I Now Engage Brain Before I Open Mouth

Opposite me, White Lady wasn’t exactly smiling – not that it bothered me. When Overtly Fat Man, creaked his mass down the aisle and sat next to her, the mass more than encroached onto her part of the seat – squashing her slender self right up against the frame of the train. Seconds later, she burst into tears. His response? “Jeez,” a ‘hmm’ stare and heaving his mass off the seat-and-a-half to creak his way further down the carriage.

Trying to make light of the situation, I leant over telling her that I too would have cried had he sat next to me and squashed against me. What happened next was not part of the script.

She let rip with a loud tirade along the lines of: “F**k you! I am not crying about him. Just because he’s fat, you think it is okay to ridicule him? How would you like it if people said they would cry because a black man sat next to them?” She really went on.

We all make gaffs – uttering the wrong things at the wrong time because our brain is in a meltdown and not taking stock of the bigger picture.

Last year I was in Monot having drinks and brought up the topic of what would each one of us would be doing assuming we hadn’t gone to school. Everybody at the table – Labo, Julius, Doc, Vinta, Muloodi, Nodin, PK, Lukwago said they would be anything from Taxi Conductor to House-ee. But Quiet Man who I didn’t know and had never met was not offering an opinion.

So I zeroed on him: “And you, what would you be doing?” No answer. I pressed again and still no answer. Sitting next to me, Labo furiously tugged at my shirt while under the table, kung-fu kicks from Julius and PK rained on my legs.

The kung fu kicks and tugging should have jolted brain out of the meltdown but didn’t. In the end and with all modesty, Quiet Man in Luganda said: “I didn’t go to school, but I own the Sir Jose Hotel chain and out of my own pocket, today I laid tarmac from Gaba Road right up to my hotel and beyond.”

Anybody who knows the road that leads up to Sir Jose hotel in Buziga will know what I am talking about. He added – “Come for a complimentary weekend.”

Ouch, ouch ouch! My throat dried up. I looked for support from the rest which of course, was not forthcoming that seeking refuge with the blue flies in the depths of a cesspit was an option worth considering.

I’ve known Greg since he took up the position as GM at Speke Resort Munyonyo. One Friday evening, I walked into his office to go through the details of a service to be held for Expat Worker who had died days earlier. In his office was Young Lady who I didn’t know and paid no attention to. I simply let rip - proffering my thoughts on what could have killed him, how he was a Don Juan with an endless string of girlfriends and so forth.

As I blabbered, Greg was giving me ferocious ‘if eyes could kill’ stares that my brain wasn’t digesting. Then out of the blue, Young Lady started crying and ran off to the washroom. Bemused, I asked what her problem was. Greg was to the point. “You idiot, that was his girlfriend!” There was no recourse but to grab my TML and hastily scatter before she returned.

These days whenever I’m out, I only open the mudomo to have a swig of TML and not to jazz - just in case brain is on a meltdown.

Choice Confuses and We Don't Need It

It was on the cards and when they – Uchumi, finally announced the closure of their Uganda operations, I could hardly contain my excitement – not because I had beef with them, its management style, the employees or what they sold. Rather, it had to do with stress.

A week ago, the affable Simon Kaheru, was stressed with Telecom Provider over their work ethics in installing internet in Friends office. I did sympathize and will tell you that the stress Kaheru and I faced, is all down to having ‘too much of choice’.

Today we have streams of supermarkets, FM stations, bufundas, soft drinks, schools and coffees. Let’s take coffee for example. Back in the old days – pre-1986, Waitress would ask: “African or English?” Sometimes she didn’t bother asking and served according to her whim.

Today when you walk into Good African Coffee or Java, Waitress with a chirpy and enthusiastic voice will ‘stress’ you with choice: “A a cappuccino, mocha, latte, café au lait, expresso, Americano, macchiato, doppio, or risretto?” It’s too much of a stress trying to decide which of the nine coffees to have.

Why can’t she be like Old Skool Waitress with the bored voice, the deadpan face who with a grudge, would slam down her grandmothers flask of lukewarm water and one that’s bigger than your average home water tank, a tin of Nescafe with the tin foil pulled half way back and a small jug of milk designed to spill the milk all over the table? While Old Skool Waitress would annoy, she never stressed me and I’m sure she wouldn’t stress Kaheru either. As we try to get to grips with our stresses, we need to know who is responsible so we can bring them to book.

