Mombao snaps

Mes amis
On a chiller atop das boot
Little fishies as seen through the glass floor of the boat. That trip kinda freaked me out coz i seen all them shark movies and the black guy never makes it.

Got to busy pinting and nearly got swallowed up by the tide covering the sand bar in the ocean

ooops

Arrival in Nairobi


I am somewhere in the snaps. Lets see who will point me out (under no obligation to deny or confirm).

Might put up more if i can get my formerly trusty dell to stop acting up. This internet cafe business is taking to long.

Living it up in Mombasa 2

Mombasa’s south coast is a truly magnificent place to get away to and unwind. The fact that it is mostly rural means it is very peaceful, idyllic and beautiful.

On the way to the hotel we passed a few small hamlets and sleepy towns where nobody seemed to be in a hurry. These people must be used to shuttle buses filled with tourists, otherwise I do not see how, considering the near absence of vehicular traffic, a bus full of rowdy singing young fellows could be treated with such indifference.

We were booked into the Alliance hotel. Actually it is three hotels that share the same strip of coastline and are under the same management. The Alliance Jardini hotel and the Alliance Safari hotel are you typical modern hotels, but our hotel the Alliance Africana Sea Lodge was somewhat different. It was made up of (Bandas) Cottages that had a bit of a homely feel to them.

To say that the days went by to fast would be a bit of an understatement because either I was living it up ‘til the wee hours or I was dozing off during the plenary sessions. The activities organised ensured that there was no time to get bored.

The thing about such conferences is that you can be sure that the current host wants to outdo the previous one, and the Mombasans went all out. I had never had of an all night open bar for close to 1,000 people but that is exactly what I experienced on the welcoming night at the Neptune Paradise Hotel.

The taps flowed all night and the guests’ attempts to dry them were all but futile. Throw into the mix a Barcelona Vs Arsenal champions league final and you know that things were bound to get heated. This was the second time that I was watching a champion’s league final this far from home. Like the last time I wasn’t really bothered who would win, which is not what I can say about all the people around me. As it turned down the majority of chaps were on the losing side and the poor beer kegs had to pay for their foul moods. Suffice it to say that when the bus came to pick up those of us who were not staying at the Neptune, quite a number had lost all sense of coherence and balance.

There is something about people that makes them undergo major transformations when they are away from home. This I bring up for a number of reasons, the main one being that I noticed that a number of fellows who are ordinarily calm and reserved whilst in our sunny town had metamorphosed into drinking (admittedly only soft drinks like Smirnoff ice, tusker malt lager and white cap) skirt-chasing fellows. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that girlfriends and nosy prying workmates were not around. Or maybe it was all the nubile young females that took the proximity to the beach as an excuse to dress as skimpily as is legally allowed.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that there was an atmosphere of reckless abandon but I wouldn’t be far from the truth. It seems some chaps were on a mission to get laid as many times and with as many different people as possible. Soon some of us, whose ambitions did not go further than making lasting acquaintances with the barmen and the occasional late night skinny-dipping in the pool start to look out of place.

A word of advise my young unworldly friends (yeah right I hear you say). If ever in a situation where everything around you is appealing and you feel you want it all, calm the hell down and strategise properly. This one chap was laying on the lyrics to a girl one minute and talking to another girl the next. This left a number of less than amused lasses who fell for the charms of the more attentive hyenas lurking in the shadows. At the end of the evening Sir Wanderalot was left to nurse a pint while cursing his buddies for daring to busu (his words) him.

I did manage to make an interesting observation, a few of the Kampala ladies who ordinarily tend to treat me only slightly better than they would treat what the proverbial cat tends to drag around started saying hi more often and asking why I wasn’t playing water polo with them. Trust competition to bring on such a change. With all the hot-blooded young lads running after the equally hot-blooded Kenyan University students and trying to woo the hot Ethiopians, albeit with little success (Ethiopian guys can tight mark like a problem), some people were feeling decidedly ignored. Being the magnanimous chap, I decided to make their Mombasa sojourn more interesting (things are a bit awkward now that we are back home).

So it was always the same around the pool and the beach during the afternoon and around the pool and the hotel discothèque every evening. Friendships being made and strengthened, international goodwill and understanding being promoted and general merrymaking all over.

I know the “major” reason for attending was to conference, but a quick perusal of the programme told me that the beach was going to win out on the conference hall most of the time. The talk on stock options as a means of saving was immediately thrown out because I have nothing to save. I felt I could probably give a better talk on youth and sexuality so I passed. Public speaking I attended just to give time to housekeeping to do their job. I only attended the technical rotary stuff because somebody felt that as an incoming director I had to prepare some kind of report.

It’s a pity I never got to go back to the north coast to visit the town properly, but I cannot say I really regret it. There was more than enough to keep a brother busy in our little nook of paradise. There will always be next time and the having been bitten by the Mombasa bug. It won’t be long before I am back.

