The womb is an eternal battle ground for us women. You start off growing quite peacefully in a womb, unless of course you are twins, triplets or even quadruplets – then it is not so peaceful. Then you grow too big for the space and are pushed, yanked or sliced out into a cold and forbidding germ-filled world. For too many women (because even one is one too many), the battle of labour produces another prolonged and often unwinnable war; that of fistula. Newspaper reports in the past week quoted increasing figures for the number of women who suffer this debilitating complication. There was, at least, a ray of hope for those who had been repaired.

If you survive the womb and exit successfully, you should grow into a young, hopefully healthy and whole girl. At some point, the womb will shock you with periods, ranging in scale from 3 days of mild discomfort, to 2 weeks of searing pain ripping through your uterine wall. While you are figuring out how to live with a womb that peels monthly, remember that if you live in Jinja or Iganga, according to reports from yet another newspaper, chances are high that you will be molested before you hit 18. Worse still, you could become a victim of child sex tourism by paedophiles such as the infamous one awaiting revision of his charges. To have your womb tampered with as a child is a full scale nuclear war that could end in infertility, fistula, premature pregnancy, or even death.

If you come through a normal childhood into adulthood, then you collect a license to legally use your womb at about 18. However, it is usually a couple more years before other factors line up and allow you to use it optimally. At 18 you are probably still in school, have no money to raise a child, no understanding of what you want in a life partner and no desire to be shackled with the responsibility of a child. And so you get on with the business of school, employment and discovering yourself.

A lot of women will discover themselves in their early 20s, seeing as we supposedly mature faster, and they will be ready to move on to the next step. Enter love, marriage and baby carriages, hopefully followed by safe deliveries and healthy babies. After that, you wait for menopause, and hope it does not bring with it the war of the fibroids. On the other hand, late bloomers will spend a longer time discovering themselves well into their thirties. At which point a different battle of the womb commences: the lingering worry that you will not utilise it in time. Before I was found, dusted off and taken lovingly from the shelf, I harboured some concerns to do with ticking biological clocks, rustiness or malfunction from lying idle. I thought getting legal and official permission to procreate before God and man would ease the mental womb battle. I was mistaken.

Not only have I had to relinquish my name (everyone calls me mugole), I have also relinquished my right to be sick. Every flu, sneeze, indigestion, toothache, overeating and roll of the eyes is treated as a harbinger of an occupied womb. Last week I had a horrible flu, cough and fever. However, when I added nausea to the list and announced my pain, everyone beamed brightly. At first I could not understand why I was not getting any sympathy. Whenever Hubby attempted to explain that he was staying home to look after me, he got asked how far along I was. So now I must fight the battle against the womb to have my real sickness taken seriously. As it is, I have something like SARS mixed with typhoid, and thankfully I am getting treatment.

In the midst of all this, it seems President Obama is looking for political points by attempting to start up a battle on the womb with his proclamations on same sex marriages. Lord knows He loves us all, hetero or homo; but the complications of who uses whose womb as an incubator and who plants what there and whether it really belongs to the two of you become apparent when you decide to wed two daddies and two mommies.

In the meantime, I am politely requesting the world to back away from my womb. There is nothing going on in there but the occasional bout of lactose-induced gas. However, should there be a twin battle (because I intend to shed ‘mugole’ for ‘Nnalongo’ at some point) you will know soon enough. That battle can only grow outward, and then you will need to step back and give me some room to pass!

Published on Sunday May 13, 2012

Disagreements and subsequent arguments will occur in the course of life. Everyone will not agree on everything all the time, and we have brains so that we can process information and have personal opinions. Arguments (not fights or quarrels) should be a good thing, because information is being shared and modified and people are putting across new ideas. However, how one approaches arguments may present a bigger problem.

There are those who have their one favourite point, which they pull out to facilitate every single argument. For instance, there are people stuck in the notion that their problems are caused by people from Ankole who are ‘eating things’. You cannot discuss anything with such a person without them trying to insert this idea. Should you disagree, or be winning the argument, then they will conclude that you are also ‘eating things’. Just because this conclusion worked 10 years ago, does not mean that it works now. We must be willing to accept that society is dynamic and often, more than one factor contributes to a problem.

The second category of people generally cannot handle disagreements because they view a difference of opinion as a personal attack. Therefore they respond in kind. When they are backed into a corner or get heated up a bit, they resort to attacking the person they are arguing with, throwing around insults and generally being hostile. So a discussion on the benefits of oil to Uganda will become a shouting match about who doesn’t have a brain to think and who gets a higher salary or has an ugly girlfriend.

