Let's Respect Lake Vic

There is, something about Lake Victoria especially from the air that muddies. It looks so sedate, calm and relaxed - even when you have a one-on-one with it a Gaba beach, Speke Resort Munyonyo or Kabaka’s landing site at Mulungu. The waves lap gently at the shore, almost soothing and regurgitating sea shells onto the sand for the kids to pick up – if not, a mass of hyacinth, a discarded plastic bottle or the dreaded kaveera.

One thing that Lake Victoria has always cried out for, is respect. With a surface area of approximately 68,800 km², its Africa's largest lake by area - so of course, it’s in a position, to demand respect from those who take to her.   

A while back, along with the then Dr Gladys Kalema (Below), German Tourist and others, we did a crossing from Kalangala on Sesse Islands to Kasenyi landing site in Entebbe. And when we did the crossing, the one thing that we didn’t do was… err, you guessed it, we didn’t respect the lake.

We set out at 8:30am in a canoe - not a boat, but a canoe. And a canoe overloaded with charcoal, fish, yams, cassava, matooke, bricks, boda motorcycles and more. Lake Vic was relaxed and the skies so clear there was not a hint of a cloud in sight. When Mutembeyi touting, mineral water tried to offload four jumbo bottles onto me, I sent him scurrying away. After all, why would I need water for a journey that would be no more than a ‘40-minute hop’ at the most?

But, it wasn’t a 40-minute hop. It was a very dehydrating nine-hour crossing – especially without four jumbo bottles of mineral water, that was extremely suicidal and fought with danger because each wave had the word ‘death’ scrawled all over it.

The waves in the middle of Lake Vic are very different from those that lap the shores at Ggaba beach. They are also different from those you see when you are on the ferry. In a canoe, the waves mammoth into the size of your average double storied house. They swirled and lashed so terrifyingly against the canoe just like they did in the George Clooney movie – The Perfect Storm.

Its then, that the word ‘respect’ came into play. In the weeks before we made the crossing, the newspapers were awash with stories about people who had perished because they had no life jackets and the canoes overloaded or were caught in a storm. And what did I do when I read those articles? I simply sneered.  

Sill we set sail and very aware we had no life jackets and we had not been given an airline style pep talk of what we were to do in case the canoe capsized. I had to ‘laugh’ because, I can barely manage two laps in the very calm waters of the baby pool at Speke Resort Munyonyo, so just how on earth would I manage in choppy waves that are almost as high as a house?

If the canoe had capsized, it would have been everyone for themselves. I would have drowned within five minutes. I also didn’t rate the chances of Dr Kalema or of German Tourist. Out on the lake, it’s lonely – there is nowhere to swim to. Nothing to cling to. Nobody to shout to for help. As far as the eye could see, there was no land. No other canoes and no cell-phone network. We would never have been found. If we were, our maggot bloated and rotting bodies would have been found weeks later - washed up on the beach or trapped in Fisherman’s net.

We are lucky to be alive and a word of advice – if you take to Lake Victoria, respect it. Make sure you have a life jacket and plenty of drinking water.

Pictures: Absolute Travel, Internet 

When Virtual DJ Shames You

MARK RWOMUSHANA and Dr John Bua (Below), are both progressive professionals in their respective fields. When Mark is not retailing medical insurance for IAA and Dr Bua diagnosing diseases, they occupy their spare time by dabbling in music as a hobby. But, not like Miss Ug who whenever asked what her hobbies are, she says: “Listening to music.” Does that mean whenever she turns on the radio and hears a jingle a Butcherman, Bebe Cool or a Rihanna song on X-FM for example, she is dabbling in her musical hobby? Hmm. 

Mark (Below) and John are into mixing music and mixing music, is more of a stern hobby than Miss Ug listening to jingles. I too, am into mixing. Back in the day, I used to play music in the student’s union bar at university on the odd weekend. Then, mixing music was not as complex as it is today. There were no computers but, a turn table, two decks and a stack of 12” vinyl records. All that one had to do, was to blend one song into the other and that was really it.