Living it up in Mombasa

I am still shaking the sand out of my ears while I try to get back into work mode after what I can only describe as a heck of a week in Kenya, specifically Mombasa. I thought I would give regular blog updates on my escapades but I soon realised the extortionist rates for internet accessat the resort I was in would not allow that. You will have to do with the "postmortem" version.

I had heard a lot about Mombasa and I could not wait to go check out the ocean for my first time. Me and my pals left this sunny city on Monday for Nairobi where we would hook up with our Kenyan pals before heading out east to Mombasa for the same conference. We boarded the early Akamba bus with some luggage and copious amounts of Uganda’s finest Waragi.

I hear someone asking what Waragi has to do with anything. We carried a lot of it along for three reasons.

First, anybody who has travelled between Kampala and Nairobi will attest to the fact that the journey is long (12-13 hours) and that it is hardly the smoothest after you cross the border (highways is one area we beat our neighbours in). To keep the journey short and interesting, one needs to sleep heavily and for those who are so inclined, what better way of doing this than downing a few sachets of UG. Beer is discouraged because of the pee breaks associated with it. Second, we always take our Kenyan friends some waragi every time we are over there. They dig the stuff. Third, we had the feeling that the resort we would be staying in was expensive and we didn’t have that much money with us. We thought that it would be a good idea to carry along our own stash for those days when things got tight. No we are not alchoholics, we just like getting high.

The journey went on smoothly until we got to the border and someone brought it to our attention that carrying around all that liquor might bring us trouble from customs officials (it was quite a lot) and that since sachets were banned in Kenya (something to do with their popularity among school kids), our boxes of Waragi sachets would be confiscated. We were not going to have any of this happen so we set about distributing the contraband among us and hiding the sachet boxes as far as possible. Nobody was stopped or questioned and we continued on to Nairobi.

We got to Nairobi just after and we quickly went with our hosts to freshen up and eat something. There was nothing much going on for me in Nairobi except a chance to visit the Maasai market on Tuesday and add to my large collection brass bangles, shell necklaces and leather sandals. We later converged in a bar called Hooters, which was the rendezvous point before heading on to Mombasa.

The shuttles arrived and we left Nairobi for Mombasa around midnight. For some reason I had always imagined that Nairobi and Mombasa were not that far from each other. So when I was told we had another 9 hours to travel my heart sunk a bit.

My apprehension was not misplaced because that journey was wrought with a number of problems. We had hardly moved for an hour before we got a puncture in the dead of the night, in the middle of nowhere. I knew we were gonners because we wouldbe ripe pickings for a bunch of highway robbers (think of it, young lads and lasses, many in various states of inebriation,with money in the pockets). Luckily a patrolcar came by and the cops stayed with us until the tyre was sorted out. 7 or so hours later we had another puncture that was much worse. It cost us 2 hours, a lot of sweat and our tempers. Our tempers, because out of the 24 people on the bus only 4 felt it necessary to give the lone driver some help in changing the tyre. The rest simply sat at a distance and played cards while enquiring every few minutes why it was taking long to get a simple puncture fixed.

All sweaty and tired we got to Mombasa.

I quickly got to learn that there are two very different Mombasas. One is Mombasa city on the north coast, which is mordern and ancient at the same time. The other is mombasa Island (south coast), which is mostly rural and awash with holiday resorts and beachfront apartments.

We crossed from north to south coast on the largest ferry I have ever seen, which was absolutely free.

I found it an amusing coincidence that having never travelled on water my whole life, I found myself on a ferry, crossing two very different water bodies, twice in exactly one month.

After travelling inland for about 30 minutes we got to the place that would keep us blissfully sequestered for the next 3 days. That though will be a story for some other day.

Mombasa-bound, hopefully.

I ought to be heading to Mombasa in a few days time if only the bossman can sign my leave application. When I brought up the subject of leave a few weeks ago he was OK with it but now he is being elusive. Since I have already paid for accomodation and everything, I am getting a bit jittery. I am going to attend this conference and for some reason my boss cannot understand why I am spending my money on something I am not "benefitting" from. He jokingly asks me to be honest and tell him the real reason.

I have been a Rotaractor for a while now and over time I have learnt that any gathering that involves large numbers of Rotaractors (and Rotarians) is anything but uninteresting. The camaraderie and interactions are reason enough to attend. There is also all the networking and making contacts, which cannot be a bad thing. But it is really the fun bit that makes these annual district conferences a must for me whenever I can attend.

Hopefully, I will soon be spending my evenings sipping on fuity cocktails and trying to explain to the others why Ugandans are all that, as I create some strong international bonds (hint, hint), somewhere on Mombasa's south coast instead of dodging boda boda's and playing cards with my housemate in the candlelight.

