BUNGA BUNGA

Since we have not had this conversation before I assume that you are typically interested in crime stories. Stories with all the twists of drama, intrigue, hatred, playahating human beings, success, failure, envy, joy, peace, sadness, drama and recovery, sex and happiness.

I know also that you may not have gone ahead to name yourself don or even worship at the altar of the mafia, but perhaps you watched the GodFathers; everyone else seems to have anyway.

So I was watching the news this evening and witnessed the best as far as crime stories come.

BUNGA BUNGA
You may have heard of the story of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his rise to professional respect in law, politics and women. Recently has is said to have “danced’ WITH Moroccan bellydancer. Note: He has helped launched the career of that curvaceous 17 year old girl.
Anyway, the girl said that she danced with the Prime Minister as well as his Bunga Bunga Club members. Private sessions of course!!


EPIC ENDING
Now the story ends up in parliament, they have had to vote on a vote of confidence whilst his esterwhile allies turned enemies on the attack. While the entire media, MPs, EVERYONE OF note and notofnote seriously believed Berlusconi was out. Wapi>>>>>
(thinkThink of any epic story.

But the drama was enchanting as the results of the parliamentary vote were confusing. The results were announced twice and Belusconi appeared to have lost the vote in the first bulletin from parliament.
Most people predicted a loss to his People’s Freedom Party, which itself is a precursor to his earlier party; Forza Italia. Borrowed from a football chant- were indeed disappointed and to show it they burnt all they could find. Of course some of those immigrants that have been chased around the srteets were amongst the people baying for the blood of Ill Cavaliere. The Knight!!!

.



The protesters who were now in jubilation and merry making because of the first results turned violent and burnt down cars and anything they could find other than their historic buildings Rome when the second result came out.
Watching the television I could not believe my eyes; was it some fantasy story, a movie turned news or pure bullshit?
Berlusconi is of original blue-collar mould from some obscure community near Milan. He made his name into high classes the hard way. He went to school, hustled the streets and turned into a politician.


Old Money
Along the way, he toned a well-muscled body, technology took care of the hairstyle and at 71, and stories of him and a 17-year-old belly dancer are not strange. In fact I’d love to look like Berlusconi if I ever make it to 71. But definitely act like him; although I’d love his success too; to be thrown in the package such that at 74 I am still a mover and shaker of both the sane and insane in equal measures.


Berlusconi is scorned upon by the old money and conservative kind; but he rightly belongs in their quarters and so they have to only be stubborn by not welcoming him among their ranks. In fact to show that he is old money enough, he decided to move his earlier left leaning political affiliations to completely right wing.
Along the way alienating and supporting moves to deport illegal African immigrants and throwing the mostly Ghanaian home care workers in the streets.

New Money
Now that the old money kind is on his side he has to deal with the others, which are the new money. He is a success story of every Tom Harry and Dick who leave their hometown street to search for El Dorado in big cities, some in even bigger countries.
As he did with the nobility, old money and conservative kind, Berlusconi invited himself to the wealth table, successfully transforming a street vendor kiosk to an empire, while also pursuing a career in investing in AC Milan.

first time I drove a vehicle,

Loud and sudden orders,
The instructor is contrasting,
As he is confusing
Almost interfering,
but I am a student.

The precision of a machine,
A test of concentration,
The response of the body,
The thrill of beating gravity,
A meeting of God and man,
A battle of wits and nerves,
On the highway,
The ultimate pass code,
To freedom,
As is known in the west.

The car screeches forward,
The mind works,
Is it a thought or action?
The mind asks.
Sight, touch, sense and feel,
Alert.


The first time I drove a car,
“How old are you?”
The instructor asked?
27, far near 28 I answered.
“And you have never driven a car?”
He asked again with disbelief.

Today I hit an electric pole,
Practicing,
Parallel parking,
Shocked;
immediately I asked to go home,
It was scary.
Failed the parallel parking,
New lessons.

Daily news hound for years,
A man about town,
Attending Events and issues,
daily,
Never drove a vehicle.


Walking offers much more freedom,
No rules,
Just raw street smarts,
And mobility on foot is no problem,
No explanation.

1000 dollars today,
To learn driving a vehicle,
and road rules,
Thank God I can afford it,
No, Thank God for this country.


Kagame.

Facebook

The first time I met her,
She sat across the table,
With her exotic eyes,
and perhaps the brightest smile,
Like the morning sunshine.

It was A random moment,
A moment of happiness,
drinks and meals on the table,
friends,
new and old Merry,
IT WAS A BLESSING.


Dining and talking,
UP in Nyamirambo in Kigali,
The city of the genocide,
The city of rebirth,
The symbol of failure,
Kigali; that ray of reconciliation,
and STATEMENT OF HOPE,
and of dignity.

At the Indian restaurant,
Down by the corner to Sun City,
In the troughs of the valley,
Where the sun sets,
Amazingly,
Quietly,
daily.


I got her first name,
And gave her CUTE as the second one,
I asked her number,
I saved it under CUTE.


IT was the wrong number,
A lost connection.

But Kigali sets things straight,
And in Kigali there's talk,
Talking up and down,
In the highlands of East Africa,
Words walk.
Across valleys and mountains,
where the People meet.

With the fake telephone number,
she disappeared,
Just like a winning lottery ticket,
Worlds separated us,
But the souls didn't.

Facebook connected us,
Again,
As friends!



In a perfect world,
We would be in a ‘relationship.’
And the world is not perfect,
But friendship can be perfect.


KAGAME.

The Shitzens

He is quite a fellow; in fact I have never met him for the two years we have been neighbours, but I know he is a mid level to senior peace officer in investigations circles somewhere in the Citi.


Perhaps that’s is the reason we have never met despite occupying the same block; I harbour not so good feeling towards people of uniform. He may have heard that I am a journalist as well; a sleazy one at that and one he would rather avoid.

He has some children but since there are so many children that play in my courtyard- just like they do in all the courtyards in the neighbourhood-I cannot tell which ones are his and which aren’t. I assume that the ones that appear healthier in the bunch are his kids.


He drives a car or his is driven in one. I don’t know which kind because I have not seen it. I hear it once when by coincidence we both happen to be in the neighbourhood.


But it is good that the policeman and me have not seen eye to eye. I harbor many suspicions about his trade just as I assume he detests mine too. Since by calling, God had stationed us on opposite sides of the street-considering the not so cordial professional relationship between the police and the media –Citi was determined to set us straight.

SHITZENS

But telling you about the policeman neighbour without introducing the neighbourhood would tantamount to giving you the bone rather than the meat of the story.


CLAIM TO FAME

It is located just behind the famous penitentiary in Citi where inmates are serving time for participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Citiland as recently as 1994.

A large prison enclave populates the suburb, it hosts over 7,000 inmates serving time for their role in messing up Citiland; they are known as shitzens.
The prison is our only claim to fame, commerce and is symbolic of the Citi, it is also a large presence in all our stories.


large presence

Shitzens as the inmates are known wear a bright colour uniform and in the evening they watch TV; passersby hear the sound of Citi TV news in the evenings. And we are irritated by it.

There is no water connection and the electricity is also very shady in thevillagebehindtheprison, but the large prison makes its own electricity from the shit of the war criminals hence the name shitzens. They call it biogas and when the villagers see the shitzens walking about in the street with their colourful outfits they cannot help some envy.




Behind the fence of this gigantic structure lies semi detached houses where yours truly and some other people working to oil the economic machinery of Citi reside. The suburb is simply known as theVILLAGEBEHINDTHEPRISON.

Amongst those people is my closest neighbour, a policeman with whom we haven’t met but maintain an amicable relationship aided by a network of emissaries involving children, housekeepers and other neighbours.

I still cannot understand why said police officer chose to reside here; from the look of his house and the wall fence around it is clear that he could afford to reside elsewhere in the Citi. There’s a lot of irony on some days like today.
You see the shitzens have these schemes where they can work their sentences away.


Working Time

Say if one is in for 30 years for butchering his neighbours-and God forbid if said neighbourhood is this one behind the prison- works away at their chosen trade and the earnings are converted in terms of time. So if he worked for 10 years his sentence reduces by 20. So weekends like today the shitzens some of whom are engineers, masons, teachers and farmers are building a new modern residence.

A lone prison guard in full gear closely watches events and proceedings; my neighbour stands in his courtyard and lazily walks about not even aware and concerned about the close proximity of war criminals, children, house girls/boys, wives and motorcyclists.


In my mind I picture a scene where the shitzens turn on the guard and attempt an escape but they would be stopped in their tracks by the guards of said peace officer. Yet the shitzens cannot escape because they are in a tricky situation. First them colourful uniforms come off as signs of privilege; they are driven around the Citi like they are some important people.


Second because if the shitzens were to escape they would not survive beyond the warmth of the prison fence with its television and electricity. Shitzens would also be vehemently prosecuted by the kind of mob justice that I fear to imagine leave alone write.

To be continued

KAGAME.