Ah, it’s Marketing Executive. He told us that ‘choice’ when MTN, Shoprite, DStv, Game and Nakumatt and the rest hit town, would give us freedom and autonomy to decide what WE want. He also promised supermarket shelves laden with brands and that if Offspring didn’t get into Makerere, we shouldn’t fret because there is KIU, Nkumba, Ndejje and other universities which are equally as good. He also told us that if we didn’t want to listen to Ssalongo John reel off 100 dead people names per minute as he tore through e’birango on Radio Uganda, there would be hundreds of FM stations we could tune into.

Marketing Executive didn’t lie. But rather than give it to us kidogo kidogo, he gave us the entire 40ft container in one go that I literally break into a cold sweat walking down the Nakumatt aisle and stop at the dairy shelf to find twelve+ brands of butter displayed. I opt for salted Danish but when I get to the checkout counter, everybody else has gone with a UK brand.

Suddenly I feel everybody is staring into my trolley and wanting to berate me for going Danish that I ‘pee my pants’ and head back for the UK brand, when I spot the French brand boasting of having ‘50% extra’. 50% extra what? It’s time for my tab to consult Google.

Getting home, more stress lurks in the living room. Should I watch Urban TV, Bukedde, Bukedde 1 or, one of the ten or so other TV stations plus another 60+ that satellite TV has to offer? Jeez, I really can’t decide!

The presidential campaigns are also stressing. Who am I going to vote for? In the old days, I didn’t stress because Idi Amin always decided for me.

So let’s get rid of choice, bring back the days of ‘we only have one brand’ like Tree Top juice, Tip Top bread, Nescafe, Blue Band, Marie biscuits, Radio Uganda and I’ll have less grey hair to pluck out.

  

Yippee, The Bush Is Back!

The afro is back, so are platform shoes, corduroy trousers and patched jackets. But more importantly, the bush is back - yippee! 

Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, women had bush down there. It was a thick patch of fuzz that they didn’t tamper with. Nor did they shave it, trim it or neat the edges. They let it be - to grow wild, uninhibited and daring with not a care in the world if the odd strand of hair poked out of the side of their underwear.

What’s more, we men loved the bush. In my teens, we first saw bush in Playboy Magazine and we liked. We were brought up knowing that women of age have bush and it’s the way of life – just like going to church and giving offertory, is the way of life.

We saw bush as a ritual passage from boyhood into becoming men and finally crossing that frontier into the unknown. Bush was different from looking at breasts. Even though we had yet to see breasts in the flesh, we had an idea about them because we ‘saw’ them every day. We looked at them as the girls strutted around in their blouses or swim suits and knew that some girls had big busts. Others had small ones. Some had round ones. But with bush, it was different. You couldn’t imagine bush because it was not a shape or a form like breasts that you could see. Bush was almost illicit and tucked well out of sight.

Bush when we eventually got a chance to feel and delve into it, was everything and more than we thought it would be. It held a mystical aurora – almost like a first time drive through Kibaale forest in the dead of the night - all terrified and heart thumping.

Looking at bush also increased our sexual anxiety. Feeling it gave us uncontrollable palpitations. The message that bush conveyed was clear enough – that the final frontier was finally right there in front of us and beyond it, there lay nothing else but, IT – sex!

In the 80s when the afro, platform shoes and flayered trousers disappeared, so did the bush because somebody in South America declared the bush dead and shaved it all off or left a ‘landing strip’.

Women with no bush, was a shocker. I was petrified. In that clumsy fumbling feel before getting undressed, when I felt around and there was no bush to feel, it was a sexual flat – almost like buying a top of the range Mercedes Benz and finding it’s not equipped with air-conditioning.

No bush stifles our sexual imagination and desires. Foreplay was also limited because there was no bush for our fingers to play with. With no bush, men become mere sexual slaves to women because as soon as the underwear comes off, the sex is right there in our face with no bush to hide it and feel we have to start performing almost immediately.

Of course women have every right to decide what they want to do with their bush. But in the grooming of it, they don’t put us into the equation. They ask if we think they are fat or if we like their eyebrows, nails or shoes. They ask if we like the scent of their perfume or if we find them attractive. However, they never ask us to comment or pass judgement on bush and suffice to say, some men see bush tampering as an ‘infringement’ of our sexual rights.

