No shame In Shovelling Shit For A Living, But Dime

On this first Sunday of the year, I ought to be reflecting on what a wonderful year 2014 was, but I can’t. Bluntly speaking, 2014 was miserable. Let’s bury it and live 2015.

Towards the end of the miserable year and on a winter sojourn in London, I was invited to dinner by Old School Friend. Over the phone she told me thus: “It’s one of those dinners – food, beer and wine with my crowd – you remember them don’t you?”

I doubt Old School Friend had a miserable 2014 because she comes from a wealthy background and married a man who is doing well for himself.

The dinner was as promised – wine, beer, food and drunken laughter with her crowd including a strange American lady who spent the evening reeling off swear-word-after-swear word and who got sloshed and nonchalantly described herself as a woman who ‘sleeps with her husband for a living’. Hmm, pause for thought?

There was one guest whose successful story was worth listening to. Without batting an eyelid, he said: “I work in the sewers.” Prompting him to expound, he told us how he spends every other day cleaning out the sewers of England of things that are not supposed to be there. And by things that are not supposed to be there, it’s everything from vermin, mattresses, shopping trolleys, furniture, unblocking u-bend pipes that have been clogged up with shit. But he didn’t have to work in the sewers shovelling shit and getting rid of vermin. Why would he when he is the CEO of the company?

However, Sewer Man believes in his company and the contribution that he puts in – especially when he is down in the sewers doing real work with his men instead of having long lunches in fancy restaurants with other CEOs. And that got me thinking about CEOs in Uganda.

Is there a chance that the CEO of National Water and Sewerage Corporation has been into Uganda’s sewers and put in a day’s work? I doubt it. Is there any high profile person in Uganda who would admit that they sit on the back of a truck and drive round Kampala collecting the odd corpse, household waste and whatever other rubbish has been discarded? I doubt it. If they did, society would be quick to dismiss them as people who ‘didn’t go to school or failures’.

Yet, despite being a graduate, Sewer Man is all at home in sinking into the sewers to make money and his friends – at least the ones I met, did not snigger behind his back.

We later found out that Sewer Man was not merely the CEO but he owns the company and while I made cartoon dime in 2014, his company on the other hand, raked in close to £12 millon (sh50,400,000,000 billion). Sh50,400,000,000 billion for shovelling shit and getting rid rubbish!? Heck, give me that job!

If I took that job, society here would rue me a failure because being successful here is all about being seen in a Wina Classic suit, driving a Mercedes from Spear Motors, going to Serena for a fancy sandwich lunch and spending the evenings having cocktails in Liquid Silk.

There is no shame in shovelling shit for a living. The way Sewer Man sees it, is that while people may snigger at him behind his back, he doesn’t care as long as there is enough of our s**t, rubbish and vermin floating about to keep his bank balance ticking over to the tune of sh504,00,000,000 billion a year – and it’s a business venture that not even the best don at Makerere University Business School would be able to teach you.

They Must Be ISIS or Boko Haram

In Uganda, we are fond of generalizing. When we see men (usually) having a beer at 9:00am, we are quick to label them drunks. Anybody who is super skinny with pink lips, we say they are riddled with HIV/AIDS, while anybody with dreadlocks is into drugs.

Over the years, I find I have slowly been sucked into generalizing, a move that a few years ago slid me into hot water. Near Pride Theatre in Old Kampala, I lashed out at two Somali’s whilst in a fit of road rage and called them Al Queada. For my troubles, Somali and in a pre-emptive strike, goofed me through the open window of my ride.

With terrorism on the rise, there is a need to be cautious, the need to report to the security authorities everything that we see and deem to be out of place or suspicious. However, seeing we don’t know what Terrorist looks like or what is suspicious, we end up generalizing.

On a recent flight and as we waited to board, American Lady sitting next to me, leans over whispering something along the lines of: “I hope they are not on our flight.” While it was a busy Entebbe airport, I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know who she was referring to.

They were ten women, all clad from head to toe in burqa’s with a net like curtain at the front – presumably so they can see where they are going. The chatter American Lady spewed out was about the atrocities in Kenya and Syria and how women in burqa’s are strapped with explosives, are evil and are not to be trusted.