Foreign hours, foreign people

The bright light in the bus shows all the tales,
Especially those of fatigue and to pay bills on the faces,
But I don’t see fatigue,
I see irony.

As we wait at the bus stand,
We stuff earphones,
In and on our heads,
We dance.

Some nod,
Some whisper to the tunes,
Others speak in foreign tongues,
We all might as well be thinking in some foreign dialect.

Foreign dreams,
Foreign jobs,
Foreign hours.


Visibly tired people,
yap away on cell phones,
In foreign tongues,
To people perhaps in foreign countries too.


A lone man walks about picking cigarette butts,
Burnt out and thrown away,
On the ground.


The Indians walk far off the Bangladeshi,
The Filipino away from the native,
The Ethiopian away from the Somali.

The awaited bus arrives,
Off go the cleaners,
Nurses,
Cooks,
Kitchen hands,
Factory workers,
More cleaners,
More foreign people.

Because the work shift is over,
And the bus shift must start.

Kagame

The message

first the communication went dead,
at first, the words came as torrents,
then they disappeared,
the music went dead,
then resurrected again
music always does.

the communication went dead,
the updates died down,
the hammock stopped swinging,

there was a STOP.

Then the silence,
the awkward moment,
the busy air,
the hard breathing,
the hard life.

then came the mind,
working,
the time.

life,
A day alive,
happy a moment,
the works of God.
gratitude and humility.

George

From The Hammock: IMIHIGO superman

BY GEORGE K


Last week at the UN offices in New York world leaders were feasting in the guise of meetings, it was a big occasion for everyone interested in economics and world development aka networking.


The leaders were evaluating their own performance in regard to the eight Millennium challenges that they set in 2001 when they committed themselves to reducing human misery. The millennium challenges are set to expire 2015 bar a proverbial extension.
With the seriousness that attract precision skills of a seasoned photographer, the leaders in New York signed documents that committed them, individuals, corporations and business leaders to act passionately and reasonably with justice and generosity. Fighting poverty became a call; a duty, an industry, a guilt pleasure, gimmick, and Hollywood people took to the thing with the kind of passion that is espoused only by sports fans.

MDGs
Beginning with 2001 the reforms to tackle these challenges became a benchmark of respect among leaders across the globe. A Bangladeshi man that understood the economics of microfinance won a Nobel Prize and started a citizen bank.
Microfinance agencies and cooperatives then reappeared; some benefitted women exclusively and when the women started accessing the money they also taught about better home management skills. The women started being more trustworthy, more responsible, more important and more effective. The family was back.


With hindsight relevant reforms were undertaken to lay the foundation for a new world order; in Africa the leaders started the New Partnership for African Development-NEPAD-WHICH has since died and the African Peer Review mechanism, APRM.
People took these challenges very serious, not least of all the leader of my village. Mtupu circulated a document with a list of items that I was required to have in my house. He INFORMED me that the standing committee of the Akagari ka Kinamba behind Mhima had been presented with Imihigo.

The Mihigo would be a list of questionnaires that required information about the property in my house and the property in my head too. The results would be tabled in a league format and performances rated in percentages. At the end of the year the best district won a grand prize in the ceremonial Amahoro.


The Mihigo list also required me to give an account my average day and the information would be deduced in percentages not explanations and official statements. It also had a clause where my marginal propensity to participate in genocide ideology was determined.


Eliminating Genocide Ideology
In a related incident, As if the performance contracts were not enough, sometime in 2008 some crafty members of parliament visited a certain school in Gicumbi. They were horrified to find and report that one school was guilty of espousing genocide ideology by a whopping 97 percent.


The MPs aware of the challenges caucused and formed even more committees, draft reports and conferences; these led to the formation of the law against dirty ideologies. Mtuptu called them “Umwhukah mubbi,” in his list. The members were not satisfied with the laws; they also set up a commission appropriately named National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide.

Thankfully my village performed admirably in the reports of all Tureres, in no small part due to my having a radio, three garden chairs, cooking pans, a toilet, a bathroom and a good explanation about the nature and goal of my social and marital lifestyle.
But my neighbour was even better, he had a walled fence which was a requirement by city administrators.; even before the wall he had a nice hedge fence around his house and passersby never gazed in his courtyard.

The village won a prize and the local leaders also known as Bayobbozi organized a fete. All the homesteads in the cell were required to attend or be well represented; we had to make appearances that suggested the village was getting along quite well. And in case we were not doing quite well there was primus for the women and MUTZIG for men but that was only through the back door!

Virgins
It was always a good combination. We also took very good care of our children and ensured that they led responsible lifestyles early on; as a result we contributed our part in forming a national organization to encourage and promote virginity.

It is not clear whether the idea was from the church or the state though but the details withstanding; GLOVIMA promised a good reward and respect for being virgins and abstaining from sex until the wedding day.
I remember laughing off the whole thing, it was possible to abstain from sex but even the holy bible before Glovima did not add a wedding to the already tough requirements.


So at the party boiled corn was served and some crazy brew that tasted as if it was prepared by a middle aged guy high on marijuana and the brew. It was a nice sunny evening, children played about and women gossiped about each other as the men cursed there being no Mutzig at the party.


reporter
Being a reporter I have attended many events and can predict their itinerary the way insurance experts predict death; so I had carried my water bottle filled with the water, which I had fetched on the way to church earlier on in the morning. This is when I played my superman card and offered to share my water with the men who were not tied on the petty coat of the women that were not participants of the gossip circuit.

donuwagiwabo@gmail.com

From the Hammock : World Challenges

First it was southern and northern hemispheres that divided the blocs of the world in two, the hemispheres metamorphosed into first and third world.

There was no second world. Today we are dealing with the developed and developing nations, which is somewhat a more politically correct dissection.

But along the way there were anecdotes introduced in determining how to correctly address the differences between the global class systems. They took the way of the west, the east, and the non-aligned, as well as the extremists, moderates, fundamentalists and now we even have the jihadists.

They are currently named like modern computer software programs. We have the G7 plus 1, the G20, G77 and OECD.

My generation came of age when the hemispheres were gradually getting out of abstract letters to a more contextual meaning and henceforth there were no more east, west, south and north hemispheres. The world instead had rights and challenges.

Applications

Millennium Challenges, MDGs-Millennium Development Goals, CBOs, CSOs and my favourite, world famous wealthy men willing to share their monies with poor people whom they don’t know in foreign places.

By 2001 when I was joining high school, the challenges of the world were determined to be eight and therefore the United Nations was given a new mandate to shape the development of the world.

The UN was coming through a generation where it had played an observer role in the skirmish of the independence and cold wars and even watched shamelessly when a million Rwandan Tutsi were exterminated in 1994.

The same UN had also observed when Charles Taylor, jewel shops in Europe, RUF and FodaySankoh ransacked Sierra Leone for diamonds.

Eight challenges

The role of establishing a mechanism to deal with the challenges by leaders of the UN was also a test for the UN to reshape its relevance and image.

All the noise about arresting some leaders such as Sudanese Omar Bashir, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Libya’s MuamarGadaffi-and it was even shamelessly rumoured that our own President Paul Kagame was wanted.

All this was a sideshow, background music. But the UN enjoys the soundtracks much more than the action and therefore five years before challenges drive expires; they are still talking about implementation.

Some people were quite serious in taking on the challenges though not least many international Hollywood stars. I have seen many of these folk around Kigali promoting this or that cause. I covered Ashley Judd when she visited Rubale to launch safe water drinking tablets known as PurEau.

I also heard Mat Damon, Mathew McConaughey, Rick Warren and George Bush were in town promoting a solution to one challenge or another. And their efforts paid off in some cases; like when Stephen Lewis went a step further and mobilized funding for a pilot Millennium Village in Mayange and seven other similar villages in other parts of the world.

The results are obvious to Professor Josh Ruxin who runs the Mayange Village. Ruxin says that more children go to nearby schools and fewer are falling sick. And in case they fall to sickness; Nyamate Health Centre is fairly well equipped to effectively deal with any serious incidents.

The Village has supplied bed nets to guard against malaria-infested mosquitoes and thereby tackled one of the eight challenges. As a result the vicinity of Mayange has had malaria incidences reduce by 64 percent to only 4 percent of the health related issue the local clinic handles per day.

Mayange Village

The Village has also established a service to supply good quality seeds for food crops and come harvest season; farmers in Bugesera are some of the happiest in Rwanda. This has seen average prices for a plot rise a hundredfold and price discrimination applies when the buyer originates in other parts of the country other than Bugesera.

To deal with education; the First Lady piloted a school project funded by some generous Americans, the state of the art boarding school will sponsor female children from low income families but with good grades to pursue their education as far as possible.

And as if the government is keeping its ear to the ground; they have decided to construct an airport right about town in Nyamata. The mayor of Mayange who some years ago wrote to the president that his municipal was the poorest in the country is evidence of the changing fortunes of Bugesera. He is a busy man.

And the government went a step ahead further by promoting a new gender balance whereby women outnumbered men on the most crucial challenge table; the parliament and cabinet.

