kiboko

Is anybody out there?

There’s nothing like sitting in the really hot ampi-theatre listening to people sing on that unusually bright morning when you are there in Church. You are there, but you aren’t there mentally, you have no idea where you are. Sometimes people say I was there, but my mind was in this place, recalling a certain event, being a particular geographical location, or just being in the presence of someone, me..no..This wasn’t the case.  I had no idea where my mind was kinda like the way i have no recollection of the last 4 years but i knew i was supposed to be in church, i was there alright but everything seemed unreal to me. It’s like i was watching from the outside and i was God, judging everyone. The guy who turned around and told the people behind him to keep quiet yet he himself wasn’t paying attention and yeah he was talking to the woman next to him, doubt it was his wife because another lady came with a baby and took a baby bag with her and gave him that weird look. Then next the song leader or praise leader decides that since they have visitors around, everyone should walk up to them and greet them with a smile and find out their names..the guy next to me knows my name, and the guy next to him knows my name..the people on my right and all around me don’t even bother to shake hands with me..i know what you are thinking ‘why didn’t you reach out to them?’ i did, i just felt that i had to wave my hand infront of their faces to get their attention. Oh yeah the guys next to me who knew my name..well one’s my cousin and i live with him, the other is just some butthead who reserved a seat for someone non-existant.Plus he hates my guts for I removed the bible and jacket on the seat next to my cousin and dumped them in his lap ‘bloody retard’ i muttered to  myself as he started stuttering to explain that he was keeping a seat for someone. ‘This is the Lord’s house, if they want they can go seat in the front’ besides they would be late and thus have to stand..can’t blame me, ain’t no names on these seats, coz if they were seats i wouldn’t have one.

I walked out and went to the car, couldn’t take it anymore. Sat in the car and tuned into BBC radio 4..politics, Obama and Gaza is all that’s on the radio these days..but wait last week was different, Prince Harry was in the news for using a racist word 3 years ago in a funny way. The evil sons of vipers..bloody loyal family..America should have invaded these buggers to liberate them and teach them the ways of the west..DEMOCRACY!! All they ever do is have parties and look smart..ride around in new Range Rovers and party…so anyway i’m there and car switches off, i tried to spark the ignition but all i get is a coughing sound..’Blast it’ we’re screwed i thought to  myself..then everyone comes out and I tell my cousin the car is fucked and we need to sort it out..he loses his head, gets his whole crew to fix it and guess what? They bloody can’t fix it. They break out the leads, they castigate me jokingly but their eyes say something else. I wanted to tell them ‘Let’s do this the African way..push star this car’ they laughed. I shrugged my shoulders, what do they have to fear they are African as well. It’s only after an hour of swapping batteries and cars, checking engine oil, calling up the AA to come tow the car and calling Africa to get the AA number that the old mechanic who stopped by for 5 minutes said to push start it..’the buggers’ should have done this in the first place..we pushed, the car started, they praised African technology..smiles and waves, see you next week? Yeah, definately..

An artist in Uganda, a very nice fellow whose style is prodigious..his work is amazing in short..won’t you take a look?

arnolds-paintings

arnolds-paintings-2

ps..you mentioned wanting art..i am giving you art…plus he does framing as well..if y’all are interested in purchasing an authentic Ugandan art piece, let me know so I can have you call his people to get intouch with your people. Maybe you can organize an auction, im pretty sure the pieces will be snapped up. 

now enough of props..

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There is nothing as disturbing as having heart burn at 2am with no water! Wait let me rephrase that, there is nothing as disturbing as having heart burn at 2am caused by eating heaps of katogo of potatoes and *binyeebwa(Baz holla at me, I got some nice easy to cook recipes also known as bachelor food) during the day and realising that you drunk all the water you had and the last thing you had to drink was a 500ml of sweet coffee, which only serves to aggreviate the heart burn. If only i had ice cubes, I would swallow them whole but that would lead to a massive onset of hiccups of which would lead to only one thing..if you don’t know it i aint saying it..