Sometimes you have two parties arguing for no reason; ie, they are in different seats of the same bus. There are people who are in total agreement but they are saying the same thing in different ways. However, they both want the other person to change their language and make it sound exactly the same.

Then there is the type of person who uses an authoritative advantage to enforce their opinion, no matter what. Like the boss who calls an office meeting simply to endorse what he has already decided to do. You waste your time with your power point presentations and your notes explaining how energy saving motion sensor bulbs will save the company money, and then after everyone is convinced, boss gives some flimsy argument and opts for the million-megawatt floodlights anyway. Such a person is either simply corrupt (ie, has been given a cut by the floodlight people so whatever you say, he is not listening) or deluded (ie, has been hearing the sound of his own voice for so long that if he has a dream, he imagines it is a divine vision).

Once in a while, you’ll also have people who have no idea what the argument is about, but they decide to jump in anyway. I much prefer these ones to the ones who are unable to concede a loss, and bring up the same points all over again, expecting the results to be different.

In primary school we flirted briefly with the idea of debate (which is really just organised arguing). We held debates on the same old themes: teacher vs doctor, arts vs sciences, farmer vs businessman, blah blah blah. I think where our education system fails us is in turning debate into an optional club in high school and completely ignoring it at university level.

As a result, we have a nation that cannot generally articulate its issues. Bimeeza were a great outlet for people to blow off steam and say bad things about people they could never insult face-to-face. However, the actual quality of debate was low. Even radio and television talk shows and discussion panels generally host a few good minds that tend to beat the lesser ones into submission week after week. Watching some programmes is like watching two year olds argue about whose daddy has a bigger car.

It would be a fiasco to ask many of our politicians to a live, televised debate on actual issues. And by actual issues, I mean what they intend to do for the country and how they intend to do it, with pros and cons included. You will have the one trick pony stuck on speeches blaming the current government; you will have personal attacks and even candidates with no idea about certain issues. Until we can make our intended leaders speak with their brains through their mouths, rather than with their wallets through kilos of sugar, we will generally keep getting people who go to Parliament to compare holey socks, fart and dose and get photographed doing the paka chini with the Right Honourable Speaker at the end of year party. Come time for coherent arguments, they are worse than the two year olds.

Published on Sunday  May 6, 2012

The last time Oliver Mtukudzi was in town I had the privilege of attending the concert. Tuku is a fantastic and energetic performer and we were mightily entertained. There was also a sideshow off the stage that kept us highly amused during the breaks. A pair of saggy-pants-wearing boys sneaked into the concert towards the end with a pair of equally clueless girls I suppose they were trying to impress.

It was obvious they had no idea who Tuku was (one of the girls asked as much) and they had no desire whatsoever to listen to his ‘music for old people’. While the rest of us were on our feet to dance to the more popular tunes, they were sitting there, practically yawning. Obviously these young men had miscalculated – fluking a concert at the Serena was not turning out to be the dream date. In an attempt to salvage the situation, one of the lads hailed a passing waiter to order beer. He was asked to order with cash. How much, he enquired, pulling out his ka little boy wallet, bambi. Six thousand shillings, he was informed. The look on his face was priceless. Hubby and I were almost falling off our chairs trying not to laugh.

The girls proceeded to do what all silly girls do when they are trying to impress the little boys who have taken them to the Serena – they ordered anything but the basic beer. I think one of them was even trying for a glass of wine.  The little boy wallets were obviously not happy, since we noted that the owners ended up drinking a Krest Bitter Lemon. When I was their age, 10,000 shillings bought the full chips and chicken plus a drink and taxi fare home. It definitely cannot get you drinks for 4 people at an Oliver Mtukudzi concert at the Serena, even though you managed to dodge paying the entry fee.

Therefore Hubby suggested that we offer some help to the young folk out there on how to stretch the pennies on a date. Our first date was a picnic, total cost sh23,000 inclusive of food, privacy and amazing scenery. I won’t tell you where because we’d like to maintain the privacy. No transport is required because a romantic evening stroll back is part of the date. We made sandwiches and a salad together and bought a pack of masaala chips and a pair of Fantas. It was fantastic.