And like the other municipals are keeping things abreast; they have decided to emulate the system of Bugesera. And this has put Ruxin in an even busier situation than the Mayange mayor.

Ruxin is the mentor of the Access Project, which is designing programs that local government authorities can adopt to increase efficiency in health service delivery across Rwanda. And they are working. HIV/Aids prevalence is reduced to officially 3 percent but really JUST below 6.

The people living with HIV/Aids have also been attended to better in Rwanda than IN most African countries and life expectancy per capita has in turn increased.

The changes and linkages in the case of Bugesera and the wider narrative is that most of the challenges were dealt with by the effort of individuals blessed with particular skills and generosity.

It helps that Stephen Lewis was a high profile official of the UN and that Josh Ruxin is also a professor at Columbia University. Having met the latter I was left with the impression that he does his job with a passion and desire that border on instinct, the way Bill Clinton organizes his Global Initiative; which is another successful effort by one individual to change the attitudes of other individuals instead of the banal idea of changing the world that many espouse.

At the UN they are still talking and drawing resolutions and this week they were busy with the Ahmedinejad and the MDGs. Perhaps that’s what the UN does, talking about things and other people doing the things.

The Llamas.

I mistook em for sheep though,



According to Josh, a friend and a man of the bible, “Jesus considers himself a shepherd to human beings whom he refers to as sheep.

God created us and loves us therefore we are his sheep. Jesus was sent by God to save and keep us (the thieves and robbers are not just Satan, but the consequences of our own fallen situations and bad choices) we recognize the voice of Jesus and follow it to find life. Not just the afterlife, but a better life here, sustenance, and abundance, also unity. One flock, one shepherd.”

I am not very informed in matters of the bible but I know for sure that using sheep to describe human beings is common in God speak. Maybe after-all sheep are cool animals. Don’t tell that to my tribesmen.




WE’RE NOT THE SHEEP








They treated the thing with disdain and intrigue and myth. Eating sheep was in fact forbidden; it was said that the people who ate mutton developed a permanent running nose; that irritating mucus dripping from one’s nose.

The cattle keepers maintained that sheep was helpful in protecting herds of cattle from being hit by lightening and so each family had some sheep that occasionally provided entertainment with their awkward bullfights.

But as children we never knew what happened to the sheep finally; it was unheard of eating their meat and we never had the equivalent of lamb too. As such it was considered an insult to call a person a sheep. Sheep was amongst the highest marks of stupidity.

The Baganda our neighbouring tribesmen in central Uganda treated the sheep with even more disregard.
In this culture for a person to address another as a sheep or to say anything insinuating that the person addressed was like a sheep; it was held as highly offensive. Nobody wanted to be called a sheep; it looked down all the time and even had a very terrible sound.

One could imitate the sound of a cow, a cat, a goat and even a dog but imitating a sheep had something irritating about it.


Personally I did not consider sheep as worth representation of human beings, there are cooler animals; say dogs, ironically, referring to somebody as a dog is also considered offensive in most cultures yet humans associate with dogs universally more than they do with cows; cows are certainly cooler than sheep they give us milk, cheese and meat.

God could therefore have called us cows but not sheep maybe chimpanzees. But they look weird, it is said those chimpanzees and gorillas are our cousins after-all but who wants to a cousin of that thing which is not cute?

How about rabbits; Mr. Hare is a cool guy. Somebody said the other day that owls are even cooler.
They have eyes at the back and front of their heads.
Cleary I did not hold sheep in high esteem till recently when I changed my mind on sheep while I was walking in the wilderness next to my neighbourhood.

I was out riding a bicycle in the village where houses are so awesome they have “Buwani” or sun glasses as the English call them. The driveways to the entrances of the chateaus in this village tease the observer.

Like looking at a person with cool shades and you imagine how their face looks like without the shades. When I saw the houses they seemed to be chilling behind the shades; grand, artfully designed and highly reserved. Nothing looked misplaced in this village other than me or so I thought of myself.

Then I saw them animals in the backyard of one home. They were the mothers of all sheep. They were big and tall and they gave the impression they smiled when something unusual happened nearby.



Now that is some sheep.


These four elegant sheep are quite something, their teeth curve at the front to form a V shape looking backwards inwards the mouth and watching their open mouth gives you the impression that they are smiling at you or something below because their eyes are facing down and since they are so tall and I need to tilt upwards my head to be able to see their chin they seem to leave the impression that they are laughing at me. They are like giraffes only they have wool on their bellies and shoulders.

Nobody was watching these sheep-and the owner having appreciated that his animals are indeed not your regular sheep, leaves the four things in close but safe vicinity and clearly visible to passers-by. No human being was in sight other than a dog, which stood guard of the sheep, and it barked the closer I came to the sheep.

As I walked closer I was still wandering whether they were giraffe or sheep.

I was thinking when I watched them that perhaps they are the sheep that they speak of in the bible; and they are the sheep I wannabe.

(Ed’s note: The photos show Llamas and not sheep. Although early writers compared llamas to sheep, their similarity to the camel was later recognized. The llama (Lama glama) is a South American camelid, widely usedas a pack and meat animal by Andean cultures since pre-hispanic times. Thank you)

Beautiful British Columbia

As a compulsory topic in geography studies in all East African secondary schools British Columbia is taught with utmost seriousness, in my class we were taught about trees with funny names.

The rivers that transport trees as well the mountains that regulate the weather of the trees and then Vancouver in which the trees turn into paper and dollars.

Sometimes knowing the planting, felling and harvesting season of British Columbia trees stood between a national exam fail and pass.
As a result the study of North America became a lucrative business and made many celebrity teachers in Uganda who todate publish books and pamphlets. My own class teacher was known as Kula’zikulabbe, translated in English, “grow up and you will see.” MANY OF these teachers never even owned passports leave alone ever visiting BC.

Their familiarity with British Columbia like ours ends in class, as students we hated it just as much we hated studying European history; who wants to remember tongue-twisting names of foreign places. Outside of class none of use even knew how to draw the map of North America and we never cared for Douglas fir, red herring, spruce and hemlocks. It was all fantasy, academic bullshit.

That being a prelude I visited British Columbia and I’m still recovering from the pleasant shock of the Canadian west coast. British Columbia simply stuns you. Even to those that have been many times, every visit is cherished.

Even the residents of province know it well; highway posts from Nanaimo to Tofino remind you that; “you are in perhaps the most beautiful place on earth.”

The opportunity to travel to British Columbia was presented to me by Josh a friend from my local church. Josh is a young, he was Canadian born and raised in Red Deer Alberta and he is everything Canadian. He is a professional speed skater, of African descent and he can also be genial too.


Being relatively new in Canada my contribution to the trip was not really worth anything, I cannot legally operate a car in this country and I don’t know the names of places on the grid or worse; I cannot speak with this accent that makes rapping so easy for them Americans.


With this mini predicament I was left in a position of only observing and being enchanted by the natural beauty of BC. And yes, we came across the: “enchanting forest.”


Josh provided most of the observation and it does not mean I was keenly watching him like a work of Michelangelo but whenever we came across that most ubiquitous of Canadian questions: “Where do you come from?” I could not help to watch Josh explain himself.


Being black, Josh was always faced with a second "where do you originally come from sort of look?"
“I’m from Red Deer and now I live in Calgary,” I’d see doubt and disbelief on the face of the enquirer. And when the same question was directed at me and I answered east Africa I’d see approval.
Like: “I knew you were not from around here anyway.”


At one point on Long Beach I noticed a gentlemen chatting with his son, the son was draped in a Barcelona jersey and I asked both if they were football fans. The father responded with a question: “where do you come from?” I said Calgary upon which he added: “I thought you come from an exotic place like Ghana.”

Now: Really what type of question or answer was this, Chilling at Long Beach on the Pacific Ocean in Vancouver Island and this man thinks there’s a more exotic place no earth?




I thought it odd to talk about some of these incidents with Josh but he made it simple when he asked me: “what was it like growing up in a black country, surrounded by the black community?”
I did not have a particular answer so I also asked him how it felt for a black person to have grown up in a country surrounded by white people and whether he felt any sense of brotherhood with the black ones.


Josh answered me back that most times he faced a dilemma whereby his fellow countrymen were reluctant to accept and approve of him as belonging to them. Or even doubting his being a Canadian So he had to prove himself by speaking and after a while based on the things he said and how he had said them, he would be considered a bonafide Canadian. I asked him if it was frustrating growing up in this community.


On the other hand being a strict practicing Christian meant that even among his fellow black community he was in the minority too; “I am a man without a country,” he told me.

To compound his mystery, Josh earns his living teaching that most white of sports; speed skating, josh also offered to give me my first lessons In speed skating for free.
You don’t even want to hear what we talked about me, so I’ll save you the boredom.
That mostly ended our mature conversation


Skating is a game of delicate balancing and speed and when a person with a slow brain as mine needs those two skills it is a recipe for disaster. We went to Stanley Park for my first lessons; (if I were to write about Stanley park in Vancouver I’d never finish this story, so you can google it.)




