       

Is Mary Luswatta Really A Bitch?

Because of my association with The Vision Group, one question I am always asked is: “TB, who is that b***h on Urban TV with the foul mouth that needs stapling?”

Urban TV and if I am not mistaken, targets the 13-year-olds to 26-year olds, an age bracket which firmly rules  my almost white goatee and I out of the picture.

Let’s bookmark Urban TV for a while. In the US and UK, two television personalities who put the fear of god into everybody they talk about are the soon-to-be deceased Joan Rivers and Ruby Wax.  

Both have been branded super bitches because of their ability to rip apart, chew and vomit out the remains of a celeb without clenching their butt cheeks. They are so ferocious that whenever film stars see them at the entrance to the Oscars or a movie premier, they turn and walk the other way in haste.

Back in the day, the closest Uganda had to a Rivers or Wax was Lillian Barenzi although she didn’t go round ripping into celebs. Her column,‘Never Trust’ put the fear of god into people especially men who freaked whenever they read it, then cried foul and went on to brand her ‘a male hater’. But Barenzi was no male hater. Barenzi was just being Barenzi who came up with a brilliant and assertively written concept for a coloum which men misunderstood and had them bitch like a hooker who was not paid for her services.

That got me thinking. We are a freckle society. We don’t like the assertive types who can express their thoughts on radio, television or in print. Anybody in the self assertive category, is branded ‘proud and full of themselves’. What’s wrong with being proud or so full of ourselves?

Radio presenter, James ‘Fat Boy’ Onen is intelligent, witty and aggressive. Yes he provokes. He incites. He gets his listeners whipped into a rage of fury which does no harm to his ratings. And because he does not conform to the demands of our narrow minded society, he’s branded ‘cold, a thug, self opinionated and who does he think he is’.

And this is the funny part. People who can’t stand him don’t tune to a different station just like the men who didn’t like Barenzi’s Never Trust, didn’t skip her coloum and go on to read the classified ads instead. They carry on listening and reading so they can bitch about somebody out there who is better than them and can do what they can’t do.

Getting back, ‘the bitch on Urban TV’, is a young lady called Mary Luswata who hosts a show calledScoop on Scoop.

Scoop on Scoop, is an explosive show that fires on all 8 cylinders and grips from start to end. Assertive and with ample presentation skills, Luswata expertly disseminates the subject at hand more clinically (and viciously) than vulture picking at a carcass of a dog that was run over by a speeding Gagga bus.

So what byenda do people have with her that necessitates the b***h tag? The way I figure it, Luswata does what we all do on a daily basis and that is to gossip - something that we feel is our god given right to do so.

Or maybe the byenda stems from the fact that Luswata’s gossip is to the core and she has a countrywide audience unlike the pitiful two or three people who listen to ours in a backwater kafunda? And she even gets paid for it.

But I say chill Luswata. If you don’t like her vybe, hit the remote to Bukedde TV and quit bitching because she is doing something that you can’t do.    

Disabled Sex

“Disability is not inability.” It’s a statement that I believe in and still do despite the words that Disabled Teen Boy lashed at me when I held open the swing doors for him in Silk Royale. His lashing? “Just because I am on crutches, it does not mean I can’t open the door!”

That was so cool with me and I let go of the doors which swung back, smacked him in the face and that was it. Sprawling to the floor he went with one of his crutches flying across the dance floor. That will teach him – that some people are only trying to be helpful I said to my satisfied self as other clubbers looked at me in horror and disbelief.

Obviously people who are disabled have some limitations over able bodied people. But despite their limitations, many are very capable. Sudhir Ruparelia employs a deaf and dumb carpenter at Speke Resort Munyonyo, who is very diligent if not, better than his able bodied colleagues.

Enter Ivan who is able bodied and who I have known for a number of years and consider a tight. With the ladies, Ivan is a smoothie. Honestly, I don’t know what bull he tells them, but his bull works for they always lap it up. Whilst in Mbarara, the inevitable happened. He met a young lady on a night out. Joining her at her table, he got on well with her that he soon had her in laughter and by the time the night came to a stall, he had more than caressed her arms, shoulders, back and leg.

But there was something amiss. Whenever he caressed her arms, back and shoulders, he got some reaction from her. However, feeling up her leg elicited no reaction whatsoever. Not even a comment of, “I don’t think you should be doing that.”

Getting her back to his hotel, Ivan wasted no time in hitting the shower and once done, he presumed she would follow suit. But she was reluctant.

Obviously his heart sank. He had invested in her and now at the eleventh hour she was crying shy?! She didn’t want to shower? Perhaps she wanted to see the protection and duly whipped them out. That didn’t bring her round. There was something else.

