Category: Society

#TokosaFoodFestival 6 Things You Missed

#TokosaFoodFestival 6 Things You Missed

Lets get it clear,  I don’t attend a lot of events. No weddings. No funerals. No Baptisms. No introductions. No engagements. I used to think it was a countercultural rebellion to my parents. I have come to understand it as never being any such fancy thing. I get bored easily.

Anyways, I end up attending this much talked about socialite thing called the Tokosa Food Festival. Third event happening in as many years. Having never been to one, I was obviously watching with “new eyes”. New eyes = the sense of wonder you have when you have just arrived from the village  into town; also described as the realization of how the other half lives; also commonly called “Maalo” in Ugandan speak

But if you didn’t make it to this Year’s Tokosa event this is what you missed, or didn’t. See the highlight reel here.

  1. THE FATHERS’ COOK OFF

Obviously I was going to start with this because I participated in it. There were 4 of us. I was hopelessly under qualified and over confident. Which is why I probably was ranked last by the judges! But to be fair, they asked us to cook a kid’s breakfast and I only learnt his halfway through the 20 minutes!

Now, I grew up in the village and kids there don’t have breakfast. They just eat a left over sweet potato and a melamine cup of water and the day begins. So I knew I was in hot soup. But I knew we (me and my ego) were well and truly cooked when the eponymous Gonahasa (the one who cooks, not the talker) showed up.

IMG_9985
Egg fried frankfurter sausage on a baguette with fresh tomatoes

20 minutes and all I could come up with was a starch heavy African child breakfast. But you should have seen me stunting! Banange! like I knew I had this in the bag. But as they say about history and victors.

Gonahasa The chef who eventually won the cook off
Myself, learning to use the amazing pan
This cool dude who absolutely blew us all away with his panache
The 4 dads

2. ZUMBA DANCE WOMEN

The Zumba women who came close to the end of the event sent the crowd into a a near riot. of course Gerry Opoka who runs Beats and Steps studio was on hand to teach some moves on how all that food people had stuffed themselves with could be worked out of the system.

I don’t get Zumba but when you see those women gyrating, moving to a rhythm from deep inside you have to wonder. Is it these kind of things that give us the stereotype of a sexualized nation? I wonder because you can’t help but ask yourself, if she can do this on the dance floor what about on a 6×6 King size bed with things like school fees, saloon money, side dishes on the line? Either way, you have to see a video to know what it’s really like. Sometimes the movements are slow and almost sensual, the other times it feels like they are trying to relax an itch that cant be reached. So much fun to watch.

You just start losing weight just by watching people exercise that vigorously.

3. THE GAMES

Another highlight of the day’s activities were the games. The kids were so excited it was not even funny. they had sack racing, egg on spoon, obstacle games. There were even games for adults to play. No, not those games.

As usual, Brian Mulondo (he of the mob FOMO) shone through and tons and tons of kids walked away exhausted from a full day of food fun and music.

Although, I must say some parents looked like they brought their kids there to just stuff them with food!

The Kids’ play area sponsored by DSTV
Little bringers of the Good Times in the making.
Prepping for the egg on spoon race, a mother prepares her child to win.
Rushing towards the finish line
Not all children are young- but all children have to be young at heart

4. THOSE GIRLS DOING “SWALLOW THE CHICKEN”

Of course you can’t have an event hosted by the lady queen Miss Deedan where she doesn’t play a diabolical dirty trick – purely for her own pleasure.

And that is how she tricked some respectable-looking but erstwhile hungry young ladies into trying to eat and finish a 20-piece bucket of KFC chicken. This is similar to trapping you to delicious hot food.

What you really missed was how the ladies were watching Maurice Kirya, King of Mwooyo as if he was “Kyakulya” which means he looked edible, like chicken.

Hide your eyes, your future husband could be on the timeline
Face your future head on!
when you must crush your destiny!
The devil is a liar: Meanwhile Miss Dee just looking like a tall glass of cool water in all this heat!

5. ALL THOSE SHADES

There were just simply too many types, colours and styles of shades at this thing.

 

I know I will definitely come to the next Tokosa event. Even if it’s to just spend a day giving to charity which is what the event is about. Part of the proceeds went to Bless A Child foundation which is home for cancer children.

So until next time, stay cool and drink Lite!

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But why am I lying…. It was a festival right? See all these smiles going down!!

 

 

For more images, visit the Kafunda Kreative Tokosa Album or go check out the #Tokosa17 hashtag on Instagram.

Cheers!

Feminism, the enemy within and the courage of a generation

Feminism, the enemy within and the courage of a generation

Feminist this, feminist that, femi -knee-st this, Femi-Nazi this, Tw-eminist that! Thats how a typical day starts and ends on my social media timeline. All sides, all genders and all creeds. The fight has become polarizing to the point that one cannot imagine it once was a joke because they will be called gender-shaming, misogynistic or patriarchal or worse. And the fights are happening even amongst the women too.

I have often wondered how the old feminists did it? How did they get through it? Or did they never get through? How can we fight for something for so long and have made such little gains on it? Therefore, I surmise that at the heart of this movement is a key piece that keeps acting as a saboteur to this whole mission.

Male patriarchy (which among hard core feminists is the heart of all darkness and dwelling place of Zerubbabel himself) has been described as men keeping women suppressed through cultural customs and norms to deliberately create inequality and oppression. In more cultural settings you see mention of breast ironing, female genital mutilation and labia elongation. These crude customs of yester-year have been parked at the doorstep of all men to bear full responsibility for. But, one quickly learns that men alone – even if they wanted to whole heartedly – cannot repeal these customs.