Skating is quite a trend in East Africa but with our unpaved and potholed roads and even errant drivers it is not a common activity. In fact it is not even a sport, it is a marketing tool that is used by crafty politicians, musicians and businesspeople to announce new things. In fact they are known as productLAUNCH OR ROANCH as they call skatesboys in Kansanga.

The kids that skate are wizards.


Personally I learnt about skating from a television advert of the Olympic Games, IT was in late 2006 while I was finishing university and the advert always ended with a question: “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” after which there would be a guy perhaps from a Nordic country trying to skate on winter for his first time. He stumbled a number of times on the skates but finally made it and celebrated with fists raised. The advert was recorded during the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary.

That advert left an enduring image of Canada in my memory and it was great having to skate in Vancouver.





Josh also owns a small Volkswagen beetle car that was both our means of transport and accommodation; save for some nights we spent on the beach party at the Pacific Rim in Tofino.





Caption: this little car served as our hostel too, it did not have any mechanical troubles save for a broken parking brake at Noisy Creek. I nicknamed it Volksferrari during the day for its speed and VolksFairmont at night for providing super excellent sleep.
Volksferrari increased its distance almost by 3000 kilometres from Calgary to Vancouver.


Activities

After skating we headed to watch a Baseball game at Scotiabank field inside Nat Bailey stadium with Ben Nachiman.
Josh Kron my friend from Rwanda introduced me to Ben his cousin who studies in McGill. The match was between Vancouver Canadians, (yes, as if Canadians need to remind themselves who they are, they keep having the name of the country as a brand for many things from sport to my pub favourite; Canadian.), and some team from Michigan or Missisippi.


So we watched baseball, and really what is there to write about the match? A team in white was playing another in black. There’s a lot of running, throwing, big sticks, head helmets and a mascot called chicken. The chicken dance is a crowd favourite. The crowd itself is young, vibrant and sociable. We met Ben’s friends a Fred, an Allan and a Scot.

Vancouver is rich, it is beautiful, and the city sits on a continent that hosts New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles,and an ocean that hosts Tokyo. no superlative can describe the city more eloquent than the names of those cities. In fact Vancouver is so important that is a small brother of Hollywood in movie making. It is the true Canadian WEST.

But like a magnificent sculpture; Vancouver also has a very ugly face. After touring Stanley Park, playing football, and using free Internet at the public library we went to check out downtown Vancouver at night.






Vancouver is home to the largest Chinese community in Canada, the small-scale private sector is almost run entirely by the Chinese and Asian community, there are also other communities that work in the forests, fishing and tourism industries. Vancouver is also among the most diverse metropolitans in North America.

At a Broadway restaurant Five dollars afforded me two cold beers and a very decent meal.

We reached downtown core at about 10pm and by that time Vancouver was deserted of all its glamour, the expensive cars, elegance and braggadocio for which the city in renown; was off. There were instead homeless people, hungry people that congregated in circles resembling Internally Displaced Camps; bleu collars pubs, marijuana pushers and the riff raffs.
People just watching time, people who watch Vancouver every other day their entire lives in the same way I was watching it for the first time.

Yet even amongst this crowd in the city centre there was free and safe drinking water for pedestrians provided by the city, there were also smoking areas where young girls and boys sat and were in conversation till late in the night.
Street industry was at work; people vended cheap and fake contraband of all kinds, touts were screaming as if it was mid morning. One was selling a pack of Marlboro lights at a meager 5 dollars.

Seen closely, Vancouver is just another big city full of hustlers, posher people, the nobles and fine people; each running a different show and pretending to get along just fine. But seen from the ocean and the mountains that stare down upon it, it is the most beautiful place on earth.






Whether it is the most beautiful place on earth you can argue, what you cannot doubt however is that the greater Vancouver area has the most beautiful scenery ever seen on earth.

Mountains, trees, water, waterfalls, lakes, architecture and anything else that symbolizes beauty, power and man’s industry they have. In fact one does not need to be a professional to take a good picture in British Columbia, everywhere you focus the camera captures amazing features. On their vehicles the message is even more clearer: “Beautiful British Columbia.”


Vancouver Island
There’s nothing really to write about the island. It is simply covered by forests, mountains and surrounded by the ocean.

Like the entire BC it is also a favourite holiday spot, on the roads Canadians and international visitors dragged along parts of their lives to enjoy the beauty of the Canadian west coast.

Vehicles pull boats, carbins, go-carts, dogs, and motorcycles. I wondered what is the whole point of holidays when everyone seemed to be dragging along a part of his or her lives on the road that they seemed not intent on leaving behind.
There seemed to be no gate away after all.


This seemed to make sense when all conversations involved; “what did you do today?, did you go fishing, did you surf?, did you hike in the forest, most times I had no answer to these questions. I was happy enough that I was on the island.
There was always enough time to do everything. Or nothing. After all, most times being here was less about doing and more about just being in this magic place.





We slept in the safety of the Pacific Rim National Park and set up tent by the beach, this place hosts many campers especially young students from other parts of Canada who come during the summer to work and have a good time.




Whenever Josh spoke of the next plan I wanted to scream at him, in fact he was so occupied with planning that while we were on this trip he was planning his next activity. And as if to show that even the best laid plans can have unforeseen turns, while returning back we were stopped along the highway as an accident had blocked off all traffic going east from Schuswap.

The Volksferrari hence detoured and spent sometime in schuswap flea market before heading to Noisy Creek to spend a night in the jungle by the lakeside. The drive to Noisy creek (that is the most misleading of names as Noisy creek is among the most noise free places.)




First it is a 60 km drive from the highway and almost all homes are built by the riverbank or lakeside. There are huge ranches, cornfields, factories and old colonial buildings.

A parked Mercedes Benz that looks like it has been in that mode for many years signals a turn off at one roadside junction leading to a country house.

Because of the enormous mountains and elegant trees in British Columbia lakes and rivers appear almost out of nowhere. Driving on the road you’ll think there’s a lake or river at every turn of the highway.
The highway itself is very busy with people traveling between the major cities it lines, these cities include Calgary, Abbotsford, Winnipeg, Regina to the last frontier of Canada; Vancouver.


Kagame,
ends.

Musoni said government had abolished tax charges on agricultural products in the country; however he said the increase of food prices was because of increasing fuel prices.

He called upon Rwandans to be more active in determining the standards of the commodities they consume; “Rwandans should be more active consumers. They should question the sellers (of services and goods) instead of relying on government to make all the decisions.”


Increasing food prices have been the cause of political violence and death in and will present future concerns like war according to UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon

From the Hammock :The tale of the feet and the hair

By George Kagame.

It’s not the fault of hair that the feet are hidden far away from the pedestal of the anatomy and therefore like a front display rack in a shop; the head is perfectly organized and made beautiful beyond its natural disposition while in all matters feet are literally and figuratively down the pecking order.

The feet and the bum
The feet and their immediate neighbour; the bum are sometimes taken with delicate concern and attention.

The sort that requires concentration skills only acquired by scientists of note, forsome women and lately men, the hair and bum are two issues of paramount importance.

Even the WEIRD, (Western Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic); where they mock Africans for our love of “booty”, they also revere bums as is illustrated by respectable East African Charles OnyangoObbo;

“In many countries, even health-conscious women who exercise to lose weight worry about the bottoms shrinking with the rest of the body. As a result, there are many quack regimes for losing weight in all parts of the body, but the “bumper”.

The business of bums and the hair indeed is a major industry in their own right. Particularly for hair it is not just a couple follicles coming out of the scalp; and for others it is a line between opportunity and catastrophe.

But generally many of us never care about the shape and features of our feet; but ironically it is safe to state that a man without hair and without a pair of shoes is indeed a mark of poverty, one we would rather avoid on the street.

And there’s some truth in the modern proverb that a man without hair spends his money and time on his feet=MOBILITY.

A case for Hair
Some Indians wrap their hair up in a weird robe to resemble a pyramid on top of their anatomies; the Iranians have just decreed a legally accepted haircut while the mullahs in Afghanistan have long imposed a strict beard policy.

In my little island hometown on a lake, I saw village women literally burning their skulls with hot combs to perm their hair into curls. It seemed there was a decree that African men were not allowed to grow long hair such that they would be able to take care of their womens’ hair.

Try not facilitating your woman’s visit to a salon and you’ll know what that means.
Hair control was very liberal toward girls and later in puberty when the girls decided to wear things on their heads that resembled the feathers of the rear side of a chicken, not an eyebrow was raised.

But even historically, women’s hair and what they did with it were never a threat to the periodical rulerman of past and present. Forget what you read about the Islamic Burka.

At boarding school; boys were routinely required to report for a mandatory haircut on weekends. Nobody asked if the nails were cut or teeth brushed, ears cleaned but the hair had to be short at all times.

In the unlikely event that a boy let his hair grow long or took effort in his appearing it was taken as a sign of crafty behaviour. And the widely held opinion was that boys who took too much care in their appearance were gay.

And being gay was so horrible that imagining the thing was in itself an evil.
Psychology books arrived and informed that us that actually men were more scared of being bald than impotent and to eliminate the fear of a bald; modern African man decided that keeping a clean shaven head was an eternal solution.

The colonial had of course the short hair policy baldness withstanding.The colonialist in Africa decreed that the people in his control were prohibited from growing more than an inch of hair.

Heaven forbid if your hair grew longer. As happened, all those that were not direct beneficiaries of the colonialist grew long hair as a protest.

The colonialist not a fool, decided that only devil worshipers and socially inadequate people allowed their hair to grow long.

The marine cut
The army men apparently insist on a hair policy because it exudes hygiene and discipline or so Tony my brother says he was told in training.

“Short hair is a mark of hygiene and discipline as is brushing your teeth in the morning.” Hair, its style or texture is stuff I must not bore you with on a Sunday afternoon but it is something else altogether — singular in its capacity to command interest and carry cultural baggage.

And allowing my hair to grow longer recently has created situations and the catalyst for a conversation that begins with style but quickly transcends outward appearance and ultimately transcends many images and symbols.

According to TIME magazine, nobody has put more significance on hair than US first lady Michelle Obama, the changes in her hairstyle from coiled strands to fully straightened on occassionshas brought to the table the question; “Is it the chemicals of heat?” and what is the normal and accepted symbol for black people’s status in terms of beauty, acceptance and power?

donuwagiwabo@gmail.com

Head boy; head girl and the Walkman

GEORGE KAGAME

As students we were meant to discover and learn our individual career paths and launch ourselves to the world.
Some of my classmates decided they wanted be lawyers, some soldiers, others Pan humanists, doctors and policemen.

The school administration prudently divided our class into two parallel segments; each announcing the intentions of the members as “sciences” or ‘ARTS.”


In the event that one changed their minds along the way and wanted to change directions we had a big man eloquently titled as “Career’s Master,” it was always a guy and many usually spotted a weird moustache. That kind you see on streets resembling wings of an eagle above the upper lip.

Among the supposed functions of a careers’ master was to teach us things like writing resumes, cover letters for jobs on top of advising about the link between potential; profession and impact.

But in most cases the careers’ master was also the disciplinary master; the later was eternally hated. He enforced the rules of the school to the letter. The problem was that his rules were more numerous and demanding than those of the school.
The disciplinary master on one occasion addressed me in front of assembled students; “George; I’m going to put you on a kiboko diet,” the next seven days after this statement I reported at his house in the morning to be lashed ten times.

I disrespected this man and his office; I could never bring myself to face him leave alone career advice and in fact I detested his profession.
According to him it was easy to find undisciplined students; they wore caps, never tucked in their shirts, talked to girls, “A lot,” liked music and grew long hair. If at all one of the above features described one; they would be under the watchful and nosy eye of Ngobi.


But the careers’ master was not the only culprit in making teachers look like a page from a dictators book. The entire teaching staff reveled in fear and awe; they made laws, made us kneel for them, fetch their water and for some girls, to make their meals.
They operated like a nobility, identifying students that were good and different from the undisciplined cases.

The good students sang in the church choir, attended all prayers, talked with teachers a lot and always tucked in their shirts; many were appointed into leadership positions. Even the timekeeper possessed considerable authority so as to make a student’s life miserable.

The students’ body was the bridge between the school management team and the students and was on paper meant to be voted and representative of the students’ community. And yes; we participated in the elections but they were a sham as the teachers appointed whomever they felt deserved to be what in the guild.

The entire students guild were teacher favourites; from the awkwardly named “head boy” and “head girl” to the timekeeper. And then there were others chosen in the service of the lord. They were our age mates but we referred to them as; “elders” because of their wisdom and dedication to all matters church.


It seemed the teachers were only interested in grooming students who were keen on becoming teachers, activities like fashion and design were even abandoned and heaven forbid if a student dressed in a manner that suggested popular style.


It happened onetime; a girl wore a short skirt to the dining hall where the disciplinary master was holding fort. Upon seeing the girl approach the serving table Mr. Ngobbi literally detained her and the poor girl was sent home to bring her parents who would have to explain where it is that their girl had learned this style of dressing.

After this incident, Ngobbi decreed that the school uniform was the only accepted clothing for students during the school term. Heaven forbid if at all a student was caught with a shirt or t-shirt that was not part of the school uniform.

The most dramatic decree however was the ban on anything that produced sound; having or listening to a radio was tantamount to calamity.


Consider that in our time music was different from what it is today; a Walkman was an important gadget to have; the mother of all gadgets. The kid with a Walkman was the coolest kid in town. The Walkman had FM radio that played the latest tunes “hit after hit” and the savvy of us connected the thing to small speakers for communal and hence a party. Friday night was particularly popular with “Rasta rob on the master knob.”


But walkmans were banned in the school and if a student was found with one; (a), the Walkman was subjected to many lashes of the cane until it broke up into many un-adjustable particles, (b) the student was subjected to 20 lashes plus the usual mowing the lawn of the compound and “masters quarters.”
Depending on the day, some teachers just confiscated the Walkman instead of smashing it into pieces on the floor.

Beyond sinning however was to the act of escaping from school to go off campus; it was abominable. Jose Chameleon was one of the usual suspects and culprits of the crime of escaping from school to go to Wobulenzi, a nearby city and from this point the mark was laid on Chameleon that he is “a bad boy,” and boys like him were promptly expelled from the school regularly.
To be continued….

A VIP and supermodel’s night at a party and day in court

By George Kagame



A story about Africa involving some important and fine; and even ones that Nigerian legend Fela Kuti called Vagabonds in Power-VIPs is in the offing.

But it is so far away from here that even writing about it is a tough wit game, which is afforded only to a columnist. It is far away in the priorities of relevance, proximity and eminence. But a story is never strange; after all it is just that, a story.

The theatre is at The Hague in Netherlands and Supermodels and cameras grace it with one of those catwalk galleries that are decorated.
And they don’t come bigger or even better than Naomi Campbell; that graceful of women and she is appearing in a de’ja’vu scene where ghosts are playing tricks on her. She even now looks troubled or trodden; I swear, look at her face.

Her cast involves Charles Tayor playing the role of illegitimate African leader and the drama is completed with wigged lawyers; they look like Father Christmas.

I have been in one such court at Arusha where a cousin of The Hague; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is trying genocide suspects. It was like a play, life was reduced to eloquent elite debate laced with figures, colours, cars and talk; everyday I walked into that court I was tempted to spit at the fat security guards and even fatter bureaucrats.

But who wants all that narrative really?


A day in court


In other news; Naomi Campbell; she of the long neck, beautiful eyes, even more beautiful legs that stretch up to her shoulders and curves that only God can design. But you can put all that in past tense now.

Charles Taylor drools upon her at one party in Pretoria in 1997, they get cozy and flirt; looking deep in their exotic Africa eyes.

Taylor, in the game of wooing and perhaps even reveling in the benefits of wooing decides to gift Naomi Campbell with a diamond. Read that again; a couple diamond stones.

It is even juicier for us common folk. We talk about cars, houses, envy the fine people and even dream of having custom made women like Naomi. It takes diamonds my friend. Diamond.
I have never seen a real diamond myself and I can’t comprehend why the goddamn stone along with gold is used as a measure of prestige and power the world over. And why they attract women the way pollen grain attracts bees. Hell, I cannot even tell the difference between diamond and silver.


I hear they got the thing aplenty in Congo and it is traded in Goma for just two hundred dollars but true; haki ya mungu, even after visiting Goma many times; I have no idea what is the BIG DEAL. I see hustlers selling fake jewel on the streets in east Africa but I have never bought a stone other than those used in construction.

I have heard that stones have many movies about them, movies about guns, grim looking African chiefs, even grimmer muscled guys with machetes, as well as a couple massacred women and babies’ bodies putting in appearances.
True; in the name of God; diamonds are a HUGE DEAL. I have watched Tears in the Sun and Blood Diamonds both based on true stories.


Forget all that about the oil and its petro dollars ah well, maybe we shall keep the oil secrets for another day; there’s a possibility that Omar El Bashir of Sudan offered supermodel Tyra Banks an oil well; you never know!
I hear The Hague is also keen on getting the Arab man for torturing his black countrymen in the south; never mind that these ones have no stones yet.


Back to our story, think of a climax; no make that a threesome, VIPs and super beauties mingling and flirting a recipe for disaster.
That exactly leads to the scene in the International Criminal Court at The Hague where diamonds, superbeauties, powerful men and parties swing from possible one nightstand and its wits.


Naomi is asked to tell on herself in the court of law, the gift of diamonds from Taylor and their late night party in South Africa; she says: “seriously, I have never heard of Liberia and I don’t even know where it is on the map.”
Never mind the diamonds actually came from Sierra Leone; but that is a story for another day.
Damn it, Naomi must treat diamonds the way you treat your food.


