Uganda

When I pen my articles on this blog, they raise a lot of criticism. Some people get encouraged while others say that I piss them off. Well, I was expecting this even before I started the blog.

Of late, I have been on the tendency of posting articles about passionate people in the St. Paul's choir who have inspired me in my singing journey.

A fellow blogger recently asked me why I had to insist on posting articles about my mentors yet they are not relevant to you my audience. Well, maybe he had a point. Maybe, I should start another blog about my mentors and post their stories there. Methinks this blogger friend of mine wants me to maintain this blog as one that contains creative prose. No more no less.

I could go on and on in this boring soliloquy but I know that it will bore you. To avoid singing lullabies to you my esteemed reader, I will give you the story of Uganda. Yes, I travelled to Uganda a few days ago. For a week. A whole week to be exact.

A week abroad is no short time. I stress I was abroad. Majuu. Huko ng'ambo. In the Kenyan diaspora.

Being part of the choir can be fun. Maybe, funnier than the word fun. We sing during weddings, birthdays and burial ceremonies. Nay, we never sing during burials. Kimani, the choir chairman would never bring himself that low. Our choir he says, is for the living. We do not sing in times of doom. Maybe, in times of gloom when some of us are bored stiff with academics.

Last week but one, he took some of us out on a trip to Uganda-- a few selected choir members and dancers. I was long listed for the trip. I behaved well and made it to the shortlist. On singing impeccably during mass, Kimani finally selected me for the trip. Hooray, I had made it. However, I had to cough out a cool 2000 kshs to help finance the trip.

Uganda is finer than you might think.

Previously, I always imagined of it being a land of illiterates, honey and milch ( I mean milk). Of course a great percentage of her populace is made up of people who have not read so many books. Therefore, my previous hypothesis (remember am a statistician) of her being made up of illiterates is not very far from the truth.

Talking about honey and milch, Uganda is not well endowed in the two. Not unless we christen the numerous over-sweet fenesi' s (jackal fruits) growing there as honey. When it comes to milk, she doesn't know it very well. In our one week stay there, we helped ourselves to couldrons and couldrons of sweetened black tea. Had the Kenyan Pokots not rustled Museveni's cattle, maybe we would have found milk in the country. But where would we find the milk whereas the cows were in Pokot? (Gossip has it that Museveni sent Biko Zulu to Pokot to look for his cattle. However, the herd seems to love Pokot better. They rained kicks on Biko (Museveni's messenger) like nobody's business)

If I stayed longer in Uganda, I would have maybe appeared in the Forbes magazine for being one of the richest gentlemen in Africa. Why, you ask. I travelled from Kenya with a meagre 1430 Kenya shillings. Arriving in the Ugandan diaspora however, my money was converted and guess what... I was given 40,000 Ugandan shillings. I was perplexed. Maybe you would say I was in a trance as I stood there wondering what to do with all that sudden wealth.

Later on however, I was in for a rude shock on discovering that Ugandan money is worthless. A chapati goes for 1000 shillings. 1000 shillings? Yes, you got me right. A banana is a little bit cheaper. It goes for 300 shillings. Get me right, I am not talking about a bunch of bananas, just one banana.

Once you leave Muigai's soil and step on Museveni's land, Safaricom immediately detects that you are about to cheat on her with her sister MTN. She threatens you with a message:

“My dear man, you are now entering Uganda. I know you are going to cheat on me with my sister MTN. I can do nothing about it but, please, take care. She is an expensive lady”

Being the typical Kenyan I am, I took this message lightly. If anything, who is Safaricom to warn Kenyans of being conned by other ladies? Isn't she worse off than any of them? I texted her back:

“Dear Safaricom, I will not let the pot call the kettle black. I am in Uganda, that you know very well. Now, do not spoil my honeymoon with MTN here. She is a hot lady who minds her dresses and mannerisms. Hold your peace and noise. If you continue nagging me, I will not come back to Kenya and you will have to get another dude to mint from”

MTN: Uganda's missus

However, after one day stay in Uganda, I realized the true meaning of the Kikuyu adage: muka mukuru acokagirirwo na maithori (A man goes back to their old wife in tears after wasting their time with mistresses ).

MTN is a very sly girl. She dons an orange dress to entice you. She knows very well that you are sick of Safaricom's green dress.

She is more wicked than Safaricom. A real gold digger. If she were introduced in Kenya, all of us, including Muigai, would storm into the streets and demonstrate over her extortion. Why, you ask.