Buy dvds. Aside from all the jokes about romantic comedies for women and action flicks for guys, watching movies together can be fun. We’ve done that too with a pack of microwave butter popcorn (sh2,000) and five dvds from Wandegeya (sh5,000). Total cost sh7,000 for an entire evening of entertainment. Alternatively, you could spend that evening cooking. I knew he was a keeper when he invited me over to his house to cook for me. Tomatoes, onions, and other ingredients for a meal for two people cannot possibly go over sh25,000. And we found out a lot about each other from what and how we ate.

If you are the kind of person who wants to gatecrash Tuku, then why not attend a poetry recital? There are more and more happening in Kampala at Isha’s Hidden Treasure in Kamwokya, or Jazzville in Bugolobi, for example. You can see and be seen and pretend to know all about these artsy things. If you want to impress her with your ability to hobnob with bazungu, then look around for a flea market. They happen at the American Recreation Association club in Makindye and one or two other places in the general Gaba road area. Again, you do not have to spend money. You can loiter the whole market and then buy her one book or one bracelet for sh5,000 to sh10,000 and you will be the hero who has taken her to places she has never been.

In the wonderful town of Jinja, there is a place you can rent a bicycle for a day for less than the cost of take-away. You can ride to the picnic site – or wherever. And if she does not know how to ride a bicycle, then more points for you if you teach her. There are places where you can volunteer, mostly to help orphans, but in our day you could even find yourself building a house with Habitat for Humanity. The unusual things are what will make you memorable – not the run-of-the-mill disco/booze/porky thing.

Next weekend, Hubby and I will be going on another cheap date (sh1,000 to sh10,000) at the regional Bayimba Festival – they will be in Jinja for 2 days. It is something we can take our son to and I am certain it will be as much fun as all our other non-conventional dates. Let those who have ears to hear, hear.

Published on Sunday April 29, 2012

There are three basic things which I believe many Ugandans take for granted. The first is ownership of a bit of land. It may not be a big piece, and it may be communally owned, but the average Ugandan is born with the right to dig and be buried on a bit of land in his native community. The second thing we take for granted is living in a country where, for the most part, whatever you put into the soil will grow. Mangoes, avocadoes – if I throw a couple of withered beans out of the pile destined for the pot, I will probably find them sprouting outside my kitchen window.

The third thing we take for granted, to varying degrees, is having relatives who will take us in or pick up our slack. Relatives who will be there for our children should we pass on, who will employ us and stand surety for us. With the cost of living these days, though, it is getting harder to expect relatives to stand in the gap. The one thing, however, that is conspicuously missing from this ‘relative’ equation is a desire to work for these relatives. It is okay to give them your children, bring them your school fees bankslips and get the occasional soft loan, but the widespread cry of Ugandans is that they cannot find reliable or trustworthy relatives to work with.

These three gifts of being Ugandan that we take for granted invariably make a lot of us lazy. I have foreign friends who are amazed that they can put a seed in the ground, minus fertiliser, and watch it grow. They are equally perplexed that native Ugandans prefer to tarmac and cement their compounds, rather than have a vegetable garden. It is against this background of blessing and resultant laziness that I was arguing with my husband as to whether Ugandans truly needed more ‘free’ things to be added unto them. Things like free hospitals and free education.

Hubby reminded me that these things were not a gift of government to the people, but, rather, a responsibility. He told me of a time when dinosaurs still walked the earth; a time when you went to your regional hospital and if they failed to handle your case, they gave you a free bus warrant and a letter to go to Mulago Hospital in Kampala. In those misty, ancient and forgotten times, every region had a government or missionary-run school of excellence. Busoga College Mwiri (this is first alphabetically, not by favouritism), King’s College Budo, Teso College, St. Leo’s, etc. You went to your area primary school and learnt to count and read in your own language, but you had the big excellent schools to aspire to.

Fast forward to the time of Internet and sausages for all, and I am almost ashamed to be associated with the UPE version of my former primary school. It has turned from a place where we learnt piano and Scottish dances to tunes from a gramophone (because we had time for leisure activities even after learning to count, read and write) to a place where children leave at dusk and walk home arguing loudly about rubbish in vernacular. So is it a matter of large numbers and poor pay? I have seen UPE products now in secondary school who can neither count nor answer basic questions about themselves. Have they spent time in school? Yes. Are they educated? Most certainly not. When is quantity ever more important than quality? Perhaps it is a lesser evil to withhold certain things than to give a substandard version of them.