Where are the candles at?

With all this news about electrity tariffs going up by 37% and the fact that Umeme is in trouble I am forseeing some more darkness ahead. What is Uganda coming to? We are going to pay more for a commodity that we are getting less and less of.

When I first ranted about the power rationing, I thought that the suitation couldn't get any worse. Since then the blackouts have become more frequent and Umeme no longer has the courtesy to stick to the rationing programme it prints in the papers.

I guess we will have to buy more kerosene lamps and generators (for those with deeper pockets). But hold on. That won't really solve anything because fuel prices are shooting up so fast even kerosene might soon be too expensive to buy (considering its now going to be a necessity). I don't think that those generators that the government was thinking of installing to mitigate the effects of the power shortages are going to be answer after all.

Where does this leave those of us who cannot afford the the 1.2 milion for a basic inverter or the costs of solar panels (solar energy is so cheap, if only the initial setup wasn't so costly)?

I guess I should head on down to the shops and stock up on all the candles they have. Given the way things are going the government may soon want to raise the taxes on these too after it has realised that they are selling like crazy.

p.s. I can't keep going to the bar to avoid the darkness at home. Suggestions requested on possible activities to while away the dark hours.

ROCK ON

Recently Steakout (my favourite Friday hangout) introduced a Thursday rock night, which was a novel idea because Steakout is known mostly for Friday’s old school soul and the East African jams on its Utake Saturdays.

I hadn’t come round to checking it out because Thursday’s are not really good days to hang out (depleting the batteries for Friday and all that), but due to the incessant and random power cuts these days I decided that there was no point in going straight home to a dark flat in Bugolobi yet there was a rock night to check out in Steakout, which is pretty close to where I get paid to blog on company time.

I was sceptical about the kind of rock music I would find there because, in my opinion, rock and Steakout were as incompatible as raggaeton and intelligent lyrics. However, I was pleasantly surprised because the DJ went the distance and really played music that sent me back and forth from my days as a nascent rock fan to the stuff I spend idle Saturdays listening to.

The year was 1994. FM stations were less than a year old in Uganda and only 2 existed, Radio Sanyu and Capital Radio. The weekly American Top 40 show, hosted by Shadoe Stevens, made its debut on the airwaves and hence a teenaged Jay was introduced to rock music (alternative and soft rock specifically). Soon Shadoe show was replaced by Casey Kasem’s Top 40 which later competed with Rick Dees’ show for a while until Casey was dropped and Rick remained solo.

I was taken back to the days when I first bobbed my head to songs like Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Deep Blue Something), I only wanna be with you (Hootie and the Blowfish), Basket Case (Green day), What’s the frequency Kenneth (REM), Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana), Two Princes (Spin Doctors), Mrs Jones (Counting Crows) etc etc.

In ‘95 Capital Radio made its way to Mbarara where I was studying and by then me and my main man G had garnered enough clout in school to have a radio in dorm without being bothered by the authorities (I wonder is it still against the rules to have a radio in school). Finally we could listen to the Top 40 live, as opposed to listening to the same old shows recorded on tape everytime we came back to Kampala during the holidays.

Back then we were viewed as oddities because we listened to “weird music” when everyone else was listening to Montell Jordan’s This is how we do it, Soul for Reel’s Candy Rain or Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise. But while moving about on Thursday I saw that a lot had changed. More and more Kampalans are as familiar with Ngoni and Ragga Dee as they are with Nickleback, Coldplay and Matchbox 20. Rock lovers like myself are no longer oddities and thankfully it is becoming easier to access rock music regularly around town.

So for now I think I will be going home a little bit late on Thursdays after getting my fix of rock music.

‘Til next time. ROCK ON.

Balkanisation, Ugandan Style

Yesterday, I was trying to update my list of work contacts and when I came to the local governments section things became a bit tricky. I realised that I had just come round to adding districts like Amuria, Nakapiripit (very belatedly) to my address list and here I was faced with the task of looking for the contacts of many new districts most of which I was hearing of for the first time.

Sometime last year the government decided to increase the number of Uganda’s districts from 56 to 72. The parliament approved the increase to 69 and 3 other districts are awaiting approval.

The reasoning behind creating new districts from the larger ones made sense when it had just been started in the early 90s. The argument back then was that certain districts were very large and some of the subcounties in those districts that were furthest from the district headquarters were not receiving their share of resources due to their “remoteness” but now it has become a misused vote getting trick by the government and a weapon of blackmail for the electorate.

These days every time an election comes around the President promises somebody a district. Sometimes, as was the case in Tororo county last year, he was told not to bother seeking votes in the area if by election time they didn’t have a district of their own ( I forget what they called it).

