Undo

Thank you, thank you, thank you, you're far too kind

[Chorus]
Now can I get an encore, do you want more....

                                      -Encore-Jay-Z...

 

"...Who you know fresher than Hov'?  Riddle me that
The rest of y'all know where I'm lyrically at
Can't none of y'all mirror me back..."

I think this new year will turn out fab...

So I meet this guy driving a Zimalogue and he says;

Man, we have suffered in this Uganda, we have suffered!! But God gives and he takes, look at me, eh! I now drive. But I am damn broke, do u like have a 5k u could lend me. My fuel is run out. At least you work these days. You have grown heavy-you must have money.

I look at him and think-creep!

Eh! Look

What have I suffered that he knows about? All the grueling days making money for the guys driving WMB is not exactly talkable talk. My rather bushy beard is because my barber had an early Christmas break…You can’t be poor successfully without knowing how to be poor. This barber made a few bucks and he decided it was time to call it a year. So he went to his shop, packed the machines in their casings. Drew the curtains and carried his ‘Sanyo System’ alias small radio with cardboard cut speakers and went to indulge the village babes in city vibe.

The streets is rather hot, everyone is walking along stiffly, shifting their tired gazes from the howling taxi men looking for the next passenger to the expectant beggars stretching out their hands with resolute. A reflection from the glass high wall of Workers house onto Kampala road makes the road have a smoky blue allure. Vehicles and people passing under this blueness attain some appearance of being rather beautiful and it only lasts a few seconds when they emerge onto the general patch of sunny sunniness. With the dust speckled sun blaring onto them. The continuous glare of sun rays blasting from contact with the wind sheilds of shuttling vehicles meeting the shy eyes of pedestrians. 

 

I stare blankly at the chap in the Zimalogue and say hey look there is my taxi, see u sometime. He sits in the Zimalogue wondering how he is going to shift this towering machine from this spot. Its pitiable looking at the chap stuck there but I don’t care. There is this woman with a rather playful baby who is seated on pave admiring the Zimalogues' shiny rotating rims, also held perhaps in the same dilema for cash. but for another reason...

 

I landed into a Lion king(simba) moment on the net. Well, cartoons are still my kind of thing.

 

Knowing this was a chance-watch I could not think to get anywhere. Sh**T-its coming to year...this is December, right? Hmmmm, how can someone stay without TV for a year? - and the next is coming-

 
And Not even go to the neighbours to watch the latest fashion faux pas on WBS...

And Not even when the neighbours are howling and braying like the just can't imagine someone eating worms on some ‘survivor’...yet they relish thick-butt-greasy grass hoppers every waking day…

And Not even when the famed La mujer...1&2 are showing...

Off topic-I watched Timon and Pumba. The bestest of the bestest friends, this was even hard for the cartoons to live with. Timon asks Pumba:
"Who is your bestest of your bestest bestest friend"
Pumba of course says, "Its you Timon", with all the sincerity he can muster.

What follows are all these tests of what really can break up what is a friendship and Men! even the cartoons just can’t live with being a bestest of bestest friend to someone you don’t want to see the next day…espercially...if you just can't do without seeing them...blah blah