On the flight, my seat was at tail of the plane while Burqa Women sat just behind the first class compartment. It bought some comfort in that if they were as American Woman put it – ISIS and Al Shabab Women intent on blowing the plane out of the skies, sitting at the tail of the plane would have bought me a few more seconds of life over the rest.

American Woman sat two rows ahead of me - her head bobbing in and out of the aisle as she kept watch on her quarry, a move that made everybody nervous and earned her a whispered reprimand from Chief Purser who told her that not all women who wear burqa’s are ISIS or Al Shabab.

In transit in a coffee shop at Bole airport in Addis a few hours later, American Woman had a new terrorist to pick on. Addis is a major transit hub for flights to West Africa and seeing the airport was full of West Africans, American Woman labelled anybody with a West African accent as contaminated with Ebola or has something to do with Boko Haram.

But what does a Boko Haram terrorist look like? And despite Ebola being in the news for months on end, how did she come to the conclusion that anybody from West Africa is riddled with the disease?

While most people ignored or pretended to ignore her concerns, the few West African’s who took stock of her nonsensical chatter, stared at her in disbelief.

After listening to American Woman, I began seeing things that were really not there - that maybe American Woman is right about every West African wearing a boubou being a Boko Haram affiliate and Ebola infected and every woman in a burqa is ISIS or Al Shabab yet, I shouldn’t be thinking that way. I shouldn’t be generalizing because my West African friends who wear boubou’s don’t have Ebola and the one Somali woman who I know well and who sometimes wears a burqa, is not Al Shabab or ISIS. 

No Church This Christmas. All I Want Is My Sunday Vision Bonus!

There is, more to the month of this December than it merely being the last month of 2014 and the month of the Christmas festivities. It is, also the month of bonuses.

December is that critical month, the month when bosses ‘are supposed’ to bestow upon us a bonus as a sign of gratitude for the hard work we have done over the year. Even House-ee, as she heads off to kyalo, she too, expects her December pay plus bonus.

Security Guard who works for Saracen will also expect a double bonus – one from his employer Saracen and the other from you, the person whose house he guards. Grass Cutter whom you have been calling since the start of December to come and do the needful but to no avail, will suddenly materialise this Christmas week. He too is also thinking of his bonus while with no tact, Traffic Policewoman will spit it out in black and white and simply say: “Eh, you have not left me Christmas” after she stops you for a nonexistent traffic violation.

But it’s the church that bothers me – God, Bishop and Pastor et al whose eyes bulge at the thought of rich December bonuses like Pastor who has a church along Entebbe Road. In his church, you sit according to how much you expect to give him. Sh1m plus will get you a seat at the foot of the pulpit, 500k somewhere in the middle and 25k outside in the shade. But that’s not all. If he is to pray for you, as in a private prayer, it will cost you at least 1m plus. Hmm! And this Christmas day week, he will have no shortage of people willing to give him a bonus.

While Victor is an Oga from Ghana and holds the title of ‘Bishop’, he looks more like a shady doctor from the backstreets of Accra waiting to chloroform you so he can butcher your stomach open and make off with your kidneys. Hiding behind crocodile skin shoes and a starched Ghanaian robe, he does not use a bible for his biblical quotations but, an iPad.  

Watching him at the pulpit, he exhibits no religious traits and ends everything he babbles out with: ‘money’. He told us: “You can’t expect the Lord to look favourably upon you if you go to him empty handed.....dig into your pockets, pull out a note and hold it up for the Lord to see.” Me pull out my 10k note? Was he on crack? Like a few others, I pulled out 200 shillings which did not go down well with him. He harassed us into pulling out notes and there went the 10k into a basket, a basket that was taken into a back room and never to be seen again.

As the service drew to a close, he held up envelopes and told us: “Come and get an envelope for the Lord. Put in 100k, 200k, 500k or 1m. If you don’t have the money, go and borrow. If you can’t afford your donation in one go, you can do it in two instalments.” Hmm, God wants us to end the year in debt?