It had come to a point where if you blinked you’d miss the creation of a new district. I have somehow managed to get a list of the districts and I am trying to place districts like Kabingo, Bukwa, Amolatar and Butaleja. None of them is on the maps yet and neither are they in the telephone directories.

Actually some will probably not appear in the directories for a while given the fact that telephone lines and thus fixed telephones are yet to make a debut on their soils. Some districts that have been in existence for years do not have telephones yet in their district headquarters. I was trying to set an appointment with the district leaders in Amuria sometime back and you have no idea what a hassle it was to get the mobile telephone number of the LC5 because it is the only means by which to contact him.

Many of these districts do not even have a half decent permanent structure to house the headquarters and other district offices. They are still being run from the offices of their mother districts.

Infrastructure problems aside, the creation of large villages and calling them districts has brought about some really petty quarrels. In Manafa, the people of Manjiya subcounty threatened not to be part of the district if Bududa subcounty was not declared the district headquarters instead of Bubulo (something to do the with the fact that the people of Bubulo always seem to get the good things). In retaliation one of the subcounties made its own letterheads because it could not have its official correspondence bear the address of another subcounty. Such petty quarrels plague almost all the new districts.

I will not even get into what each new district means in terms of costs. More district officials to be paid, more women parliamentarians to be overpaid etc.

To be fair, a district like Koboko (where I have been twice) stands a chance because it has had its own infrastructure (most of it privately built) for years. An amazing feat considering the entire town was razed to the ground and it was a ghost town for nearly 10 years following Amin's overthrow (Koboko was Amin's hometown). Koboko town is always abuzz with life and business to and from Sudan and Congo (Koboko is in the extreme northwest). The district is financially viable and it has promise. Ibanda had been a sub-district for over 20 years and should have been made a full district ages ago.

If this balkanisation goes on there will be a welcome to (insert district name) sign every 2 kilometers in the near future. We might soon have places like Bugolobi and Najjanankumbi districts.

For now, I guess every time I want to contact Kiruhura’s CAO (Chief Administrative Officer) I will call Mbarara and tell them to shout across the border and find out if the guy is in office.

Island Fun

I was in the Ssese Islands for part of the Easter weekend with a few Ugandan and Kenyan friends and I must say I should get out of Kampala more often. There was nothing that wasn’t fun about the whole trip.

I got to make my maiden voyage on a ship (actually its called a ferryboat but if it moves, sways and looks like a ship then its one) and contrary to what I thought would happen I didn’t throw up due to sea or is it lake sickness. The MV Kalangala left Nakiwogo in Entebbe at 2pm and we excepted to reach Ssese at 5pm. Initially I wasn’t looking forward to spending 3 hours on the lake but I got round to actually enjoying the experience. It helped that I was surrounded by about 20 friends so the engaging conversations and card games took my mind off the waters. In fact after the first hour it was quite festive in there, thanks largely to constant flow of beer from the bar and various other carry-on drinks and snacks from people.

After the ferry docked at Lutoboka pier in Ssese, we made our way to the Hornbill camp, which is right next to the pier.

The scenery at the camp took my breath away. There is a long semicircular beach that is shared by Hornbill and another camp and for a few seconds I thought I might be on some south pacific island until I looked around and saw the dense forests and water that was so still it couldn’t be ocean water.

I looked at the still water with both longing and trepidation. My “slight” fear of water means I have never quite learnt how to swim. I can get around but panic sets in every time the water gets shoulder high or I feel my feet are not touching any terra firma. That’s why I resisted the temptation to dive right in and instead opted to first check out the sleeping arrangements.

Most of us had opted to camp in tents (others preferred cottages) and those of us who had booked earlier found our tents ready. However, there was a mad rush for single tents (as opposed to the larger compartmentalised ones) by those whose plans for the evening involved getting cozy with somebody else in the tent as opposed to singing dirty rugby songs at the campfire. Personally I didn’t care where I crashed because I didn’t intend to do much sleeping and because I knew from an earlier experience that the campfires are the place to be.

Everything from there on was just a blast. I got to play some water games, tour the beach and generally make merry. I had a buffet supper that was quite nice and after that the night and early morning were full of singing, dancing and getting nicely juiced around the campfire.

I went to bed at some point but it can’t have been long because before long I was being woken up to go and have breakfast before boarding the 8 am ferryboat back to the mainland.

I did manage to make it to the ferry in good time and when I looked around I realised many people were paying the price for a good night. Major General Katumba Wamala was on the same boat and I remember him smiling bemusedly at our group of party-scarred people.

Sseese was quite the experience and I intend to go again, but this time I will be getting cosy with someone and there will be no all night campfire parties.

P.S would have liked to post some pics of the beach but somehow each has an individual in it and I wouldn't like to put people up on the net in their skimpies without prior consent. For the campfire, there are reputations to be protected. I dont know who reads this.

