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Friday, May 12, 2006

the back road

 

Next time you will read me start with..."what you are going to read is…true.... the events that...true...the characters...%^$#$@...true...any coincidences...true depending on what you were doing in the wrong place at the right time...Anyway, This almost sounds like Top Cops or whatsthatname show. Is the show still showing on Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC)? You can watch UBC online if your Internet is good…for $ a month....http://www.jumptv.com>...   I already saent UBC an Invoice for this ad. This time where was I...
 
Sunday Maying took me Kisenyi where I was to meet a friend who has settled pretty much in the core slum-comfortably. Too comfortably I am scared he will not leave the place for some other. It’s a place I dread going because the toilets are bad, it seems all the people that stay in these congested quarters don’t go to the latrine during the day. For to go to the latrine, you could need stilts, if in the dark you wouldn’t see what you are stepping, with daylight you don’t even want to imagine your shoes near any ground.
 
Where does he go to toilet?
 
 “I go to town, I just walk and help myself in those office loos.” He says nonchalantly. King Fahd building has the best toilets, except its far off, most times I settle for the dunk kid’s latrines at Nakivubo Blue Primary School-that’s when I am badly off. The other good place I can go to is the Mosque at Nakasero. The Moslems are clean, I only have to place the “salaams” in the right pronouncement and I am good for the show.”
 
What is town is 15 minutes slow walk, and with fiery baggage begging disposal, I would think he would need to run… Geez man!
 
This guy is not poor. He earns a living chasing deals. He is a middleman in the posho business. I once thought he carried posho bags but I confirmed he actually mans a shack with a small table, a stool and an old black and white TV set. Sitting there all day he argues with all natures of people. People who seemingly want him to close the sheet metal door before they can talk. But he continually reasons that since there is no window and the 75watt bulb is no good, why can’t they talk with the doors open. Everyone knows him and no one trusts him. When he is whispering they know he is very rich at the end of that day…so it doesn’t matter. They know that at the end of every day he walks away with stuffed pockets.
 
This guy just loves Kisenyi. He says it’s the environment he loves; he says he loves jumping over the drains flowing with sewer. Loves looking at ducks gurgling the muddy water. The women sitting in front of their rooms doing nothing. Going back home at night and everyone is still awake at 3:00am. And never ever needing to keep an impression. His girlfriends come for the fling…with the swing economics of the pocket in this part of town, he is a loaded man. He is never seen with one girlfriend lest they say that he is on rough grounds.
 
This chap doesn’t care for anything, he actually openly advertises himself in the newspaper in the ‘Looking for a Lover’ pages. And to think I am writing about him he would pay me for talking about him. Why do I like this guy-he is the guy that gets things done, he knows everyone, knows where the cheapest stuff in town is, knows just where to get the original anything you want. And I wanted to get a motherboard for a Sagem Phone.
 
Going to his place is always a different experience for me.  You leave the ‘glamour’ of Kampala streets and branch into a dusty patch, floor mills, chicken foods, rushing muscle men and idling kids, and chaos. Even the ducks busily mind the passage of daylight. Time…hurry…
 
In an Iwaya masterpiece in another part of downtown, it read like;
 
“ … Eyes are on the ground where you are walking and in front of you where you are passing. A brief lapse of attention and someone bumps into you. Then as you turn to adjust, another moving body bumps into you and knocks you over…”
 
From the busy Kisenyi, you move into the quiet Kisenyi, pass by some up class Kisenyi and into Core Kisenyi.
 
I didn’t have my camera so I missed getting that photo…a woman sitting by the entrance to her one roomed house dreamily pulling at her pipe…her eyes closed…her breath coming in long overhauls that elapsed into soft moans of pleasure, I think.
 
I stood staring at her till we both awoke to recognize an intrusion, something was awkward…some hallowed intermission emerged to interact between two shadows...strange to both shadows, which hang in someplace trying to fit its part in this script. She was looking beyond me and asked me what I wanted;
 
“nothing,” I said.
 
I knew that if I made a left turn just a little after this woman’s house I would be near Kagugude pub, from the pub there was no way I would get lost. Not that I was going to get lost. This is the third time I had passed here. This woman’s block wasn’t there then. In its place there used to be a Tin house with a curl script font label on the door “people of goodwill.”
 
 I once thought the proprietor of this Tin was generous-he was…this is where you embrace the basics of the habit of staggering home…meet people of good will and pockets of compassion, join a communion of sippers and nights full of memorable speeches…the atom of politics-I think all proprietors of such places are generous-especially to the souls that prowl the night.
 
 I liked the position I was in, I guess it was a case of brave scare…dare…people who watch Nollywood productions have constantly asked me to join them in watching pipe smoking women with intentions ranging from Men keeping, Men getting to Becoming rich. 
 
