Everytime I look at the now demolished Kiyovu of the Poor, real nice memories come back flooding back to me. I remember when we were grilled at Béa’s joint for over spending on booze when our poclets couldn’t cope.

Have you ever found yourself in trouble for over spending? I mean, here you are with ten thousand francs in your pockets and you are having a real binge. You are in a really good mood and you find yourself offering more rounds of booze to your friends and in-laws.

By the time the barmaid brings the bill over, the amount stands at thirty six thousand francs. Then you try to bargain with the barmaid so that she allows you a two day credit facility. In most cases, she would not be comfortable with such an idea and thus calls her manager over to grill you.

That is exactly what happened to Aggrey and I over 12 years ago. As I mentioned before, it was at Béa’s joint in Kiyovu of the Poor, where we had taken refuge for the night. We took cover at her bar after we were forced to dance to the tunes of our so called night watchman called Kibonge.

Indeed, he was a six foot muscular buddy who followed our rules extremely religiously. Among the strict rules that we had laid down for Kibonge was that he was never supposed to open our creaky gate for anybody after midnight. What we forgot to explain to him was that rules usually have some exceptions.

In our case, the exception to this rule should have been self-explanatory. Kibonge should have known that he was never supposed to open that gate for anyone after midnight except for Aggrey and me. Besides, we were his bosses! But how did Kibonge show his appreciation to us?

He expressed his gratitude by chasing us with stones and broken bottles. He cursed us as we took to our heels and dived straight back to Béa’s joint. We tried to convince ourselves that Kibonge had been half asleep. Deep inside, we understood that what he had done to us was justifiable. We should not have attempted to climb over the fence in the first place.

Anyways, here we were at 3a.m, staggering back towards Béa’s bar. The place was still jam packed. We wiped away the dust from our attire and strode back towards the counter. The beautiful barmaid extended her magical wink in our direction. Whenever she winked in such a fashion, she would be signaling something to the effect that she had found some new chicks for us. Those chicks would usually be owners of very thirsty throats.

That is why we would find ourselves throwing serious rounds of booze for our new chicks. Since the barmaid was also a human being who also suffered from effects of thirst, we had to kwibgiriza ourselves and do the needful.

So, in order to wipe away the miserable memories of Kibonge lashing at us with whips, we decided to indulge ourselves in more booze with our new chicks. As we guzzled beers after beers, these new chicks of ours were sipping a cocktail of spirits, liquors, wines and rum.

Now I could understand why these ladies were proud owners of thirsty throats. I mean how would you expect to have a cool throat when you are constantly burning it with that hot stuff? To make matters worse, our chicks were also puffing on strong cigarettes and cigars.

The music was booming in Béa’s joint and we cared not that it was approaching morning. We were really having a ball. Our new girls treated us to rock and roll tunes as well as zouk muchana love. Every swallow we took in prompted us to shout out towards the direction of Béa. We would look at her as if she was an enemy of progress.

"Hey, are you the one who pays us a monthly salary? Are you the one who created us? Why the hell are our bottles empty? Have we come over to be photographed like statues or zombies?” At this point, Béa would stumble all over the place in a bid to re-fill our glasses.

The moment of truth appeared when Béa presented the bill to us. It was around 6.30 a.m. and people were heading to work. When we looked at the bills, our hitherto red eyes automatically changed colour. They changed from red to snow white as we sobered up.

The bill was three times more than what we had budgeted for. The tough looking Béa already smelled a rat. She called in her bouncers to investigate the matter. In a flash, the verdict was tabled. We were petty thieves and we were thrown into the store until we solicited the cash from friends and colleagues…

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