Muganda Man buying lingerie

I got this clip of a muganda man ordering sexy lingerie for his wife and I thought it was quite hilarious. I hope you guys do too. If its not clear try here

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Anything for the Visa

I am always amazed at the number of young Ugandans who would do virtually anything to go and live abroad (Europe and USA being the preferred destinations). Some people spend every waking moment planning how to acquire that precious visa at the expense of doing things that would benefit their lives in Uganda at present.

I got thinking about this recently when I bumped in a young lady I studied with at University. After exchanging the usual greetings we got to talking about what some of the people we studied with were doing and it turned out that quite a number had since left the country. What really struck me though, was how this lady went on and on about how bad luck seems to foil all her attempts to get abroad.

Apparently my friend has never bothered to get any meaningful employment, outside one or two research assistant jobs, in the four years since graduation. Initially she was waiting on her brother in the states to “hook her up” with a pass to the states. The brother wasn’t able to help despite his constant promises of “working on the things”, which was hardly surprising considering he was an illegal alien. After giving up on her brother she has since attempted, unsuccessfully, to obtain UK and US visas at least five times. In the process she has spent millions in dealing with crooked “travel consultants” (racketeers and scammers are more suitable names), visa fees, acquiring bank statements etc.

If my friend was a down-on-luck, unemployed and uneducated girl from the village I would probably understand her actions. But she is not. She has a university degree and if she can marshal 1 million shillings to pay a travel consultant for a visa every time she wants to travel (when will these people learn), she can get money to get her started in something.

She is not the only one. Because of the nature of the work I do, people are always asking me how I can help them get scholarships for short courses abroad or which conferences I can get them registered for. Many of these people are only looking at the course or conference as a ticket to the “greener pastures” offered in these countries.

I will be the first to concede that life in Uganda can be pretty difficult sometimes and that everyone has the right to pursue whatever they think will make them happy and prosperous. However, what makes me want to weep is that Uganda is losing out on many young people who cannot look around them and see that opportunities are here too. Many have delusions of a life of glamour and quick riches in the lands yonder.

Utter madness is when a young widow stakes her land title, sells all her property, sends the kids to granny and “invests” all her money in obtaining a visa. She gets rejected, she can’t get back her money and in the end she decides to take her own life. Why, Why, Why.

I think a very serious change in the mindset is required.

Up in Smoke

Recently BAT Uganda introduced the Dunhill brand of cigarettes to the Ugandan market. The launch was a festive and colourful one at Speke Resort Munyonyo. Personally I hope the brand does not gain any popularity, but probably not for the reasons you think.

I am pissed off that they have the audacity to introduce other brands to Uganda after shafting us and closing down the manufacturing plant in Jinja. They send all the employment to Kenya and they still want our dimes.

You might wonder why I am not going on about the grand conspiracy to have tobacco kill off the African through increased cigarette production in Africa after deep slumps in sales in other parts of the world. Or how cigarette smoking is bad for the health etc.

First, I won’t be telling anybody anything new. Second, seeing how I have been smoking for 11years it wouldn’t seat right with me. So I am looking at this purely as a smoker and a pissed off Ugandan one at that.

For all its sins BAT Uganda (BATU) was until last year putting a paycheck in the hands of hundreds of Ugandans employed at its cigarette manufacturing plant In Jinja. They were also paying the Uganda Revenue Authority a hefty paycheck after selling said cigarettes. But last year they did some restructuring and shut down the Jinja plant and decided that it made better economic sense to produce all the cigarettes for the Ugandan market in Kenya (all that is left here is a leaf processing plant and administrators). Obviously many jobs were lost and the shillings paid to the national coffers are less . BATU’s net loss was 6.94 billion shillings ($3.86 million) mainly attributed the loss to restructuring costs resulting from the closure of its Jinja plant.

My excuses are dwindling. I used to tell myself that by smoking I was doing my bit in keeping a tobacco farmer in Arua, or a factory worker in Jinja, happy. Taking one for the team, so to speak.

Besides young Ugandans smoke to much already and they are starting younger. We do not need any more temptations for those impressionable wannabes. I am waiting to see what coolness they will associate Dunhill with.I can already see the yuppies displaying their shiny Dunhill packets at counters from SteakOut to Silk Royale.

Yes, I know that my REX brand is produced in Kenya. I still can't help thinking of it as a Ugandan cigarette. If I must smoke imported tobacco at least let it be something historically associated with Uganda.

What? I am not making sense? You are probably right. I am in a very “Jay state of mind” right now. Just that there is no forum for Ugandan smokers to rant in.

Ministry of Health Warning- Cigarette Smoking can be harmful to your health

Onyo la wizara ya afya - Uvutaji wa sigara waweza kudhuru afya yako.

Just checking if this test video post works. I plan to send Jay's Eye View to another level.