Imagine the difficulty you’d face if you had to explain the details of the food served on your table everyday. Are you expected to know about fries, chicken, vegetables and milk? Who grows it, who is responsible for its constant flow, how is it planted? Are the planters paid anyway? Do they have children?
Hell; even my nosy neighbour would be cautious asking such many questions at every single meal!

Working class people getting along


In fact lets getaway with the questions about fair trade, imaginations and even the self-righteousness. Lets have a good conversation, lets talk about gender relations, a woman, a president=gender and power relations, a presidential backpack that carries dirty diamonds to a late night party and a super model. Working class people getting along

Imagine a black supermodel in England, with all the attention and attraction in the world, then Taylor an African corrupt leader walking about as a pimp.
Ah wait, he is a descendant of freed African slaves in North America who were forcibly returned at the end of slavery and resettled in Liberia and Sierra Leone.


The former slaves in turn became kings and queens in the free countries; they even renamed one city Free Town. Many of the returnees became princes and chiefs in literal and figurative forms. Ever wondered why so many West Africans come with names such as Prince, King, and Chief? Just like you hear those arrogant British go around with Sir, Lord, viscount, Earl and my favourite duke.

The prosecuting team in the case against Charles Taylor is smooth; you have to give it to them for getting their case to the front pages and even hidden ones like the one you are reading right now.
Because would you really not give Naomi Campbell a diamond if you had some?
And; is it not ironical that the blood diamonds were sold and worn in Europe and now it is in Europe that their retribution is taking place?

Of celebrity baby mountain gorillas

Insights :


GEORGE


Zoya is not your regular baby; he is the coolest baby in town. Even I am not familiar with his details but I know of his baptism day. You see his baptism day is so important that soon future babies of his kind will have a national holiday declared on the day they get baptized.

Zoya comes from Citi and in that country matters of religion are very important, make that crucial. So like many of his countrymen, among whose names are such statements of commitment such as sonofGod, slaveofmaria, oneforyezu,godgivesbirth, and onewhotrusts, feature prominently.

As a result, People with such names take matters of God serious and therefore on the occasion that their not so distant cousin Zoya gets christened everyone of note in Citiattends without fail.

Zoya’s baptism party is so important that the first Citiman attends, and no not just him; how about Natalie Portman, Jack Hanna and Don Cheadle, he of Hotel Rwanda?

Damn it, on the day I got baptized I went to the gym right after the ceremony and to cap off the day I went to an evening shift. And these two are so important that a whole managing director of a national daily newspaper has to call me urgently to cover it or else I see the cold of the night of Citi. That is not a predicament you’d want to be in at any moment of your life, or wish even to your enemy to be in. This place can be cold!

As I lazily walk up to these baby gorillas I try to search anything that can get me a story, a story of today. Do they have longer hair, are they smiling these days, do they blink, do they want to ask me; “seriously, what are you doing here?” And maybe even tell me a proverb about my stupidity in their language telling of their opinions about my presence.

But they cannot and if they attempt any games I have my press card ready so I will be explained if Zoya and Wakawaka call for security, wait a minute do they even know about security?

All the posh people, fine people, not fine people, peasants, and the noblemen of Citi show up at the cathedral of the mountain gorilla’s baptism party, each to pay their respects.

The cynic of this most prestigious of ceremonies in Citiwill call it drama; they will dismiss the event and protest by continuing to live their even more boring lives. But people of note know what is important, so on the day that Zoya and friend get baptized, the red carpet is thrown out full circle.
True of God, hakiyamungu I was there. I saw with my own eyes.

I watched Zoya with interest and even tried to catch his/her stare. I could not tell if he was boy or girl. He is a gorilla for Christ’s sake! I cannot ask him, I don’t speak his language neither does he mine. For me he is an assignment I have been sent here all the way from my kingdom in the town and I’m hungry, this place with its forests, mountains and people who are staring at me like I’m a picture.
MAYBE I’m a picture; I can make much more sense without words. They say a picture is a thousand words. People appear smarter before they speak.

So I don’t want to ask the whereabouts of this Zoya kid and friend, and for me he is not just an animal; it his birthday party and that is a story. I have many questions about his coolness. How does he do it, get all these important people to attend his party?

Do you know how hard it is to have a party in your honour? Ask yourself how many parties have been held for you? Who attended, who laughed, who took pictures, were they published in international newspapers and magazines around the world?

Clearly I’m jealous of these two.

I saw earlier in the tent guests were signing autographs, taking pictures, drinks, speeches, laughter and handshakes. I was not interested in all that. I wanted to meet this Zoya. By Zoya’s side was another baby mountain gorilla baptized as Wakawaka on the same day.

Now two mountains gorillas having a baptism party and they are hidden far away from their own fete? Maybe they asked for some privacy and only wanted to come out to wave to the crowd just like Nelson Mandela during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa recently.

And talk of South Africa; that is where the name Wakawaka became memorable with Shakira being its most eloquent acquaintance.

While I was walking towards the ceremony I met a man on the roadside, he is a local and his people have lived in Citi for hundreds of years. He was short, in fact too short that I thought he was a young boy; I wanted to ask him, “Are you married, do you have kids?” Turned out he is a father of three children and the eldest is 21. His second wife is expecting a forth child.

He appeared to be wondering how things in Citi had changed, two baby mountain gorillas were big celebrities, almost signing autographs and he was just watching things unfolding like he was watching a horror movie.


Footnote: mountain gorillas are highly endangered species and need the utmost attention of all mankind, as they are our closest related creatures. So please Giv a little less attention to your cats and dogs and think about mountain gorillas and their birthday parties too.

THE EASTER STORY: GOD IS NIGERIAN, VIRGIN MARY IS ZULU, AND JESUS?

he Easter holiday, the time when We mark the betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is upon us.
It is thus our duty again, to make sense of this story from a Pan-Africa point of view.
Of course we can’t talk about Christ’s death and resurrection, without taking note of how it all started.
So if the Bible and Christianity story all-African, from which country would God come from?
•I THINK GOD WOULD BE NIGERIAN. Only a Nigerian would be cocky enough to be God. One day, good people, Nigeria will rule Africa.
•I THINK MARY THE VIRGIN WOULD BE A SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN, SPECIFICALLY A ZULU. Zulu women most approximate the quiet dignity of Mary the Virgin.
•JOSEPH WOULD BE CONGOLESE. He had that mix of sweet naivety and Stoicism which is abundant among Congolese men.
•THE MAGI’S: It is very difficult to place the magi. First, I think they were gay. It's mostly gay men who have magi-type sensitivity. They would likely be from the islands, possibly Cape Verde or Principe and Tome.
•PETER: He betrayed Jesus before the cock crowed three times. To figure out from which country Peter would come from, we need to look to the countries which are most uncomfortable in their African or Arab skin: That is Ethiopians, Egyptians, and Moroccans. I THINK PETER WOULD LIKELY BE AN ETHIOPIAN.
•JUDAS Iscariot the Traitor: Africa is not short of traitors, but in recent times the lies and betrayals that have led to the death of over 200,000 people in Darfur, and the displacement of over another one million, are the worst. JUDAS ISCARIOT WOULD BE NORTHERN SUDANESE.
•The Roman Emperor PILATE: PILATE was a complex character. He wanted to let Jesus off the hook, but he succumbed to the pressure of the masses and had him executed. This wavering between principled action, and acting according to the dictates of opinion polls is most evident in Kenya. And I think PILATE COULD EASILY BE Kenya’s PRIME MINISTER RAILA ODINGA. He is equally complex.
•JESUS CHRIST: This is a tough one, for to be Jesus you need to demonstrate an extraordinary ability to take pain over a long period. There have been many wars and heroic struggles in Africa, but perhaps none reached the extremes of the Algerian war of independence against France, although it lasted only from 1954-62. The Algerians showed remarkable grit. JESUS, THEREFORE, WOULD BE ALGERIAN.
•Finally, Mary Magdalene who was “loitering” outside Jesus’ tomb. Magdalene could only have come from Uganda. And Doreen Lwanga will agree that Magdalene would have been a Muganda woman.
HAPPY EASTER
LET’S PRAY.

WHY AFRICANS LIKE LOTS OF BOOTY ON THEIR WOMEN

The pan-African reality show Big Brother Africa is a few weeks old now, and this time they dubbed it Big Brother All Stars – because they recycled housemates from previous episodes.
Zambian housemate Paloma, with her large backside, is back.
She makes for an intimidating presence. To the uninitiated eye she was not the most desirable woman in the House, but she has quite some following. Interviews have been shown of people saying "she is a true African woman" or "just my kind of woman". When this Big Brother Africa thing was on last year, I went with a group of friends to Club Afrique in Nairobi’s Museum Hill (it has since closed).


Lo and behold, it turned out they were holding the semi-finals of the chakacha dance. Most of the competitors, all female, were slim or medium size with reasonably rounded rears. Then dancer No. 11 came on.
She was pretty-faced, had wonderful skin tone, but she was big and her tummy wobbled as she did the chakacha. One of the three judges, an unflinching dreadlocked fellow, took her performance apart saying, in the manner of American Idols' Simon Cowell, that it was rubbish.