In my case, feeling bush reaffirms my belief that I am with an adult and removes any paedophilia notion and reassures me that what I am doing is legal and above board.

Kathy Lette, an outspoken writer who is a voice of contemporary feminism is my kind of woman especially when she says: “I like my pubic hair. It’s like having a little pet in my pants and I say Bring Back Bush!”

She goes on to argue that full bush allows women to attract men through the aphrodisiacal scent in their body hair. “The great irony of Brazilian waxing is that pheromones - that invisible, secret, aphrodisiacal scent which attracts men and women to each other, is captured in the body's hair. So, ironically, women shave everything off are chasing away the men.”

I am buoyed that the bush is back and that I can confidently stride down Kampala Road knowing that a good number of women walking past me, are not bare or, have landing strips. They have a full wad of bush! 

The Bush Is Back, is published in the November, December, January issue of Flair Magazine

Real Men Wee With Focus

In the washrooms and at the kiddie urinal, Dad was teaching Kiddie Son - telling him to put away his games consol and focus on his wee wee and getting wee into the urinal and not on the floor.

When men go the washrooms, we are focused while women are scattered. It’s a groupie outing to them, something that requires a ten minute+ discussion, raising the necessary quorum, who has toilet tissue, a debate to see if they can all fit into the cubicle and who gets the first wee.

When we men go, we focus and map out an appropriate route – “I’ll get up, do a left by Fat Man or maybe not because his fat belly is in the way. It might be better to detour by Big Butt Woman, then a right at the pillar and in the process drool at glasses wearing Ziper Model with the longs legs and skyscraper heels - then double back, do a left by the speakers, walk behind Bouncer so he can clear a path, skirt the edge of the bar and that should give me a clear run”.

However, when we get to the urinals, there is a spot of dithering – especially if there are no dividers between them.

Bashful Man wants to wee at the ends of the urinal where there is some privacy in that, he can stand at an angle with his back to the person on his left, while on his right, there is a wall to take care of that end.

Meanwhile, Real Man is not bothered and heads for the centre urinal – not in an attempt to show off the size factor – or is it?, but because he’s not really bothered where he stands.

At the urinal, there is an unwritten rule of: “Thou shall not cast your eyes left or right to look down at Neighbours wee wee, and comment on it, admire it or hate it.”

Instead we focus. We focus on the imaginary spot on the wall in front of us. If not, we look down and focus on wee wee – making sure the wee is projecting according to the flight plan. The senses in our peripheral vision also go up a notch or two, that without turning our head, we have a general idea of what’s happening either side of us – just in case we have to take evasive action should the projectile of Neighbours wee go askew.

The urinals often have two antiseptic balls in them and to pass time, we sometimes aim our wee at them to see if we can make them roll about.

However, what we don’t like is that man who wants to have a urinal conversation – because a conversation as we wee puts us off our groove. Holding wee wee, making sure wee is going into the urinal, puffing on a sporti while juggling a beer bottle, is too much for us to concentrate on. And now throw in a conversation as well?

There is of course Rude Boy – all showing off with arms crossed, legs akimbo and marvelling at his wee wee being able to wee on its own without being held. I support myself by bracing one hand on the wall in front of me while others lean on the urinal dividers. The rest simply hold onto wee wee for dear life.  

Putting wee wee away is an art that requires finesse as the lingering wee has to be disposed of without it going on our trousers or on the person next to us. It also has to be done in a manner that Morality Police will not deem as conducting a naughty act on oneself.

When we exit, we pause and double check that zipper is up, then plot the best possible route back – behind the speakers, a left by DJ box, a slight pause to let Drunko stagger pass... We often bump into Female Groupie who has been pinned between Fat Man’s beer belly and the wall. If only she had listened to me and taken a right turn by the speakers...

Help Thy Bushenyi Wash Hands After Latrine Visit

Help thy Bushenyi. Anybody who hails from, or has been to Bushenyi, will testify that it is indeed a beautiful part of Uganda. It has a rich farming environment, good roads that make it easily accessible and the people – though a trifle pompous for my liking, are laid back and easy enough to get on with.

In my travels to the region, I’ve never had what I would call a serious issue - save for the language barrier. But as long as Waitress could click and understand the essentials – cold Tusker Malt Larger, a pack of Sporti, fried pork, hotel, toilet, all was well and I was content.