But as I wait for my Sunday Vision bonus, can God really justify getting a bonus this year? I mean, when House-ee was busy goofing and trampling on 18-Month-Old Kid recently, where was God? Was he engrossed in watching Mary Luswatta on Scoop on Scoop, Big Brother Africa and re-runs of Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear that he didn’t notice the melee unfold? Seeing he did bleak, I really don’t think he deserves a bonus – do you? Anyway, if I do end up in church on Christmas day, look for me in the cheap 1k seats at the far end of the car park. And on that religious bombshell, have a good Christmas!    

What's The Beef With Waiter and Waitress

Just why do Waiter and Waitress want us to be rude to them – to be called “stupid” and “mbuzi”? But they force us to use those words on them. They really do.

Nodin was straight to the point. “Do you have one of those bar mats I could use?” Waiter and trying to muster up all his self confidence let out a small whisper: “A mat?” which was followed by a silence and a stare off. Finally Waiter broke the silence and spewed out the unexpected. He said: “You want a mat for sitting on? No, we don’t have any of them.” For his efforts, Waiter earned himself a mouthful of not-so-kind words from us.

On another outing, we asked Waitress how much a beer costs and in a crisp clear voice, she replied: “3k”. Doing our arithmetic, we concluded that with the dime we had, we could afford four bottles each. When she served the first round of drinks, I pulled out 6k and that’s when trouble started. She looked at the 6k with a ‘what is this’ look?

“There is balance of 1k.” I thought I got my sums wrong – but wait a minute, two beers at 3k = 6k not so?  Then she starts the weepy tale. “Now you see, 3k is only for Club, Bell and Nile. The rest are sh3,500.” Why did she have to force us to call her mbuzi under our breath?

I was out in a backwater kafunda near Mbuya barracks with Lucy who has the burden of editing this column and my order was precise. “Tusker, Coke and glass.” I also threw in a ‘please’ for good measure. When she came back, all was well until I saw the glass. It was that small glass, the glass that hotels use for juice at breakfast.

Trying to explain that she had bought a breakfast juice glass instead of a beer glass would not have been a wise move for she would have given me a: “You asked for a glass and I gave you a glass now, quit bitching” look which forced me to slip out a quiet ‘stupid’. 

Winfred, is one of those ladies who is not into confrontation. If Waiter or Waitress makes a mistake, she lets it slide. It’s her philosophy. When Waitress showed up to take the order, this was the very brief spiel.

Waitress: “Yes?”

Winfred: “A Coke please.”

There was no answer from Waitress. She simply turned on her heels and came back with a Krest which she was about to open until I interjected saying: “I think she asked for a Coke not so?”

“But Coke is over” she responded and while she did try to improvise, she might have opted for Pepsi which, is a near twin to Coke. But a Krest and attempt to open it without out consulting the person who had made the order, that was not on. Ugly words came out which did not go down well with her that, for the rest of our stay we got a hostile service.

Waiter and Waitress don’t like polite customers. Period! They want us to be rude to them. To put the case to rest, despite repeated and very polite attempts to get the attention of Waitress by calling out: “Excuse me nyabo”, she stood leaning against a pillar with an: ‘I wonder what’s on Bukedde TV’ look. So I employed a king cobra hiss on her. Her ears perked up and with a positive attitude she scanned the gardens and came scurrying to take my order. Nsenene Hawker who was across the street and who thought the hiss was directed at him also fell in!

To Freshen Up or Okufuka Wa?

Her butt and one that had none of the touches of an African butt – as in no flesh or curves but, flat as an ironing board had barely sat down next to me and I already knew she came from Iowa in the US, that her grandparents had fled Budapest, Hungary shortly before the Iron Curtain went up, she was an Orthodox Jew, has four sisters and two brothers, she misses her cocker spaniel dog and that she is doing volunteer work somewhere in the backstreets of Luwero. 

How she managed to throw out all those words in between mouthfuls of pasta, glasses of wine and a cheese cake dessert was a feat that even the ‘motor mouth’ – Andrew Mwenda that is, would not have been able to pull off.

