Ten crocodilos went to see the Enphelant

There’s a special offer trek to Mount Muhavura. It’s going to be four days of fun from October 9 to October 12.

 

I would like to be there. I would want to be one of those people in the cut-out trucks which stop at will so I could take pictures or just look at Timon and Pumbaa as they look for bugs. And the lions and the antelopes. You get the drift.

 

There are going to be a series of stops along the way: “Have lunch in Mbarara at Agip Motel. Proceed through Kigezi Region up to the small mountain town of  Kisoro, just below the Muhavura Volcanic Mountain. Relax for dinner and overnight at Kisoro Tourist Hotel (Full Board).” And this is just on day one.

 

The lucky sods that’ll be going will go and see Lake Bunyonyi, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Reliable reports indicate that if you ask her while on the lakeside of this magnificent piece of God-art, there is no way she’s gonna say no. And these lucky tourists are going there. Damn! I wish I were loaded.

 

The reason I cannot go is because:

 

1. I cannot afford to take four days off work. Yeah, The Man is a slave driver like that.
2. I’d rather go to Ibulanku My doctor has warned me not to be so close big water masses  who am I kidding, I don’t have this:

                                               Tariff per person: 350,000 UShs

The tarrif includes a lot of goodies, which should entice a number of people, like:

 

Full Board accommodation

Ground transport by minibus (coaster)

English- speaking Driver/ Guide

Muhavura trekking fees

Boat ride on Lake Bunyonyi

 

I know there is going to be very many foreign tourists going for it. Whoever sent this ad must have sent it around the world first because that’s where most responses are going to come from.

 

Reminds me of a story I heard a while ago; a friend went on holiday to Zanzibar and found herself on this big ol’ boat as the only Black person. She didn’t enjoy her boat ride, poor girl and the first-time snorkeling was tainted with memories of smiling German ladies asking good naturedly, “Are you ze tour guide?”

 

PS: If you want to go, drop a line and I’ll get you the contact.

Strange things from Kibuli

Funny thing, a while back when some journos were beaten up and bitten by local dogs, there was this out pouring of indignation and the charges meeting resolved not to cover police functions anymore. Until Kampala’s Finest had gotten it into their thick skulls that you don’t mess with us, dude.

 

Well, there must have been some secret settlement coz the very next day, there was an item or two about the IGP saying blah, blah, blah and then it was business as usual.

 

Oh, and this one: Traffic coppers are being armed. Yep, maybe they’ll be given pistols like those guys at the airport but armed, nevertheless. Now errant motorists are in for some rural pistol whipping.

 

Any way, about that police black out that turned out to be non existent, I want my cut.

Plunge

It’s time. I woke up one day and realized I have pretty little left. And yet all those self-help books seem to say a person hits the peak of their creativity at a certain point in life and if hey haven’t done with their life what they were called to in the first place, its going to be really hard.

 

Of course it is usually not easy to hit back with, “what about Capt. Sanders, Abe Lincoln and that William Shatner guy?”

 

This guy I know went and did a few years of time in school, following the rules and basically being the hopeless being that our school system requires we be. Until after he’d tried his hand at uni and finding that he didn’t really want to be a learned business person, learned here meaning he’d got all his business smarts from class, he jumped and rebelled against The Man.

 

At the moment, he is about to become a banker and a lawyering type. On his own terms.

 

They say from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. There is no time to play Goldilocks.  Playing fair has not helped.

 

So I am taking the plunge. I am starting my own business and against all the ridicule for believing in Robert Kiyosaki, I am putting my retirement plan in motion. All that stuff about “start small, start slow but start, goddamit” is now informing my actions.

 

And I just love the rush.

 

And just for just, I am switching templates.

Take that, you dead horse

I was going to post something here on the National Social Security Fund and what it means to me as a contributor and therefore, an interested party to the whirlwind but between trying to crop a picture of Uganda’s security minister and staring down WordPress so the page will open, I lost the zeal. What do I know?