Somethings hurt..like really hurt but it is a sweet pain, like when that nice Indian chiropractor snaps your middle vertebrae into place thereby unlocking the ones which locked..it is ecstacy! I could have slept there while he re-aligned my whole spinal cord but sadly it is short, i only wish he had told me to sit up slowly..then I wouldn’t have left his practice without having muscle cramps in my back like I was a fat olympic athlete running for a pie!

Speaking of Olympics, I am not going to write about who won what and who lost, you see Tv in this modern day and age is family time, it unites family..well my family. I wouldn’t say we watch alot of tv but we sit down together and watch tv. My fondest memories is watching the 1988 Olympics that saw the name Carl Lewis become popular in our house, young as I was..I walked around dashing around, doing mini sprints and long jumping into the mattress my siblings put on the ground..man I really wanted to be Carl Lewis..even now when we are out in the park or just outdoors and we decide to run, my mum always shouts ‘Carl Lewis’..maybe she really is a bigger fan than I am. So anyway, we sit down and watch the Olympics, old man giving his analysis of the games, old lady cheering whoever seems to winning and if it is athletes, she supports the ‘dark skinned Negro’..and me?Well I am just thankful we aren’t watching the news, it does get one depressing..actually come to think of it, my dinner has been tasting sweeter..Gosh there should be a world sports event every evening!!

I told them you really can’t charge 200 United States Dollars a night..and they said what?..’mbu it is Sheraton Hotel. I told them simple economics tells me that you would rather have the hotel full at 80 Dollars a night with breakfast and dinner than have a tenth of the rooms being used at 200 dollars a night running the same bills and paying the same amount of staff. It really didn’t make sense to me 9 years ago to sell a slice of cheesecake at shs.7500 Ugandan currency..this time round i didn’t bother with looking for Cheese cake.

Anyway, looking back the times I went to Sheraton Hotel as a kid in the early 90’s on that once in awhile weekend treat, it was to have a soda and some cake but the thing that suprised was that there were several waiters and waitresses having about, I thought ‘wow, these places actually do have many waiters’  I look back now and realise that probably it was because they have few guests at the hotel that they all had to lounge around. Travel-lodge hotel is a hotel brand here, more like what you would call the lodges and local hotels in Uganda but they have 70,000 hotel rooms and 25£ a night, and they are on demand because not everyone can afford the 5000 a night 5star hotel, but just imagine if on a given night all rooms are occupied just for one night..one night..that’s a lil over 1 million pounds in the bank for them in one day!!Now count a a week, a month, a year..do you see where i am heading with this?

What the hotels need to do is offer a service to Ugandans, attract the locals to use the hotels..there should be no reason why our locals should be heading to other countries for honeymoons, holidays, birthdays, Easter breaks, Independence breaks,Martyrs days break, Christmas break, Labour day break, Women’s day break, Liberation day break, New Year’s day break…gosh with all these holidays in Uganda hoteliers should not even complain about lack of business!!

Hotels are going to be doomed in Uganda, left for the conferences which happen once a year or like CHOGM will come back to us after a century which is a long, long time in hotel hours!! So unless the locals like you and me are attracted to go to these ‘fancy hotels’ they shall forever be ‘nice buildings standing grand on hills’

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Today going through the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow was an eye-opener. It is so huge that there are several shops in there that you can practically go in, shop your whole wardrobe, a few electronics, pack your travel suitcases and buy an airticket and board your flight shortly, unless you have to wait for long then you can always book into a hotel nearby and wait for your flight later on. There are so many restaurants and food courts you can eat at, if Terminal 5 was our very own ‘Entebbe International Airport’ , it would be proggie* to drive to Entebbe and just hang out there. Imagine our ‘newly refurbished’ Ebbs isn’t a quater of Terminal 5..seriously..just one Terminal is bigger than a whole international airport! And it isn’t only terminal 5..even 4 and 3..

