The Housee's Kajanja!

Everybody has a Housee kajanja or horror story to tell.

When Colleagues housee was headed to kyalo, she popped by New Vision to pick her wages but, Colleague was in a meeting which, poised a dilemma. Either she waits or she goes minus her salary. She opted to wait. And she waited in style.

After lounging about for an hour or so, she got tired and started to nod off. Nothing wrong with that – except, she went that step further. She took off her shoes, got really comfy, laid herself out on the four seats in reception and went to sleep!

Camilla, the receptionist, has just about seen everything in the years of manning the front desk but, this stunt took the biscuit and the kitchen sink. She quickly scattered herself upstairs to editorial and told Colleague what was happening downstairs in reception. Mortified, Colleague wasted no time in abandoning the meeting and rushing to assure Housee that the reception at her place of work, is not her small room of a muzigo back at home.

Another colleague who was fed up with her housee, sent her packing. But before she flung her out of the gate, her suitcase had to undergo the obligatory checking – just to make sure she wasn’t pilfering stuff that wasn’t hers.

Going through her belongings, all was in order – until a shiny photo album at the bottom of the case caught her attention. Flicking through it, they were the usual housee style pictures – you know, posing in front of a mango tree, by the gate and squatting besides a hedge (hmm). As the peruse continued, there were other pictures of her in the house – in the living room and the kitchen. Until she flipped the page.

This time Housee was in her (Colleagues) boudoir and lounging on her bed. If that didn’t make her want to regurgitate the kindazi she had had earlier in the day for sawa nya, then the pictures on the next page got the process going. Housee was now devoid of dress and was romping on the bed in different poses and wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy knickers and a bra. But the tale doesn’t end there. The skimpy knickers and bra she was frolicking in, didn’t belong to her. They belonged to Colleague. Ouch! 

Colleague vomited. 

And then she vomited some more as she heaped all her little black and red numbers onto a bonfire then followed up with a trip to Doctor - lest she caught some disease 'down there' from sharing her skimpy knickers with the so fired and loathed housee.    

When Parents got a new housee, the moment I laid eyes on her, I smelt trouble which, surfaced well before she had completed her probationary period. She had harnessed the house which, she flogged and ran like a Soviet Union era Siberian gulag. It was no longer Parents crib. It was now her crib, her rules and she was going to run it according to her whim.

When Parent sauntered down for breakfast one morning, he found a bare dining table which, necessitated telling Housee to do the needful. But what did she do? She duly assured him how the breakfast period had elapsed and that he would have to wait for lunch. When Parent spewed the tale, I thought he had made it up and was heading for 'lala land' until one night, when I returned late – at about 10:00pm. Asking for supper, Housee smirked, put me in my place and barked that supper time was over and that the dishes had been washed and put away. I went to bed hungry.

One Sunday when James told Housee to take the ride down to the washing bay and have it hoovered, Housee went a step further and any guesses as to how this story ends? After the car was hoovered, rather than drive straight back home as instructed, he went on a fwaa joy ride – picking up friends and galivanting off to Gaba. Probably for mputa fish

But get this. Despite repeated calls from James, Housee kept cutting him off then waltzed in at 10pm reeking of booze and acting like he’d done nothing wrong. And then he had the audacity to wonder why he was got two searing hot slaps and the sack the following day. 

Pictures: Internet  

Don't Ask. Just Take

Bluntly speaking, they don’t ask. They take and with no shame.

Avid fountain pen connoisseurs like, NSSF MD, Richard Byarugaba (Below) and ODD Concepts MD, Oscar Mulira, will tell you that a fountain pen is not to be shared. The nib of the pen is fragile and it moulds itself into the users writing style. If somebody else uses it, it ruins the style in that when you get it back, it won’t feel or write in the same way.

A Mont Blanc, is top-of-the range when it comes to fountain pens, and it was nestled in my shirt pocket with a House of Plastic biro in my trousers. When it was time to sign, They Don’t Ask felt about himself for a pen and realising he didn’t have one, he looked up at me and straight away his squinty eyes zeroed in on the Mont Blanc. I tried to reach for the House of Plastic biro, but by the time I whipped it out, They Don’t Ask had already delved into my pocket, harnessed the Mont Blanc and set about to scribble on the dotted line.

They Don’t Ask had a nasty and savage street prostitute writing style - almost like he worked for UNRA and was using a pneumatic drill to drill some culverts on the Entebbe Express highway. He pressed so hard into the paper that the nib split.

When he was done, he looked at the pen, put the cover back on and wait for it, wait for it – he didn’t give it back. Rather, he played about with it, finished off his beer then stood up. “TB, I best be heading off” he said. With that, he put to sleep the Mont Blanc in his shirt pocket and walked off.

He didn’t ask. He just took.

Another They Don’t Ask came to visit one Sunday. In the living room, he marvelled at my CD collection that he wasted no time in pulling up a chair and started going through them. He’d pick up a CD, read through the booklet and put it back. But some, he didn’t put back. He put them on the coffee table. I wasn’t perturbed, because I assumed he was making a selection to listen to. Except as you may have already guessed, he didn’t listen to them.

When it was time to leave, I popped into the kitchen while he went to his ride. By the time I got to him, he was about to pull away. I just about made it to his side of the ride to bid him farewell and enough time to catch a glimpse of a stack of CDs on the passenger seat. I didn’t think much about it until I went back to the living room and realised the assembled stack of CDs on the coffee table was gone.

He didn’t ask. He just took.

Doing some shopping in Gaba market, I chanced upon Chap selling baseball caps. I am a cap person so obviously, it necessitated a stop to browse through his stock. Hidden at the very back was a cap in near mint condition that bore the Apple Computer logo. 5k and two minutes later, it was in a kaveera heading home with me.

The Apple cap made its debut at the Kampala Marathon and while I was quaffing TML in MTN hospitality tent, I took it off and laid it on the table. When They Don’t Ask sat down next to me, he wasted no time in spitting out - “Wabula TB, you got some good caps.” With his ‘theft’ statement out of the way, he picked it up and plonked it on his head.

When it was time to go, I pointed at the cap and his response? “But TB…” and then he sprinted off into the crowd.

He didn’t ask. He just took. 


Pictures: NSSF, Internet

     

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Questions You Really Can't Answer

Patricia Kahill, (Below) is an online content creator and marketer. In one of her tweets, she poised a question that many of us can’t answer. She said: “I have never mastered a response to this question – ‘Where do you see yourself in five years’”.

“Where do you see yourself in five years” is an interview question – if not, one that Uncle, who is a career academic, will ask whenever he comes to visit. I don’t know what answer Ms Kahill gave and if she was at an interview or being grilled by Uncle.

I too, was asked that question by Grace Muguluma, who in the twilight of the 90s, was head of sales and marketing at Kampala Sheraton Hotel. I had applied for a job as the hotels PRO, and as the interview drew on, I kept on waiting for that one ‘curve ball’ question – you know, the one that derails you, scatters you, throws you into panic and sees your hopes of getting the job agonisingly slithering away.

Ms Muguluma was ‘nasty’ in throwing the curve ball question in the last minute of time added on. I mean, it was the end of the interview. It was a done deal and the job was mine. She had already gathered up her notes. All that was left was for her to say: “TB, thanks for coming in. You are going to an asset to Sheraton Hotel.”

Instead, she asked: “Where do you see yourself in five years”, that the balls of sweat were out of my sweat pores well before she’d finished asking the question. I tried to compose myself but couldn’t. Sweat trickled down from my armpits and the back of my neck. My mouth dried up like it had spent ten minutes in the microwave while the thinking side of my brain shut down with the lights off.

I glared at her in disbelief. What kind of person asks such a question and just seconds to the end of a successful interview? She looked back at me and smack in my eyes and with no inclination of bailing me out. Like Ms Kahall asked, what do you give as an answer?

I thought I gave a good response as it dribbled out of my mouth – “to be sitting in your chair.” And I thought I gave a suicidal response when she responded - “err, really? Hmm!”

I didn’t hear back from her. I didn’t get the job.

One thing Receptionist has on her desk, is a Visitors Book that has two columns designed to derail you. One is headed ‘From Where’ and the other, ‘Reason’. The first time I filled in a Visitors Book, was when I called in on Maria Kiwanuka, (Below) at Radio One.

Receptionist flipped the book open and hovered her ample bust over me – almost as if she was making sure I answer correctly. At the ‘From Where’ column, I didn’t know what to write, so I sought guidance. She said: “Jot down where you came from.” Well the taxi had just dropped me off at the Post Office and before that, I was at home. I opted for ‘home’. The Post Office option smacked of ridicule.

And the reason for visiting? Mrs Kiwanuka, had been explicit with the invitation. “TB, pop in for a coffee and a chat.” I wrote just that which, irked Receptionist who was ready to lash me had the phone not rang when it did. 

These days, in the ‘reason’ column, I write: “To pass time”. And Ms Kahill, five years after the ‘where do I see myself in five years’ question, I was with New Vision – though at the time the question was asked, it would have made Ms Muguluma think I was ridiculing her if I had said just that.

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