well, here is the rest of some of what I got to see

Simba wakes up): wha..?
Timon: Jeez kid, you alright?
Pumba: Yeah, you nearly died!
Timon: yeah, I saved ya!
(Pumba snorts)
Timon: Well, Pumba helped... a little
(Simba walks away): Thanks for your help.
Timon: Hey where you going?
(Simba continues to walk): nowhere
Timon: Jeez he looks blue
Pumba: I'd say brownish-gold
Timon: No, no, no, I mean he's depressed.
Pumba: Oh
(Timon and Pumba catches up to Simba)
Pumba: Hey, kid what's eating ya?
Timon: NOTHING! he's at the top of the food chain! Hahaha! ... The food chain...
(silence)
Timon: So, where you from?
Simba: doesn't matter, I can't go back
Timon: So you're an outcast! That's great so are we!
Pumba: What'd you do kid?
Simba: Something terrible, but I don't wanna talk about it
Timon: That's great, we don't wanna hear about it
Pumba: Hey, Timon, anything we can do to help?
Simba: Not unless you can change the past
Pumba: You know, in times like these, my buddy timon here likes to say, you gotta put your behind in your past... uh...
Timon: No, no, no! Amaterus. lie down before you hurt yourself, it's you gotta put your past behind ya. look, sometimes bad things happen and there's nothing you can do about it right?
Simba: Right.
Timon: WRONG! when the world turns it's back on you, you turn your back on the world
Simba: well that's not what I was taught.
Timon: then maybe you need a new lesson, repeat after me, HAKUNA MATATA
(starts singing)
pumba: you know kid, these two words will solve all your problems!
timon: that's right, take pumba for example. why, when he was a young warthog
pumba: when i was a young warthog
Timon: very nice.
pumba: thanks
timon: he found his aroma lacked a certain appeal, he could clear a savanna after every meal.
Pumba: I'm a sensitive soul... though I seem thick skinned... and it hurt that my friends never stood down wind... and oh the shame!
timon: he was ashamed!
pumba: thought of changing my name
timon: oh what's in a name?
pumba: and i got down hearted
timon: how did you feel?
pumba: everytime time that i -
timon: pumba, not in front of the kids!
pumba: oh sorry……

I just went on watching until it was 5:00pm, I stood up, stretched, yawned, slung my bag onto my shoulder and said, I am off...the fella called boss looked on listlessly and asked, where to? this was silly so I just looked on and pointed at the door...

Which is most disappointing, Opening your email for three days and finding alot of junk or visiting the post office for three days and meeting with an empty box.

I have written just two letters this whole year and I have recieved four.

Not counting the bank statements that come in each month end and the spam mail that is dropped in the post when some company gets extra money they can dispose of in flyers we are going to litter outside the Post-office area.

At the post office, the person seated at the control monitor-which beams pictures live from the corridors leading to the boxes must have an interesting job.

Seeing all these people walking in and walking out. Some busily tearing at envelopes they have anticipantly told everyone who cares about.

'Ah, You Know, I am expecting serious mail..these post office guys are so slow...blah blaah' Only to go to the post office to pick up brochures selling top of the range Volvo SUVs they can only dream about.

One swaggering business-like to hide the disappointment of walking out of the post office for the third time in two days empty handed carrying flyers announcing new interest rates for a certain Nile bank fixed accounts. He comes out into the sun from the corridor, looks left towards the grand imperials, then right slopping to kampala road, up at the sky, at this shoes still shining from the shoe shiner's severe treatment. Left again and then he strolls to cross the street to the restuarant where he has left the nice looking babe pressing persistently at her phone and pinging to find better deals than she is trapped in.

Others Huggin'&Kissin' with their mates in the emerging game the town is adopting.Being enclosed in this corridor no one just walks into, they just can't wait to touch each other.For them it doesn't really matter no mail has come in, they passed here as an after thought, espercially for the box owner who wanted to show the mate that he/she has a post office box.

And of course the cursing type. Showing the camera the middle finger. If they could they would show their beyind too-you know the types. They just don't stop at anything to show how they feel. They have got no mail for three days, they have not written any mail in forever and they just have this itchy feeling the post office chaps are stealing their mail but they have no way of proving it. so they want the whoever is looking to know they feel really bad

end

Going to pump gas into some fools on Kampala road. I like just the thought of the gas and the scampering fellas, but not the image of me in it.

 

 

 

 

And here is me burning! Don't look at me, keep the image you have of me in posterity.

 

blog revolutionised diary keeping and the soul has been given to the devil on a silver plater. The devil is biding his time and will sooner pounce on me

I have for sometime forgotten what its like to sit down at home. You know, this routine of coming in when its dark and leaving when its dark means that I only know where my bed is and where the necessities are located. Everything else in the house has been left to the in-house rat (its a alone since I last checked). I think a certain Tumu would have given the rat a name. I cannot think of one to give it. Tumu what did you call that dog without a tail that visits your hilltop 'gwa'?