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China’ olympics..the opening ceremony..I don’t care whether you were there in person, i know i had a better experience watching it on TV..all I can say is that China made a statement, and the whole universe heard..and saw..I feel sorry for these Brits, they are next in line to host the Olympics in 2012 and companies which promised to fund are pulling out because they have been hit so bad by the credit crunch they are calling for insolvency and the Olympic committee chaps have overspent and by the way, this was way before the one in Beijing had started!! I have an idea, why don’t they let China run it again..or we could give it to Uganda, but no wait..that will give our dear president reason to stand again but he already has reason enough now..

Then today there was a documentary on John Akii Bua’s life, apparently he wrote down his whole life story in 12 exercise books(i don’t want to imagine they were Picfare) but before he died, he gave them to his Coach and the end product is quite masterclass. His story is one of hardwork, passion before ending in self destruct, betrayal and depression..to the world a tragedy, to some bears a striking resemblance to a Shakespearan play..

Have a great week..

I have been on my new gig two weeks almost and things are already going the wrong way!! Well, what do you expect when you are working with 2 Ugandans, 1 Nyaru and 1 Zambian? More on the jobo later, I moved outta home base and I was somewhat scared of moving into a house full of adults who you know, but you don’t know, you get me? you have been seeing them from time to time, but you really don’t know them. People you call the obligatory African title of Auntie and Uncle and now you refer to them on a first name basis(if my mum knew I’d get a tongue lashing)..people who actually treat you like an adult..people who are grown up..I mean grown ass adults the youngest being 35, which is like years older than I am!! So anyway, I live with these people, and out of respect I won’t unleash the dirt on them..I don’t care, some of your house mates be fucked up too!! So it’s one of those houses, regular..don’t have the luxury I am used to..like my own, my own pc, my own bathtub..I literally just go there to sleep after work and eat, shower and leave..yeap, that’s what 14 hour shifts do to you! Honestly I don’t know the number of people i live with but I’ve seen 4..the 4th was at the beginning of the week! So anyway, my place is like a boarding school dormitory, you never see everyone and the most you see is when you are eating..meal times are magical..Back to the job, these bayaye I work with are pissing me off. We have a simple arrangement, we cover each other’s shifts when you want to get off and the bosses don’t have to know jack about it..when your pay check comes, you pay whoever covers your shift..easy peasy..now it so turns out that one of the bayaye who was given the company car has been mouthing off to the bosses and shit! And this same chap doesn’t know I got dirt on him, the way he is always bringing porn magazines to work and dashing off to meet that East African lady who came for the weekend yet the bugger has a wife in London..he gets extra shifts to cover and he doesn’t even show up and he is generally being the boss of us coz he is the one who the bosses talk to(or is it coz he always has something to say?). Same dude tried to play me and my Zambi friend by making us pay for fuel yet we don’t use the car that much..imagine telling us to pay 35 quid a week for fuel..he doesnt know I am an accountant and have a red belt in using a calculator! The other ugandan and nyaru chap bambi pay so much for fuel, if i’m feeling any worse than I am then I might whisper to them that they are getting thoroughly ripped off!! So dude’s beef with me is pending..I’m about to mess up badly..let him keep running his mouth..atte on top of that I ain’t covering his shifts anymore coz he is going to get laid! Laid my left foot! He has two strikes pending, and I ain’t afraid to make it one strike! My Zambi friend is weird, he has a thoroughly latin name, wears huge glasses, speaks alot and guess what..has two masters in bio-chemistry..yes, one technial and one M.Phil..a proper genius!! He actually managed to study both on scholarship and from Europe on top of that! He makes fun of Ugandans, well not fun of all of us, just the muyaye..he found in the office two porn magazines and laughed his head off saying ‘That’s why you Ugandans had whole fishing villages being wiped out by AIDS, you are too excitable!’..Yeah you guessed right, he has covered a shift for those two Ugandans whenever a booty call comes through! And another thing, he disses the way those other two chaps behave, something about being a scholar and a fellow..well you can’t blame him..he does have his books right! I know you are asking how come he is doing kyeyo, well he just grad’ed and is looking for a job..details of this i know not..