Reluctantly she came clean and explained ‘the problem’ and it was not about the four strands of long hair between her bust. The real issue was all too evident when she floored her jeans. She was disabled and one of her legs had been amputated at the knee after a road accident.

Caught off guard, Ivan’s thoughts went along these lines. “Yikes, she’s an amputee! Is it legal to cavort with an amputee? What will people say when they find out or the ministry of ethics? Perhaps I should ask her to leave?”

But she talked about it. She took off her prosthetic limb and showed it to him including the dynamics of how it works and further explaining how painful it can be on the knee.

By the time she was done with the brief, Ivan figured she was only human but apprehensive or rather fighting with his ethics about taking it any further. But they did and rather awkwardly especially in the morning when he saw the limb hanging off a hook on the wall.

What he intended as a one-night-stand ended up as an explosive three month affair and to answer the two questions that we – his dogs wanted know is yes, disabled people do have a very healthy sex life and the reason he got no reaction while feeling up her leg – well hmm, let’s leave it at that shall we? 

Bad Manners At The Party

Do we have to vet the people we invite to our homes for a house party? Yes we do.

Patrick has a huge frame but despite it, he is not threatening and is a very likable and jolly person. Well he was until the last person to use the toilet in his house during a house party, decided to pee on the floor. That was it. The party which was in full swing with a mayhem of conversation, food, drink and music came to a stop. Not mincing his words, he barked out: “And which one of you has pissed all over my floor?” The silence was so deftly that it freaked.

Obviously, nobody owned up, so he asked again and this time in a gruff and threatening manner – enough to induce the girl sitting next to me to start her menstrual cycle four days early. With no reply forthcoming, he turned the music back on and spent the rest of the party vexing about how grown up people had messed up his toilet floor.

And then I had to go for a pee which got me into a panic. What if I ended up messing his floor? What would he do? To be on the safe side, I gave the toilet a miss, took a walk into his gardens, flopped ‘him’ out and squirted all over his roses. Half way into the squirt, I heard him. I heard the gruff voice bark: “Who is pissing on my roses?” When he saw me, he too started peeing over his roses while assuring me that I was not like the other mother f****rs who pissed on his floor.

Three weeks ago, Anus threw a party for his kid at home. There was enough to drink and eat and for those who primarily drink beer, were waiting for the sun to go down before starting on the spirits – especially the Vodka.

However, there were two guests – one male, one female who were on a different agenda. Female Guest walked up to the drinks table, picked up a bottle of wine, had a taster then walked off with the bottle. Hmm, giving her ten minutes to settle in, I walked over to her and asked her for the wine. She looked at me all confused - as if she could have sworn she heard me asking for the bottle of wine. So I repeated myself. With more than a tad of anger in her voice, she calmly told me that she was going to share the bottle with Girlfriend. “What about the other wine drinkers” I shot back. Looking round and then into my face, with a smirk, she says: “They are drinking beer!”

But it was the vodka bottle that irked. It irked Anus and everybody else who was looking forward to having a tot or two. Anus eventually found the empty bottle under one of the guests seats. Guest had made the bottle exclusively his own to drink. I was not to be shared with anybody and it had to be hidden out of sight.

Anus walked off but Guest was not all that bothered. Leaning over he asks me: “Is he going to bring another bottle?” That floored me.

At another party, Female Guest came with two plastic containers into which she was packing food. When asked what on earth she thought she was doing, her answer was to the point. “Seeing that I did not cook for the kids before I left home, I am packing takeaway for them.” But when told that the food is for guests who are present, with no shame, she responded: “Then they should have invited my kids.” E-mail me and I will tell you who she is just in case you have invited her to your party next week.     

The Gatecrasher Photographer

Year after year, the universities churn out a number of graduates. Graduate rightfully expects that as a graduate, there is a job waiting for him. Sometimes there is, but on most occasions, there is nothing. Walking from office to office the answer is usually the same – ‘do you have experience’ or ‘there are no jobs at this time’.

Graduate is then faced with a number of options – well tell a lie, not a number of options, but two options - to sit at home or create his own job.

Photography, especially wedding photography, is one field that Graduate has invaded and given himself a job title of - Gatecrasher Photographer. All he needs is a small digital Samsung or Canon camera, go to one of the churches on a Saturday when there is a wedding and start snapping away. As soon as the service is over, rush to the studio, have the photos printed out and head crash the reception. Selling each photo at 5k, Graduate can be lucky enough to walk away with more than 100k for a couple of hours work.

I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago, and as I walked up to the reception, a photographer started taking my pictures.

An hour later and midway through the speeches, photographs were thrust in my face with a 10k price tag. Hmm, that’s funny. Why is Official Photographer selling photographs? Looking round at other people part with money for the photographs, it dawned on me that the man who took my picture at the entrance was not Official Photographer but Gatecrasher Photographer.