Today, it’s far more intricate. Mark, John and Aspiring DJ are familiar with the application - Virtual DJ, which I use. Looking at Virtual DJ on a computer screen, Miss Ug, would think its a multifaceted cockpit of a Mig fighter jet parked at Entebbe air force base - especially when all lit up at night and with the lights flickering and streaming all over. And if you dared ask her what she thought about it, the best that her brain would spittle out, would be no more than: “aya, aya, aya!”

With Virtual DJ (Below), there is so much you can do than blend one song into the other. You can loop, adjust pitch, sync and even merge in a jingle or a sound effect just to appease Miss Ug. Another feature about it, is that it doesn’t shackle you to the DJ booth as it is when mixing with vinyl or CDs. If you want to be part of the crowd, simply load a playlist and hit the auto mix button.

Then somewhere down the line, Professional DJ made life easy for us novices when he started recording ‘non-stops’ and better still, we could download them. It was a godsend for me, seeing that I liked to play music in Miki’s Pub which, is on the road that leads to Speke Resort, Munyonyo or Wavamunno Road to be precise.

My plot was simple. I would download two hour ‘none-stops’, listen to them and then come Friday evening, I would hit Miki’s and do my thing. Of course, ‘my mixes’ overwhelmed the crowd. My forte was soul and hip hop (1982 – 1992). Every time I knew songs were about to mix, I would sling on the headphones, fiddle with the deck - like I knew what I was doing and the crowd was suitably impressed. For greater effect, I would sometimes hold one headphone to my ear using my shoulder.

Then the bubble burst. Professional DJ like DJ Shiru (Below) wanted credit for their  mixes so interspersed in the mixes, he would belt out: “You are listening to a DJ Shiru mix”. On this occasion, I had downloaded a couple of mixes but didn’t listen to them. I just went ahead and started playing to a packed crowd. To my horror, as the crowd shrilled andwent estatic when ‘I mixed and looped’ SWVs version of Human Nature with Boys II Men’s Motownphilly, this voice belts out: “You are listening to a DJ Shiru mix.” Ouch!

The thing about being in the DJ booth, is that there is always that annoying someone who is going to walk up and ask questions. “TB, so Shiru is your DJ name?” Before I could retort, he spat out the most sarcastic version of “hmm” and walked off unamused. I let out a tumbavu, but I don't think he heard it above the mix

Moral of the story? Before you pretend to mix a plagiarized mix, make sure that the owner of the mixed has not spun his name into it.   

Pictures: Bukedde, Virtual DJ, Internet           

"I Don't Know!"

“Who knows?’ I’ll tell you who knows – ISIS and Al-Shabab. They know. They always know. Sad to say, but once they commit carnage, they are honest enough to ‘man-up’ to admit that they did it. That it was them who blew up the train station or the busy market. I don’t know why they feel the need to be honest after committing an atrocity, but at least we know and we don’t have to sit there pondering who did it.

The rest of us are different. When we get asked: “Who did it,” we have a standard answer at the ready. We don’t even think about it. Its instinctive. It spittle’s out of our mouths as effortlessly as giving ‘2’ as the answer to 1+1. “I don’t know”. Nothing else. No further enlightenment. Simply, “I don’t know”.

When I lived solo, Housie would show up thrice-a-week to do the needful to the crib. Then, I had a frenzied work schedule at WBS TV in that, I would be out of the house well before Parent had a chance to cause a traffic jam at Greenhill School when dropping off Toyee and, get back late into the night just as Malaya on Speke Road hits the third hour of her night shift.

Often, I was exhausted that I would hit the shower and dive straight to bed. But on Sundays, I would venture into the spare bedroom, living room or kitchen and each Sunday that I did, something was always broken.

I’d been given an M-Net Face of Africa beer mug when I covered the event in South Africa. As soon as I got it, I knew where it was going to peacock itself when I got home - on the top shelf of the bookstand where it could be seen, but more importantly, out of range of Visitors’ hand that might have wanted to get a closer look at it.