For example, breast ironing was started to flatten breasts of girls entering puberty so they wouldn’t be preyed upon by older men – by their mothers. This was so they could still be virgins when they were married off in a society that valued virginity but that would not punish men for defiling small girls and would rather punish them that speak truth to power.

In the case of labia elongation, the working theory it is that the practice is meant to make women “sweeter” for men because the labia gives extra sensation during sex. Cases where husbands return brides so their mothers so show them the “the bush” are not unheard of. “The bush” is the euphemistic term for girls entering puberty when they begin the labia elongation practice. This practice is enforced strongly by maternal aunties and mothers in order not to bring shame upon the family once marriage time comes.

The more gruesome FGM varies across different tribes but basically involves the carving out of part of or all of a girl’s labia and clitoris. This was ostensibly to prevent girls (who undergo this process on the cusp of puberty) from being errant wives. Its brutally enforced by societal structures and a ruthless shaming system

When I was in the Sebei region on the last #KoiKoiEast trip a few weeks ago, we sat around a fire and a man told us of a culture that praises courage and bravery. He said if your mother ever flinched at her circumcision (which they are working with government to eliminate for girls now by the way) everyone who disagrees with you would always refer to you as the “The one whose mother ran away” and these tags are hard to escape. Like millstones around one’s neck beckoning shame and derision from society. They stay. They hurt. They cut deep.

In all these cases, mothers, aunties and female figures in society play a central role in enforcement and adherence to these norms.

And that is where I get confused.

If we are fighting the men in our generation, are we not self-sabotaging? If a young man within your generation (those of you date cross generationally can stop skip ahead) says to you “I think my wife should wash my boxers” and you stand up bash him or a young woman your age says “I want a man to marry me, provide for me and in return I will raise his children and build our home” and they get railroaded out of town. You aren’t solving the problem. That’s their paradigm. That’s the construct in which they see their world.

But who framed that world? Who told them that these things were acceptable? That women should give up careers and sit at home and that they can’t be everything they ever should? It’s not the boy child who grew up alongside them chasing butterflies and eating mangoes.

And that’s why we must have the courage…

The courage to confront our parents about the things they haven’t done right by us in terms of educating us (not school fees, fool!). The absence of fear when taking down with belief systems, constructs, practices that contradict what we know to be logical truths must be palpable.

And that is both for everyone

Why?

Because only by facing our parents (the entire generation) who are bastions of sanctity and are revered can we truly begin to make a difference. We can’t be in a society where you were born in a polygamous family, you have never discussed that with your parents but you are out here calling all men trash. Or you are the child of a concubine, but you go around spreading misogynistic vitriol. You are only playing yourself child.

That’s why it takes courage…

It going to take courage for us to tell our parents that we are gay. That our friends are gay. That we work with gay people. That we share food with them. That we know them. That some of them struggle with it. That we work for them. That they have funny jokes. That they are people. Someone’s son and daughter. That others will never overcome their fear. And that others will never come out because they don’t have the courage.

It’s going to take courage to tell parents that forcing their children to live at home until they get married means they won’t understand the responsibility of living on their own, making decisions, independence, planning, adulthood, looking after their partners. It produces poor husbands and wives. Young people are facing these things in their marriages and their relationships. We need to talk about it.

It’s going to take courage for us to ask our parents who work in government to stop blaming everyone else and ask them what they did to stop the country from going to shit. What did they ever do to keep things on course? To reason with them when they say “we did it for you” and not be relenting in our quest to understand what our own role will be for our children.

It’s going to take courage to have conversations about having sex for favours. For jobs. For cars. For houses. For food. For gadgets. With men and with women. When our mothers did this for security, society respected them as kept women – church or no church; ring or no ring. But the men are different now and everyone fights for theirs. The conversations on men sleeping with women for money, access, property and rent? And men sleeping with other men to take care of their wives? How much courage will that take?

It’s going to take courage to bring up and challenge the tribalism, myopia and archaic attitudes parents get stuck in. Things like “we don’t marry those people” or “You would rather not marry” or “If you marry her I will not attend” must stop being heard as threats to people trying to form unions that are propagating the future. They must be taken down with boldness and furor.

It’s going to take courage to tell our parents that getting married and all the previously accepted forms of social validations will not be our portion. That some women do not want a husband or kids or to settle down. That some want to adopt children instead of having their own. That some men will just not be husbands. Those conversations take courage because they require us facing constructs we have known for a long time. But we must find it.

It is my hope that our generation finds the courage to face our parents and confront their demons because only then can we face our peers in honesty and good spirit. Only then can we stand and share with each other the sweat and tears it will take to rebuild this country after these old people are done phucking it up.

Or we could just give up and emigrate to another country and let it be someone else’ problem? The Chinese are coming here, expatriates come here and never want to leave, multinationals are coming over, oil companies are setting up. They already messed up their homes. If we leave, there’ll be no one to fight for this ugly red-dust pearl of Africa.

So, we stand and fight. As a generation. Men. Women. Gay. Straight. Religious. Atheist. African. Mixed. Light skin. Dark skin. Thicke. Small. Chubby.

Together.

But first, how to find that courage… to

 

@QATAHARRAYMOND: TO ANSWER YOUR CHALLENGE: A treatise on my view towards power and religion in Africa.

“Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number that are not good.” – Niccollo Machiavelli.
 
Following up on that offer to explain my understanding of power and its place in modern society as a means to bringing clarity on the role of religion in the political landscapes I want to first go back to the textbook definition of power.
pow·er
ˈpou(ə)r/
noun
  1. 1.
    the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality.
    “the power of speech”
    synonyms: ability, capacity, capability, potential, faculty, competence

    “the power of speech”
  2. 2.
    the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.
    “the idea that men should have power over women”
Its clear that power in its simplest from, and for the purposes of this treatise has to do with ability. But to be specific, I’d like to stay with the second definition as it is of the most import in the argument I’m going to lay out.
For millennia, mankind has grappled and jostled with the idea of a deity. As far back as 10,000 years ago Chinese historians record the presence of deity figures to whom was attributed the control and dominion of the universe around them. The younger religions (speaking purely of the nascent Abrahamic religions here) have claimed this to be false and stand by their 6,000 year old theory of creation.  The origin of and creation of deities is of little concern here. What matters is that they exist and people believe in them. The world as it is today is divided into denominations who believe in one form of deity or other. If you believe that mankind created God to explain the unexplainable world around him, you are probably right. But also if you believe that God or a deity created man and let them evolve over 65 million years and then at some point gave them understanding you are also probably right. Why? Because it is all a subject of belief. What you believe shapes your outlook on the universe, the world, the continent, your country and eventually your neighbor.
Which brings me to the task at hand; you argue that religion is in fact inextricably tied to the political culture of countries; effectively making the argument that religion and its associated vagaries will affect the political upheavals in countries if indeed politics is the study of how people live together.
I argue that it doesn’t. I argue that elements like greed, corruption, social inequality, graft, cronyism and political disruption/instability are more in effect when and where social upheaval occurs than are the forces at war are of different religions. In a report from the Instituteof Economics and Peace a question was polled “How much conflict has religion caused in the world?” The report came back with 14% of conflicts in the world in 2013 were motivated by religion alone (although religion mixed with other factors brought the figure up to 60%). Why is this so? Because the very nature of upheaval and conflict in itself reflects a sense of anarchy, an element that no religion condones. How could it? How would it then control its faithful? Anarchy portends, disobedience, disorder, betrayal, defection, lawlessness and deviance. All undesirable outcomes.
I also believe that the elements above central to social disillusionment. How? Any role that religion might play is mostly as a spark in igniting an existing dissatisfaction and fueling an already underlying current of rage. For example, the Rwanda genocide has been said to have been aided and fueled by religious elements, but closer analysis reveals that the root causes were more socio-political. Therefore, if a society is disgruntled and disillusioned therein already exists the recipe for a fire. It’s simply which causal agent will provide the spark.
Secondly, you argue that the politics of a country will often revolve around its religious inclinations. You are even willing to say that it is difficult to define the political culture of a country minus its religion.
I submit that the political cultures of most countries (African in this case) present largely variegated religious demographics. While these groups disagree occasionally, the political culture of most African countries exists outside these religious faculties. This is not to denigrate the role leaders and influencers play in these societies. However there are more examples of social cohesion for the purposes of uprisings, upheavals and rebellion around non-religious grounds like corruption, election reform or the lack of it, injustice, tyranny, etc.
Alternatively, consider the “peace time” activities of most African countries like appointments to office, election to office, patronage, resource allocation, development prioritization and other aspects of political culture most of them will be done with considerations that are not principally or primarily religious in nature.
If on the other hand you were to consider the “culture of honour” posited by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers” you will find that in societies with the honour culture; a culture signified by revenge killings, reprisals, honour killings, and family honour being protected, created a code. A code that makes society shun the likely peacemaker; the element of reason. In such a society you will find that religion could find a place in shaping and even enforcing a society’s own self view where people will steer clear of idle threats (if they make a threat, they will see it through), feeling bound to their word and a blunt and brutal approach to the realities of their environment.  In these cases, the factors that shape these kinds of society are more societal and environmental than religious. For an example, I’d like to use the Dinka tribe of South Sudan and northern Uganda whom people have said are, in their natural habitat, very trusting, generous and welcoming but also lethal, decisively swift and unrelenting about slights against their honour. They could Christian, Muslim or even Jehovah’s Witnesses. It doesn’t change who they are.
If you approach this from the “Spiderweb economic theory” first broached by Malcolm X and later honed and refined by Chika Onyeani in his “Capitalist Nigger” where the idea of ‘trading like the Jews” is discussed and broken down, you realize that while the Jews did in fact trade within their communities, the complex interwoven nature of their societal setup makes it impossible to separate from their economy and religion. A rather unique social glue. The theory basically states that the closely knit Jewish community buy from Jews, will try as much as possible to keep their money circulating within their community and that way they help each other develop and build their community as a whole. This approach for you would of course raise the questions of the impact of a shared history and a communal sense of persecution they all share which further strengthened that historical bond. And going down that route would lead you down the inevitably precarious path of separation of church and state – which in that world is a slippery slope.
Having explained this I feel I must tie this all together with how it all begun; with power. Religion carries the ability to influence, to mollify, to invigorate and even instigate people. That is its power. This power however is given to it by people’s choice to believe for without the choice to believe religion holds no power over anybody and therefore would have no ability influence the political culture of a society in any way.
In a faithless state the power to influence political culture would reside in and with people who had resources, means, money, access to resources, information, state machinery, influence, an ear of the leader, leverage over politicians, blackmail, intellectual superiority, physical excellence and a host of other attributes that you could name. People with these or access to any of these attributes would wield power because they could lean upon them to influence events in their societal sphere of influence; to protect themselves from the machinations of others, to advance individual interests, to gain advantage over rivals and; sometimes, to just even the playing field.
This theory seems to operate in the highly amoral and evolutionary arena of “kill or be killed” and is safeguarded by the old political adage “have no permanent friends or enemies” and would appear idealistic upon first sounding. But upon closer scrutiny, you will agree with me that this scenario is more real than ideal. It is one in which we live every day; sworn enemies coming together to fend off common threats; an estranged couple uniting to defeat an erstwhile ally now turned deadly foe, a national Christian prayer overnight presided over by a confessed animist president, a bishop who has sworn an affidavit changing his name so he can remain in power past his retirement age, a national army caught in 3 wars across the region juxtaposed against the housing condition of the Police Force, and other examples. That is the reality we live in. Those with the ability to move the pieces WILL move them. Irrespective of what they believe.
Over to you

Righteous Indignation; Things That F***ing Piss me Off and Give Me Hope

Last week, the Ugandan social media was awash with the #UGBlooggers7days [collated by the dutiful and obsessive Joel] hashtag. A conversation that started with a one Raymond’s insatiable greed for Ugandan reading material thereby plummeting the whole blogosphere into a blogging frenzy. Suffice to say I’m glad I was there to suggest the 250 word limit because certain people were talking 600 and 400 words as a minimum. And that had its own deliciousness. Savour it
 
More interestingly, in the course of last week, I read a post by SamiraSalwani where she explained a phenomenon called white privilege and colonial mentality. From thought provoking to downright alarming at the state of affairs in my country. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I read it. More, I couldnt believe the directness of it all. It was as if she was being fueled by that calculated methodical anger you get from serving a revenge ice cold. Under the surface but seething. Cold. Calculating. Then I realized that the ghosts I was imagining as racial anger was her razor sharp intellect.
 
Throw yourself upon it and die.
 
Die.
 
Die cut up in pieces from it.
 
Die with your ignorance bleeding from every crevice in your body.
 
It was not only sharp, it was steady and abiding. Diamond hard. Never goes blunt. So I looked up several of her other articles. Yeah, diamond hard intellect. But I digress.
 
“White privilege (or white skin privilege) is a term for societal privileges that benefit white people beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, or economic circumstances.” – That is how Google describes it.
 
This is what Samira had been talking about. How Ugandans or Kenyans were more likely to treat people of Caucasian extraction in more privileged ways; quicker service at restaurants, more attention in service queues, etc because of the colour of their skin. Because of a perceived superiority.
 
No sooner had that storm subsided than Simon released the mother of all hailstorms. The blog post can be read here. At 11:00PM he was livid and frothing at the mouth. Imagine a bull mastiff with rabies and an itch. Tearing into the New Vision and its editors. Asking pointed questions and causing uneasiness all around. He was taking names and no prisoners. 
 
But what he did do was raise once again the question of how a colonial sport for which every single element (riders’ kits, horses, saddles, jumping bars, etc) had been imported was able to get a page and a half of coverage in a country where our national netball team, which is going to the world cup by the way, couldn’t even afford to buy water last week. I swear I think I saw a swear word in Luganda.  
 
And as if the night would not end just like that. At one 1:00AM someone posted this scan from a newspaper advert yesterday. An advert for several jobs and an administrative assistant. The admin assistant had to be a foreigner!! What the f*** were they thinking? Can you be more disrespectful than that? How dare you?!! Is this your father’s house?!!
 
Now I was frothing at the mouth. I wanted to say something. To write to these people. To say to them they couldn’t be so stupid. You can’t feel that untouchable and hope to get far ahead. Then I realized that it wasn’t just me. Its like all the media I had been exposed to had riled me up, had made me think of all the opportunities that people had missed and all the mistreatment people suffered because of this stupid white privilege.
 
But also I felt a sense of relief as I dozed off.
 
Why?
 

 

Because my anger was a sign. A sign that there is a new wind sweeping across Africa. People were questioning these “practices”. And they won’t stop because the awakening was happening. Yes, the good jobs might continue going to the less educated less experienced white people and their lackeys. The projects will end and they will have to go back home, or not. But us here, we are building our country. One brick at a time. One step at a time. And hopefully through blogs like this, one story at a time.
 
I’m off to lunch

REPOST: Uganda Bloggers 7 Day Blogging Challenge: Calling All Ugandan Bloggers

This is a call to all Ugandan Bloggers, all protocol observed.

There has been a decline in the blogging habits of many erstwhile Ugandan bloggers. We do not know whether it is because you guys got jobs and went abroad but that is not the point. In a bid to renew the blogging culture of many of us Raymond, Nev, Allan with the input of Olive, Ruth, Dan , Lynn and I, decided to challenge ourselves to write each day for at least 7 days starting today.

You can write about anything and everything as long as it is not less than 250 words.

Please share you blog on Twitter so we can comment and experience your experiences with the hashtag #UgBloggers7Days.

Let others know.

 

What Does it Mean to Insulate Our Friendships?

Insulating our friendships means doing things or taking actions that will protect your friendship from strong, sudden or violent forces like relatives, family, drama, sudden windfalls, ex-girlfriends, unseen circumstances.
It means taking action:  you sacrifice, you protect, you defend, you give up things you want, you talk about uncomfortable truths, you affirm people so they know how you feel about them, you reassure them when they are uncertain, you fight for them, you bleed for them, and you forgive them, you learn the things they like…
Because all these actions create an “insulating” layer that make you a friend worth keeping in all circumstances.
They say without doubt and in black and white “you are precious to me and I value our friendship“
….and I don’t think anyone can do more than that.