When you make a call on MTN network, she charges both the caller and the called. Yes, she is that harsh. And do not think that she charges two cents. Nope, this gold digger does not shy from doing what she does best. She doles out a cool 15 shillings from both ends. Kenyan shillings, mind you. When we realized this, we switched off all our phones and forgot that we ever owned any.

However, before switching off my phone, I thought it wise that I apologize and make peace with my Safaricom wife lest I go back to Kenya and find her sulking at me. I texted her:

“ My dear Safaricom, do you know that you are nicer and lovelier than 'nice and lovely'? You are the reason why my heart beat feels even from my legs. I love you more than I love myself. My dear girl, worry not for I did not sleep with MTN. She could be beautiful but she is not beautiful enough for me. You Safaricom, are beauty itself. I am satisfied just being with you.”

Ugandans hold the name of Kenya in awe. They think that we are demigods. When we visited the country, there is this Ugandan tour guide we had. His name was Ofono Charles. (Not Charles Ofono. No, no, no. In Uganda, you start with your surname then the baptismal name comes trailing behind.)

Whenever Ofono Charles was talking about Kenya, he would refer to it as ng'ambo. Or majuu. He also thought that we were more civilised, learned and wealthier. You know how we guys revere wazungus and hold their names in awe? This is exactly how Ugandans feel about us.

Once I grow up, I will marry a Ugandan lady. That is my new year's aspiration. Before I went to Uganda, a fellow blogger (lets call him Xoxo for anonymity sake) whispered to me that Ugandan ladies have 'asses' that stretch from Kampala to Chiromo. Their boobs, he had said, are succulent, promising and very nourishing. When a creative and wise engineer like Xoxo (he is an engineer) whispers such tempting words in your ear, your legs start shaking in anticipation of going to the place he is describing. You might also have the joy of sweat dripping in all weird places.

Xoxo is weird. Very weird. You should have been there when he gave me this secret about Ugandan ladies. Looking at his dark face, you would have thought that he was disclosing an important secret like why male civil engineers prefer wearing open shoes when they are not working.

Xoxo has a very dark complexion. You might say he is darker than the word dark. However, when he was revealing this secret, his face was lighter and beaming with joy. He smiled mischievously and looked at me directly as though he was about to tell me why the rosary has ten decades.

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“ Jaymoh, you are going to Uganda, yes?”

He pauses a bit and takes a gulp of water from his water glass.

“ I know you will enjoy the stay there”

At this juncture, methinks he means that I will enjoy Uganda simply because I will eat a lot of matoke. However, I am drawing conclusions too soon. The guy still has a lot to tell me.

“ When you get there, make sure that you get a good Ugandan lady”

“Good Ugandan lady, why?” I ask.

“ Jaymoh,” he says sitting upright and playing with his now empty water glass.

“Ugandan ladies are good”

“Good? But are they any better than Nairobi ladies?”

“ Yes, they are way better. For one, they have XL asses,”

“XL what?”

“ XL asses, Jaymoh! Now, do not pretend to be so much of a Christian. You know what asses mean. An ass is a buttock!”

“ Ok, ok,” I say brushing with embarrassment, “ I know what eeer...eeer....asses are. But what do you mean by eeer...XL asses?”

“ Ooooh, that one. You want to know the meaning of XL asses?”

I nod shyly like a young village girl being seduced.

“XL asses are Extra Large asses. Asses that stretch all the way from Kampala to Chiromo,” he says bluntly.

“ Ok, ok. Apart from XL 'whatevers', what else do Ugandan ladies have?”

At this juncture, I am eager to get out of this 'ass' talk. Am trying hard to change the topic.

“ That is a very good question, Jaymoh.”

Again, this Xoxo guy collects and composes himself as though he is about to tackle a global warming question. On my part, I wait eagerly for his answer. In fact, I open my notebook ready to record what he will say.

“Ugandan ladies have good boobs”

I warned you that this guy is really weird. I drop my notebook. I cannot record XL asses and boobs on it, can I?

“ Their boobs are large, more succulent than the cactus plant and most of all, they are very nourishing”

After this conversation, I left Xoxo's room burning with expectation. I cannot wait for the next day to dawn.

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When we arrive in Uganda, I throw my eyes out of the window to have a look at the Ugandan ladies. Xoxo is a liar. The women's backdrops do not stretch from Kampala to Chiromo. No, the stretch is from here to there. Do you see where my right hand is. Yes, am talking about a stretch that is from it to here.

But maybe Xoxo was not lying. Maybe he was just talking of something else. Not women's backdrops. Sure. When Xoxo talked about an ass, he probably meant a donkey. An ass is the other name for a donkey, isn't it?