It’s been long since I had seen someone with a pipe besides the movies and Tajudeen of recent. I kind of liked Tajudeen's Thursday post before his pipe transformation not that it makes his articles any less articulate…
 
But following that a red eyed woman peeped from the shadows of the curtain, and a kid who was harvesting something from the muddy waters stood to look at what was happening, I remembered I was in the wrong place…I waved at the woman awkwardly and hurried away…
 
Other things…
Iwaya could do with a reminder…ejiet on the web…Okay this period that had me away from my computer was quite uninteresting. I think I am desperately hooked to the web, so that two weeks of thinking about getting on the web and not actually getting there is some torture… Like today, I walked in made a post, copied all people’s blog posts and went out. When will I go back to the office and enjoy the thrills of fulltime Internet…and I hate Kampala web cafés.

13:50 Posted in Stuff I cannot see | Permalink | Comments (10) | Email this | Tags: Rants

Comments

writers like you got me into this game.
you're inspiring mate.
Respect.
'nuff said.

Posted by: Degstar | Saturday, May 13, 2006

this post is exactly why i keep coming back. Degs, you're not alone in having respect for this guy. in person he is (if that is possible) even better. you should read the stuff that never makes it here.

and on the Eijet thing, since you have bloody blown my cover, let me let you know that in two weeks viola! (negotiations are complete) austin eijet is coming to a blog near you!

Posted by: iwaya | Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Interesting. You know, I was reading this article and the slum is a phenomenon even Y2K scare could not be certain of its outcome. where is a city without new dirty slum

Read another insightful article on the web at
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.19175/article_detail.asp

Posted by: the-new-one-does-not-talk | Thursday, May 18, 2006

Thanks 4 the Jump TV link. Keep the spirit up

Posted by: jkb | Friday, May 26, 2006

just returned from kisenyi. u took me there! am seeing this woman pulling at her long pipe with pleasure. i'm seeing yo friend [wish he was one-eyed,] negotiating deals with the brain of 'priest' of 'the hammer of eden.' this time am seeing a dozen ducklings playing about in the toxic-gutter waters... 'o what a beautiful piece of art,' am saying. 'why isn't this guy a blockbuster seller?' & i remember this is uganda. am moved. i want to cry! but wait, did u talk of austin ejiet, that's another guy! whatever u guys have in the fridge, if u're bringing ejiet 2 blogsphere i can't want. but of all, thanks 'undo,' thanks big 4 putting something in my blood 2 keeping going!!

Posted by: Dennis | Tuesday, May 30, 2006

I am anxiously (no, patiently) waiting 4 a new posting. Lets go man, lets go.

Posted by: jkb | Tuesday, June 20, 2006

hehehe, Ejiet on the web...now thats a thought. cant wait for the blog. and UNDO, the praise is well deserved, you rock.

Posted by: steven | Friday, June 23, 2006

Thanks guys...Dennis..degs....Jkb...steve....Iwaya..all...Sorry about the delay in not blogging.

Posted by: undo | Sunday, June 25, 2006

Good to be back. The difference now is I have to pay to access the Internet and it is hard to go on and on and God knows I want to go on and on. Wait, I could get a flash disc, download and read from home. I OK, I will do that. But this blog is it. Absolutely. 'Cept I have become a Kisenyi man myself and it takes some stoicism to "become comfortable" over there.

Cheers

Posted by: HipFalskSwigger | Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Do you know that the best brains of Uganda is in Kisenyi. Ok. Extrapolate a bit. Did you guys know that our best brains are in the slums of this country. For that is what Kisenyi is. No.

I meant, did you guys know that our enterprising entreprenuers, leading engineers, priceless artists, metal workers, woodworkers; (that is what we were taught at school) all of them work in the environs of...

They have a solution for all your problems.

Even kags acknowledges these people. His early campaign pitch for AGENDA 3T was in a similar place; Bwaise, yeah. Bwaise was the place.

Seya as you know mayor (of the nervous {read NAVAS} fame) actually alludes to them. Well to an extent.

These are amazing people. They are fabricators and forgers. If in doubt, please flash back. A man in Kawempe, from a setting similar to Kisenyi once built a car. Yes, a complete machine on wheels.

Years later, another man from Katwe built a second car. Made in Uganda I screamed. You think he would be our hero aka our billy Gates But wapi, police denied him licence to drive the car on our rugged roads. Trust these guys.

And yet another man built a chopper. Again made in Uganda.

You see. Our professors can not compete here. This is different turf, higher turf.

UNDO, your friend and his discomfort is really a sign of a our failing state. Note the police response to our hero. But is complete description of life in our fair land. Mess upon mess. One act of brilliance - as in Inzikuru winning GOLD - and the parliament, whose membership have stabbed sobreity in the back sit to applaud.

But most intriguing is the cohabitation of pure wizardry in the workshops with a dripping sewerage treatment plant for an abode just next door.

In addition, these Kisenyi and Katwe, Kawempe, Bwaise comprise the biggest market, most vibrant part of our economy. The interplay of the ripple effect is amazing.

From sweaty and moribund forgery industries to sizzling hotel industry (somebody once wrote in RP that Baz patronizes ROLEX), Kisenyi is just an outpost of that economy. Offering escort services, lodging. aaaaaah.

I gotta go.

Posted by: ARIAKA | Wednesday, November 01, 2006

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