#CougarHunterKla; A Quick Guide Around an Ageing Landscape

I went out a few nights ago to see what the town had become like in the long time I had been away. I was curious as to whether the nature of the cougar had changed not just in purpose by also in form. What I saw interested me. The layout of the land, the features, and both the predators and the prey had all changed. The game has changed and it will never be the same again. Ever.
In purpose means that even though previously the cougar hunted to feed a basic deep-seated pathological need for control or a base human desire for physical contact and copulation, the current nature of the cougar has morphed into a veiled, stealthy search for human connection. To reach out and touch another human being and not feel the dirt-related emotion of guilt often brought on by the exchange of gifts, money, or other incentives. There are emotions involved, feelings getting entangled, and dangerous liaisons.
The cougar now looks not for the sick, weak, and dying prey; but the young, agile, and ambitious. My deduction is that this feeds their fixation with eternal youth, the search for relevance in a world that is fast changing, and the psychological need for reassurance that age isn’t anything but a number. This is the new form I talked about above. The form has changed.
And the truth is that with this new form, the game has taken the cougar hunter (or the hunted) must adapt. The oxymoronic nature of cougar hunting is perhaps one of its greatest attributes because the actual hunter (cougar) always plays hunted while the hunted (cougar hunter) gains recourse and validation from playing the hunter. It’s no longer about how you look but what you know; no longer about what you don’t have but what you aspire to; no longer about where you are from but how you connect with people. There is no place for insecurity and neediness. Well-rounded, balanced, mature, driven, energetic, and empathetic is now in vogue.
Why? Because as the cougar hunter your duties now extend much further afield than any of your predecessors. You are the silent adviser, the ruthless guardian, the keeper of secrets, or simply a rake. You do not deliver command performances because you can but because they are required.
But above all, when it’s all done I guess the cougar hunter has his own brokenness which he feeds by doing what he does. Whatever pathology exists, it must never interfere with the job at hand. Never bribe yourself with the ambition to go too far, or fast. Never deceive yourself with the notion of performance excellence. For in a game that sits subtly on the edge of egotism and self-gratification, the perfect player must have no ego or satisfaction. He is after all the Van Helsing of cougars.
 Below are what I think are some guidelines on how to navigate the new landscape:
1. Be simple and straight forward
2. Don’t talk about shit you don’t know. Stick with the topics you are flawless at. #ExceptFootball
3. Unlearn everything you think you know. Experience fucks with people, twists them, and sheers their perspectives of the world. You must be objective and receptive. Listen, internalize, understand, and shut up. You must #LearnWithoutPrejudging
4. Do not disclose unnecessary information. Answer what you are asked. Stay away from your life story. People have sadder, grittier tales than you think you have. #SaveItForSomeoneWhoCares
5. Be prepared to walk away from it without any signs of clinginess. The hunter who displays the least sign of creating collateral damage when it’s over will always get picked because he isn’t as big a risk. Clingy=Needy=CougarRepellant
6. Do you. Music, Movies, Food, Conversation, and Friends. They are probably doing them too. These things allow you to have personality, character, a soul. Not a mimic. They allow you to have opinions, points of view, and arguments. But they are also key to your veneer of normalcy. #NoOneWantsACreepEspCougars
7. Be bad. Not spoilt, just bad. The kind of guy they’ll tell their friends and nieces never to date. This only makes you more of a #GuiltyPleasure
8. When hunting, do not overdress, overuse cologne, or overdo anything. Too much effort indicates an insecurity that will be prized out before long and then you’ll have no allure. Seeming comfortable in your skin makes you an emotional face in the crowd #OrdinaryJoesHavePotentialToSurprise
9. Always wear clean underwear. Cougars are clean. They hate dirt near their pussies. UTIs, VD, and all that shit they don’t need. Also, it says you are mentally not as dirty as the things you do to them.  #CleanYourBusiness #NoUti #LeaveToiletSeatsDown
 10. No matter what it looks like. You are not out till you are out. #ClosersAreBetterThanGentlemen
#BonusRule The following morning; call. Always call. Don’t Text, Call. If you break your leg, Call. If the grim reaper is standing at your door, Call.  Call. Call. #InsecutiesThatMustBeCurbed

I Was Terrorized; when newspapers shock us

Well have been terrorized for a long time now. Every time I open the newspaper there is some sort of new direction in editorial policy that the newspaper has taken without informing myself or any of its over 30,000 readers. One almost feels like they are attempting to just test how far we will go before they finally recant their bad manners.
1.       Take for example what appeared in the New Vision yesterday when the president joined deputy speaker of parliament Jacob Oulanyah and family to cute the caking during the thanksgiving ceremony at Bobi County. Really?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!! It is hopeless even despondent to even try and say that this news on page three is worth the paper it was printed on. I was not surprised by the New Vision’s murderous ways with the English language. But then again it might be the result of having charlatans at the head of an organization that requires experience, brains, and dedication. I might be a clichéd out twat but I know that news editors never go to bed before the paper goes to sleep. They don’t go down to UMI or 2nd street and order goat balls and millet bread if the paper looks like this the next day!
2.      

But one might perhaps think I am being too harsh for a slight error that could just as easily be on any newspaper in the world. I do not disagree. I just think if you are slowly trying to turn the nation’s lead newspaper into some sort of child porn front, you need to be more discreet than that what the New Vision did a few weeks ago. So what are we telling the Red Pepper? That they should just up the ante?