They are exceptionally lovely

What I liked about Ugandan women is the respect they accord their male folk. Whenever a Ugandan lady is greeting a male, no matter the male's age, she kneels. If she is serving food or water to a male, she kneels. When she is requesting for anything from a man, she kneels. Methinks, Ugandan women like kneeling. But wait! I was told that women kneeling is a culture that has been in existence since history began. Culture in Uganda is something that is well upheld. Therefore, Ugandan women have been finding themselves kneeling since childhood. They kneel everywhere they encounter a male. Whether it is on hard ground or in mud; they have to kneel.

I am not exaggerating anything but I think you should have been there when we walked past a shamba where an elderly woman was working. Charles, our tour guide, waved at her from a good distance. The very moment she saw Charles' hand waving in the air, she went down. Kneeling, she waved back. It was not until we by-passed the shamba that she rose to her feet and continued working.

Being the investigator I am, I sought to know the texture of the womenfolk's knees. How hard were their knees now that they had been kneeling since childhood? Do they put spongy material on top of their knees to absorb the impact of hard ground on kneeling? Could their knees, over time of course, have evolved into stones?

It was at Charles' home that I got the opportunity to carry out my forensic investigations.

I called Charles' wife. She is about 30.

She came running and panting for breath—I guess she feared me because of two reasons:

1. I am a man and,
2. I am a mzungu from majuu.

On getting near me, she knelt.

“Oooh, you do not have to do it. Just stand up”

She stood, looking perplexed and throwing furtive glances at her husband who was sitting next to me.

Never again had a man told her to stop kneeling and stand beside him. I bet she felt as though she was dreaming. In fact, I saw her pinch her wrist so as to be sure that she was not sleeping.

I stretched out my hand and made for the knee...

Those who have travelled to Uganda know very well that Ugandan married women neither wear trousers nor skirts. They are always wearing a brightly colored dress called 'gomesh'. A gomesh is not your normal kind of dress. It is no dress that you would find a Nairobi lady wearing to a dinner date. No, a gomesh is long. Longer and taller than the wearer.

Ugandan culture states that a woman's gomesh is only to be touched by her husband. This practice ensures that infidelity does not percolate into a man's boma. Another practice that is religiously observed is that of a woman's body sanctity. You never see her body, all the way from her shoulders to her feet, unless you are sleeping with her.

I never knew all this.

To get a good look at Charles wife's knee, I raised the gomesh...

Slowly and a little bit above the knee.

My forensic policies state that I pay lots of attention to every part I see.

The first thing that captured my attention is the toe nails. They were in bad state of repair. The crooked nails seemed to be timidly staring back at me as I performed my forensics. Have you ever stealthily walked into a room infested with cockroaches and seen the apprehension the roaches register on their faces as they meet your menacing gaze? That was what I saw on uncovering her toe nails. They looked ugly and shy. If she were a Nairobian, Charles would be in hot soup. The woman would naggingly demand that he take her for a pedicure.

Moving up from her feet, I noticed her curvy legs. They were ebony dark but shapely: a glaring contrast compared to her ugly toe nails. Looking keenly at the two body parts, one would have thought that she had borrowed one body part from someone else. On close forensics however, I discovered that the legs too had a defect. They were un-oiled, dusty and chalky. These legs reminded me of my Mathematics graph book.

The knees. If there is anything scaly and scary that I have ever set my eyes on, it is those knees. Methinks the English-man who came up with the word 'scared-stiff' must have looked at a Ugandan lady's knees. But no matter how scary they looked, my curiosity won over. I had to touch them.

How could I get the audacity of summoning her, raising her gomesh yet lack the bravado to touch the knees? What are scaly knees anyway? Don't we touch reptiles now and then? Don't we shake hands with stones and tree barks daily?

As I was about to touch her knee, I heard someone behind me chuckle. I turned. It was Charles.

Ofono Charles.

Engrossed in my forensic investigations, I had completely forgotten that Charles existed. Turning back to look at why he chuckled, I was met by his angry gaze. Nay, the gaze was not only an angry one but also fierce.

Charles was trembling with anger. He looked like a wounded lion. Have you ever seen how those Maasai mara lions look like once they are wounded. I bet you have. On an analog TV however. I know you are yet to buy that digital TV set box.

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Before it dawns on me why Charles could be so much angered, he outstretchs his beefy hands and clasps my small body the way one grips ugali. I am trembling and at the same time sweating. My bladder misbehaves. Before I know what is happening, Charles raises one of his hands as though he is about to give me a resounding slap when...

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Oh my! The ink on my keyboard just dried up. I will continue the story some other time when I purchase some more ink.