I think I am now going to taste unemployment again.

As I board a bus from Bujumbura, I am very much aware that my mission to Buja was unsuccessful in many ways. Instead of signing up ICT related contracts in Buja, I ended up taking a tour accompanied by Claude and in the process drank silly. 

In my state of drunken stupor, I would end up sending SMSs to my boss in Kigali to announce that I had signed up multi-million deals.

Anyway, I am now in the bus and when my boss realizes that I was a small time conman, he will certainly show me the exit door. I am going back to the streets in search of jobs! This is when I badly need canvas shoes to enable me trek under the sun. Those are the times when my pockets are void of any coins whatsoever. 

Instead, I find a bunch of keys plus small pieces of paper. Those very small pieces of paper are what I would call my phone book. 

This is where I scribble telephone numbers whenever Aggrey takes me out for big time parties. When I am in such parties, I try as much as possible to note down mobile numbers for our Bayobozis, so that I bother them the next day for job opportunities. 

The trouble is that my papers have still failed to convince potential employers that I am capable of yielding results. My stay in the Diaspora shows that I attended several short courses, which truly are not entirely related to each other. 

That is why members of the panel scrutinise my CV with some degree of suspicion. They always confer among each other in very worrying whispers, as I look on helplessly. I get this feeling that the panel thinks my documents are fake. So I just say a little prayer and start to fidget with my fingers. I am fidgeting with my fingers under the table in a bid to cross them.

This is because my grandmother once told me that good luck always comes when you cross your fingers. But these days, it is not working for me, as other candidates tend to scoop everything from under my feet!

And I think bad luck has been following me all these years. I mean, check out what happened to me several years ago; I was searching for a job and I consulted the pieces of paper in my pocket. I selected one number and called the guy. He was a big shot in one of the government ministries. He answered my Tuvugane call and was indeed happy to invite me for a lunch meeting.

At midday top, I was in his secretary’s office. After a few minutes, he emerged and we strolled down to the parking lot, where his new Prado was waiting for him. Off we sped off for a fancy lunch and exchange of ideas.

I was busy planning in my head, on what economic jargons I was going to use so that the big man notices that I was indeed on the same wave length. As I was searching for more complicated words and phrases, a traffic policeman neatly dressed in his yellow reflectors, raised his hand in the middle of the road.

He was stopping us. He asked us to get out of the vehicle for inspection. He then grabbed the car keys and asked us to get lost. This was a government vehicle and the policeman was under instructions to impound it. My big shot was at a loss of words. Those were the days when government registered vehicles were to be auctioned off. Anyway, here I am again searching for jobs – unless of course my boss shows me some impuhwe.