On a sedate Sunday in my naughty ‘come-to-daddy sofa’, I glanced up at it and the handle looked askew. Picking it up, the handle came off. It was broken. But how could it have broken? The winds that sweep down from Muyenga hill could not have knocked it off the shelf without also knocking the much lighter champagne flutes. Plus, Visitor had not popped round. If it wasn’t me who broke it, then it had to be Housie.

When I asked him about it, his answer was throbbing at the tip of his tongue. There is also no need to tell you what he said, but I insist – “I don’t know”, before getting back to his chores. Hmm, maybe the wall lizard fell off the celling, knocked the mug and it fell to the floor. Then it picked it up with its tail, put it back on the shelf and tried to stick the handle back in place? That thought, I put to Housie.

His comeback? He looked up at the ceiling, then at the broken mug on the coffee table, followed by a slight pause to allow ‘Butabika thinking’ to settle, then blabbed – “I don’t know”. With that, he was gone – this time for a tête-à-tête with Next Door Housie over the fence.

At WBS, whilst on a location shoot, Young Man comes up to me. I’d seen him in the station but never spoken to him. This is him. “Sir, they are calling you”. When I asked who ‘they’ were, he looked over into the crowd, thought for a while then said – “I don’t know.”

So, I retort: “Go and tell ‘I don’t know’ to leave me alone.” What ensued next took me by surprise. He thanked me! Then turned on his heels, slunk into the crowd and that was the last that I saw of him.

Almost 17-years after both incidents, like a recurring bad rash, it still so bothers me. It really does. Who broke my mug? Who was calling me?

I don’t know.

Pictures: Reuters, Multichoice, WBS 

Let's Take Turns To Chop Work

I really don’t know what could have happened in the space of a week. Just seven days ago, it was all happening. Fireworks, making merry, people screaming, champagne popping – the works. And today, it’s all doom and gloom.

At shops, it’s been like somebody had died. People were down cast and hardly muttering a word. Faces were devoid of smiles. And life. Obviously, somebody had died that there was a need to rush home to the obituary pages of Sunday Vision and listen to our own,  Rudende on X-FM to be brought up to speed. Listening to Rudende (Below), nobody had died. All, was well save for the misery the people in Aleppo, Syria still face.

                                            

I don’t know who invented or, came up with the idea of having the month of January, but a quick search with the consultants at Google, the tell me that January means ‘Janus’s month’ and became the first month of the year in circa 700BC when some dude in robes called Numa Pompilius – who also happened to be a Roman King added it and February to the calendar. Numa also moved the start of the year from March to January.

Why on earth would he want to do that? Had it not been for Numa, we wouldn’t have been as miserable as we are today, because, the month of March is always a good month – especially financially because we have recovered from the unabashed spending of the previous December.

Creeping on, save for Askari, is there anybody out there who has cut, chopped or skived off work yet? Yes, we all do it. Askari did and chopped work on the 4^th. But I am sure there is somebody who chopped earlier than that?

When it comes to chopping work, we tend to wait until mid-February. I don’t know why. Perhaps it has something to do with HR being alert and on the prowl and the fact that if we cut so early into the year, our absence would be so noticeable?

The first long week we have this year is on Friday 14^th April, which, is Good Friday. Before that, we have NRM Liberation Day (Thursday 26^th January), Archbishop Janani Luwum Day (Thursday 16^th February 16th, Women’s Day (Wednesday March 8^th). Three holiday days in the space of three months and none of them offers a long weekend.

                                         

Thus, there is a need to have our own not approved Ministry of Public Service or HR approved long weekend and that means chopping work on a Friday.  But we all can’t chop work at once. It’s like being in a boat or aircraft. There is a need to balance out the vessel to ensure all is well. The same rules apply to chopping work. If we all don’t show, it would be suicidal and we would be busted.

I have put my name forward to chopping work on the Friday after the Thursday of NRM Liberation Day. Regardless of where you work, please forward me the names of the people chopping work on that day so we may coordinate.

There are two ways to chopping work. Either you just don’t turn up. Or turn up, show face and vanish ten minutes later. I prefer the latter option because fool proof and HR has yet to figure it out. This is how it works in four easy steps.