Driving through Bushenyi and going by the clothes that were hung out to dry, the clean table cloth spread over the breakfast table in the hotel, the neatness of the people, it was enough proof to confirm that they take hygiene seriously. That they shower, spray on some deodorant and wash hands – or so I thought.

According to a survey in New Vision a week ago, and one which didn’t make for encouraging reading, a staggering 80% of people from Bushenyi do not wash their hands after a visit to the toilet or pit latrine.

Just to rub it in and to make the peeps from Bushenyi cringe, I’m going to repeat part of the last paragraph if you don’t mind - a staggering 80% of people from Bushenyi do not wash their hands after a visit to the toilet or pit latrine.

But if they can wash their clothes, present a pristine breakfast table cloth and the rest, why can’t they spare a mere two minutes to wash their hands after having been to the latrine?

So what do they do? After emerging from the latrine with unwashed hands that moments ago were wiping at their bottoms, they simply get stuck into whatever they were doing – arranging the cassava, tomatoes and avocado on the platter of pork that you ordered while shaking your hand without feeling uncomfortable. Really Bushenyi!

The survey does not talk about the 20% who I assume do wash their hands. Where are they? I am tempted to believe that they live in Kampala or abroad, and I hope that during their stay in Kampala and abroad, they came to understand what that contraption in the washrooms called a sink is used for and why people upon emerging from the cubicle, go straight to it and wash their hands.

Not washing hands also answers a few questions. Whenever I was in Bushenyi, I would get a quizzical and bemused look when people saw me at the sink or asking for water after a stint in the latrine to which Waitress, unsure of what was going on would return with bottled water.

She probably walked back into the kafunda and told the rest how Musoga has lost the plot because he’s using 2k worth of bottle water to wash his hands instead of drinking it.

Listen up Bushenyi, washing hands does not require a BA from Makerere! Even a UPE drop out can muster it. Simply open tap, wet hands under water, lather hands with soap, rub hands together until clean and then rinse.

In the picture posted alongside the survey, it showed a group of schoolgirls standing by a borehole while NWSC Official gave them a demonstration. The look on their faces was one for Discovery Channel - if not, a Kodak moment in National Geographic magazine, as they marvelled at how easy washing their hands was.   

But I am not going to let Bushenyi go to the dogs. I am not going to ignore it either. I am so not! As a patriotic Ugandan, it’s my mandate – yours as well, to help those who have lost their footing and drag them back on par with the rest of the nation. It should be part of our individual social responsibility to make an effort to drive down to Bushenyi and show them what they need to do.

I will be in Bushenyi next week holding free public lectures on hand washing. After the lectures, soda and mandazi will be served but with one proviso - you can successfully demonstrate to me that you have learnt and can wash your hands. Cool?

We Can't Sell Because We Can't Market

I am still perturbed and this time it’s about me and trying to shake off this notion that I am a Justin Bieber groupie.

Just in case you don’t know who Bieber is, he’s some young American lad whose music is a big hit with Teen Girl. I don’t know any of his songs and neither do I follow his career so why would I dream that I was fighting Teen Girl for the sweat shirt he threw into the crowd after a concert? More embarrassingly, I also had him as my phone screen saver.

However, the one thing I do know about him, is that he knows how to market himself and his music to a tune of 47 million Twitter followers and 20 million on Instagram.     

Here in Uganda, we are clueless marketers. While I am no expert at it, I do know it has something to do with: “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services...”

Now and again, I look up web sites such as Knight Frank, Lamudi, OLX, Zoopla, Cheki and others to see what houses, plots of land and cars that are on the market. There is plenty for sale but where we go wrong, is we have no idea of how to properly market our wares.

I was looking at a house in Munyonyo and all the necessary information - cost, plot size, number of bedrooms and so forth was detailed along with 24 pictures of the property.

The first picture was the view of Lake Victoria from the house. The second, third and fourth pictures were of what looked like Female House-ee standing by the gate. There was also a close up picture of the water tank. Others were of the chandelier in the living and dining room, a close up of a sink, one of a rather bemused painter standing by a set of ladders while the rest are close-ups of the perimeter walls.

Twenty-four pictures of a house for sale but none of them able to give a prospective buyer an insight as to what the house actually looks like.

Another house in Bukoto also had all the information and three pictures. The first was a picture of the gate from the outside. The second was of the perimeter wall and the third – from the inside, was the view of a block of flats under construction.