 Till later
Orbis non Sufficit

THE REASON WHY EVERY GIRL SHOULD ASK HER MAN FOR A SOUNDTRACK

I was going about my weekend when a track started playing incessantly in my head. It brought an idea: every man has a soundtrack in his head when he is taking his woman. It may be an obscure, poor quality scratched CD version but somewhere you have your lashing soundtrack; the one that plays when you lash your woman.
I also got to thinking about when I didn’t have a soundtrack how it went. It was alright. However every time I had a soundtrack it had been a more than stellar performance. You gotta think about it. Certain music makes you a god.
There are things that make the music die, like bad head, like smelly armpits, like grime on the neck… there are other things but I will let you fill in the blanks. I found it frustrating every single time my music went out. It gave me that sense that a guy gets when a woman accidentally flicks her tongue around his crack – fear and instant blood flow to the muscles to feed the sudden adrenaline rush in preparation for flight. The problem with that is that it gives you a flaccid dead fish right in the middle of a nice hot romp (NOT COOL).
I also found that my soundtracks even though auditory were photo chromic. They were affected by light. For enduring performance, light had to be largely dimmed and ambience enhanced. I thought I was getting insecure about what I looked like or what my woman (or women, whatever) looked like. Then I set up a control which involved doing it in the daytime with the curtains drawn and with the curtains open. The latter proved to be almost impossible (damn the landlord’s dog!). Dim works for me.
Knowing this, I then delved into the investigation of what I really thought was my soundtrack. I particularly like Klaus Badelt’s soundtrack to “Pirates of the Caribbean” even though I found it a bit fast to lash your woman to. Then my mind moved over to another track that’s actually an old favourite – Ekikere kirikumbaata (the frog is mounting the duck) which is a nursery rhyme of questionable repute ; too funny but unfortunately not applicable as well.
As the search for the soundtrack continued, I remembered that one time I heard a long piping tune, from somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind. Brandy’s “Come a little bit closer” called out to me and whispered to me like a siren only to get closer and find the mind had tricked me and was actually playing Julianna or Grace Nakimera (this especially sucks because Grace Nakimera has no Wikipedia page) or some such local Ugandan diva music. Eeewww!
I have arrived at my conclusions for this lesson:
  1. The soundtrack is defined at certain critical points when definitive sexual and sensual moments are afoot. Women, ensure your man knows your soundtrack.
  2. Some will how do I do this? Well, when you guys are getting freaky, play it off the stereo or your phone, in the post-coital afterglow (while he naps), make sure eth songs you like are on repeat, that way it subconsciously seeps into his mind. He will never feel right humping another woman with that music on. It short circuits his cheating mechanism.
  3. Assuming this is hogwash is the kind of foolishness is what will get your guy getting freaky to any type of trash music because he has no soundtrack. Listen. Get a freaking soundtrack.
  4. My advice is don’t play it off the radio especially Capital FM because of all the bubble gum music they play. You don’t want the guy stuck on Alex Ndawula’s or Jimmy Jones’ soundtrack (both of whom have no Wikipedia pages). You’re trying to improve the bastard, not main his psyche for life.
  5. Invest in a quality, distinctive, unique soundtrack. Remember that soundtracks are a series of songs often with a similar theme and a strong undercurrent that should be able to deliver the same feeling every time. So one song will just not do. Buy a memory card, an iPod, a stereo or start eating bananas to sharpen your voice. You need at least a whole album.
  6. Whenever people tell you “that’s the song we danced to the first time we met”. They are lying. Curse them to hell because really what they are saying is that it was the song they first “did the deed” to.
  7. This is a warning to all player boys out there – stay away from other people’s soundtracks. It may seem smooth to be soulless by being able to relate to some random guy’s soundtrack while you do his woman. But it isn’t. These days you hear girls talking about how “shallow guys are”. It’s because of you twats. You guys give us a bad name. You have to be able to enter a woman’s universe and she can feel how palpable your soundtrack is. All of a sudden the music in her life seems to have twang of you in it. Hence when you are gone, so is your music, your soundtrack and your essence. Even though you remain in her subconscious (*snigger snigger*)
  8. Movie soundtracks are cool, you know Hans Zimmer on Megamind but you don’t want to mess with Gladiator, The Dark Knight or even Inception; the darkness might be too much. I just recently graduated from the Mission Impossible soundtrack because it wasn’t working – face it, no one will let you hump them to Tom Cruise’s pattering feet. Feel free to experiment with a variety mix but I would generally steer clear of entire movie soundtracks. Sit down and compile something that’s you.
  9. Even though when we are growing up we are inevitably exposed to our parent’s music and influences, you should, as you grow, strive to veer away from this acidic leverage. Or else you end up…
Well let’s just say it won’t end well.
My thoughts end here.
Have a nice week.
Orbis non Sufficit