Show Face: Make Sure everybody sees you. Immediate Boss, Colleague, Janitor, Tea Girl.

Busy Desk: Power on your PC, leave car keys on desk

Hot Coffee: Swing Tea Girl or Neighbour 10k and tell them to put you mug full of hot coffee or tea on your desk every one and a half hours along with a side plate of a half-eaten kindazi. It gives the appearance you are about and probably have gone to the washroom.

Walk In Backwards: When you return late in the afternoon, it’s imperative that you walk into the office backwards. Walking in backwards just in case HR is snooping about, when she sees you, it will look like you are walking out and not walking in.

So, to all chopping work on the Friday after the Thursday of NRM Liberation Day, may I suggest we kick off at The Junction, Ntinda at noon? In the meantime, to the first person who cut work this year (not you Askari), get in touch. Two muzinga’s of Ug Wa await you.     

Pictures: New Vision, Internet

Did You Read Your December Salary Terms & Conditions?

And after twelve months, 2016 is dead. Gone for good and only to be remembered in the history books, a discarded Sunday Vision now relegated to wrapping mandazi in the Old Park or in some old tweet.

It’s now 2017. Now what? I’ll tell you now what. ‘Now what’, is going to read as follows: ‘What what misery lies ahead?’ The problem with last month – December that is, and the ‘payment of salaries contract’ that came along with it, is that we didn’t bother reading it. We greedily hit the ATM and once our eyes were satisfied with the financial figure that accounts had deposited into our accounts, we didn’t read the rest of the contract – the small print on page 15, where the ‘terms and conditions’ or T&Cs were printed.

Everything we buy comes with T&Cs. Once we buy the laptop, as soon as we walk out of the shop, we toss away the receipt and often, the receipt would carry the T&Cs in case of fault and so on. Its only when it stops working and we return it to the shop to complain - a complaint that usually falls on deaf ears, that we wish we had read the T&Cs. Getting back, many of us did not read the December T&Cs before we went to the ATM and started spending. In the T&Cs, Chief Accountant had stated: “The office will pay your December salary on December 10^th, and not at the end of the month – on the 30^th as is usually the norm.”

When the month ends and salaries have been paid, on the first AM visit, we check our balance – just to make sure that Accounts Girl paid us what is due and that nothing has been deducted. On our next visit, again, we don’t bother checking balances because in our heads, we know we are still flush and healthy. And it happens over the next ten-to-fifteen ATM visits – draw cash, but never look at the balance.

Come mid-month and bunkenke seeps in. We know we have been spending like fwaa, and have been avoiding the ‘account balance’ option on the screen, but now, it’s an option we can no longer afford to ignore. We must hit it, but we must hit it with some tact. You see, people who believe the ATM might not give them money are very careful as to which ATM they use. They will pick an ATM that has next to zero traffic or, they show up in the middle of the night when everybody is home asleep.

They do it because they can’t afford to have people who are lining up behind them, see them walk away without cash. No matter how well you try to disguise that you only wanted to check your balance, everybody lining up behind you knows otherwise. They know your account is empty. And if they didn’t know it was empty, Askari, once you walk away, will happily walk down the queue telling everybody – “Ah, that man who just walked away, his account didn’t even have 5k for kindazi and black tea.”

Now that we are in January, many who have been to the ATM and found it only holds enough to make a 5K kindazi and black tea withdrawal, are not yet that bothered. Its New Year’s Day and as the office was closed for Christmas, salaries have been delayed but, will reflect tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest so they assume.

Obviously, nothing is going to reflect on Monday or on Tuesday and yet, Housie’s salary, Umeme, NW&SC, rent and school fees are pending. So, seeking to find out why the salary delay, they will stomp to Chief Accountant to complain and he in turn, will lean back in his swivel chair, snigger and say: “But TB, did you not read the T&Cs regarding end of year salaries? I wonder what misery lies ahead for you this January!”    