The club nearly rioted and heckled him down. No. 11 was not just the biggest dancer, but she seemed to have the most friends in the club. Women like Paloma and No. 11 will always flourish in Africa, where the slender variety much favoured in the west tends to be sneered at. A man will be ridiculed if his wife has not filled out in the right places after a year in marriage. It could be construed to suggest he is mean, an unloving husband, or a wife beater.


Likewise, a husband who is still thin after a year or so in marriage reflects badly on his wife. She is a bad wife, the in-laws will conclude. In Cote d'Ivore, women inject all sorts of things in their buttocks so they can grow big.
In many countries, even health-conscious women who exercise to lose weight worry about the bottoms shrinking with the rest of the body. As a result, there are many quack regimes for losing weight in all parts of the body, but the "bumper".


Why this African obsession with large booty? My sense is that in poor societies fat women - and men - are fancied because they represent that which is in short supply; prosperity and well being. The promise of an abundant tomorrow. Thin women, on the other hand, symbolise need and scarcity. This seems to be the case, because in Africa there are many women who struggle to be and to remain slender.

However, they are overwhelmingly middle class, where the desperate search for solace from symbols of prosperity one sees among the working and peasant classes is little or absent. One can expect that as soon as per capita income in most of Africa averages $2,000 and above, the prospects for ample women will nose-drive, and the premium for the slim ones will rise. Otherwise, for a long time to come, most thin women in Africa will mostly be confined to dating expatriates, a life of single motherhood, or marriage to men with well-endowed mistresses.

Mountains

The Great Canadian Rocky Mountains

www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14338&article=4129&week=30

From the Hammock:


Lessons


LAST week I joined a group of friends to climb some of the most amazing Rocky Mountains in the world. As a first, I learned some important and priceless lessons that I would like to share with you today.

Many of you reading this would most certainly know much about mountains, is it not amongst the Great Lakes Region of the Great Rift Valley that you were born?

Therefore I run the risk of becoming Mr. ludicrous from those of you that might have climbed the likes of mountain Kilimanjaro and Rwenzori, even those of you whose highest peak might be Rwenzori water and Kilimanjaro beer.


The trek

We trekked a 16 kilometre uphill before we started the real mountain climbing, at this point waterfalls spewed from a mountain lake which was fed by mountain springs. The springs gave us the only luxury water bottles would be too heavy to carry; we hid them in the bush.

Observing the features from the base of the mountain was a lesson in humility; there were spots that seemed as though man would never capture them even with his facebook, twitter and Iphone, a place where even the precious wallet and camera were so much weight.

After a while, The crusts and dust of civilization were blown off faces, bodies were indeed interrogated, tortured and manipulated. A temporary victory of the mind.






As the altitude increased even the mind was having ideas of retreat, an interruption in the speech of somebody speaking to another was so much bother. The words that each person spoke as the angle of the mountain became ever steeper and sharper became fewer.

There was energy only to trek and you spoke only if you had to and if you were interrupted it was indeed offending.

I learned that climbing a mountain is as much a life skill and sport as a university degree or even a marathon. You start that journey as a closely knit group but the more distance the group covers the more isolated each individual becomes; by the time you reach the top you are alone and the satisfaction is also beyond words. I never got to the top of the peak but even from my vantage point I felt good and deeply was ego was bruised.

Breathtaking

A breath matters so much that as you climb you save up whatever energy is on your body. After walking for 12 kilometres in two hours we came across a waterfall rising above with its white colour and thundering myths, it appeared both mystical and majestic like the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. You had to raise your head at a high angle to be able to see where the lake was, above the waterfalls. Normally it is the other way around.

The only way upwards to the lake was by climbing a near 100-foot wall of cliff –the chain bolted into the mountain was the only thing keeping you from falling off the mountain.

At this point, a person getting out of their way to give you directions on where to place your foot and where to hold your hands onto seemed like a gift that only mothers give to their babies as they move from crawling on the ground to taking their first steps.

As we moved upwards to ever-sharper escarpments and ridges, holding a rock with bare hands and taking steps was indeed holding onto dear life. There everybody was holding on their own life’s, I’d hear only the breaths of my friends; words became too heavy.

At these moments each of us was alone and the simple decisions of where to step meant a choice between life and death. One mishap would mean falling off the mountain.

The higher we climbed the more we each separated from the group and went into a beautiful loneliness. First David Reize went with his wife Nikayla and after a while even they separated and took different routes.


Never tell the abilities and inabilities ofa person based on their gender

The adage that you can tell a book from its cover may hold true for books but it is far too misleading to be used while describing human beings and what they can and cannot do.

I learned this the hard way. I had initially been scared out of climbing up the high cliffs but when I saw a lady who I estimated to have the same body weight as mine I motivated myself that if she had made it up there; I too would make it. (PS. Nikayla; it was not you, it was the couple we met before climbing the first chain.)

Later I not only learnt that I was wrong but it was also a disrespectful statement to say a woman. While I was talking about this incident with Nikayla, it turned into a big debate about the status of women and what men think them.

I was even scared that it was becoming a discussion about class and race relations. I had to defend myself that I come from a country run by women.

And I never needed any proof about women and their strengths after all. Is it not Jane Mbabazi that raised my four siblings and me?

Mountains have many faces like humans

I also learned that like a human being, a mountain has many faces to it, when you stand at the bottom, the top, and west or wherever you always see different perspectives of the rocks, the gullies, waterfalls and the vegetation.

And they all tell unique and different tales.

AFRICA'S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN - AND 'HANDSOMEST' MEN!

Every day I get requests to do interviews, articles, book and thesis reviews, name it, about Africa. This week I got the strangest one.

I was asked which African country I thought had the most beautiful women, and the most handsome men! The researcher was actually doing some serious work on African aesthestics and how environments shape physical make up.

I will exclude Ugandan women and men in my listing, but you can be sure they CAME AMONG THE TOP SIX IN BOTH the female and male category in the top 10.
So here is a shortened list of the top 6 African countries with the most beautiful women and handsome men.

•MOST BEAUTIFUL AFRICAN WOMEN
1. Malians
2. Ethiopians
3. Angolans
4. Tanzanians
5. Rwandans
6. Somalis

MOST HANDSOME AFRICAN MEN
1. Senegalese
2. Cameroonians
3. Mozambicans
4, Rwandans
5. Egyptians
6. Burundians

*Don't ask how I reached the list. I decline to talk to the press.

Memoirs of a Mtwa, the forrest and the gorilla

BY GEORGE KAGAME

A Korean proverb goes: “When two sharks fight; the shrimp suffers,” if that does not make sense as you may not be familiar with sharks and shrimps.

The local version of the proverb drives the point quite straight into your head and it goes: “When two Basopes fight; the Mtwa suffers” and he suffers for an extended period even after the two giants have stopped their fight.


You see the Basopes are not even giants after all but over the years they have built stereotypes against my people and me that it is cliché that a Mtwa is a pygmy; that rare thing that you only read about in storybooks. But my neighbour in the forest was a tall man, so tall he was always requested by the women in our forest community to pick fruit that was way up on the apex of fruit trees. Yet he was a Mtwa, his father Gudulia was well known too.

We lived in the forest; we loved the forest and knew how to take care of trees and bushes such that they would never dry or be cut down. We also existed peacefully with the animals too since mostly the animals acted as our defense shields against unwanted visitors; the animals were also too big for us to kill for pleasure.


Basope arrive


But our peace was disturbed when the Basope started arriving in our ancestral areas and started creating barriers. Barriers for crops, for their homesteads, barriers against other latecomers as well as barriers to keep us away from ever getting nearer these barriers.
The Basope subjugated us; we became the banter of their jokes.

even more Basope

But a short while later another group of people also came in the area and they also wanted a piece of our land for settlement. The new people who were similar in many ways to the earlier Basope negotiated their way to settling in. And settling in they did.

But soon afterwards the two were at each other’s neck and feet. Cue in violence, hatred, intrigue and downright madness. Apparently the First Basope were upset with the new Basope for cutting a share of the land to themselves, thereby reducing the portion of the first Basope. The second Basope did not stop on land; they also came with cows and even established a system of control and order. Placing themselves on top, lording it over the second Basope and they in turn lording it over us.
Baby bonanza and extermination


The population of the two visitors grew sporadically; with the first Basope reproducing at a rate that even spiders envied. My people and I were forced to move further into the forests ever vacating space for newly minted Basopes.
But even in the forests we were invaded as agriculture and further population growth found us. The first Basope were determined to win the battle of mothers and babies, their wives were particularly fertile in large parts thanks to the fertility of lands.


Perhaps that is the reason that the first Basope; having won the babies contest by far, even attempted to exterminate the second Basopes.
When the first Basope had issues with the later Basope the two were separated after widespread violence and death. The aftermath of this skirmish left the second Basope homeless and cultureless and in later years the First Basope attempted to wipe out their rivals completely that in JUST 100 days one million second Basopes were cut into pieces and thrown in rivers.