Failure: An Open Letter to My Yet Unborn Son – Choose To Be Worthy

Failure is a way of life for a lot of people. But it is a path that we all like to deny, even though we all take it. I was telling some friends a couple of weeks ago that as an African man you are born with so many disadvantages against the guy born in Europe, Asia, south America or even north Africa that often you have to work twice as hard to even get at par.
I am serious. The American kid has a strong education culture and a functional education system should he so choose to ever attend or focus on that. The opportunities to excel in sport abound, the remuneration of which is staggering.
The girl from Asia might not have these abundant privileges, but she does have a culture, an ethic, a family support structure that allows her to work harder, want more and, be assisted to achieve higher than other people she competes with. Her culture’s history is written and dated for the last 8 centuries, in china its 30 centuries! She is grounded on where she is from and is not confused about who she is.
The same boy from Schengen will have arguably some of the best and free education on the planet. With resources and amenities that allow him to travel abroad on summer immersions and the drive to expand global influence through aid, he will probably work for his government, oppose his government or simply live on unemployment benefits and still be fine.
Now let me talk about the boy from Uganda or sub-Saharan Africa. He is born as a statistic where 1 child dies every 4 seconds. If he makes it to the first year, he will have survived being among the other 10% who don’t make it out. If he make sit out of the age 5 category, he will have almost have escaped the infant mortality. Then he will struggle with the education process, rote memorization, and the possibility of never making it beyond primary school, because if he does, he will again be part of a statistic that climbed one more rung up the ladder (with 121 million children out of education). His ascent into secondary school will be plagued by the glaring absence of critical thinking technique, the presence of biology teachers who failed to become doctors or physics teachers who did not make it into engineering.
As he climbs higher into A level or tertiary education, he becomes parts of the thin air constituted by the small numbers where spots are few; the funds even fewer. With no scholarships, he will likely go into vocational school, or go into a teacher training college or hopefully make it into a university where he will study a Bachelor of Arts degree in Arts or in Sciences or Social Sciences.
With no infrastructure for him to get gainfully employed, he moves from his rural home to the city, when he lives in a slum. With drainage, water, sanitation, hygiene, resource, ventilation, rule of law and societal challenges, the hope of making it out wanes.
His girlfriend mothers his first son before he can plan to properly take care of them both. He has to do a side job to make ends meet. Take a bribe. ”Do a deal”. Cheat a little here and there.
Why?
So he can give Martin his son the chances he never got. Get him the toys he never had. Pay the bribe for martin to go to the school his father never had the ability to do. Pay for the university course that Martin wants so he can really excel. So Martin can take care of him. So that Martin can live the dream.
He will make some money in his middle years as he gets the hang of things. Eat red meat every day. Drink a beer with his friends. Drive everywhere goes. Drink full cream milk every day.
At 45, he will have ulcers, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, gout, chronic back ache, visual impairment, loss of hearing, or all these. He will probably die at 60 of these or related ailments.
This is unfortunately the story for a lot of our generation. Has the boy from sub Saharan Africa failed? Could he have done better?
He might have done better. He could have worked harder and slept less in school and gotten better grades. And then a become doctor or lawyer, an engineer. He would then have migrated from this profession into politics and then maybe he wouldn’t have had to toil tirelessly to give Martin a fighting chance.
I am not this man. But I have failed. I was looking at my life and I thought about all the things I could have done better and why I might see my life as Martin’s father.  The chance to make a difference lost to expedience and the practicalities of survival in the African environment.
I have failed so much in my life that when this recent failure came, it did not come as a surprise. It just hit me so hard that I couldn’t imagine that everything I had lost in my life had come down to and could be surmised up into this one rejection. Below are 20 colossal failures that I want to share:
1.       I thought about the shoes I lost in P.1 – which I never forgot because my father talked about them until I was 20!
2.       I thought about that incident in P.5 when I betrayed my best friend to a girl we both liked. We both never got the girl. He was never my friend again. And what that taught about loyalty.
3.       I thought about everything that happened when my family left me alone in a new school with no friends and left the country. And how that affected my take on education, authority, and being the new person.
4.       I thought about losing the vote for assistant head boy by 3 votes to a guy who today is a senior network engineer with a telecom company. Maybe that would now be me.
5.       I thought about failing my primary exams and how for the next 6 years I dealt with my father nagging and nailing it home. It was a 6 for Chrissakes! Not a 12!!  And why my definition of success is my own.
6.       I thought about my first day in secondary school and listening to a young man who would later become a pastor (albeit disgraced) at a church I would try to attend. Reading the schedule, and life at the great college, talking about tradition, and self reliance. I remember him picking me out and saying I was the paragon of what a “St. Mary’s boy” wasn’t. Him pointing to my shorts and saying they were what not to wear. And what that did to my opinions on appearance and presentation before people.
7.       I thought about my first pair of glasses that didn’t work and why for the first two terms I couldn’t see what was taught in the great lecture halls at the college, or the messed up sleep schedule I kept which meant I literally slept throughout my whole first year. And why I was not surprised when I was asked to repeat a class with an average of 58.7% with a 60% pass mark. And the lesson of exacting standards which followed.
8.       I thought about coming back to school the next year, when my parents thought it was too much work to bring me to school, so they sent me off with my foster parents to report because they couldn’t be ashamed. And what that informed me on shame and togetherness.
9.       I thought about where I was standing when the van of buns was robbed. I remember 2 boys who would later become lawyers whispering the plan and the flurry of activity as the van was raided. I remember the punishment and the “superman” in the school compound. And how I learnt that no matter where you are, you will stand alone, you must always be responsible for your actions.