Pictures: Internet

Crashing Kyalo Christmas Lunch

Christmas Day in kyalo? Hmm. While there, I guess there is no harm in going to that great institution of worship – church, to listen to Pastor frothing words of wisdom about Christ and also, trying to figure out what scam Pervy Pastor is going to pull. Will he usher the ladies into a backroom like Pervy Pastor in Zimbabwe recently did when he told Female Congregant to buy anointed cucumbers equivalent to how big she wants her husbands penis to be?

My attendance record at church this year has not been the best, so I’m going – not because I really want to go or I think I ought to go, but as everybody will be parading new clothes and I have a new pair of shoes, I think its an apt time to break them in – don’t you think?

In the kyalo church, peeps from Kampala obviously get the preferential front-of-house seating because they are - err, from Kampala. If not, Pastor would have cleared space at the front by the choir because Kampala peeps like to bring their own seats – which is understandable, because the bench in a kyalo church – or ‘foam’ as they call it, is not easy at all on the buttocks that I strongly advise you go with a cushion for the laboriously long three-hour service.

What I don’t grasp about kyalo, are the lunch arrangements. Every household I guess, has its own plans on how to spend the day. After church as we walk back to our cribs, along the way, I expect families to tail off to their homesteads and feast. Some kyalo peeps are thoughtful enough to give out invitations - that once you are done with your own feasting, pop over to theirs for drinks or something like that.

But a kyalo brain thinks and works differently – especially the male brain. Kyalo Man will confidently walk with you from church and pass his own home without a fleeting glance at it, that you think he’s going to the trading centre for some emergency shopping - or a pre-lunch game of ludo or snakes and ladders. However, as you get to your home and you turn to him to say: “Have a good lunch”, he always interprets it as: “Are you coming in for Christmas lunch?”

Jeez, he has unashamedly invited himself and will sit with you and your family all afternoon - eating and drinking the finer things in life that came off the shelves of Kampala’s supermarkets and were transported across the districts in air-conditioned 4x4s. Dare you ask him after the first course, if he harbours any intentions of going to his home to join his family for lunch, his answer is always embarrassingly (not to him, but to you) bland – “They will be okay without me. I even don't know what she cooked.”

Pause a minute. What does his wife make of the stunt? I mean, they left home together for church with the kids. They walked back in a group, but when they got their home, he didn’t stop. He carried on walking. He didn’t even look back or call one of the kids over and whisper: “Tell mum I am going to pull a fast one and crash TBs lunch. If there is anything worth spiriting away, I will certainly do so.”

I mean, she must vex, mustn’t she? You see when we were still kids, for five consecutive years, Kyalo Neighbour always strode past his house like he didn’t see it or like he didn't live there and around the corner to ours for his lunch and then, staggered back to his - way past the kyalo bedtime hour of 8:00pm. But get this. The following day on Boxing Day, he always turned up early and presented himself in time for breakfast.

Today, it’s not going to happen for I have a plan. When we get to his home, I am going to branch off with his family. Hopefully, I will be offered a seat and I will lunch with them. That will sort him – I think?

But Kyalo Man and Musoga Man at that, just like Bushenyi Man or Lira Man, I know he won’t be perturbed. He will snigger and say to himself: “If TB wants to lunch with my family, then so be it because the freebie meat I got the other day is long gone.”  With that, he will purposely march on to my home to eat my share of the meal and with my family.

But what the heck, its Christmas. Let’s leave him be to slaver on that turkey leg which hopefully, he will choke on. Otherwise folks, wherever you are, have a great lunch! 

Pictures:  Zimbabwe Herald, New Vision, The Daily Monitor      

The Kyalo Christmas Migration

“As he leads the herd - sometimes down treacherous routes as they migrate across the country to far flung tracks of land, Alpha Male is in control. Huddled behind him are the females, the young and the new born. Younger Male – eager to learn and observe the technicalities of the migration, watches and picks up titbits from Alpha Male because in a few years, he would have grown and left the group to lead his own herd on the migration.”   

No, this is not commentary from a David Attenborough National Geographic documentary on the wildebeest migration from the Maasai Mara in Kenya and down to Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains but, commentary of a human migration from Kampala to Kisoro, Bushenyi, Koboko, Kitgum, Rwakitura to wherever and in my case, Ibulanku, for Christmas in kyalo.

