G KAGAME
This is a personal note, if you are the kind that is not interested in such please read no further.
A few days ago I lost all my music files saved on my prized notebook computer, at one time I owned a collection of music that was richer than three FM stations in Kigali or so I boasted among my friends in Rwanda. Recently I moved to North America and my fortunes changed. One of my favourite songs in the collection was by Nigerian Maestro Femi Kuti and was titled "Sorry Sorry." The song tells Africa's misery as the continent is exploited and neglected by politicians and soldiers and left for the dogs.
My collection of music was stored in three computers, one, a prize personal notebook, the other a laptop for work purposes and the third was a desktop which, for those that read my blog know too well how I managed against all odds to purchase it ending in my eviction by my roommate for defaulting on my monthly rental payments- I had spent my three months total pay to buy it and in the process failed to contribute on anything else in the house.
So as I moved to North America, I never knew the importance of back up for files kept on computers, like so many other aspects of a computer that I never knew. In one bizarre moment I erased all my music files unintentionally. The music, to a large extent told the episodes of my life-story from infant, puberty right through to my current stage which is swinging between youth mature, old, ancient, man and manhood.
The events that led to my easing my music were not so complicated to anyone my age and education standards, (moderate) as compared to somebody that grew up in the west. So as I explained to a friend how I had erased my music he could not really comprehend my mental status. I could tell from how he looked at me that the word RETARDED was what he wanted to say to me. But the west is different, so he just looked at me (or tried to ) with sympathy. Since I lost these music files I have been depressed, and I have been extremely hurt beyond words.
I left the two computers in Kigali and I only have the prized one. Since the music was saved on three different computers and even on an Ipod, you'd say that I can simply retrieve it from one and restore it. But it is not this simple. First I carried only the files I had on my notebook, the back up memory chip where other copies were stored was stolen from me while I worked in the Pan African Parliament newsroom in Johannesburg last year.
After the chip was stolen I put up a passionate plea and reward in the Gallagher estates asking if somebody had taken the chip to return it but wapi. It was not returned. The friend with whom I left my other two computers in Kigali cannot quite comprehend the thing. If I requested him to post me my saved files with a chip I would have to explain to him multiple times. First the instruction process would be unnecessarily long and he would not be bothered to post anything. In Africa the use of post office and mailing has never developed beyond what colonialists left. In fact we still use the same box addresses that colonialist left behind in the early 60s.
My other friends that understand how to operate computers are either too 'classy' to do this kind of favour, would not be bothered or our friendship was simply premised on me bringing good quality chapati in the newsroom. Friendships in Africa are 'in your face' kind of thing. It is after all the holiday continent for many, where you make short term connections and drop them as conveniently as they come. In the same way, though moralists might say otherwise, African life (between Africans, as if we are the real life vampires) is lost as easily as the African sun comes and goes.
But this is not a tirade about Africa, it is one man's self disappointment with his failure to manage simple affairs. When I consider that I have worked in three different newsrooms in three African countries, and in each I have had my mobile memory chips picked up/stolen. It is not just my failure to master computers. It is the inherent corruption on simple things that makes many of us on the continent really fucked up. And this is not an attempt to justify my stay in the west, although this is another issue altogether.
And this is not even close to the personal story that inspired me to share this note. A pizza did. You see, I started working for the biggest bakery in Uganda or East Africa when I was aged 17 and I kept working for this bakery in one way or another till I was about 26. Yet in all these years, apart from contributing to NSSF there's very little that I was allowed to learn on the job. During the first years I worked on the slicing machine of the bakery, later I was transferred to the rolls/buns moulding table and my last post in the production department was on the bread mixers and ovens.
By the time I left the factory department in 2000 and transferred to the sales team and later administration by 2004 I never had a chance to learn how bread is made, its ingredients and any other product in the factory for that matter.
This bakery produced 300 different products and for high profile businesses as Sheraton Hotel and the UN. By 2006 when I stopped working from them I never knew how to make even a biscuit. Onetime my supervisor, a man aptly named 'Forex' found me learning how to make a pizza in the wee hours of one night shift.
He suspended me from work but he did not have a reason to make it official so he accused me going to night clubs unnecessarily on my off duty days and talking about it. My suspension letter read that I was influencing into going to Silk Royale and therefore I'd lead to workers contracting HIV/Aids.