Somewhere down the line, she leant over and politely excused herself saying: “I am going to freshen up.” “I am going to freshen up” is an imported saying to Uganda and I don’t know who brought it here – the Europeans or Americans?

As she marched her-no-flesh butt off to the washrooms there was time to ponder what exactly “I am going to freshen up” means. Was she going to pee? Wash her face, armpits and apply more makeup? Perhaps she went to brush her teeth? Could it be a worst case scenario of wanting a change of underwear?

Whatever it is that she went to do, even if she had said it out loud, it was polite, subtle, and warm and there would be no need for anybody to say: “Did she really have to say that out loud?”

As it is, she came back looking fresher with colour in her cheeks along with a fresh coating of perfume.

We all have different ways in asking to go to the toilets. When I returned to Uganda in the late 90s I was at Yakobo’s pork joint in Ntinda and politely asked Waitress where ‘the bathroom’ was. I said it because it was what I was used to saying in England. She swung me a quizzical look and simply stood there waiting for me to reaffirm what I had just asked her. And I did. Hesitantly, she asked me to follow her round the back of the building and pointed at a door.

Inside the door, there was no toilet or urinal, but a shower head and a basin with a scrubber and a tablet of Imperial Leather soap on the window still.

This was no toilet and when I came out in a flash, she was standing there still, with a quizzical look. “Toilet?” I asked to which she pointed to a different door.

Ugandan men on the other hand, at least ‘the uncouth - I didn’t go to school types’, always feel the need to announce to the world their intentions. And yes, they won’t ask for the washrooms. Instead, they stand up and shout ‘eewe’ or ‘gwe’ to the nearest waiter or waitress and while tugging at their crotches, they bark out: “Okufuka wa?” (to pee where?). Some take it a step further by holding on to their bottoms while shouting out: “Toilet, toilet wa?”

But why the need to ask while tugging at the crotch or holding on to ones bottom? Does that tug at the crotch ram the message home faster to whoever they are asking? Do Waiters or Waitress need to know that we want to go for number two? No they don’t.

Suffice to say that that even some of the lowly class Ugandan women will say they are going to freshen up. But the Ugandan man, he still has a long way to go.      

Must We Greet Everybody?

I was a delegate at a conference at Speke Resort Munyonyo recently, a conference that was opened up by President Museveni. Touching briefly on a comment he made about the Chinese, this is what he said: “The Chinese have small eyes because where they live is so cold, that their eyes are always half closed.” Hmm!

At the same conference, there were a number of delegates from abroad, including a US senator. And seeing it was a conference that had weight, everybody who rose to speak had the same opening gambit - the need to introduce everybody. This was First Speaker

“Your Excellency, President Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, Mrs. Janet Museveni who is the patron of the association, Mrs. Maria Mtagamba, the honourable minister of Wildlife Tourism and Antiquities, the senator from New York, the delegates from America, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, North America, our partners at Brussels airlines, Speke Resort Munyonyo, the government of Uganda…” The list went on. At one point there was a danger that Speaker was going to mention everybody in the hall for this intro went on for 4:17 minutes. I know because I was timing.

Seeing that First Speaker had established and recognized everybody who was important, when Second Speaker took to the podium, this is what he said:

With a variation here and there, he said: “Your Excellency, President Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, Mrs. Janet Museveni who is the patron of the association, Mrs. Maria Mtagamba, the honourable minister of Wildlife Tourism and Antiquities, the senator from New York, the delegates from America, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, North America, Speke Resort Munyonyo, all protocol observed…” It took him a little over 5 minutes to get through the ramble.

Third speaker clocked just over four minutes as did the fourth.

If the greetings were not impressive enough, all speakers felt that they had to end their spiel with a lengthy thank you note. This was First Speaker.

“I would like to thank his Excellency President Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda for agreeing to come and open this conference, the minister of tourism and wildlife, Brussels airlines (where are you? Could you please stand up for recognition) Mrs. Olivia Kigongo, from Uganda Chamber of Commerce (please stand up) Pastor…….. (please stand up).”