I looked at the two photographs and they were not good. They were over exposed and in one of them, part of my head had been chopped off so I didn’t buy. This is what happened next.

Gatecrasher Photographer: “Naye mzee,these are the photographs that you posed for.”

TB: “I didn’t pose for any photographs. I was walking into the reception and you started taking my pictures.”

Gatecrasher Photographer: “Mzee, it will be sh10,000.”

TB: “Sh10,000 for what?”

Gatecrasher Photographer: “For the two photographs that you posed for.”

TB: “Listen here you snivelling mother f****r, get out of my face! I did not pose for photographs. You hear me?!”

Gatecrasher Photographer: “But you man, then next time don’t go to my wedding and pose for my photographs!”

His wedding?! With that, off he went in a rage, a frothing rage and no doubt mumbling to himself how he was short of earnings by 10k. I let him be.

As he trudged off, it was something I thought about. Nine times out of ten, Gatecrasher Photographer won’t ask if they can come and take photographs of your wedding and sell them to your guests. They take it as their right, their right to simply turn at church and take pictures while getting in the way of Official Photographer and blocking the view for your guests.

But that said, Guest would also want a picture of themselves at the wedding so, there is a service that Gatecrasher Photographer provides. However, if he had permission of Bride and Groom, all would be okay. And if I was the groom, I would insist on my cut of the takings – 60/40 in my favour.

Hours later and as I left, Gatecrasher Photographer had set up a table by the entrance and as soon as he saw me, he accosted me. “Mzee, your photographs” he shouted out. If only he had humbled himself the way Hawker does when he really wants you to buy from him, I wouldn’t have told Gatecrasher Photographer: “Tell me once more about the photographs and I will thump you. Tumbavu!”

Real Men Don't Have Time For Fancy Grooming

Back then, ‘grooming’ was an alien concept to men. “To groom for what and for whom” we would ask ourselves. Wearing the same underwear or socks for weeks-on-end without having washed them was no problem to us while deodorants and after shaves were, considered an unnecessary luxury.

If we did buy a deodorant, it was the cheapest brand that Hawker sold like Brut. And in the villages where Hawker did not sell Brut, Village Man would go to the nearest lemon tree, pluck a lemon off, slice it in half and squirt the lime juices into his armpits.

In Kampala, for our haircuts, we would not go to the salon like it is done today, but to Kinyozi. Kinyozi used to ply his trade under the mango trees behind UMA trade show grounds – the road that runs at the back of Shoprite all the way down to Cooper Motors in Naguru. There was no fanfare about it. Simply sit on a stool or ‘foam bench’ and Kinyozi would whip out a mechanical clipper that did not require power and it would all be over in less than ten minutes.

Sadly, today’s man has been spoilt by magazines like Esquire, Men’s Health and GQ. These magazines have encouraged use to pamper ourselves. They want us to look good and to wear clean underwear every day. Eek!

A couple of days ago, I was in a new salon near my house. It was clean and what caught my eye, is that Barber had a vast array of hair cutting appliances neatly laid out much like Dentist or Medical Surgeon would have their tools of the trade laid out.

During the cut, every ten seconds or so he would stop and clean out the cutter with a small shoe brush. If not, he would tilt my head to make sure he was getting the cut right.

As he cut, I sort of dozed off and sliding into a light dream, I thought I felt a brush smoothing down my eyebrows. Groggy, I opened my eyes and yes, I could have sworn I saw him brush down my eyebrows. But what happened next alarmed. He got the trimmer and began to shape and trim my eyebrows much like they do with women.

That move electrocuted me back to life and necessitated an action of the violent kind. I swung round and grabbing Barber by the shirt collar, I assured him to never brush down my eyebrows or give them a trim unless he wanted me to slit his throat. In fright he took off to the entrance to get his nerves back in order.

With the haircut done, he sunk to greater depths. He started to massage my neck. Again I turned round and assured him that real men don’t have their necks massaged and he quickly stopped.

The final straw came when he whipped out some oil to massage my fingers. That was it! I stood up and barked at him and asking him what his problem was, to which he had no response save for a puzzled and very frightened look.

Degrading and further insulting me, he asks for 10k for the cut. Yes, a staggering 10k!

What man pays 10k for a haircut? The most Kinyozi would charge is 2k! And when real men go for haircuts, a haircut is all we want – period! We don’t want pampering, having our eyebrows trimmed and brushed or having our necks and fingers massaged because we are real men – gruff, rugged and who are content to use lemon as a deodorant and wear the same underwear for weeks on end because we have not been spoilt by Esquire, Men’s Health and GQ magazines.