People selling cars fair no better. On OLX, there is a picture of a Toyota Mark X except, the picture is not of the car, but the bonnet, bumper and number plate. Another is of a Mercedes M-class. The write up says it’s an M-class and I am sure it is, because in the one picture that was posted, laid out on the back seat was an M-class drivers manual. Meanwhile the pictures of the Land Cruiser VX were out of focus and too dark and not worth straining the eyes on. 

The winner though, is of Young Man who looked like a Butcherman mulebeesi and who is selling what I think is a Toyota Caldina. You’ll find twelve pictures of him decked out in mob bling and so dark shades as he sits inside the ride but, none that actually show or market the ride.

How do people expect to get buyers if the pictures are fuzzy, out of focus, too dark, partly obscured by thumbs, fingers or have House-ee in the forefront? Worse, after up-loading, they sit back - all content while smirking at people who pay to go and listen to marketing experts like Caleb Owino, Marion Muyobo and Susan Nsibirwa at Marketers Night Out.

It doesn’t end there. Try pointing out the errors and they’ll froth and spit back: “TB tumbavu - are you the one selling the house!?”

     

       

The World Order Deeply Perturb's Me

I am a man who is deeply perturbed. I seek answers but they are not readily forthcoming.

Uganda today is obsessed with trivial issues – deputy speaker of parliament, Jabob Oulnayah, being denied sex by Wifey; What really happened between Capital FM presenter Flavia Tumusiime and American rapper, J. Cole and does the Muhoozi Project really exist. Meanwhile on the global arena, people are doing bizzare things that could soon hit our shores and no one is seemingly concerned. Except, me!

Seeing its Sunday, it would be a good idea to start off on a religious note – not so? Warren Jeffs is American and leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). In his preaching’s, there is however, something that deeply troubles. FLDS men are not permitted to have children with their wives. Instead, there is a select group of men known as Seed Bearers. A Seed Bearer is an elect man worthy of bloodline chosen by the Priesthood to impregnate the FLDS Woman. Putting it bluntly, all Husband does is to hold Wifey’s hand while Seed Bearer does the needful and spreads his seed into her.   

Then there is Jewel Shuping. As far as I can tell, she grew up a healthy normal child. But when she hit her teens, rather than take an interest in boys, going to the movies or clubbing, Jewel was consumed by a different fascination – that of blind people, that she went to the extent of buying a cane, wearing dark glasses and walking round town pretending to be blind. But somewhere down the line, she felt cheated. She got fed up of pretending to be blind that she did the needful and had drain detergent poured into her eyes so she could be permanently blind.

Ah, I there is a need to pause for I can hear you screaming: “TB has really lost the plot this week. Who pours detergent in their eyes and ever so willingly?” Oh yeah, while ‘I lost it’ long ago, I am not on the same level as Ms. Shuping. Anyway, her family have naturally thrown her out but her boyfriend has been understanding and has stood by her. He would, because he is blind – naturally blind and not detergent blind.

On the other hand, Geogina Girasoli didn’t go blinding herself. After giving birth, rather have the placenta thrown away as is the norm, she whisked hers in a blender and drank it down to ‘replenish her hormones, provide nutrients and help her avoid post-natal depression’. Really?  

Wrapping it all up is Caim Mortis who grew up a normal man until he felt the need to stand out from the crowd. There is nothing wrong with that because I too in my teen days sometimes felt the need to stand out – like turning up to assembly without a tie yet, everybody was wearing one.

But Mortis has taken the desire to stand out too far, way too far that when I saw his picture, I felt the need to fall to the floor and pray for him. Mortis has had horns implanted into his forehead. His eyes are tattooed black, he has rings pierced all over his face along with countless tattoos that when you look at him, you’ll think: “Jeez, he is the devil.”

Why are people doing these things to themselves? Has society failed them? Are Ugandans also doing them except, they never come to light? Maybe it’s me who’s not on the same page as the rest of the world and I have been left behind?

While I have a very liberal outlook on life, it however doesn’t stretch into cuckoo land and I will say – if we don’t do something to help those who are going askew, we may find that going to Java’s for a coffee is no longer the in thing, but having a placenta milkshake and croissant is, as is trying to beat the Ntinda traffic to rush home to hold Wifey’s hand while Seed Bearer does his stuff.

I didn’t mean to ruin your Sunday but I’m deeply perturbed and needed somebody to talk to, somebody to help me find answers.