There is nothing I miss from the way things are I guess, when you think of it all:
Those kids who come around to greet you and instead ask-
Ha uncle undo, what are you doing? 
My mouth is just recently filled with a big bite at the lump of home made burger. In front of  me is a plate with three other pieces I am eagerly hurrying towards and these kids come, why now? And they ask, of all things what I am doing when they can see am settled for my breakfast. You don't want to know the rest of it. Its morally not justified for these pages.

Or those church fellas who think i love to sing and keep coming around just to see if I will attend a singing practice session. I have told them many times that the singer that used to stay at this house left. The person they are talking to has a croaky voice and  the only thing he is good at is listening to one aria here and there that have churchly overtones and say to himself hmmm! I think this is good listening or another dozy moment.

They should employ nice looking girls to encourage some of us to the singing. What is this fella with a goatee, smelling the latest brew in the place called ‘punch’ doing trying to enroll me into singing. Of late he sees me on Sundays and says God loves me, that is before lumbering to tell me how mama Deo has a the strongest ‘punch’ in town.

I may not wish to tell you about the Football goons who come around to ask me if Arsenal has won and why I don’t read for them what Wenger has written on the website, as a communication for how they defeated a towering S. Prague in the Champions League…blah blah

So much for what is called the vine. When was it ever like you wake and you realize you slept with your shoes on. Then the next day everyone says they saw you sleeping with your shoes on even without having been around. I never held a party but I held a party. Are those two things the same. Ha sori, according to a certain holla it must have been a ‘blast’ well who is there to deny that. I saw this post in a madandcrazy where it was talked of a certain X finishing and enjoying a moment with the peros(parents).

Okay, some fella has finished with the fella that makes the rules at university. I couldn’t even finish in peace because: rules! rules!

-Queuing in the bank where the tellers have the good mind to remind you that you are at the wrong branch when you reach the counter 2 hours later, and that if you are in such a hurry you would better go to the correct branch.

 -Or climbing all over the senate building looking for ceremonies office just to be told that its now located at the freedom square

 -Queuing for verification of the bank slip from the bank, then again in another long queue to pick the papers saying “you are cordially invited…” meant a whole day cursing in the Makerere sun.

 -Coming for grad and you have to wear on top of the suit you have borrowed a gown to give you the hot feeling in the brazing sun, to listening to long blah blah from the chancellor about how many papers he has written Well, true to the madandcrazy bits, I didn’t sit in the tents for long, excusing myself with some free spirits to Nsibirwa Hall where we decided to conference over not doing anything but sipping things and waiting for the canteen man to announce that according to the radio the event is over. Then to making sure I don’t wear the hot thing the whole day. And as for the taciturn bits…I couldn’t wait for things to end…I missed play of the week…this is rude…

What do you think, Lying there, Pretending you are dead? Your face hidden in the flap of cloth the wind blew there. Your trouser torn to show your bruised knee, And your shirt twisted into a wrap like a sari thrown over the shoulder, appearing here and disappearing-then reappearing to end in a knot you never tied.

The people that stand nearby stare at you like marabou stocks pondering what could have happened to their friend who just broke a neck. And without the murmur, you cannot really see these people have any sense what they want to do. From poking the side of the dead man with a stick to staring speechless. The dead man certainly didn’t even notice he had died before he died, perhaps he was musing on how much “Katogo”(A mix-food, you chose-either Banana  with offals or with meat) he was going to ask from Mama Nyabo, the food woman.

Its morning, its cold, the mist is just clearing, I can barely see 5 metres away, and I am stuck in this taxi dragging along the jam caused by I don’t who having stuck in I don’t know where or is it just the mist that is making drivers slow down.  

Looking across, I keep meeting the scene of this defile, a dead man, thrown off his motorcycle to a distance you would think he was a flung from a catapult. And the taxi just doesn’t  move on…I was talking on the phone and maybe I heard someone say the dead man was called sam…

I hate crossing at the Zebra crossing. Standing there, looking at the character of approaching vehicles. I contemplate one finality after another. This could just be it, my last day walking on this street.