This substandard version of free things is motivated by immature politics, rather than the need to provide a meaningful social service. The examples abound because the after effects are evident. I will go with the issues that affect me personally. What good is it to take a ranch away from its owner, break it up and give it to people who subsequently proceed to grow maize and beans? Yes, we need maize and beans, but not in an area infinitely suited to ranching. A subsistence farmer is never ever going to be a rancher. He is, however, going to be a nuisance to people keeping cattle in the area, because every time cows nibble at his maize plants, he will demand compensation. But what is a maize farmer doing in the middle of a designated ranching area in the first place?

Those of us unfortunate enough to have pursued degrees before we realised the money was in farming are now rushing to the villages to grow beans and sugarcane, keep pigs and sell eggs. However, there are no people willing to work on our new farms, because the prospective workers have got some UPE and have moved to town since they are now very too much edumacated for village please. There has to be some point at which the politics and the social bailouts meet to produce a meaningful result. You can do your duty with quality if you get your priorities right – and it will make for very good politics, too.

Published on Sunday April 22, 2012

I am annoyed with myself because I kept forgetting to share something over the past 3 weeks – and now I have lost the piece of paper on which I noted the details of it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, about 3 weeks ago I was on the road back to Jinja when a huge beer trailer overtook us – some of those guys drive really fast, but I am no saint in that area either. About 5 minutes later, we caught up with said trailer outside Lugazi, parked in the middle of the road and I thought he had been stopped by the police; but he had actually stopped to let one little school girl cross the road. And for once there weren’t any morons in the queue hooting at the trailer to move. We all waited for that little girl to cross. It was such a heart-warming moment and it made my evening. Unfortunately I lost the ka piece of paper on which I jotted down your licence plate number, but thank you, Mr Speeding Responsible Beer-carrying Man. Thank you for the happy ending to my day.

For every good driver there is a whole lot of not-so-good ones. Take for instance the stupid Super Custom Man who was last week attempting to overtake me on the Nalubaale Dam bridge. Again, I lost the paper on which I wrote down your plate, but I did go and make a complaint about you to the police – hopefully, it will yield something. For those who may not know or be unable to read numbers, the speed limit on the bridge is 20kmph, and this is for a very good reason. So hooting, flashing your lights and making rude gestures at other road users is neither prudent nor helpful. I observe the bridge speed limit strictly because the last car that went over the railings into the dam contained my friend, her new husband and their six month old baby. And all because someone was overtaking on the bridge at high speed. I will never forget seeing her lifeless on the front page of the New Vision, being lifted out of the water with a crane – followed by the smaller bundle containing her dead baby. So, Stupid Super Custom Man; next time I will park sideways on the bridge till the soldiers come and give you some good kiboko.

I am a big fan of happy endings and good news, which is why I tend not to read newspapers unless I am looking for a particular story. I also try not to pass on bad news if I can help it. I tried to be responsible this morning and start my day by browsing the local news websites. These 5 headlines jumped out at me and subsequently chased me off the news pages: Kamuli girl who walked 12km for ARVs dead; Infrastructural deficit hurting EAC integration; Strange disease invades Masaka, Nakasongola; National ID firm yet to pay sh40b tax; and to round it off: Help, my husband is sleeping with my daughter! None of these stories has a happy ending.

The Kamuli girl, who got infected while caring for a dying relative, was subsequently abandoned by her father and died in the night in a hut with her grandpa. The EAC integration is in so many ways such a fairytale that I wonder why people bother reporting half-baked things from EAC workshops. If we cannot get an already existing rail system to work, then who are we kidding about the bigger decisions? The pictures from Nakasongola tell a story of painful swollen bellies. However, it is only in Europe and America that they have functional centres of tropical disease control and research. In this case, your guess is as good as mine. National ID firm my big black toe; if the ‘computerised’ driving permit is anything to go by, the ID people will provide months of entertainment.

There was something about George Kakoma being honoured with a special session of the House. I think being able to reside comfortably in his personal house while he lived would have been infinitely more useful. Before I switched off completely, I read a piece about the construction of a six lane alternate route from Entebbe to Kampala supposedly starting in 6 months. I remembered briefly how the multiple lanes of the Northern Bypass dwindled and I wished the Entebbe people much luck.

Every publication is also currently running some kind of series on Uganda turning 50. It is a laudable attempt at setting the national agenda and the only thing I pay any attention to in the papers these days. There have been very many remarkable individuals and events since independence; people who have done things and had a determination that can never be taught in patriotism class. I wish they would broaden their reports beyond politicians, and I hope and pray that people actually get inspired to change things. We need to start having more happy endings.