10.   I thought about an acronym that I carry seared into my left wrist. Burnt in there by a young, nice man who would die in our fourth year of school after an accident because the ambulance couldn’t pick him up. Because he had no insurance. He would bleed to death on the tarmac. The acronym reads CAT. The first two are my given names. The third a name I took from a young man who would go on to join law school and a fantastic practitioner with enormous peer reverence. Back then when I took his name he had saved my life – as in literally carried me off the edge of death thrice. He didn’t know me. He knew nothing about me. He was simply being friendly to a guy who looked like he needed someone to talk to. He would never know I took his name and owned it to forever remind me that no matter how tough it got, life would always prevail – and because of him I would never give up. The name means “we are beloved”. And whether I had failed him in giving up along the way.
11.   I thought about the day I walked out of school and knew I would never come back as a student. With an indefinite suspension and no knowledge of where to turn. The bleakness of the future and how the resilience of the human spirit is amazing.
12.   I thought about the Adventist school where nothing was what it seemed. The teachers who married their students, the drug and alcohol abuse that abounded, and how I was not able to resist the peer pressure. And when, as I walked out of the school, I thought about short appearances, life choices and why I would choose differently next time.
13.   The thought process then led me the conversation I had when I was being told that I would not be going to school anymore. I was being shipped off to the village to stay with my grandmother. My failure to resist and beg for another chance, my inability to see that education was the key to being successful – at least back then. I remember what this taught me about humility and courage.
14.   I thought about the two weeks I stayed on the streets. The prostitute who fed me, the boy who shared his cardboard box with me even though I had invaded his street. I thought about working in Owino in the day and coming sleeping at the foot of the independence monument at night. And the irony of that situation, and life in general.
15.   I thought about how ironic it was to be a new student in school in the village. From wearing blazers with emblazoned “Duc in Altum” to wearing pale fifty-count thread-bare black cotton shorts in a little known school as the last bastion of learning for me. The lessons, the courage it took to show up for my classmates. Often in bare feet. Not slippers or sandals; just their feet. I remembered the energy, passion, effort we all, as a class, put into our classes. It didn’t matter where we were from, where we were headed. It was a class of 96. 40 of us were offering physics and chemistry at O’ level. Our science lab had only 15 pipettes and burettes with a little fewer than 50 test tubes. I remember the look in our faces as we learnt something new. The rancour in my gut when I thought another boy in another school had electricity and a backup generator where I had a pressure lamp that sometimes didn’t have kerosene. Selling bananas to eke a living, to get by, pay dues. I have an underdog mentality. It stays with me everywhere, allows me to challenge establishments, to go against the grain, to want it more than the next guy, to will things I want into existence. And why I think revenge, in any form should be slow in coming. Very slow.
16.   I thought about our very first physics practical exam. As the leading student, the onus was on me to hold it down. The other students would be watching me for guidance, for fortitude. I remember Didas looking at me from across the room. Without the shoulders or the mental strength to bear, the levees burst. And the consternation in Didas’ eyes as he saw the invigilators bring a basin for me to stand in and finish the exam. Walking out of the exam, knowing I had nailed it but failed to hold my piss and making a promise to myself. And what I learnt about presence of mind, mental fortitude, and excellence.
17.   I thought about the first time I kissed a girl. The awkwardness, the trauma, the clashing of teeth. The strange nervousness after and the shiftiness that had enveloped that affair since. And how I never know when it’s time to let go.
18.   I thought about Namilyango days and the bogus literature teacher who had tried to hoodwink the class. Telling her to never step into our class again. Being the rebel, the inciter, the instigator. And what that taught me about peer leadership.
19.   I thought about university. How far I had come to get here, where I had had to dig myself out of. Every day. Every fight. Every scrape. Standing at the university grounds on graduation day two years late because of lascivious exchanges that didn’t happen and as a result, stuck in a placement that neither allowed growth, rewarded excellence nor recognized effort. Two jobs later, that paid a little over 100 dollars a month for the first and a job that would turn me into a work addict, 7 days a week for the second, I walked away from it all. And what that taught me about pain and loss.
20.   I thought about one night when as I walked with my best friend on the university campus the university security patrol truck swung around the corner. We ducked for cover because we had been on the back of that truck before. I remember muffled sounds as the guard shouted, I remember kneeling and shouting “We are students! Please don’t shoot.” My arms raised in the air. I can still hear the bullet whizzing past my head and sharp crack as it exploded through my friend’s leg, with a shattered femur. I remember calling the one friend we both had in common. I can still hear the cackling laughter as he switched off thinking we were joking. I remember holding my friend in my arms, taking off a new t-shirt I had and tearing it to wrap around his bleeding leg. I will never forget Vincent, the cab driver who picked me up. And at the sight of the blood started crying immediately. I would never use another cab driver if I could for the rest of my life. Entering the casualty ward, no attention, shouting voice. “Can I get some help!!? Where the F** are the doctors in this hospital?!!!” I still feel the cold stainless steel table on which they lay him. Me holding his hand as they dressed the wound and as they stitched the 5 inch scar in my skull. And the long wait between 3:20am and 8:00am when families started arriving. The wait, without a bed sheet. Without a blanket. No shirt for me. No trousers for him. Delirium at 6:00am as the biting Katanga breeze rushed into ward 3C. I remember someone saying “it was your fault” and I remember saying “but the guy who shot at us appeared in court and you didn’t even turn up!” “It’s none of my business” And why there are things that should never be forgiven. Ever.
Why do I tell you all this?
Because no matter how much you think you have lost, you never get used to it. No matter how much you think you know failure, you don’t.
I tell you this because my failings are not even half of this list. The things that make me insecure, afraid, and terrified, smile, laugh, stress, bounce or even just stay still. Because for the first time I was faced with a loss that I felt I totally had no control over and no matter what I said, I was just giving an excuse, which wasn’t enough. In a moment of darkness, I reached out to a friend, who incidentally is called Angella, and when I thought I had failed again, extended her hand.
The loss will be a story for another day.
For today my story is that I have failed too often, come from too far, and beat such incredible odds, that on any continent I have done my dues to deserve to be at par with any one man my age. I am the African boy who has the same dreams as the girl in Asia, or the man in the Americas. I am not Martin’s father. I refused that lot a long time ago. I have demanded for more soup. I will have a bigger piece of the cake, not because I am entitled to it, but rather there will be no one to give it to. I stand among the ranks of those who have failed enough and are not ashamed of it.  Today I stand before you, all failed out.
I am worthy.
Orbis non Sufficit