The few yards of yellow and white stripes gleam in the morning heat, a new coat of accurate rectangles, each rectangle a lifeline, a minute, a second, or an eternity is marked across the road like rows at the graveyard. Twenty-one graves in whole, eleven white ones and ten yellow ones.

A metal plate lines the gap between the graves, earthen and divergent in the morning hue. Reflecting the flashes of unconcerned metal whizzing past, ferrying things.

The metal plate is a cold transition between the graves where rubber burn-marks are etched in the haste of executed death; the lingering rust is the last mark of the last blood rites.

 

A motley of feet smack the face of the graves lurching in a bunch occasionally, each individual trying for the centre and ending up in a mid-run as the metal things tower onto them. The Island cutting the middle of the road to its end is no comfort, as even here could be just the place someone wants to scrumble out of a jam through. A zebra crossing is a pedestrian crossing where the pedestrian is king of the way. I hate zebra crossings.

Yet, this is part of my favourite street. The Post Office stands right across. People continuously go in and out to check and send mail and no matter what time you pass, there are people seated or standing at its balcony. It's a place people sit to unwind, pensioners, the unemployed to think up strategy, the civil servant to pass up the lunch hour, the peddlers to rest, the bored to watch the traffic, the women of the night and the friends to wait for other friends. It's a place for all.  In an age where restaurants are places of expense it provides just the ideal waiting place.

The Post Office looks out onto Kila road, running west towards the City Square and east to meet Jin-road. Opposite is the space that counts for aparking lot, and just at its pavements women, Okay mostly women sell old books. An avenue rises to meet Grand Imperial Hotel, its shade and the sitting area extends along that too. Its solid architectural design compels a kind of security with a patronizing presence of shade. Its conservatorial atmosphere gives off a timeless quality. It's my new age park.

 The uncharacteristic Amber House imposes itself right next to the Post Office. It gives the impression it’s unoccupied. A statue of a dead man stands regardless looking onto Kila road, examining pedestrians. Most walk without even looking up at this building, its uncharacteristic I said and sad.

From the Post Office balcony the upper part of UCB retains its simple brownness, and that glimpse of Uganda House peers too.

Hear the noise, the taxi touts shouting, vehicles honking, the thrill-buzz-unsound of city life humming, the friction of pedestrians swaggering along the streets, boundless, purposed, and aimless.

The newspaper women own all space on the ‘paves.’ Here they spread their newspapers and magazines. They make the walk so small the pedestrians have to look at the newspaper to avoid stepping them and it’s in this looking that we get freelance newspaper readers.

You find them hunched intently digesting the news oblivious to the shoulder bumping and shoves other pedestrians give them. They resist pushes and have springy bodies like trees dancing in a storm. Hanging in this obtuse angle they scrutinise all the news headlines nodding acceptably or grunting to the gravity of the news.

They turn around to look for an audience to impart their prophecy but find none and walk on. Amid continual stops on the ‘paves’ to read more of the news they gaze at the tall city building and think, I have known this glamour and where it sprouted from but where will I eat today!

This newspaper woman gazes wearily at the various vehicles scuttling the tarmac, gulping at their mashed meal, a meat bone peaking out of one corner of the container. They sneeze frequently when the dust gets to them and breath in vehicle exhaust from the taxis that park at the kerb.

 Dreamily she stares at the vehicles tyres shuttling by, the mirages dance continuously in frenzied excitement, whirling and rewinding, twitching and rebounding onto themselves then settling for a silent moment when the midmorning breeze slowly winds them in a beautiful pattern. In their bleak dreariness the mirages swill unknown tales, trapping dust and heat in the same space.

It’s in this chaos of mirage, that the newspaper woman sees herself driving one of several vehicles she fancies. It’s a convertible! Yea, a red convertible! With blinking blue taillights, she will cruise slowly past, staring at the Post Office trying to recognize people. Before the rain comes.