There is barely anything to compare with the good old days (if that saying does hold any water), life or rather the lack of it is seriously killing us fast. How on earth does "someone” sit on top of the Kicukiro hill and pass an arbitrary "edict” on all of us just like that!

Now, some of us have been forced into our own cocoons, yes, how can the price of a very essential commodity like MUTZIG jump to a cool one thousand francs, don’t these powers that be at Kicukiro and Gisenyi know that, we deserve our "daily drink”?

These days, it is common to see people staggering on the roads as if they are drunk , far from it, they are merely suffering from a phenomenon known as "sobriety”, caused by too little alcohol in some one’s blood stream!

Believe me, when a body gets used to a certain dosage of booze, denying that body that dosage amounts to reversing its activities. The people I have talked about above can be categorized as "negatively drunk” individuals.

Nearly the prices of everything have shot up in the guise of the high fuel prices; even though the prices of crude oil have since fallen from the United States Dollars one hundred forty nine to close to a hundred dollars, the prices of our daily drink has not taken heed and did likewise.

This reminds me of those old days when we freely had access and consumed the "crude waragi” as if there was no tomorrow, not anymore, the stuff is a contraband in Rwanda, whoever drinks and gets drunk from it is literary "Illegally drunk”.

This reminds me of the "Blue Boys” (kings of the road), these days, normally they lay ambushes on weekends for drunken drivers. There is this old man (Gafaranga’s Uncle, name withheld, simply call him Gafuncle) he went for a wedding party and drunk himself next to silly.

He is a good "speaker” at weddings and "gusaba” functions. This time around, he had wandered off to a distant land (Mutara). In a bid to save some of the hard earned currency, on his way out, he had left his car parked at the Remera TOTAL Petrol station and hooked a lift.

Since he wasn’t the one driving and due to the high prices one has to pay if he had to drive all the way to Mutara. As a matter of fact, all the drinks were "on the house”; in African culture, you don’t starve your guests.

I suppose, this would have been an ideal place for the likes of Diaspoman and his ever thirsty friend, Aggrey!The party was really pomp, there was lots of tribes of beers, those from Rwanda and yonder, PRIMUS NTOYA, MUTZIG, BELLO, CHAIRMAN ESB, Kasaquine, Uganda waragi, etc.

Many people saw these drinks as mana from heaven, how else could they have afforded them if not from a free function? In all rights, without fear or favour, this party could be rated as the party of the twenty first century (by Umatara Standards).

By the way, as the party was closing, I managed to catch a glimpse of my brother, Diaspoman; this guy still has a nose for booze parties my God!

At night the night and being on the weekend, the roads are normally creeping with the "Blue boys” busy sniffing who drunk or did not drink what.

Some guys are naturally stubborn, this Mzee Gafuncle was so, despite my pleas to help drive him home (in his own car), he refused claiming that young men drive badly and that "ushobora kugongesha moteri " (you can knock my engine).

If death is not ashamed to kill, why should the mourners shy away? I left him to drive as I carefully "seatbelted” myself on my seat and waited for whatever would be to be.

No sooner had we moved past Chez Landos than the traffic guys pulled us aside and demanded for the usual stuff; perime, carte jaune, assurance, ibinyoteri, kizimyamoto, sijui nini etc and to crown it all up, the cop took out a gadget and asked Gafuncle to breath into the device so that they could test if he had drunk any alcohol.

Knowing how much the old man had swallowed back in Umutara, I expected the device to bust; the Mzee was tactful, he asked the Policeman to demonstrate by doing what he wanted him to do, the Cop reluctantly exhaled into the device and its gauge shot up.

He tried shaking it and exhaled again, wapi, it still showed that, blood in his alcohol was dangerously low. Not wanting to lose face, he simply told the Mzee, "wikomerezi, aka kantu kapfuye” (proceed, this ka device is dead).

Contact: Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm