Daniel Odaka, Brian Lutta, Clay Kharat - Gone But Not Forgotten

Death evokes fear in most of us that sometimes I am okay with it though most times, it freaks me out.

When it comes to my demise, I wonder how I will bow out of the world arena. Would it be a long and strung out affair in hospital? Or will it be fast and unexpected like being hit by a speeding trailer on Jinja Road?

I met Daniel Odaka and Brian Lutta in the 70s. Daniel and I shared a room at school in Kenya for close to six years and we remained close friends later on in England and when we returned home. I also met Brain in Kenya and we were good friends even though he was years younger than me.

In town on a summer vacation, I knew where to find them – at Uganda House. On this vacation, there was no Brian. Brian had passed on - something that utterly devastated me for why Brian? He was young and still living his life.

Why did it have to be him yet there are so many very old people out there who have nothing left to offer to society? Why couldn’t God do away with one of those and leave Brian alone? But I don’t work in heaven so I don’t know the answer.

I have never quite recovered from Brian’s death or Daniel’s a number of years later. Daniel was the brother I never had and we were like cajoled twins in our friendship. When doctors operate to separate cajoled twins, usually one twin survives and the other dies. In this case, it is I who survived and though it has been years since the separation, it is a slog going on with life without Daniel.

I met Samuel Clay Kharat through OPP back in the day when Wagadugu was still being run by Peter Otim. I thought of him as a ‘hippy’ who was trapped in cyberspace and expecting the ‘flower power’ days of the 60s to return because of his long hair, flared jeans and nonchalant outlook on life.

In the course of our friendship, I found out he was an excellent graphics designer whose works adorned most of the billboards in the city. And visiting him at home, I sometimes wondered whether he was a relation to Mahatma Gandhi, because he always sat cross legged though unlike Gandhi who wrapped himself up in bed sheets, Clay wore clothes.   

Our extracurricular activities were legendary – well to ourselves that is. Whenever he drank his Club, I sometimes could never understand why he drank so slowly or why he never emptied the bottle.

One thing about Clay was that he was always in intellectual thought and being innovative. Ideas seemingly sprung to him with little effort - each being better than the last. He was a genius.

I had been calling him for a week to take him out for a beer but his phone was always off then found he was in hospital and in a coma. But how? Surely there must be a mistake.

Then Leo called late in the night and delivered the tragic news. Clay was gone. While it’s been two months since he passed on, I feel bitter, very bitter with the system heaven employs in deciding who should live and who dies. Was it necessary to take Clay, Brian and Daniel away from us yet better deserving candidates like Joseph Kony and Bin Laden’s cronies continue to run amok?

When it comes to death, the people who work in heaven are so messed up and lack compassion that they need to go back to the drawing board and get their house in order.  

 

It's Who You Know In The System

Jobs are hard to come by these days and in a time of austerity; people are doing anything to hold on to their jobs, like Charlie once told me: “I would rather get paid peanuts than sit at home all broke and depressed.”

However, Young Generation, take things for granted. They have heard of a phrase: “It’s who you know.” Young Generation, don’t want to get jobs on merit because it’s a hard slog. They want the easy route – getting jobs because of “who they know.”

What they don’t understand is that in today’s Uganda, jobs are handed out on merit – you have to apply, sit interviews and so on – unless you have been headhunted, but you will still have to sit some form of interview.

I know Mike. Mike has a daughter studying mass communications at one of the universities and wants her to do her internship at New Vision. But there was a ‘problem’ as Daughter pointed out to him. “You need to know somebody in there.”

And that’s where I came in. I was her somebody in there because I am a columnist with Sunday Vision. When I asked Daughter how she had heard about the internship, she said through the paper. “Oh then it’s easy. Simply do whatever was asked in the advert and send it off to them” I replied.

Her response: “I can’t do that. I need to have somebody in there to push my papers.” Trying to tell her that I am not part of the selection process nor do I know how the system works, fell on deaf ears.” So she went and told Mike.

Mike as expected got back to me pleading that I help Daughter. To placate him, the best I could do, was to give her a mock interview in conditions and an environment similar to that at New Vision.

Four days later when she turned up I was aghast. I know women these days tint their hair, but this was an over kill. She must have spent the previous day with Straka, the outrageous television personality, because her hair looked like a rainbow! Furthermore, she wore a low cut black netted blouse and a red bra which pushed her more than ample bosom up that at any moment, I felt her ‘twins’ might escape from the tight confines of her bra and slap into my face.

I was about to launch into a tirade about interview etiquette, but thought it might be wise to understand, to get into her head and to find out  where Daughter was coming from.     

And there was the one obvious answer. In Hollywood, they say ‘lying on the casting couch’. Was she trying to taunt me? Did she think that by putting her bosom on display, it would distract me (which it did) from asking her tough questions? Or did she think that if ‘she gave me some’ I would go out of my way and pull strings to fast track her internship papers?

And she was good - in fact brilliant.  And when I say she was brilliant, no I didn’t sleep with her and her CV (if it could be called that) was utterly lacking. What she was brilliant at was in exposing her twins even further – nudging and coaxing them to the edge of her bra.

When I met up with Mike and explained why the interview had been a non starter, he gave me a rue look, and we have barely spoken since. And I have not seen Daughter in the New Vision newsroom so I suspect that even if she had applied, Helen Mukiibi who heads the newsroom had turned her down.  

Finally, The Bakiga Now Know How To Use A Toilet

One definition in the dictionary given to the word - ‘manners’ is: “A behavioural attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual.”

Uganda has a number of prominent Bakiga from Kabale Municipality and more importantly, they have made it in life. They include Amos Nzeyi of Pepsi and Hot Loaf, Charles Mbire, Chairman of MTN, Tumusiime-Mutebile, Governor of Bank of Uganda and Justice George Kanyeihamba. At the other end of the scale, there is Aggrey Kagonyera of MTN and Jack Bageire to name but a few.

So where am I going with the manners intro and all this talk of prominent Bakiga’s? Towards the end of last year, a survey of 63 Municipalities (Sunday Vision, Dec 8^th, page 6) found that the residents of Kabale Municipality have the best toilet manners in Uganda. After Kabale, came Hoima (congs Simon Kaheru the social analyst), Pader (a big up OPP) and Kibaale.

Bluntly put, our toilet habits suck because people don’t know how to use a toilet.

Women argue that men have bad toilet habits and I am inclined to side with them. They argue that we don’t flush but, do women always flush?

Putting it with as much tact as possible, when men and women go to the toilets for a pee, there are the ‘excesses’ which require extra measures in order for all to be okay. We men ‘shake off’ our excesses while women ‘blot off’ their excesses with a tad of tissue which, they neglect to flush away. We men don’t like looking into the toilet bowl and seeing the tad of tissue that was used to soak up the excess pee stuck to side of the bowl no more than women like having to wipe down the toilet seat to get rid of our excess pee before they sit down.

And what’s this about women climbing onto a sit down toilet to have a pee? Women, men do not like having to wipe down your Bata slipper footprints that are plastered on the toilet seat. Just in case you don’t get it, it’s a sit down toilet which means you put your butt on it like you put your butt on a chair. Are you with me?!

A few years ago, I wrote an article about toilets and one of my colleagues came up to me and without shame admitted that until he read the article, he had no idea what purpose the toilet brush sitting in the corner of the toilet served.

Getting back to the survey, at the end of the scale, the Ugandans who have the worst toilet habits come from Alebong, Kaabong and Napak.

My town – Iganga ranked 24^th best which, implies there is a need for me to improve my habits. And I am doing something about it. A couple of days ago, I was at a function and when Charles Mbire got up to go to the washrooms, I swiftly followed him and watched him closely. Everything he did, I did and trust me, the survey was right. The Bakiga have good toilet manners that I am now the wiser.  

So what do we do about the folk from Alebong, Kaabong and Napak? Do we leave them slithering in their excrement and susu or do we help them? Seeing we have retired justice Kanyeihamba’s supposedly good toilet manners to work with, he ought to head a team that includes Kaheru and Kagonyera to go to those places and assess their needs – whether it’s more buveera that they need for ‘flying toilets’ or is it toilet tissue or that they simply need to be taught how to use a toilet and then report back to Parliament?  

Col. Sanders vs. Chef Ali

Col. Sanders got it all wrong – but more on him later. Chef Ali works for Speke Resort Munyonyo and I have known him for 15 years. In that time, he has struggled to come to terms with understanding the way my palette works. It’s not a difficult palette, a palette that say thrives on soufflés, escargots or mahi-mahi (do the Google-ling yourselves).

Rather, my palette thrives on slabs of meat, the backbone of every African diet and further, I am not fussed whether its pork, beef or lamb. As long as it’s meat, I am good to go. Chef Ali knows this that whenever I am in Munyonyo, he goes out of his way to accommodate my easy-to-accomplish demands.

Last year and over Christmas lunch, Chef Ali didn’t disappoint for he laid on a lunch buffet that had enough meat to bring a smile to my face. Okay yes, there were other non meat dishes, but my focus was on the meats. A guest who I presume was a doctor stopped me as I heaped my plate with carcasses of red meat and the conversation went along these lines.

Doctor: “Young man, you have to watch your red meat intake.”

TB: (Under my breath) “Why don’t you p*ss off and leave me alone?”

Doctor: Perhaps I can give you my card and you call on me in my clinic after Christmas and we talk about your diet.”

TB: (Again under my breath) “Look here old man, if you want to spend your Christmas lunch eating a plate of leaves because you think it gives you a healthy lifestyle, then be my guest. I am going to eat my red meat - you with me!?”

With that, I sat down to my carcasses of meat and two weeks since that lunch, I am as fit as a fiddle and yes, Chef Ali still makes sure I get my fill of meat whenever I am in Munyonyo. So what was the old man fussing on about?

Now back to Col. Sanders who got it wrong and this time we are not talking about Col. Besigye. Towards the end of last year, the aged Col. Sanders from America set up camp in the new mall in Bugolobi – Village Mall that is.

Col. Sanders, is not here to peddle guns, tanks or aircraft to the UPDF but of all things, it’s chicken. And Kampala went wild at the thought of eating his chicken and I too, was one of them.

For those of you who don’t know Col. Sanders, he has a chain of successful chicken eateries dotted all over the world and his KFC brand, is a well recognized brand name.

But the chicken he fries in Uganda is not the same and does not have the same kind of flavour as that in the UK, SA or the States. Anus and I tried it out a few weeks ago and it was lacking. The skin was coarse – almost brittle that it left lacerations on the inside of our mouths and while they got the length and width of the fries right, they were not as crispy as the ones sold abroad.

And that got me thinking. In Uganda today, we have many foreign companies and franchises – banks, telecom companies to restaurants and as soon as they hit town we make noise and embrace them as ‘the best thing to happen to Uganda’ but in reality, we get a raw deal because often, the services they bring to here are substandard. So to hell with the American Col. Sanders for I am going to stick to my home grown Chef Ali at Munyonyo who knows what he is doing.         

    

Happy New Year

Tuesday 31^st December – two days away is going to be the most significant date of 2013 simply because it will mark the end of a turbulent year and hopefully usher in a great 2014.

Right now I am busy weighing up my options. Should I see out the year in a blaze of glory, an beer fueled night until the wee hours of the morning followed by an altercation with the police which lands me in the coolers or, a peaceful quiet night at home with Gaana and Natal?

Last year, I stayed home and was in bed by 10:00pm only to be woken up at the stroke of midnight with people shouting out “happy new year” followed by loud explosions as fireworks crackled all over the city.

Obviously I was not amused because people were being inconsiderate because they woke me up from my sleep and I bet that more than half the people who were shouting happy New Year and toasting to glasses of champagne, had a bad year – just ask Erias Lukwago, Kizza Besigye Affande Omara and Geoffrey Kazinda. Lukwago and Besigye spent a good part of the year being tossed into police pick-up’s, while Affande Omara was at his wits end and tired of standing guard outside Besigye’s Kasangati residence. Meanwhile, Kazinda found out that money which was not his cannot buy him freedom.

2013 was a bleak year for me because ninety per cent of the things I had set out to achieve either died sooner had the year started or I lost interest in them. I tried to motivate myself but the more I did that, I found I was motivating myself into fantasy land – mere dreams that were shattered the moment I woke up from slumber.

Okay, I have just made up my mind and decided to go out on New Year’s Eve. I am going to hang with the boys – Doc, Paulo, Julius, Kayos, Oscar, PK, Anus and the rest at Monot till the wee hours of the morning. At midnight while everybody is shouting out the immortal words – happy new year, I will be cautious and reserved and probably reflect on the missed opportunities of 2013 and the zero in on the targets that I have set myself for the new year.

My target is to have my book – all my Sunday articles compiled into a book. It should have been out last year but to be honest I was not serious enough. I had two appointments with Fountain Publishers which, I never turned up to and I also didn’t follow up with a gracious offer from Daniel Ogong of Nile Breweries who really wanted to see that book come out.

And it’s not that I have to start from scratch. The material is already there and all that is needed is for it to be re-edited for the small mistakes.

But for the time being and with nothing to do until New Years eve, I am sitting in the Viking Lounge at Speke resort Munyono typing this coloum and trying to figure what to do with myself once I have finished.

Is 11:00am too early to have a beer? Most Ugandans would say yes it is, but all the visitors from round the globe who checked into the resort for the holidays are quaffing bottles of wine and champagne.

There is a couple from South Africa who have just ordered their third bottle of red wine that Akhilesh Malik, the deputy general manager of the resort is pampering them to the hilt so I too have ordered for a bottle of wine.

Am out of space, but just a quick thanks to my editors - Lucy, Ernest, Penny, Charles and especially my cartoonist Danny for making me look good every Sunday and to all you out there who devote your Sunday’s to reading my works – thanks so much. Have a great 2014. 

 

 

  

Happy Christmas!

Following on from last Sunday, my neighbour is still blaring out Christmas carols and this time, he has gone a step further – on the weekends, the carols blare out for the best part of the day.

The guys on the trucks who rush from kafunda to kafunda trying to get me to buy Christmas carol CDs still don’t know that, My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion is not a Christmas carol as is Do They Know Its Christmas by Band Aid. But they persist. They must have a short term memory span because they find me in the same kafunda on a daily arguing with Waitress who has bought me the wrong beer.

I am trying to be as religious as I possibly can during the run up to Christmas in three days time, but it’s a slog. Does attending numerous end-of-year office parties count? The ones I have so far been to have been all about quaffing endless supplies of beer and spirits. Ok, there were Christmas trees in the corner and Christmas lights strung all over the party venues so I guess, there was some religious aspect to them?

There are some Christians who claim to be more Christian than I am simply because they regularly go to church and they know a thing or two about the religious book - the bible that is. They tell me that Christmas day is about the celebration of the birth of Christ. But how can it be when no one really seems to know his exact birth date? Some religions believe that his birth was in October. Others say it was in April and some have it as being in December or January.

When I asked them if they could be exact, they were at a loss for words and mumbled something about the scriptures.

What they were adamant about, is that Jesus wants us to be ourselves and that he doesn't expect everyone to be perfect. Furthermore, he has given us the freedom of choice.

Yep, that I can live with, because I admit that I am not perfect in the religious or other departments.

However, I do know many people who claim to be squeaky clean Christians and yet some of their misdemeanours are far worse than mine. But I don’t berate them, like they berate me. Like I said, just because they can quote a verse or two from the bible they think they are ‘holier than thou’ and that the rest of us are ‘pagans’ who should not be celebrating Christmas but rounded up and burnt alive on stakes.

But get this you so-called Christians. I am going to spend the festive season having a blast. I am going to go to party after party and down as many beers as possible and fill my belly with finger bites.

One thing I will not be doing on Christmas day is going to church, because the last time I went, Priest asked me to leave a comfortable seat and go and sit on a hard bench that, was carved out of a Mabira forest mahogany tree back in the 50s because Cabinet Minister who likes to think of himself as being so holy and squeaky clean - yet he is not, had arrived late and had nowhere to sit.

And I thought that in church, god sees us as equals not so? Anyway, at least you know why I won’t be in church on Christmas Day and for those of you who do go, I kindly ask you to please put in a good word for me when you fall to your knees to pray. Otherwise, have a happy Christmas!

     

 

 

 

 

Christmas Carols With A Twist

My neighbour so it seems, has made his first Christmas investment. Not a couple of turkeys from a farm in deep Masaka, but a music system that has enough volume output to blow my ear drums. He also got a string of Christmas themed CDs and a friend who is looking over my shoulder as I type my column, has told me that they are not called ‘Christmas themed songs’ but ‘Christmas carols’.

Neighbour started playing Christmas carols at the end of November and if I am not mistaken, November is just a normal run-of-the mill month so why would he play Christmas carols?

Sometimes he starts as early as 8:00am rendering himself a nuisance. He usually kicks off with a Jimmy Katumba and the Ebonies song which, he stops halfway through and then repeats it. Next up is the Celine Dion song – My Heart Will Go On, but I don’t know what the song has to do with Christmas. Is it not a ‘death song’ in the movie, Titanic and was played as the character Jack, (Leonardo DiCaprio) was drowning? Anyway, Neighbour has made it one of his Christmas carols. After the ‘death song’, he follows up with numerous gospel songs for about an hour before he unleashes some Lingala and I had no idea that you could buy Lingala Christmas carols.

But Neighbour, is not the only person making a nuisance of himself. Since the start of December, it has been hard to concentrate – not just at work, but out shopping and especially while having a drink in a kafunda. 

You see, every ten to fifteen minutes, a truck will pass by and on the back of each truck are huge speakers blaring out distorted music and seeing it’s December, I assume it’s Christmas carols blaring out. Along with the loud and distorted carols, there is a nigga (as they like to call themselves) on each truck doing a sales pitch – screaming into the microphone while, an army of foot soldiers run amok, swarming the kafunda’s and trying to shove Jim Reeves CDs down our throats.

The carols were so loud that I presume Waitress did not hear what beer I asked for and brought me the wrong one though truth be told, she still would have bought the wrong beer even if the kafunda was as quiet as a hospital operating theatre and she had heard every word I said. Because that is what Waitress is supposed to do – to bring you the wrong order.

Foot Soldiers wanted me to buy “Do They Know Its Christmas” by Band Aid. In my worst Luganda and Foot Soldier, in his worst English, the conversation went along these staggered lines.

Foot Soldier: “Boss, this one is nice.”

TB: “No, it’s for the bafu (dead) who died in the Ethiopian famine of 1984.”

Foot Soldier: “Boss, eno nnyimba ya Ssekukulu.”

TB: “Yeah, nnyimba about the bafu in Ethiopia!”

As he walked off, above what I am sure was the carol, Silent Night, I hear Foot Soldier mutter to his colleague that: “Oyo, mukadde, tamanyi nnyimba za Ssekukulu (he is old, he has no idea about Christmas carols).

I shouted out my favoured word, that of tumbavu, but he didn’t hear me for, Silent Night was now at fever pitch and Waitress had served me yet another wrong beer.

With ten days to go to Christmas, how many Christmas carols will we have to endure at a fever pitch volume as we shop or have a drink? Will Neighbour have graduated from Jimmy Katumba and Celine Dion? Would Foot Soldier have finally worked out that, Do They know its Christmas, is not a carol but a song for the bafu?

But what the heck, it’s the Christmas season, the silly season where everybody takes leave of their senses.