Product placement…of sorts

There’s a dance fest coming to Kampala in the near future. It’s called Passa Passa and a beer company has seen it fit to stimulate local talent in this way as their CSR contribution. Groups of two to four will compete for a professional dance contract, whatever that means. From what I gather, the excitement has been building regarding this latest fad.

 

Kampala, nay, Uganda is a place where any new thing goes. We are always looking for a new thrill. Even if we don’t understand it, we want to be there when something dawns. That way, we can sit on the barstools and tell all and sundry that, “Yeah, I was there with Timothy  (I tried to find info on the web on this individual for those that don’t know him but this is the best I could come up with. I have to earn my family’s bread, alo!) when Passa Passa was launched in Kampala. Warrabout!”

 

And the publicity for this particular one is the evilest and the most attractive. The other day I saw an article in the press about the reasons we should shun Passa Passa. It went along the lines that since it is a dirty street dance where people are in various stages of undress depending on the position of the hands of the clock, all sane people should run away from it.

 

I am thinking to myself, “Hey, Myself, can you believe this?” I mean, CNN, Sky and Al Jazeera have used this trick since…since I don’t know when; if you want the number of your viewers to go through the roof, have your anchors look into the camera and gravely warn the viewers that the next news item after the break can only be handled by those with sturdy stomachs and hearts so all you wimps, vamoose. Nothing whets our voyeuristic appetites like the promise of scandal.

 

 So of course I went online to find out all about this evil dance. Now, thanks to you guys on the other side, I have one more dirty spot on my white conscience.

Tightening the belt

These days, to sound cool, sophisticated and all those words that describe the state of being a pretentious snob, you have to sprinkle your conversations with, “the cost of living is too high.” It gives you extra mileage if you can steal figures from the papers to make it all the more serious.

 

But don’t be there thinking that it is just talk. Uganda, like the rest of the world, we are told, is experiencing the highest food prices in ages. For those who live in E-Town you know what this means on another level. Entebbe being a frontier has all food coming from elsewhere. It comes in from Kampala or from across the lake in Masaka so we have to pay extra for the fuel that the Good Samaritans use to come save us from starvation.

 

We don’t grow our food because you see, traditionally, or at least since the white people came, it was an administrative centre and there were very few gardens. Long after the capital shifted to Kampala, the town is still sleepy. All the praises that people heap on it for being clean and peaceful and whatnot must have gotten to its head.

 

Can something be done, not only in Ebbs but everywhere? I mean since forever, the price of a razor blade has been 50 shillings. Double Happiness matchboxes from China were always at the same price and even good old humble Orbit changed names and went mad.

 

I can understand it when the rest of the world starts crumbling under the pressure of rising oil prices but I always had so much faith in the Chinese. Now they’ve also lost it. It must be the Gorbachev Bug. Someone must have injected the Chinese finance ministers with a Capitalist serum. Double Happiness at 100 shillings?

 

So what do we do? Right now, we are going through desperate times. But when sanity is restored, what shall we do? This whole thing has forced me once again to think about accountability. I admit that it doesn’t matter how I voted, the point is the guys up there are using my money to do things. If the things they are doing are not helping in making my life easier then maybe its time to call in Stonecold Steve Austin.

 

For instance, next time Nasasira comes for On the Spot, please kick out Kasyate and bring Tumwi. The ijot could not utilize the chance to fix him! He could not find just one road with potholes to trap the minister on.

 

 

 

Weaned off TV

I thought it would take a million years before I ever gave up TV. There have been efforts to vilify the tube in my eyes. People who’ve taken it upon themselves to straighten me out; to save me from getting spoilt have been rolling off the belt. They hid the TV, placed it on the highest possible place so I couldn’t reach it, broke the TV…

 

Pointless to say, all these acts have been fruitless. Coz me and TV have continued our romance nevertheless. I still quicken my step when I know there is a hot programme on TV to catch.

 

So Sauron found a way to floor me.

 

You know how all these child experts are screaming themselves hoarse about the dangers of having children watch TV. They say stuff that gets me by the scruff and shakes the Reno Reines out of me. I have no fight in me anymore, I tell you. When an ‘expert’ says he knows for a fact that even the littlest baby will be affected by the violence on TV, I don’t know if I want to contest that. I mean I know like…one baby?

 

I hear even Telly Tubbies are evil. Timon and Pumba…forget that one. It was designed to appeal to the parents after the kids have gone off to sleep. The violence of Tom and Jerry is out of this world. And I know girls are s’pposed to be made of sugar and spice and all things nice but did you ever see chicks as mean as the Powerpuff Girls?

 

So here’s me signing off.

 

Things to do when you return from leave

Surf the net like you are the latest stages of possession. You have missed the action and you cannot get enough of it so you sit at the PC and won’t budge for anything. You live in the backyard of the frontier village just before the edge of the world and everybody knows, no sane Web café entrepreneur will set up shop in such a God forsaken place.

 

Write one general e-mail to the 1000 people who’ve been stubbornly sending you mail during the time you’ve been away. Dudes when you don’t receive a reply the first three times, why bother with writing another “Are you there” e-mail? I guess some peeps like wallowing in rhetoric.

 

Cry with the forum members from the Kabinjans group. Budo Junior was in the news like… a long time ago but hey, when you’ve been a student there, you have friends who have a more than just faint memory of the school. There are friends who feel like BJS flows in their blood and they’ve been bitching about the sliding standards for ages.

 

Call up the various editors and tell them, with a barely concealed threat in the voice, that you are BACK. They had better wisen up and give you some new assignments. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta moonlight.

 

And in other news…

 

I have been reading and enjoying your accounts of what life means to the Ugandan blogging community.