Published on Sunday April 14, 2012

Easter is one of the most loved seasons of the year, mostly because it allows people to abscond from work from one Wednesday to the next without raising too many eyebrows. The only people working will be the Scribes (who bring you this paper) the Pharisees (talking down at you in their various houses of prayer) and the Tax Collectors (whose VAT you will be paying every time you sip that beer).

When I was in school, Easter was a week-long series of prayers, confessions, saints’ days, walking the way of the cross and candlelit masses. Then I grew up and Easter became family time, rest time and play time. It has taken three decades and a lot of deliberations, but I think I finally have found real meaning and joy in celebrating Easter.

Everyone knows the story surrounding Easter – it is written into the Apostle’s Creed I took pride in memorising as a young girl. We all know how for thirty pieces of silver Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. How Jesus appeared before Pontius, who tried to get the baying crowds to set him free over the murderer Barrabas. The crowds refused and Pontius handed Jesus over, symbolically washing his hands of the matter. How Jesus carried the cross he was going to be nailed to and was crucified while his 12 closest companions hid away in fear. How at 3pm on that dark Friday, Jesus cried out in a loud voice to his Father in heaven and died. Darkness descended on the land and the veil in the Temple ripped from top to bottom.

Jesus was buried, and his disciples continued in fear and hiding, until 3 days later two Marys discovered his empty tomb and angels proclaimed his resurrection. In the subsequent days, Jesus appeared to more of his followers, finally ascending to heaven. And now he is expected to return at the end of the world, and we are supposed to believe he is the son of God, but at the same time, also God, together with a Holy Spirit.

The script reads like a TV series, but what is the point of this story and how does it affect the rate of inflation? A time inevitably comes when everyone will ask themselves what the life, death and resurrection of Jesus have to do with them personally. It may come when a roadside preacher is shooting spittle at your car window, shouting themselves hoarse about the saving grace of Jesus. It may come when you have begged God not to take your mother’s life; not to let you have AIDS; not to let your husband keep cheating – and somehow, the bad thing still happens to you.

Many people come to the conclusion that they want no part of a God who is not visible – a God who expresses himself in difficult to believe fairytales involving immaculate conceptions, angels and resurrections. They want no part of a God who lets bad things happen to good people; who lets men molest their daughters, nuclear weapons be proliferated and does not hear you when you need some money badly. I came to that conclusion for some brief and painful moments in my life; I think at some point everyone has issues they think they must take up with the Creator.

However, I will be facing this Easter with a lot more assurance, hope and peace. You see, I have been blessed to discover that the proof of the pudding is, indeed, in the eating. Psalm 34:8 advises you to ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’, advice that I can only beg anyone at a crossroads to follow. It is not the details of the Easter story that you should be obsessing about – it is what knowing the story subsequently requires you to do.

People take decisions daily; about hair cream, cooking oil, deodorant, motor oil, mobile phones, clothes – even life partners. And with all these decisions, you will never ever know what you’re getting until you try one option. How much more willing should we be to ‘try the options’ regarding our Creator and our eternal life? Having tried the disbelief, scepticism and anger for so long, I finally decided to try getting along with God. I decided to try and believe that God made me, that He loves me and that He used the most powerful symbol the human mind can understand to show His love. We all sacrifice for the people we love – and we make sure to sacrifice our best so they know how much we love them. God gave His best – he gave His son. And in recognition I must give back my best – body, soul and mind.

I still don’t know why bad things happen to ‘good’ people, but I do know you will never find the answers by complaining, criticising and avoiding God. Talk to Him, and open yourself up to listen. Try the pudding, and I pray it puts you on the path to a meaningful Easter.

Published on Sunday April 8, 2012

This week my son’s class went on a school trip. We did the same thing in primary school – we visited the airport, the Entebbe Zoo, a soda factory and the Chillington Hoe Factory, now defunct. Come to think of it, we had a lot more working and interesting factories to visit in those days. My son’s class visited the airport and a local TV station. I am grateful to the school for putting the trip together. What I cannot believe is that after 20-something years, the places people visit for school trips are still pretty much the same. At least the zoo morphed into the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, which has more than two tired animals, but what about the rest?

There are no new centres, no monuments, no landmarks, no fresh roads worth travelling, no national cultural centres beyond Ndere – in fact, the school wished to visit Kasubi Tombs but due to the burning and subsequent repairs it was deemed off limits. We might not even have that run down picnic site in Mabira forest if some people had their sugarcane-growing way, or the National Museum, which they were trying to tear down. Music, art and culture are important, especially for a nation pretending to take itself seriously as a tourist destination. We lost Bujagali Falls and the best we could do was pay off some man to relocate ‘spirits’.

I heard rumours of someone’ s desire to put a zoo in my beautiful hometown – and it is a marvellous idea because Jinja still has the space and the planning to allow for such things – we also have a large foreign and local visitor base and they need places to go to. However, in the breath of the same rumour, I also heard the usual and distressing noises about the powers that be sitting on the plans because they wanted their ‘cut’ in their pockets first. How foolishly narrow-minded can we be? If we want to be a city, we must make allowance for things like zoos, parks and cultural centres. And after they have been set up they will generate revenue for you to steal. One of our most popular tourist attractions are the Bwindi mountain gorillas, which get named at a beautiful ceremony across the border in Rwanda. Where is our value addition?

Anyway, on to the things which do change, albeit slowly. I have been processing the renewal of my father’s medical practitioner licence for the past month and a half. Why did it take so long, one may ask? Well, because I was asked to take the money to the medical and dental practitioner’s council office in Kampala and I got curious and looked for them on the internet. I found an updated looking website and I was instantly impressed. I also found instructions on how to pay and renew the licence by email, so I convinced my parents to let me try it the ‘fast’ way, without making the trip to Kampala. I was going to prove that technology could be their friend.

So I rang up the office, got confirmation of payment details, paid and emailed the receipt details and copies of past licences to the email address provided. I even requested an online copy of a medics document which was on review.  And then I settled down smugly to wait. However, it seems that once the UMDPC agreed on this bold technological step forward, they forgot to delegate implementation. From the 5^th of February, to the 5^th of March, nothing happened. Needless to say, I looked like the thug who ate my father’s money because all I could say was the ‘things had already been sent by email’. To make it worse, for 3 weeks, their phone was either out of order or they decided they were not going to pick it up. To make it super-duper-worse, the technological team decided to hire a text message provider to send messages to all their doctors reminding them to pay up – needless to say, the doctor in our house was not too happy.

And neither was I. I resolved to make one last phonecall, and for some reason this one was picked up. I expressed my displeasure (sorry, whoever picked up the phone, but you were a bit rude) until I got the mobile phone number of someone who could actually help (thank you, ssebo). And so one and a half months later, the licence was finally mailed to me. I don’t think my dad is going to give me his licence money again next year, though. I do hope they can get the system working, because while I was only testing it to win a bet with my husband (who thought no Ugandan government related office could ever pull off an online payment – the jury is still out on who won since it took almost 2 months), there will be people in Lira and beyond for whom an online payment will be quite convenient.

Published on Sunday April 1, 2012

So there we were riding innocently in the taxi, in the last row; Going home after a long hard day at work. Sitting next to an old lady and behind some secondary school students. The other passengers, mostly middle-aged mamas and one older gentleman, were also staring passively out of the window, taking stock of the day and mentally unwinding. There was, however, one young lady sitting in front of us who had other things on her mind. Urgent things; matters so pressing that in that quiet, calm taxi, in the gathering dusk, she chose to pick up her phone and do some loud talking.

And so she proceeded to make a lengthy phonecall about a sexpest. No, I am not joking. Apparently, a tabloid listed a man she (and the person she was calling) knew as a notorious sexpest. She had to repeat the word ‘sexpest’ several times, each time louder than the last, because her friend on the line did not immediately understand the word. And who can blame her? It is not everyday that someone rings you up at tea time to talk about such things. It is definitely not what we expected this smartly suited-up woman to be discussing, and by the seventh repetition of the word, we had all been forced to partake of this conversation.

And what was the urgency, you might wonder, as we did? Could this conversation not have waited till she was home? Was said pest on his way to brutally massacre her friend? Was this news hot off the presses – without dust, as it were? No, not at all. The madam was relating news from a paper for the previous week, and she was quick to advise her friend on where to get old copies of the newspaper at sh2,000 so she could see for herself.

There, in the midst of school children and older people, this woman unloaded the summary of the exploits of the sexpest. However, when the person on the other end of the line pressed her for the gorier, juicier details, she apparently remembered she was in public. Mbu: “Naawe, ndi mu taxi now, I’ll call you and tell you later.” Such modesty! However, if it was okay to tell us about your friend Ssalongo, his profession, the date of the tabloid’s publication and the fact that he is a notorious sexpest, and to even say ‘sexpest’ several times out loud in front of our children, then why not unload the details of whose privates he was ‘pesting’ in?

And all this would not have been as disturbing if she had not made a second phonecall to a workmate to enquire about school-related things. The details of this call could only mean that this motor-mouthed indiscreet woman is entrusted with the job of instructing young minds as a teacher. A woman teacher was loudly discussing sexpests in the middle of a taxi containing students and older people. When I was in school, women teachers talked to us in whispers about keeping ourselves clean and we thought ‘knickers’ was a big word! At one point, the older gentleman sitting in front of her turned to look at her with disgust etched into every line of his face – and there were a lot of lines in that face. As she exited the taxi, everyone craned their necks to get an eyeful.  Woman, you are a different kind of pest.

I encountered another pest this week in form of someone who had come from the village allegedly looking for work. I say allegedly because he, like many before him, was really looking for a chance to be in the ‘big city’ and be paid large amounts of money with totally no relation to an accompanying amount of work done. Case in point, he dug me a 4-foot deep compost pit and wanted to be paid 25,000 shillings. People are tilling and sowing entire acres of land for that amount right in the village where he came from.

This farming prodigy emigrated to ‘work’ with nothing but a kaveera containing one shirt. When asked where his clothes, beddings, gumboots and implements were, he said he was expecting to be given all these things (and full room and board, of course) by his new employer. He also expressed a preference to work in our ‘Kampala businesses’, rather than in the ‘village’ of Jinja (and this from a man who had just emerged from rural Kamuli!) The next day, he sat around alternately dosing and scratching his belly as someone else mowed the lawn, cut the fence and collected the rubbish for burning. And he had come to ‘work’. Needless to say, no one bothered discussing with him why he was not going to be working with us. After his hearty breakfast of porridge, eggs and 4 slices of bread, we drove him to the park, gave him taxi fare and bid him adieu.

Published on Sunday March 25, 2012

It is only a shameless shrew who will not acknowledge when something good has been given to her. So, it is with much shock and amazement that I must announce: I have not been loadshedded for over a week. Yes, all day and all night, we have electricity. So much electricity we do not know what to do with it. We put on all the lights, we play some music, we have watched movies it would usually take us a month to go through, we have read novels, we have worked late into the night, we have blended, boiled and brewed coffee – but still, the electricity flows.

I used to think UMEME would have to pay me a salary to say good things about them, but I guess I have been proved pleasantly wrong. My rechargeable lamps are on holiday and I am enjoying the feeling of living in the 21^st Century. I do occasionally miss my loadshedding routine. For half of our lives we used to make sure the rechargeable lamps were full, switch the LED bulbs on, make sure the candle holders were prepped, put a light on in the doghouse, make sure homework is done and kiddies are bathed before dark, check emails and be sure no work is pending for early morning…

These days, it doesn’t matter if it is a cold night – there will be power on to boil water for a bath. I suppose reality will bite when the power bill comes, but for now, I am UMEME’s biggest fan. They are living up to the meaning of their name and killing us with light. I mean, if you are going to have a name that refers to light, then you better be in the business of giving light. The exception to that rule is if your name is ‘Innocent’ then for some reason you have been given a license to behave not-so-innocently. I will admit that for someone named after the Angels, I may not always be angelic, but it generally helps to have a meaningful name. It gives one a sense of direction.

However, when people name businesses in Uganda, I often wonder what their direction, vision or mission is. The signposts of Uganda never cease to amuse me. For instance, there is one Rank Guest House. Nothing wrong with the name if you are thinking of ranks in the army, then maybe the owner is trying to say his spot is at the rank of a General. However, if you consider that rank also means stale, smelly, rancid, nasty, unpalatable, bland and tasteless, then that signpost may be an invitation to sleep at a dark, damp, smelly guest house. Or it may be a guest house that takes only stale, smelly people, whichever way you look at it. I will not comment about the one who calls his place Vile Guesthouse.

Then there is Complacent Digital Videos. Now, to be complacent is to be pleased, especially with oneself or one’s merits, advantages, situation, etc., often without awareness of some potential danger or defect. It means, in brief, that you think you’ve attained perfection and you cannot be bothered to find out if you could improve or to change a thing. So what you are saying to the world, without knowing it, is that you cannot be bothered to do any better. If I come in tomorrow and you are sleeping at the counter of Complacent Digital Videos, then chances are, you will not be bothered to wake up and serve me. I don’t know if this is what the proprietors of Complacent envisioned for their business, but at least it has given me lots of laughs.