I once was told that the messier the desk, the busier the person (hint, hint).

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Diplomatic Adultery/Espionage

The ongoing saga of the Rwandan diplomat who was caught in flagrante with a married woman in an Entebbe hotel is just the latest in a series of events that convince me that somebody in the machines is not happy unless we are having issues with Rwanda.

The whole incident has the hallmarks of a frame-up. A very unimaginative frame-up, but one nonetheless. Who ever heard of a diplomat being arrested by police for adultery. Whether or not he was sleeping with the woman is immaterial (according to this, he wasn't). It is the treatment he received after arrest that leaves me thinking the whole ordeal was meant to embarass the young chap. He was detained for almost 4 hours after clearly invoking his diplomatic immunity.

My suspiscions are all but confirmed when the adultery story is closely followed by an inside story of- surprise, surprise-espionage accusations. Obviously the government wanted him out of Uganda and the adultery bust was the way they figured they would achieve this.

Now before I get accused of being in cahoots with foreign spies let me say this. There are many ways he could have been sent home through diplomatic channels because God knows there have been other Rwandan diplomats before him who have been summarily expelled. The whole adultery angle is what gets to me. It seems the diplomat (and by extension Rwanda) also had to be embarassed in the process.

What amuses me is that it is widely acknowledged that diplomatic missions and espionage go together like well salted crisps and a cold lager. Actually wikipedia, under diplomatic immunity, says "The espionage conducted by embassies is actually more a custom than a violation of diplomatic immunity, as it is continuously carried out by all major world powers". I assume therefore that all diplomats are acknowledged as potential spies and are always being watched to make sure they do not get any really important secrets.

I wonder what retaliation our southern brothers are going to carry out. This see-saw game of accusing diplomats of espionage has to go on. Rwanda has been tagged and they have to do something. I wonder when all sides will get tired of the games and decide to go native on each other (this time across each other's borders, not in hapless Congo's backyard). All the provocatory moves are about to be played out.

p.s. WTF is adultery still doing in our penal code.

A village burial

I spent most of yesterday in rural Bushenyi. Actually I spent most of he day travelling to and from Bushenyi (680km round trip). The purpose of the visit was to attend the burial of a distant relative. This was after heavy doses of emotional blackmail from my mum, which involved her telling me how important it was to always attend burials as a show of solidarity and how keeping aloof would result in nobody caring about me when I died. The part about solidarity I got 100% but the part about nobody coming for my burial just beat me. I wouldn’t care less who came for my burial because I will be dead.

Yesterday’s experience gave me an interesting insight into village burials. I have been to maybe 3 burials my whole life and I have always, with the exception of my old man’s eons ago, been no more than a distant observer at these functions.

First, the burial was like a major social event that brought all the people out in their good clothes, although the old lady we were burying was not a major community figure from what I could gather. The villagers came streaming in at around 1pm because it seems that there is some unwritten law that says all burials should start at 2pm.

People were then called for lunch and I started getting the feeling that the punctuality had more to do with the free meal than with time consciousness. In true village spirit, everybody was invited to lunch, even some chaps who struck me as just being curious onlookers.

During lunch I was surprised by the quantities these chaps can put down. I was passed a plate and at first I assumed they had served for 3 people due to lack of plates until I saw everybody around get served with similar heaps. I got the lady serving to give a smaller amount, which she did begrudgingly because she didn’t believe me when I said I had been given too much food (she probably thought I was passing a negative judgement on her culinary skills).

After everybody was sufficiently stuffed with a high carbohydrate lunch, the main business began. The old lady had to be laid to rest after a “few” speeches. This is where things got pretty interesting. It seemed to me that everyone was going to give a short speech. There was the widower, the kids, a brother, a sister, the LC chairman, the head of some village women’s burial cooperative (whose role I couldn’t quite get) and finally the two clergymen (our family is protestant and the old lady had been married to a catholic).

Most of the speeches were short and full of the expected pleasantries but some were not. One of the dearly departed’s siblings gave a speech about how she had taken care of the old lady until her dying day. The other siblings felt that they were being made to look like they had neglected the late sister and they let their displeasure be known. The clergymen also just couldn’t help the urge to participate in a subtle game of one-upmanship- continuously throwing barbs at the “other” group.

Even that ended and the coffin had to be lowered. I figured this would be quite routine and we would soon be on our way. But it was not to be. After the prayers and the hymns had been sung and the coffin was about to be lowered some elderly man said that the head of the coffin was facing the wrong way. A spontaneous and lively debate started over where the head of the coffin should face. Half the mourners soon entered the fray and I kept hoping nobody would throw a punch. The elder lost the debate and the coffin was lowered into the grave as earlier intended. The soil was poured over the coffin and that was that.

