Diaspoman: When smuggling food became a nightmare

During the mid 90s, Aggrey and I had several escapades. One of the most exciting moments for us occurred during the weekends when we used to gate crash parties in and around the affluent Kiyovu area.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

During the mid 90s, Aggrey and I had several escapades. One of the most exciting moments for us occurred during the weekends when we used to gate crash parties in and around the affluent Kiyovu area.

This involved mega parties from corner to corner. These parties were characterized by crates of beers. Also countless bottles of spirits and wines were such parties’ goodies.

Since Aggrey and I owned very thirsty throats, we used to find ourselves in the midst of such parties. It did not matter whether we were invited or not.

In fact, the truth of the matter is that, we were never ever invited for any. The only wedding parties that Aggrey and I were invited for during those mid 90s happened to take place in Nyamigos or Nyabugogo.

This was the kind of class that we were considered to belong to. The weddings at Nyamijos and Nyabugogo belonged to penniless couples who would squeeze themselves in a small sharing hall and feed on cassava tubers.

Naturally, Aggrey and I would always attempt to dodge such lousy weddings. To us, wedding ceremonies had to translate into crates of Heinekens instead of sacks of cassava tubers. That is why we always found ourselves gate crashing the top class parties.

All we had to do was obtain some decent attire. We also had to change our accent from the Giturage accent to European like accent. In order to totally convince the bouncers at the gate, Aggrey and I would speak English. We would pose as young relatives of the bridegroom.

"We are his cousins’ men! We come from Paris” Immediately, Aggrey and I would go straight to the corner where the ice cold drinks would be served. But due to our unquenchable thirst, we would pick up empty bottles from the garden and proceed to fill them with all tribes of booze.

Sometimes, we mixed UG with Dry Gin plus Red label. After filling the empty bottle, we would toss them over the fence.
As guests would be dancing away through the night, Aggrey and I would also climb over fences.

This did not matter if we were spoiling our sometimes borrowed nice attire during the process of climbing over the fence. We then jumped to the other dark side so as to join our dear bottles of booze.

Off we would go to enjoy our punched spirits at our home. This kind of lifestyle continued for a number of months until we decided that, man would not live on booze alone. We convinced ourselves that we had to start feeding our bodies with some real food.

The only solution was to smuggle food out of these parties. We told ourselves that since we could toss the booze over the fence, we could do the same for the nosh!

So, the next big party arrived sooner than later. Our plan was to toss some roasted meat over the high fence and then shortly follow the meat by climbing over the high fence. For this particular wedding, the fence was a bit higher.

We either had to get a ladder so as to climb over, or we had to take a few steps back and then sprint and jump over. It was going to be a very hard task. Anyhow, we had to do what we could. For us, it was a Mission impossible.

Okay, we started to search for polythene bags from the garden. We then proceeded to pack the bags with all tribes of roasted meat. We added in some chips, matooke plus salads. We then tied the bags and threw them over the fence.

However, what Aggrey and I were not aware of was that behind that high fence was a group of fierce, hungry dogs. So when we threw the nice smelling roasted meat over the fence, the dogs became very excited.

They had found some food at last. As for us, we were also excited that our mission had become successful! We had managed to get the nosh across the fence. What was remaining for us was to join our loot.

We then struggled to climb over the wall. It took us about 15 minutes to finally reach the top of the fence. We then counted 1, 2, 3 and jumped. Ouuuch! We landed right into the middle of the strong dogs.

There was no escaping! It was now our turn to be chewed alive…
          
diaspoman@yahoo.com