Am i bringing back Askari diaries? No..a buddy told me the word Askari is so bizzare..I just might have to call this the Security detail..i know sounds flashy like I am some Intelligence Agent from World War II who is acting as a double agent(you should read that book by the way)..

So there it is, my new gig, more drama, more heartache, more bayaye reading porn magz….but what to do..C’est la vie! I love the new town I live in , I can walk everywhere..plus the Sony shop is having a grand sale..i spotted this 8 GB MP3 walkman with bluetooth headphones..i might cheer myself up you know!

Have a great weekend!

At times the pain is sweet, I wish I could feel it but I cannot..not that I cannot, I want to but that would mean staying in bed the whole day, listening to Kanye sing about lights that are flashing or coming home. The pain so immense it leaves paralysis running down the left side, but so sweet you really want to feel it that’s why you don’t take the pills before you sleep only to wake up finding the left butt cheek is dead, and when your butt is dead, you can’t sit on the can, you can’t walk to the can and you definately can’t bend over to brush your teeth, or wash your face of the dead cells sitting neatly in your tear glands. The only thing you can do painfully is reach for the pills on the carpet and pop some in your mouth and swallow them with that gulp of water from the bottle next to your bed..that’s if this time you don’t take the bottle to your face too hard gushing your lip and knocking the front teeth(you know they sensitive, right?). And like every morning you choke, slightly..well the pills get stuck on the upper back palette leaving that bitter taste in your mouth, you’d think after doing 100 codeines every week for 8 weeks you’d be a professional but you just end up a fucking addict, an addict to the pain..an addict to the pills(what would I do without a repeat prescription, I thank my stars for the NHS..bloody overstretched? I don’t care, all I want is my pills..that’s all!

Today was special, I took double my dose and felt i could do a triathlon, i brushed my teeth and combed my hair, dressed up and walked briskly 2 miles to a cash machine, had to credit my phone so I could text her, I kinda miss her you know? Every weekend for the last..er..umm..oba how many weekends..just know it’s over 2 months, we have been texting, it is reflex, take out my phone,slide the keypad down and blindly text coz I know what I want to say, I know where the keys are and i bloody use text predict..(hey wanna know what words i have saved in my phone dictionary?..whatever some other time)..so yeah i even took the clothes to the dry cleaners, and was back before Tumbo could come out the shower(totally freaked him out when he came downstairs…shoulda seen the look on his face..C.L.A.S.S.I.C)

Of late, I kinda decided to be ignorant you know, read no more newspapers, didn’t watch the tv, nothing about what’s going on outside my doors..it’s been 12 hour sessions of the cartoon network channel(re-runs of looney tunes, bugs, daffy and porky totally kick butt..i don’t care what you say, or think)..and a few hours on the internet. My phone hasn’t rung in along time, ok minus Tumbo calling me from home this morning and that debt collector’s agency who are wrongly charging me over 4000£..turns out they got the wrong person..friggin arseholes, shoulda sued their asses for causing me emotional distress! Honestly I think I need some sunshine, the one here is polluted and there is this breeze that’s around you just end up wearing a sweater in the summer! No seriously, does anyone have space for a brother to crash? I don’t mind doing mukeeka or the sofa..heck i’ll cook and clean if you want..Can i come for just a few weeks, get away from all this madness?

Any Kenyans reading this? Yes,No, Maybe..well in the past I have worked for 2 Kenyans..in my usual capacity as an Askari, and honestly they were a bunch of thieving, over workin, under paying bosses who are so rude, you feel like dipping them in blood and serving to alligators so they can grab a huge chunk of their torso, twist them snappin the spine and dragging them down to drown them before feasting on them..Sorry got a lil carried away there..yes, I’m back to working for another Kenyan and bloody hell, am i not looking forward to it, it is 12 hour night shifts, 7 days a week..the money is alright, cash in hand so it should be tax free, but guess what..im getting half of my salary! I told you there are a bunch of thieving bumwipes!..(Baz is alright to call them pampers, or should it just be bum wipes?)..Anyway, what to do, what to do..better me than some Polish chap right? That polish guy might even bring his other cousins to work there as well for half my salary..Say does anyone want to come share the job with me? We can have fun all night long(not in that way you pervs!)..we can do finger shadows..I can do a dog, and a bird..we can tell stories all night..no creepy ones..we can practice stand up comedy..come on..what say you? You know want to..