Time spent? 3:20 minutes. I know because my stopwatch was running.

Second Speaker also felt it necessary to spend 2:42 minutes saying: “I would like to that his Excellency President Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, Speke Resort Munyonyo, the minister of tourism and wildlife, Uganda Tourist Board…..” And so on it went with the third and fourth speakers.

But, do we really need to greet everybody at a conference or ask them to stand up for recognition just because we perceive them as being important? And how do we define who is important and who is not?

At a  recent wedding reception, MC, after a lengthy introduction, he felt he would be doing the guests a great disservice if he did not greet, introduce and ask his wife to stand up for recognition. Why would he do that?

Getting back to the conference, I voiced my concerns about my not being introduced and not being asked to stand up for recognition. Even Miss Tourism 2014 and her two runners up were not introduced. What about Moses Zikusoka, who is a prominent Musoga? And Belinda Sebunya, who is almost the face of Brussels Airlines? What about the sound engineers at Speke Resort Munyonyo for without their technical know-how, nobody at the conference would have heard the intro speeches, the thank you’s, as well as M7s Chinese quip?         

Pork For A Squeeze

They had hoped to eat free pork but got played. CHOGM is a pork place in Bunga.  I go there now and again and on my last visit, I sought to do some digging to find out why they call it CHOGM. There is a reason, except that nobody knows it.
 

My pork fests usually comprise of Nodin Mzee, John Aki-Bua, Paulo Lukwago, Kenneth Kayondo and sometimes Julius Mbabazi. We sit at the same table. We drink the same brand of drinks and if we have nothing to say, we engross ourselves in Facebook.

We were half way through four kilos of fried pork with all the trimmings when, Lady on the adjacent table began looking us over. She was truly blazed and not blazed from the Saturday afternoon drink, but she looked like she had been drinking since Friday night and had yet to go home.

She was all over the place – trying not to fall off the seat, falling asleep and doing her best to un-wedge her G-string from the ‘slice’ between her bottom. Since we were a quartet, we were not too sure who she was targeting until she made her move. It was Paulo.

As Paulo reached for a piece of pork, she tapped him on the elbow. He ignored her. When he reached out for another piece, again tapped him and he ignored. This went on a while until he decided to find out what she wanted. 

“Some pork” she asked. A drunk lady and though beautiful and who he had never met, presumed she would get pork from him just like that? While it was a brazen move, Paulo shrugged her off. Realizing that her good looks won’t get her an invitation to our table and the pork and perhaps some free beers, grudgingly, she dipped into her bag, pulled out a 20k and ordered a kilo including drinks for her and her friend.

Moving on, a young couple who looked like they were on a first date because they didn’t say anything to each other until a few sips on their Coke and Fanta broke the ice, sat down next to us. 

We saw Porkroaster lean over and nod his head as Chap made the order and we didn’t think much of it save for thinking they might have ordered a kilo between them.

When the order was served, it was something that necessitated me writing this article. It was one stick. Each stick has five pieces on it and each stick goes for 3,500k which would make each piece worth 700 shillings if my sums are correct.

Intrigued, we watched them share the stick and because Squeeze was doing most of the talking, Chap ate three pieces. And when Squeeze went to the washrooms, Chap slipped Porkroaster the 3,500k and that was it.

With two pieces of pork in her belly and with no other Fanta forthcoming, Squeeze drew the conclusion that Chap, was broke. She called Porkroaster back, put in an order for a kilo, a Nile Gold for him and a Fanta for herself and paid. 

When the kilo was served, Chap found it hard to digest the pieces because he had overheard Anus say: “How did he expect to her to give him ‘some’ from a stick of pork?"

While Nodin might have a point, Chap still emerged the winner by humiliating her. He humiliated her by buying her a measly two pieces of pork worth sh1,400 which left her hungry, hungry enough for her to dip into her purse and painfully use her money to buy a kilo, Fanta and Nile Gold – money she was perhaps hoping to save to buy bread and milk on her way home. Women obviously do carry money when they go out but want us men to pay for them.