The Detour:

I would like to be a celeb because you get to know all the relatives you have never known, even the children of the uncle to the mother of your mothers’ sister. You do not only get to know them, but also a closeness develops and is followed by invitations to family parties, friends bashes and reunions that before, you didn’t have a chance to attend. That’s the power of being a celeb. I know I have many relatives; everyone does, only that I have not got the chance to know them and a part of me longs for that. In school, I was almost the only kid without a cousin to talk about. Having a cousin in the same school was like the most powerful thing. Those who had would talk about them until you felt like a capsule was stuck on your throat! It was so powerful even, witnessing cues that suggested your parent knew one of your friends’ parents. Like the day I saw my dad talk to one of my teachers, he later told me they were OBs. How I wished he had a kid in school maybe we would pose

You are in pain and someone says you are beautiful. It’s the last thing you wanna hear, even if you are the kind of person that needs regular assurance to maintain your self-esteem. You would be mad at them for that insensitivity. I was in F.6 when results of the previous year’s candidates came it. I got a call from a guy I used to think was my boyfriend asking me to help him find out what how many points he had got. I told him. He had scored 4 points!! The guy started lamenting as if he didn't know that was what un serious people got. I told him that at least he had performed better than some of his friends who had scored 3 and 2. That consoled, but for a second. He asked me to tell him something nice, something that would lighten his mood. I scratched my head for a line. I remembered one from a letter a friend from my previous school had received. She was my roommate. We had some code that if anyone got a letter from a guy she didn't like, we would read it wit

Just last week I experienced a life changing moment. I have no idea how life changing it was, but I remember thinking so at the moment. I was walking on some dusty road ( obviously it had to be so – you know your city), doing some math’s in my head wondering if I would have enough transport back home from town. Then I started weighing how important it was for me to actually go where I was heading. The transport could have been used the next day. So there my mind was stuck in economics of budgets, costs, reimbursements etc that I didn’t recognize the bicycle coming my way. It was too late to move away from the road. On the other side of the narrow road, was a hen minding its own business. Wonder what was on its mind – politics of hens? I didn’t seem to care about it all the same, both our lives were at stake -and mine at more stake because I was aware of what was happening. The one thing on my mind was how people would talk about me; that I died of a bicycle accident? Some deat

I got into a taxi whose destination was Kireka - Mukono. This was about 8:30pm at the Ntinda stage. At that time, passengers were usually scarce. 30 minutes of waiting were rest assured. At about five to 9pm, the second last seat was occupied. The sign post was removed off the top of the taxi and placed on another.   We waited. Five minutes later, the driver got into the car. ‘Conductor aliwa’, he asked for the conductor who was nowhere to be seen. We waited for him. The last  seat still empty. All passengers mute. The conductor finally appears. ‘tugende?’ the Driver asks if we could leave. ‘Nedda, lindako. Enure tanajya’. We had to wait for Henry. Whoever he was, whatever he was doing! It was clear that the seat was not left empty on purpose. It clocked 9.15pm. The taxi that had taken on passengers after the one we were in left. No complaint still. ‘Whoever Enure is, he must be very important’ I thought.  I wondered why no one was saying a word. It was not lik

I think of all the time I have been on street (read jobless) and wonder what I have been up to! I mean not with such a great mind I have plus of course the threatening looks (not bragging – just using the words a number of people have used referring to me). I have a crazy best friend – Liana.   For a long time I had been trying to apply the ‘birds of a feather flock together’ saying on our friendship but in vain. We differed a lot in interests and most beliefs. Maybe till I realized what I had was a crazy mind.   She had the actions. One of those boring days we got together and started jazzing – you know girl stuff. Of course gossiping to make it simpler. However we also discussed other things like politics, religion, marriage, death, and money among other things! Money! Yes we always talked about how we really needed money to catch up with the fashion craze. How absurd it was that since we left campus we had hardly purchased any new items for our closets. Same shoes, same clot

I was seated on a bench in Kireka waiting for the tailor to finish fixing my clothes. I watched a certain lady come up to the direction where I was. She approached a vendor and made an order for French beans and carrots. I kept my eyes on everything she did as if I gained from it in some way. Later she got out her wallet to pay for the items. My eyes on the wallet!   I tried to peep and find out if she carried bundles of money or if it her wallet had the same big holes as mine, that the dime is always dropping   out. What stole my attention though was the bundle of business cards that peeped through it. Fist i thought she had folded her money and fixed it in the provision for business cards. I had to get up from the bench and pretend to be yawning and stretching to be sure.   With further recognition, I couldn’t help but wonder how she could have gotten all those business cards. The first thing that came to my mind was ‘connections’. She was the perfect resource for me to get m

One thing I believe is that more is given to those who already have. I think I have read this somewhere in the B ible and it happens all around us. There is also something else I learnt about stewardship from the ‘Live the Blessed Life’ series at Watoto Church, that God cannot trust you with big things unless you can be trusted with small ones. That’s why the rich tend to grow richer and the poor poorer. Then they start having all kinds of accounts for this, I hear colonialism, aid from abroad, witchcraft and all that nonsense. I even have no idea how they can account for poverty. More is given if you have plenty. And like one Man of God said, God cannot trust Kampala with a completely clean city! People should not keep complaining about having one until they can take care of it the way it is now with sewage and its varying stenches welcoming you from all sides, dust following you around like a committed bodyguard and rubbish behaving like some stalker. Just in case you

There are some instances where by protocol is just a waste of time. And the main problem is that the people in charge don’t observe it and yet they want us to do so. Maybe because some of those people in charge have guns and so they feel they have the leverage to make us do what they want. I was at MUK and the decided to pass by the bazaar at Mitchell hall. There was a check point however women’s bags were not being checked via the walk-through detectors and neither was the hand-held detector passed across men’s pockets. Askari Passing the wand across the mans clothes yet its 'dead' In that manner, I saw no need of me placing my bag on the table before I could walk through the detector. When I was through, the askari asked me to go out through the exit, and repeat the process while leaving the bag at the table and me walking through holding nothing, then I pick my unchecked bag and head to the bazaar. At first I thought that perhaps I was the only one whom