Where human migration differs from animal migration, is all too evident in the picture below. We humans all wake up at the same time and we all want to migrate to wherever at the same time and to get there at the same time. Nothing wrong with that, except in our being impatient, we end up causing traffic jams in Busega, Bombo and Jinja roads and many other places. If only we were as patient, organised and adopted a single file like the camels below, perhaps Julio would have gotten to Bushenyi, Doc to Lira and Nodin to Fort Portal way before the 8:00pm kyalo bedtime hour.     

When the herd rumbles out of Kampala in the wee hours of the morning in 4x4 rides, in two corporate offices – those of water and electricity suppliers, PRO will beam as he cracks open a bottle of champagne. You see, for the past 12 months, his life has been a misery - having to answer a stream of never ending rude questions on social media as to why there is no power or water in Kireka, Muyenga, Namugongo or wherever. Each time, he posts the same response. “Engineer is working on it” or “kindly DM your details.”

He will smirk as he drinks, because he knows we don’t expect piped water or electricity in kyalo and with the migration, who in the empty city will incessantly txt him messages on Twitter or Facebook to ask when power or the water supply will be restored?

The migration also reveals that the average life span of anything that goes to kyalo lasts less than a year. Each year we go to Ibulanku, the 4x4 is packed with the same things - mostly from Nice House of Plastics. Plastic Chairs, basins, plates, cups, jerry cans and all – plastic because Kyalo Peep will break the China plates and glasses no sooner have they been unpacked from the boxes.

Kampala House Girl, if you take her along, will be in her element. She knows Kyalo House Girl exists – but more importantly she knows that they are not on the same level. Kyalo House Girl will be reduced to cooking in the about-to-collapse mud kitchen and using firewood while Kampala House Girl, will be in the smoke free kitchen of the main house using the gas cooker while barking instructions like she is the Madame of the house. She is also aware that she was brought along to supervise and to make sure Kyalo House Girl does not pilfer sugar, salt, cooking oil or a quarter kilo of meat from the 20 kilos of beef that was bought at a stopover in Kyengera.
           

The beauty about Christmas in kyalo, is the poor of Kampala always look rich and smart in kyalo. In Kampala, people can tell if you are wearing the finest Owino mivumba skirt, blouse dress, shirt or pants - and even underpants and knickers, to some extent. But wear the Owino mivumba in kyalo and they will look like new, in that they came straight off the shelves or hangers at Mr. Price or Sylvia Owori fashions.

Then there is the asset distribution that everybody looks forward to and usually happens two days before the herd returns to Kampala. From the time you landed, Relative would have made note of everything you wore throughout the vacation or saw hanging on the clothes line to dry after being washed and would have ‘booked’ the Sunday Vision T-shirt or the lighter you bought as a by-the-way at Total in Nyendo while, Cousin Rita wants your leggings to wear to her Saturday night outings to the trading centre and Cousin James, he merely longs for the earphones so he can listen to radio as he watches the cows graze.

However, the grand prize that everybody in kyalo wants are not the clothes, the Sunday Vision T-shirt, shoes, lighter or headphones. They want to be gifted with the ‘portable flat screen TV’ (read: Samsung tablet) just like Kyalo House Girl wants Kampala House Girl to gift her the hand-me-down blouse you - Madame Of The House, had given her to wear when you had guests round to celebrate little Martha’s 3^rd birthday.

Getting back, if any of you with kyalos in the the east plan on making the migration that way - Pompi, Dr John Bua, Val Oketcho, Winfred Ongom, Mark Muyobo, Don Wanyama (Below), Jemima Na-gundi, the Kyabazinga, Lizel Muwaya, Esther Aster, James Odomel, Spe Kazibwe et al, might I suggest we do a Namawojolo pit stop on Friday at 10:00am for a Coke and some muchomo? Otherwise, everybody have a safe migration to wherever.  

Pictures: Alamy.com, Daily Monitor, Twitter