Just running my mouth, again

1. Earlier last week, our in-laws (the family my eldest brother married from) lost a grandfather and my sister and I were left in the house as all the older guys went for the lumbe. It was a rather boring night what with no power and we didn’t know anyone’s number to call for strippers to come and may be entertain us.(I have just conjured up that thought. wish I had thought about it then.) The next morning, after a very heavy down pour, we left home to get a taxi. Me: to work, her: to her tutor. Under normal circumstances, our brother drops us wherever we are going although I have had to take taxis at this particular stage so I know the trials. She doesn’t. So we wade through the mud (!) but as is the case in such instances, there are no taxis. We wait. 10 minutes. 20minutes. 30 minutes. Joanna (my lil’ sis) turns to me. With a very serious face. A very rare countenance in her life.

J: You shouldn’t have worn that top.
H! : (somewhat alarmed. She sometimes acts as my ward robe designer so such a comment is taken seriously.) why’s that? Not smart in this?
J: clearly. Someone would have stopped a long time to give us a lift.
H! : (ignores her)
J: you should have worn the other top. Without the pin though. Then you bend down his window and act very helpless yet very sweet. Actually, no need for the sweet part, just bend and thrust your chest toward him. We’ll leave be outta this place in a jiffy and we’ll live happily ever after.
H! : I’ll smile sweetly. You do the cleavage thrusting thingie…your sh*t is fuller than mine you, know.
J: Yours is older…ooops I meant riper.
H! : forget your lunch money by the way…
J: that’s not fair. Am trying hard to come up with a solution here.
H! : And am trying so hard not to throw you into that mud to make you shut up.
And I would have, if she had gone on like that…my sis comes up with the craziest ideas. It freaks me out to think that she knows most of the things am just discovering at the University.

2. I don’t like telenovellas. But more often than not I find myself watching them because the house comes to a standstill when the maid says that today we have Camilla or Paloma. So sometimes I sit down to give her company and explain some of the words she doesn’t understand. The English words, that is. So there was this time my sister left the room and came and asked what she had missed. That is the time Diego (in Paloma) had had a drunken night with his psychologist and as he said goodnight, he kissed her briefly on the lips. The maid described the encounter as follows (in Runyankore) “Mbwenu yamukisssinga kwonka tebyali gye!” (He kissed her but he didn’t kiss her well).
I almost asked her what ku kissinnga gye looks like…but my sister told me to leave the poor girl alone. I have never been so amused in my life!

3. I told this same girl (the maid) about the 50% extra freebies on MTN. My sis has been using her like so she didn’t know that she had 5000 worth of airtime. I have never seen someone so ecstatic. She even failed to talk to the person she called because of the joy. Then she almost broke down when I told her it is only MTN to MTN. Her man, she tells me, is on Celtel. Life sucks, yeah?

4. For some reason, a lot of people don’t think that I speak Luganda. Or any vernacular for that matter. I have been told by a couple of people that they thought I was Kenyan. Sometimes when I go to the shop near home, the other customers great me in English. But waa! Am a real muna Kampala. I speak flawless Luganda. Flawless enough to make me a Kabaka’s advisor. So there was this time I went to Kampala Casino (yeah, I live large sometimes). There were these guys that looked like they were traders from Kisekka market. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that. Kampala kuyiiya, right? The problem however comes in when they fail to realize that they are not certain people’s saizes. I was standing at the roulette table next to theirs and after a while I felt their eyes on, and when I turned around, they sure as hell were staring. After a while, one of them, led by his stomach, approached me and said, “Cani I get for you a durinki beibe galo?” or some gibberish that cannot amount to more than that. That can be a great offer you know but hey, the method of delivery/ packaging does matter a lot of times. I may have been more enthused had that guy made the offer in a language that he knows because as you may already know, there’s nothing as unsexy as trying to tie on a language that is not yours in a bid to impress. You know the nonsense we have had to endure with our accent-forcing entertainers, don’t you? I tried to figure out a way of getting this guy off my case and coming up with none, I said (flawless, remember), “Nze simanyi lungereza, ndekka!” And I walked away. Trust me that muzigo woman that sells *balafu in Kisenyi Primary School would never have sounded more local. I have never seen a man more shocked. Dude thought I was going to waste my kazungu on him. As if!

*(balafu=that colored iced water we used to drink in primary. if you never drank it, go ask back for your childhood.)