Who is watching who? the Mtwa and the gorilla

As a result of the contest between the two, we the Mtwas were reduced to nothings, we were not considered as equal human beings but little creatures upon which the Basopes poured their scorn and ridicule.

Somewhere along the way of their ‘development,’ the Basope stopped their violence and ventured deeper into the forests where we had been pushed. Inside the impenetrable forests they found that we were living amicably with a blessing of creatures that were not even heard of in other places on earth.

Oozing With arrogance and contempt, the Basopes now wanted us to vacate the forests for these animals and trees, how absurd?

That’s when we became what we are today. A bunch of incognitos, reduced to numbers sighted for sheer academic interest. We have been rendered landless, and are now living as squatters, surviving as potters and beggars, some of my childhood friends have resorted to crime, while even more have found a prosperous career in rebellion.


It does not matter what rebel groups we join, as long as we also have a right to the violence that for so long we have been subjected to. As a result I normally chat with my friends who are affiliated to several rebel groups-some of these groups in fact fighting against each other- but we don’t care. We have been reduced and forced into mercenaries.


Once we lived peacefully with the gorillas and the chimpanzees but unfortunately somebody came and took the pictures of the gorillas and chimps. These pictures attracted strange coloured people who came with even more cameras. The next we saw gorillas posing for pictures. People were paying in foreign currencies to watch the gorillas. Our comrade gorillas in the forest!
They were now very important.

Their pictures were beamed across the world, the animals acquired spin around them that even the most powerful Public relations firm could not achieve. Yet in all this nobody took our pictures and our stories, how we took care of the gorillas all those years in the forest before even the Basope arrived.


Our story has now become so blurry it resembles a puzzle.
That is because we are nowhere to be seen. The authorities have created game reserves and forest conservation areas where we once lived. Our land now belongs to the prestigious gorillas. Uhm, I wonder since when did animal rights become more important than human rights!


We are like a sore thumb and the authorities are eager to keep us far away from the visitors and their cameras.
My friend Mugabanya Mkolofi who was once very popular with the community belles is now a guide for these visitors that come to see the gorilla. But deep in his heart he is hurting. Reminiscing of the past times, he knows that if the Basope and others had not interfered with his abode he would be a powerful lord.


We could persevere through the foolishness of the Basopes; what we fear most however is the Mai Mai. These are cannibals; not only do they stop at displacing us from our environs as they search for gold and whatever else, they eat us. Like roast meat. According to the Mai Mai a serving of a Mtwa heart is a magic portion for bravery, a sort of Viagra for war!



donuwagiwabo@gmail.com

vox popping

"Now Sancho tell me what everyone in the village is saying about me. Don't make anything up-I promise not to shout at you.”


“Well,” said Sancho, “the common people say you are mad and stupid. The posher people don’t approve of you calling yourself a nobleman, and the noblemen think you are getting ideas above your station. As for the rest of it, some people call you, ‘brave but unlucky,’ others, ‘polite but interfering,’ and others ‘bonkers but entertaining.”

Don Quixote

Miguel De Cervantes

In memory of William Muwanga victim of suicide bomb

A Letter to a friend in Tanzania




BY GEORGE KAGAME


OMAR, as a Tanzanian and resident of Dar Salaam you understand very well the pain of terrorism.
Were it not in your city and Nairobi that US embassies were bombed in 1998, killing 214 and wounding 4100?

The bombings happening simultaneously in the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Salaam had effectively brought terrorism on the frontiers where East Africa meets with the new world order.

“Hi; Osama Bin Laden here!”
In fact they did more than that. They brought you Osama Bin Laden and his colleague Ayman Al Zawahiri in 1998. The two were talking about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, the possible break up of Sudan and the invasion of Somalia. Dustbin Laden was upset about all those things and so he decided to bomb the US embassies in protest.

WHERE suicide bombings and bombings in general were expected to blow up London, Moscow, Madrid, New York, Kabul, Baghdad and add yours cities; they were really not an African concern.

When we were growing up the closest terrorism came to us was the Algerian Ninjas in the mid 90s. The ninjas were reputed to disappear "just like that," other than those crazy ninjas we never had bombings. And terrorism was a thing like fashion. Happening in New York, Paris and London!

And somehow it was a problem for those crazy Arabs with their beards, oh yes we also watched 24.

And yet East Africa beat New York, Moscow, Madrid, London, Kabul and Baghdad in the bombing championships.

Terrorism gets personal
I would expect that you might have known some individuals that died in the Dar Salaam US Embassy bombings or even the horrendous one in Nairobi. They were regular people, who never cared for politics even.

For you it is not just a talk of numbers and figures whenever terrorism is mentioned in the news. You have a personal experience with terrorism and like death, the things becomes entirely different when it starts happening in your neighbourhood.


Awkward conversations
Yes, twice it happened in Nairobi and Dar Salaam but for me that was far away in the city. Then I moved to the city too.

And that is when talking about terrorism became like a conversation about racism. Mysterious and awkward.
The people that took much interest in it were crazy.

Starting with the active participants-the suicide bombers -to others that make a living off it talking, and even fine people, they were all crazy. I never wanted to have a conversation with such people.
Because there would be a lot of misunderstandings, so much sensitivities and awkwardness!

It gets closer to home
Alright; this is when your sympathy.
Keziron was a good kid. He was a close friend to my best friend at the time Edongu Ronald.

Ronald or Edro as he called himself was one of the brightest boys in the school; he was competing with Frank Mugisha another genius in economics by our standards. That outstanding class of 2001 in Katikamu Secondary School also included Muwanga William aka Keziron.


Keziron was interesting in that he never spoke English. He protested the speaking of English as the lingua franca of the school and spoke exclusively Luganda as a sign of loyalty to his King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi of Buganda.

It was always a paradox, if he did not speak English, how did he manage to write and think well in it?

Keziron for all his protest against English was a fanatic of European football and his favourite club was Manchester United.
That was one of the first and major things for which he was famous. He loved his king and Manchester United period.


The World Cup Final and 70 virgins in heaven
Keziron was at Kyadondo Rugby Grounds on Sunday 11 July 2010 to watch the World Cup Final between Spain and Netherlands and was killed in the bomb blasts at halftime. Even the suicide bombers had to watch some football first before they blew up! As if the 70 virgins in heaven are not enough for him/her? Damn it!

The bombs killed Keziron along with 73 people.

One of the things the news highlighted as the story evolved was that Al Shabab; a Somali religious and militant group of bearded men were happy with the efficiency and motive of the bombs and later admitted to carrying out the bombs.


Omar, the suicide bombers are nowadays killing people you know. No longer a story you read about in the newspaper. It is a reality in your life.
And suddenly George Bush was a not crazy afterall.


Terrorism is the one thing whose conversation about I would rather pass. I just don’t understand what it is that is the crap with terrorism. And I don’t want to. What is it that is so hard to figure out really to stop this thing? How come we are talking advancement in technology and solving other problems.


Even for poverty we have the MDGs. That sounds like a hardware application for an awesome video game but it is an important solution to poverty. Just think about it. What is the difference between PS3, Ibox360 and MDG?


That’s evidence enough that we are working on poverty. That conversation we can have. It is also very easy to talk about charity, development aid, and millennium goals, NGO, HIV/Aids and more donor aid please!!!!

But with terrorism people start talking of Israel, Jews, Arabs, Islam, oil, and; you can add your issue too! It becomes a conversation of extremes and passions.

And then I ask myself; “What’s up with the Somalis really?” It is not just the Al Shabab that is fucked up with them Somalis. They have not had much going on their way really.


It is said that they, along with the Ethiopians were the only Africans that were ever colonized. And look what they got?

From Siad Barre they got Mohammed Farrah Aideed. You remember him? The one who brought you the famous BLACK HAWK DOWN series? The movie about 18 US soldiers who died when their chopper was brought down in Mogadishu in 1993, they had their bodies pulled throughout Mogadishu to the global shame of the US and Bill Clinton.


Do you remember them choppers that also did the job in the Afghan and Iraq war where uncle Saddam Hussein was deposed? Yes we saw his statue fall, didn’t we?
But did you watch the Black Hawk Down?

But yet I miss uncle George Bush. He was on the other side of the coin in the conversation about terrorism. HE tried to tackle it practically other than be mouthing on it with declarations and what do they have there in Iran? Sanctions?


Bush for all his weaknesses, I cannot blame him for setting the globe rolling in terrorism. The thing was there way before he became president and hell; he went for it.


Omar; the big picture of Somalia was designed by President Bush and Ethiopia when they chased away the bearded zombies in 2008. Ethiopia at the time overrun Somalia, Installing a government appropriately named as Transitional Somalia Government or something awkward as TSG, LIKE an application for a video game itself.


The TSG like all applications was short-lived and was chased away by the Al Shabab, It as not clear what happened to them Islamic Court Union, the predecessors of TSG.

And when Mr. Mouth ON Him Barrack Obama replaced Uncle George look what happened? Oh how I remember seeing Uncle Bush in Kigali in 2008!!!!!!
I miss him!

donuwagiwabo@gmail.com