Something struck me about the whole experience. I wonder if all the villagers are schooled in what hymns to sing at burials or has everybody attended so many burials that they have all memorised the hymns. Every time the reverend started a song, everybody quickly stepped in to sing along.

We soon made a hasty exit after promising to come by again under more cheerful circumstances.

Some links

I have added a few more blogs to my Ugandan bloggers links section. Check them out.

Jay's Eye View-Part Trois. Green Kampala

Happened to be somewhere with my camera and thought i'd take a few snaps.

The primary school I went to is somewhere in one of the snaps. Which school is that?

A kampalan in Nairobi: The Re-run

I was going through my old posts and I thought I would rerun my maiden post. It is not entirely because I have nothing better to post. I just thought I would share my experience again since none of you was reading this third rate blog at the time.

This is just a once off. I promise not to make reruns a habit.

A Kampalan in Nairobi
The cold, chilly Nairobi dawn air greeted me as I stepped off the bus on my maiden voyage to this city I had heard so much about. I looked around as the city woke up for a new day and I wondered how the next four days would play themselves out. I was in town with some Ugandans to attend a conference but enjoying the evening life was way up on my priorities list.

Everything started off quite well with cocktail party at The Hilton Hotel on the evening of my arrival. I rubbed shoulders with some of the region’s most loaded people and after an evening of mingling and engaging conversations I felt rich by association (or was it the tusker beer giving me ideas?).

However, since these loaded people became loaded by sleeping early, the cocktail ended while the night was young and that all-important Liverpool-AC Milan champions league final was pending so I had to hit a real bar. Luckily some of my hosts were thinking likewise and decide to take me and some other Ugandans to a pub called Tropeez. At Tropeez I guzzled draught Tusker by the pitchers and generally had fun-until the match began.

I am not a traditional Liverpool supporter but I have always had a soft spot for that team. So when the match appeared like it was turning into a one-sided goal-fest I decided that I was not going to risk the wrath of Nairobi’s thugs (and cops who I had been told could be as nasty as the thugs) by moving to the hotel late after losing a match. I quickly sped off to my hotel after the first half, not because I expected much out of the match but because I wanted to chill closer to “home”. I had hardly settled before I started witnessing one of the most amazing comebacks in football history.

The euphoria was only marred by the barman refusing to keep the pints flowing after 11pm. I had to beg his pardon because he was not making any sense to me since this was only 3 or 4 minutes past the hour. The man was adamant and said his licence would be revoked if he sold me anything (apparently there were some city council spies around masquerading as customers). No beer past 11pm, how do these people survive?

I later learnt that there were different licences for different establishments, which dictated how long one could sell alcohol because before long I would be leaving the club straight for the bus as the sun crept up. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The following evening, we visitors were hosted to a dinner at Carnivore. I had heard so much about this place and its exotic roast meat and that I could not wait to partake of what it had to offer. Suffice it to say I did not turn down anything, beef, lamb, ostrich, crocodile, camel- the works. I was also enjoying the share of the Ugandan chick next to me. She said she could not eat that "weird" meat (chicks...hmm, never to adventure).

After the dinner and speeches we were told to board the official bus back to the hotel. Our Kenyan friends had told us that that there was a wicked disco on the premises, which we had not seen since we had been in tents outside. A few like-minded Ugandans and myself decided to let the bus go and chose find our own way home.

First, a crucial point. Two words every linguistically impaired (Swahili-wise, that is) Ugandan beer lover visiting Nairobi has to learn are baridi (cold) and moto (warm/hot). Because I had earlier been taking draught, which was by default cold, I had not realised that the Kenyans actually liked their beer warm. While in Uganda the warm beer is the exception, back in Nairobi one has to specifically ask for baridi.

Anyway, being a Thursday, the disco was not happening so we were relocated to another place called Choices (or choi as those chaps called it). The place is a cross between Fat Boyz and Al's bar; therefore it was happening. After a while in the place, our hosts got tired andthey had to leave us on the dance floor after we assured them that we would be fine as long as we knew the fare for a cab back to the hotel.

Every thing went on fine until some drunk fellow nearly started a fight with us. Probably he was not amused by the fact that the foreigners were outdancing everybody and drinking the bar dry. The issue was sorted before any bottles flew and we saw this as a warning to flee the scene.

With heavy heads, me and my pals woke up to another day whose evening highlight was a home hospitality. Our hosts were some lovely ladies who hosted us to a night of Kenyan cuisine and some fun and games. The githeri, kachumbari and most of the other food was superb except for some mixture of fermented milk and mashed vegetables-that would take some getting used to.

We later ended up in a club called Casablanca, which was full of white, Indian and Arab guys. I felt that this was the place to be and was all geared up to have a blast until I realised from the bill that a beer was 200Kshs, which did not bother me (I might have still been high on that bubbly, hot and flavoured Morrocan steam pipe I had just smoked) until some quick arithmetic told me I was drinking a beer at Ushs 4,600. I then realised two things: why there were hardly any locals in the bar and why I had to get the hell out very fast.