Just running my mouth…

I missed BHH last Thursday. Am still having my heart mended. I was so prepared for this one. 27TH‘s debate on feminism was still fresh and most importantly, I wanted to take him on on the “Legalize the herb” discourse (I still do). I was so ready to engage my self in any kind of intellectual ramblings ranging from Ugandan or American or wherever’s politics, domestic violence, the Nairobi bombing, cheating wives and husbands, the East African Community…anything! You see, my brains hadn’t yet receded to the back of my head. They have now. Until the next time I have exams.
This is why I have nothing special today except these random thing-things.

Am sure you have heard those highly vamped Coca Cola songs. There’s one with a lady with a very beautiful voice. Heard that one?…first time I did, I thought it was a real song and I thought the presenters thought it was hot as well so they kept playing it. I was on the verge of texting Crystal to request for it when it eventually hit me that it was an advert! I know what you are thinking…and yes, a lot of people have called me blonde before and I doubt they are about to stop.

There is this girl I used to see around the faculty. She’s the kind of girl you can’t miss even if you want to. She dresses so flamboyantly that she appears to have walked off the runway so my friends and I used to call her Modele Mama. I had never talked to her but I had heard people talk about her. And as is usually the case with such girls(those hot girls that people don’t seem to like because they mostly talk to people who are equally as hot), they were not exactly nice things talked about her. I had a few classes with her this semester and I found that she was quite nice. What amazed me most was that she has the heaviest lisp I have ever heard that the whole time she is talking to me, I have bite my tongue…letht I thtart thpeaking like her…

Have you ever been broke? Okay, I don’t mean oh-am-so-broke-i-can’t-have-my-daily-dose-of-Cappuccino at Café Pap broke, but geez-the-rolex-is-so-expensive-tonight broke. Have you? A few weeks back I was so broke that I was seriously contemplating auctioning my brain (I still wonder how much I would have made from it. Considering it’s MY brain)…then I got this phone call from a friend of my mum’s (so she is called auntie. Auntie Bee). Under normal circumstances, she would never have called me. She calls my mum then she says tell H! I said she should read hard (as if!). When I saw the caller i.d I figured she had failed to get to mummy so she was calling me so she could get her.

AB: H! How are you?
H! : ……………….(smiling into the phone)
AB: How is school? Are you reading hard?
H! : ………………. (Rolling her eyes. Still smiling though)
AB: Anyway H! , am sending you $1000.
H! : ……………….. (Almost breathless. I told you God exists! I told you God exists!…I told you!….tum, tutum, tututum, tum…doing a little dance…)
AB: You will meet some guy called Baker at the bus park and he will give you the money.
H! : ……………….. (Waiting…breathe abated.)
AB: When he does, have it exchanged and take it to that other shop. Give it to the owner and tell her to send me the other goods I told her.
H! :……………………( Utterly devoid of any knowledge of how to react to this change of events).
AB: She already knows what to do because I have talked to her.
H! : …………………………. (Rolling her eyes)
AB: Thanks, H! Mummy said you’d help. Thank you a lot.
H! : …………………………… (Eyes almost jumping out of the socket.)
AB: Read hard, my dear. Send my love to mummy.
H! :………….( I think this is where she sticks out her tongue. Or purses her lips. Am not sure)
That day I walked around with a very unhappy wallet (mine) inside a very happy bag (mine too. The bag, not the money). In a bid to comfort myself, one part of me says that that is my good act for the day. The other, not so soft part of me screams: “Good act of the day? Are you kidding? What? Is Santa finally coming to Africa this year so I have to keep a record of good?”…am not sure who won. The money was delivered though, just in case you were worried.

In a more serious turn of events, as part of my holiday programme, my lecturers saw it fit that I teach a Chinese lady English. I met her at her apartment the other day and she made me Chinese noodles, fish and tomato-egg salad. It was good but even my polite self refused to take the tomato-egg salad. It was a little like half done eggs floating in water with tomatoes. That one I refused but I ate the rest. I have tried to get lessons on how to teach English and it is harder than I thought. I thought that just because I speak English then it means that I can teach it. Apparently not…and it has become quite hard trying to do without the slangs but am excited about it so am doing my best. First lesson’s today so hold your breaths.

Also, i am back in action…I hope y’all have been doing well.