 

Not trying to go all intarekcho but, have you read Andrew Mwenda’s Op in Vision? I think the issues at hand are at a danger of being lost in the kavuyo. What the media, and you know who that is, has done is put the NSSF/Temangalo/Alcon issues out in the open. That the politicos think this is a good opening line to take one back against those in power is not that important and should not be blamed on the messengers. It is very easy to blame a paper because everyone says that is what it is known do but is there a point in this battle? The media informed the public. Why should the financial practices of the messenger come into question?

 

So I just went over to Carlo’s and got all broody over that post on The Dark Knight and Free Will faith. Yeah, faith and the things one gets into wide-eyed, knowing that convention rules that the other option is the truth. It takes guts to have faith in something because someone’s always going to come around and shoot your believes full of holes.

 

Like the million questions that come up in my head everyday about things that are already in the Bible yet I always feel like I need them to be explained by a contemporary before they strike something in me. Like the whole Tithing debate, which is over-simplified by zealots who cut it down to that verse in Malachi that says if you don’t tithe, you are stealing from God. And you do not want to be stealing from God, God forbid!

 

I always felt that this was a very simplistic explanation to the whole thing. And there were many other (still are) that confused me because I would not find the answers in the plain text of my NIV. But I have made my peace with issues like “why should I tithe?” from simple discussions with contemporaries.

 

These are the debates that will take precendence in my mind over others like whether or not Mr Mbabazi is to blame in the NSSF saga. It might be important for me to keep an ear to the ground, seeing as he and his ilk are in charge of running the country and therefore, have my puny little life in their hands but debates like this have come and gone in this country and nothing’s changed.

 

Good and Evil. Constantly at war within us. An eternal fight.

 

If the minister is paying for some unseen sin against his party and this is just the Party doing a Rubashov on him, he will fall and someone else will take his place. Meanwhile, my life will continue being as lousy as it is or even worse.

On…nothing

Honestly, if Stewie Griffin is the brightest baby there ever was, how come he plays with stuffed animals and eats dirt and falls to sleep promptly when a pacifier is pushed into his mouth?

And, Teabag ate that Mexican guy?

Brick and mortar

I grew up hearing that once I got a job, the first thing I had to do was build a house. Buy a plot and build a house that is. 

 

It was never a good thing to think anything other than that. It was always a sign of waywardness to think of buying the toys I had always dreamed of.So it was good bye Ferrari, till we meet again.

 

One is expected to get a job after Uni and start looking for a plot of land. With all the dreams playing vividly on the screen of their mind, they are supposed to ignore the urges to go out and paint the town red, to buy round after round for the boys and concentrate on stacking up the coins till there is enough to put up a structure.

 

It is good wisdom, actually. Look at the price of land today and how the rent rises in Kampala and the places surrounding! If you can buy a plot of land, it is wise you do it.

 

If your thing is houses, anyway.

 

If you feel that building a house will signify that you will have arrived. If after that last shutter’s in, you will lie back and relax coz you’ll be cock of the walk.

 

No one ever said you can collect wealth in stocks. Or bonds. It has always been that if you want to be rich, you have to build a house. Of course now, we know we can build more than one house so we go into real estate.

 

But the stock market is here and in the next few years, under a decade, its really going to be smoking. Kids are being taught the merits of saving in secondary school right now. There is talk of extending the lessons to Primary school.

 

The Uganda Revenue Authority has been on about that very issue, saying how our problems would be avoided if kids were taught right from lower primary that they have to save and invest.

 

During the Amin war, properties were destroyed. Houses that had been the talk of the town because of their beauty were reduced to rubble. Of course I am just repeating what I have been told by people who should have been there. But stories like this changed my outlook on what is really valuable in this part of the world.

 

What shall I gain if there is always the danger of losing all my wealth in a huff and a puff of the big bad wolf of war? Or even losing my stuff to jealous people who are miffed that I have made it in their land and therefore, I have to be relieved of “their property?”

 

Elsewhere, if I were living large in a fantastical place, I’d probably think a lot about real estate. But I live in a world where things are not always what they seem. So the best way for me to make money is not through brick and mortar, it’s in the stroke of some broker’s pen.

 

And that’s a rant.