My personal favourite of the week is Glorified drinks depot. I know the name contains the word ‘glory’, but that does not make it good. Glorified, unless referring to things of God, generally means make something appear to be better than its actual condition. Unless you guys are bottling and selling pieces of God, then your signpost says you are selling substandard biwani.

I know the people who get easily offended will inevitably start accusing me of using English to insult people. I do not mean to ridicule anyone; Not everyone thinks in English, and for all my dictionary navigation, I am not going to be buried under Buckingham Palace. I am a good Musoga girl who has never been out of her village. But if I wanted to use a Langi, Yoruba or Kifumbira word to name my business, the very first thing I will do is find out what it means, and thereafter get the spelling right. So why do people not approach English with the same caution? There is a poor soul I know who goes about exclaiming ‘Marvellous!’ when you tell him someone has died, because he thinks it is an exclamation of dismay and condolence. Shall I continue to allow him to shock mourners mbu because correcting people is rude?

Published on Sunday March 18, 2012

This morning, I have laughed, I have cried, I have felt and I am grateful to be alive. As I write this, the sun is rising on my new year – it’s my birthday.

Unlike other human beings, I am not shy about announcing my birthday – I will not wilfully deprive others of the blessing of giving me gifts and wishing me well. Acts 20:35; look it up, it is more blessed to give than to receive and I am a saint for allowing people to be thus favoured.

I am a (by?)product of affirmative action. I was born the day after Women’s Day. If the world had not set aside the 8^th of March to honour women, my strong working mother would have probably had me on the 8th under stressful circumstances. As it is, she rested on the 8^th and I had time to wake up, stretch my tender bones and come out at a leisurely, peaceful pace – at least that is what I imagine my labour was like. However, seeing as I have such a big head, I will not ask for confirmation of these details. What I do know is that I am calm, laid back and overall content with life – and I will give a little credit to the Women’s Day public holiday for that.

It is a Friday – what better day to celebrate a laid back life? The weekend stretches ahead of me and the possibilities are limitless. But first, work must be addressed. Which is why I have been awake from 5am going over documents and doing some writing. One of the greatest blessings of my life is being able to work at things I am good at and that I enjoy. This morning I am going over a manuscript of beautiful stories written by amazingly talented women. When they are published I will be sure to point you in the right direction to get yourselves a copy. This is one of those times when I feel privileged to have read something; I have felt their stories, learned from them and been touched by them. I feel it was a fitting way to spend and end Women’s Day – reading tales written by African women.

I am also writing a proposal of sorts – a task I find very daunting because it opens one up directly to rejection. I wonder how the men of the world can even consider risking it – this business of proposals is infinitely frightening to me. I will not ask my husband why he proposed because I don’t care about the whys and wherefores: I am simply happy we are where we are. It is my first ‘married’ birthday and I must say I was looking forward to it. The Man and I are rarely apart, so I thought if he was planning something I would know about it. I was wrong; he sneaked something past me somehow, but was not able to hide it completely. I know where (almost) everything is in our house, and as I scanned the room before going to sleep last night, one bright yellow kaveera suddenly stood out. I’m sure he thought it was hidden in a ‘safe place’, but no safe place could have masked that yellow, Love. I fell asleep smiling; Husband had something under his sleeve and in a few hours I would find out what.

And then I woke up to my manuscripts and proposals. I got up to peer out of the window at the gathering sunrise first. It was already a beautiful morning and things can only get better. And they do – Husband has just presented the mystery yellow kaveera. Better than that, he has presented me with words; I live off words, I love words, he always chooses just the right ones in just the right order. Yellow kaveera or no – I have all the gifts I need right here.

I resolved to type this column – I am late to submit it for the 100^th time. I can imagine the comments in the newsroom I once inhabited… “got her column yet? No, late as usual; columnists can be such a pain…” Can I offer my birthday as my defence?

As I typed the paragraph about my Mummy, she and Father called. They make a stunning Happy Birthday choir. Our son is at the door with his cousin to wish me a good morning. Then my friend is on the phone and she asks what I am planning to do today. I think I will take those eggplant and tomato seeds I have been threatening to plant all week and actually put some of them in the garden in the backyard. It is a new morning in my new life and the promise of growth and good things to come is palpable. What better time to put some seed in the soil?

Published on Sunday March 11, 2012