Has anyone seen Degstar? Really..has anyone seen him?

This is a quick guide to winning an argument, making a key statement and impressing a few drunk goons in that pub in Ntinda*..yes you know that one, the one where the loos are horrible and dark but you still go inside smoking a ciggarette or holding your breath, whipping out lil johnnie from as far as the door coz you;

a.trust your sense of aim

b.the floor is bloody flooded and you definately are sure it isn’t the water cistern that burst and that soft mould your shoe is tapping really isnt soaked tissue paper

ah yes, where was i..the pub..yeah and the meat platter takes a gazillion minutes to come and the beer isn’t warm the day you there and so is the soda! There is nothing as disgusting as a warm fanta in kampala heat!!

So on to looking intelligent,or sounding intelligent..all you have to do is speak with confidence. You now ask ‘Isn’t that what you are supposed to do?’..well not entirely..there are a few other things. You see when you are talking or arguing with drunk people, they usually produce valid arguments which are known as ‘Beer Degrees’ notably characters are people like Saggy and..well some MPs…anyway here is what you do;

1.Have a stutter. Forget all that nonsense about lack of confidence, there is this stutter that just convinces everyone..heck it has convinced us for the past 20 or so years that the roads are being fixed and that we have been donating to the British each time we export coffee(im so friggin tired of hearing that whenever the numero uno citizen visits outside countries and ‘presents a lecture’). Case in point..’The,the, the rrrroads are..*healthy pause..automatically going to be fixed this financial year..Even Tony Blair has a stutter, he got us to back him on the Iraq war and look, he is convincing the Middle East to sign peace treaties..

2.Get a western accent. Replace all your ‘L’s with ‘R’s and prolong your words. This will give you a certain as if je ne sais quois to whatever you are saying..words like ‘automatically’ end up as ‘auutomaticarrle’ ‘absolutely’ ends up ‘absorootrey’. first of all it will get you attention, secondly it will give your words a certain credibility..*sigh* if only Kale could say all he had to say with a stutter and western accent…

3.Hand gestures. In proper civilised society, gesticulating is seen as rude, but when you are the most enlightened chap in the area who cares , you probably could even fart out loud and you would not get castigated for adding to ‘global warming’..swing your arms, pound tables, rubs your palms together..everyone will fall for whatever you are sayin..

And how have you been?

Microphone check 2 1 2…

So she was the first person i texted…’Roses are red, Violets are blue..Val’s day sucks..what say you?’ and she texted back..and all of a sudden I got this urge to send her a card. I had to be original and none of the cards I saw on hallmark.com really didn’t appease to me..so i decided what every red blooded male would do when he is absolutely smitten..dashed to my accesories tab and looked up paint brush and drew her a card! Yeah it was pink, had a rose, a bee, a smiley sun and a latte(she loves hot chocolate with cream)..It came out looking like  a 5 yr old had drawn it and it had this calvin and hobbes effect to it..no, no disses..just a simple ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’…now i have cold play’s ‘In my place’ on repeat and i feel so light inside..does this make me a pansy?

Newbies..

She quotes Jay Z and Meredith in the same breath, Did you ever watch the movie it’s a wonderful life? It’s a really old movie about this guy who wants to..ok you aren’t really paying attention are you? Anyway like she says..‘it is a wonderful life’

Weak;Ugandan slang to refer to negative attributes ie ‘man that car is weak’ to mean the car isn’t all that, or ‘that’s a weak bird’ to mean that girl isn’t quite appeasing to look at. They sound like two buddies at an American campus excited about livin life, losing their virginity and getting drunk. They have the zeal to do everything in life in 4 years of living in an education institution. Two Weak Dudes sound nothing like this,check them out

Have i forgotten anyone?

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