A few calls later, the guys and me were being driven to Klub House 2 (K2), which is a much larger version of Wagadugu in Kamwokya. This was my kind of place. Here was cheap beer, music and pool. The party went on until the very wee hours of the morning of our last day in Nairobi.

By the last day, the body was weak and I felt I could not push it any more. Thankfully the conference closed at mid-day, which left me a few hours to chill before the banquet later in the evening after which I thought I would have my first full night’s sleep since hitting this town.The banquet was a tame affair at the Stanley Hotel, which I later discovered is the oldest hotel in East Africa (103 years old). Being a 5-star hotel one had to be wary about how one dealt with the cash bar. We had been told that the hotel had given a discount and beers would be Kshs150 (UShs3500) as opposed to the usual Kshs200 (prices like this made me rethink my opinion on Rhino Pub). I had to be easy on the beers, which was made hard by the waiters ever hovering above my head asking if I needed a refill (as if they were the ones buying the beer).

As soon as the banquet ended the Kenyans were suggesting a proper send-off at Florida 2000 nightclub. All the plans for an early night immediately disappeared. Since we were all leaving on the same bus early the next morning my Ugandan chaps and I reasoned that we would hang out in the club until late, head straight for the hotel, shower and board the bus.

Having sorted that out, we hit the club. We shook, watched dancers that would have made the former Shadow’s Angel’s appear as tame as Sunday school kids, and generally made merry until the sun was about to come up.

As I settled my sleep deprived body in the bus I could not help thinking how much of a blast I had had. I promised myself to come back next time and get to see what the city looks like outside the bars and nightclubs. I was also feeling a conspicuous lightness in my wallet. But that would be a worry for another day. Right then all I wanted to do was sleep for all the 13 hours to Kampala.

Confessions of a lapsed blogger

Forgive me blog friends for I have sinned. It has been many days since my last post. I accuse myself of suffering from not being interested in anything strongly enough to want to write about it.

I have been suffering a mental blockage for a while now and I have been incapable of thinking straight for more than a few seconds at a time. My brain seems to sever the connection it has with my fingers everytime I get close to a keyboard.


My batteries are being recharged for a comeback.

Now guys you can proceed and do whatever it is the priest does at this point in a real confession booth.

Absolve a brother.

Upgrades. Bloody Upgrades

I have only barely gotten over the inconvenience of the additional “2” that all mobile phone companies told us to add to our usual 071, 077 and 075 numbers (having to edit every number in the phonebook was not the most enjoyable of tasks) and now I have to suffer with another upgrade at Nile Bank.

Nile bank decided to change all the PIN numbers in use by all ATM cardholders recently. All customers were told to go to their various branches and apply for their new PINs because the old Pin numbers were to become ineffective after 25 February. To effect this change all the bank’s branches (ATM machines included) were closed from Wednesday 22-Saturday 25.

Everybody assumed that the Pin code change was to be easy. Present your name account and card number and there would be a new PIN code waiting. The reality has turned begin out to be totally different.

To begin with, all new PINs are being issued at the main branch on Spear House and the they only started issuing them today yet they have been collecting and turning down applications for nearly two weeks.

I had to stand in line for 3 hours to get my new Pin number after which I stood in line at the ATM for close to 30 minutes. Like myself, everybody must have woken up with the nearest ATM on their minds. Anyway when I get to the ATM I find the same measly minimum balance I had left on Tuesday evening. My money hadn’t been posted because the banks were closed. An right now I am checking on the Online machines in the city centre via their website and they are only four of the furthest from my current location.

Everyone else started the Monday in high spirits, because the ATM checks had produced good news, except yours truly who had the bad luck of being a Nile Bank Customer.

Makes me want to kick something.

5 more years of M7

I am settling down to the first week of Musevni’s next five years as president. I can’t say I was surprised by the presidential election results but I am still disappointed by the results of the parliamentary elections. The opposition MPs are less than they were previously.

This means the next parliament will be full of the people ready to accept anything Museveni asks them to. The only difference is that now, under the multiparty system, it will be called the party line.

I only hope the great drop in overall support for the movement will act as a wake-up call to Museveni. There might a certain number of people he can always count on for votes but its getting smaller. 40% of the electorate do not feel Museveni and thats telling.

Thats done and we must all move on. Back to everyday problems and hopefully more meaningful involvement in trying to change the status quo if we find it not to our liking instead of only crying ourselves hoarse in the weeks running up to, and just after, the elections.

Time to seat back and listen to The Best of Seal:1991-2004 (currently listening to Fly like an Eagle).

Later y'all. No more politics for a while.