Because everyone’s doing it

In Uganda, the highest denomination of our currency is 50, 000Gs. That said, there are more green notes going around with most everyone opting to use the Sh20, 000 note. When you go the Forex bureau they’ll probably give you a huge wad of 20s and expect you to move through the midday crowd in Kampala’s CBD. 

But the prospect of being mugged is nothing compared to the prospect of what you might win if you took that wad and placed a bet on one of the teams in the premiership. That’s what we know in Kampala. We can bet on footie teams in the UK even when we don’t know the first thing from Semuwemba about teams in our own league here. 

Kampala is in a green haze; sports betting is the new heroin. 

I read somewhere that this type of gambling was illegal in Uganda until recently. I wondered, naturally, what Jada and Scratch for Cash and all those pyramid schemes of yesteryear that made Sudhir rich were all about.  

Now it is all legal so all you cats trying to make a quick buck, get out your ATM cards and hit the books. There’s quick money to make. People are making money left right and center.

I thought it was all talk but I heard that some biggie at the place where i work placed a Sh500, 000 bet a couple of days ago and won big – Sh5m. There’s a guy who’s been on a winning streak that forced me to pause a bit in my criticism of the whole thing. A novice not known for his great knowledge of soccer, he has been winning for three weeks straight. I hear all he does is do a pinkie-pinkie-ponkie and the last team his finger falls on is the one he puts his 50Gs or 60Gs or more. He is definitely having a good season, I suppose.  

My secret guilt

One of my best friends in the last 10 years comes from the North. In this case, “North” means northern Uganda, where countless people have lived in a war situation for the whole of their lives.

In all that time, I have never been to northern Uganda. I have always explained it away to myself but deep down I know it’s been because I was scared shitless of being within any kind of proximity with the region. Because it would mean being in close proximity with Joseph Kony, the butcher of northern Uganda. According to newspaper reports of the last 20 years, this guy has slashed the throats of his kinsmen without any inkling of remorse.

I always asked myself subconsciously, “why in hell would anyone want to travel north?” It was the same thing as crossing Charles Bronson when he’s had a shitty day. The reports of buses ambushed or villagers cooked in big pots did nothing to strengthen my confidence.

And many around me felt that way. My generation started understanding during the regime of Gen. Yoweri Museveni. All we know is that life is as normal as it can get. We live in the central region going to school and aiming for a great job in Shell Uganda or Bank of Uganda, where one is assured of some of our favourite things.

We don’t want to know. We are embarrassed when the topic comes up. We try to look as Christian as Auntie Cynthia taught us back in nursery school. When the pastor directs the ushers to pass the offertory bags, we are enthusiastic. We drop crisp 5G notes in the red bag knowing that we have have done our part.

I guess I am under attack from the guilt. My friend certainly thinks of things in a completely different way. My friend has lost relatives in the senseless war and the pain, which my other southerner friends and I could have dulled a little, is still fresh.  

  

Me and my phone

 

The price of a phone with a radio has been one of the most stable items on economic lists in Uganda since they came to our dusty streets. Probably the only change conceivable would be upward but for the rules of engagement with URA and the standards people. I don’t know.

Radio has been brought closer to you. It is very close in fact; right in your pocket. You don’t have to listen to anorexic music seeping from the speakers up above in your office. You can just crank up your beats and voila, you have escaped.

And it is real escapism. Have you seen a dude with wrap around shades sitting in the back seat of the taxi with his knees up in that all-too-familiar pose that says, “man, there’s enough space for you to pass on your way to the ‘kiyungu?” That’s kitchen for all you who don’t know what the national language. (What you gon’ do when they come for you?). In most cases, dude has a pair of phones in his ears, bumping music.

This is the picture of a person who has looked reality in the eye and they just don’t want to look anymore. Like looking into the eye of Sauron, they have seen what they are headed for. Bad idea.

The guy in back probably comes from a broken family, like so many such people in the country. If he is sitting in a taxi at Wandegeya, chances are that he is coming from a class at campus. He’s going back to his one room in Ntinda.

Dog tired and stressing about this month’s rent since the old lady has not been doing so good of late and asking her to help out this month just doesn’t cut it. Have to find kyeyo very soon.

No one will understand. Not the driver up front chewing kibaba and screaming at women drivers to “va mu kkubo, musiru ggwe!” or his equally demented conductor who’s bent on cheating the bald headed man that just got off at Bidandi’s stage of his change of kikumi.

It is Bidandi himself but this young man can’t be bothered to know things like that. What is it to him if he is messing around with potentially his next president? For people like this things like Brokeback Mountain and National security are the same in that it doesn’t make any damn sense to them. and seriously, some of these terms Yuppies immerse themselve in are complete hogwash.

Any way, our hero has seen it all a thousand time and he stopped caring long ago. That’s why through it all, since the day began, he’s been hooked to Bob FM. Blissfully unaware of the chaos, bra.

Radio is not for sad people only though. I have seen some of the coolest people I know going around with them phones.So you see, we are becoming more and more impersonal with each one retreating into their own world of Jay Z and Freshly Ground. (Good thing, bad thing?)

Blessings to the radio phone.