Recently I met a North American and we soon became friends. In less than two weeks Mike had taught me how to make pizza, lasagna and famous little round cakes baked in papers. And yet it did not take much effort. He just told me that cooking is creativity and so anybody in the world with an appetite and a brain was able to cook if they wanted to.
He wrote down the menu and now, as you can see above, I can bake a very very beautiful and sumptuous pizza. A simple skill than has given many a job, taken many through life and school. Now, thanks to this man no one in the pizza business in my neighbourhood will ever take my hard earned money. Pizza in North America costs a lot and In Africa it is for a chosen few, in fact many don't even know of the thing.
And huge amounts of money are spent on building human resource capacity in Africa, it is a shame that a journalist cannot properly know the basic rules of computers and a bakery goods worker cannot make the most basic product in the factory.
Updated on Wednesday · Comment · Like
Alphonce AssengaThis is too much pizza u have learnt n trust me your gonna make big money on that, don't forget i contribute a lot on the process of making this pizza till now I'm just few yards from where u will be making them from watching u from a distance n have that good smell.
14 October at 23:43 · Delete
Edward GathuraiKagame, thats deep. Disturbing...but deep nonetheless. So does that mean you will open a Kageme's Inn when you go back to M7's?
15 October at 00:42 · Delete
Gaaki KigamboPreviously, I haven't read beyond the opening intro of your long posts here. Firstly because my idea of Facebook doesn't include long notes, and secondly I've found your opening intros really drab and so they have not succeeded in sucking me into the whole thing.
This is different. The teaser in personal is good (there's always something magical about personal revelations), the brashness in the latter part would wow even the harshest of critics, and who would resist the punch of that one sentence intro? Knowing I've read worse, you hold the language and the presentation pretty well through the 15 darn paragraphs.
Now, I really wish I could say more in that spirit. Have you, in the few days you've lived in N.America, already been bitten by the 'western bug' that not only generalises Africa as if it were one country but sets one's sight to only see and remember the worst, including amplifying the minutest of hiccups? ... Read more
15 October at 01:15 · Delete
Gaaki KigamboFor good measure, you might find this intriguing; http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
15 October at 01:26 · Delete
Mugabe BonnieHi george,how are you?
15 October at 02:07 · Delete
George KagameGaaki, for all your wackiness thank you for bringing my attention to this lady. Now I'll go to the library and purchase her book.
(Note:we do not have real libraries in Africa, we have city councils running expansive football clubs and not library. i'll risk your labels for my immersion in North American culture and write about it. And also thank you for noting my fake intros. I'll improve.)
I'll post my response to the issues to you raise later but it was nice reading your comment.... Read more
15 October at 10:59 · Delete
Gaaki KigamboYou guy, what do you mean there are no real libraries? What's your criteria for measurement? The U.S. has the Library of Congress, the largest (in size and content) in the world. Should we say then that its close neighbour Canada which doesn't have the same doesn't have 'real' libraries?
How much of Africa do you know? You've been to S. Africa, ... Read more
15 October at 13:56 · Delete
David KawaiGeorge you ignorant bastard. hehe... Can the African pick up sarcasm? we wait and observe... Man, are you in Vancouver or something? That's what some people are telling me! talk soon!
15 October at 16:43 · Delete
George KagameGaaki and Dave;
Every writer has their unique and distinct ways of presenting what they think on paper. If I had started writing only after I moved to North America your diatribe against this note would be justified. But no, I started writing the whole of 8 years ago and I have always questioned our approach to some simple things like the posta.
To answer Gaaki's first question, I once forgot my pocket money before an important trip and remembered this money only after a stop over at Addis Ababa. I called my friend in Kigali and requested him with proper instructions to wire for me the money. He failed.
... Read more
15 October at 20:10 · Delete
Gaaki KigamboKagame, I wish your other friends on here were capable of an intellectual conversation so they could weigh in on this, otherwise am afraid to run it as a 'contest' btn just the two of us. Save for the 1st and last para here, I could easily punch holes in all of the remaining. The experiences you recount are purely personal as someone else can ... Read more
15 October at 20:52 · Delete
Anne Bucura BagireKagame this is inspiring,but whatever the case ur African and will die African.
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