If I state that trouble has of recent become my second name, I am sure that many of my readers will concur with me, what with the tribulations of the past few weeks! You all know how I ventured deep into Moslem territory and how I narrowly survived being beheaded. The preceding weeks had not been any better.

After surviving the angry Hajj  whose bird I had been trying to seriously hunt down to the extent of penetrating her home using false pretence, I ventured into the domain of la crème de la crème of birds.

I am talking about the top layer of birds. I am not talking about just beautiful birds but birds that possess complete values of a very ballistic bird.

I am sure when I talk of a bird that possesses complete bird qualities in Rwandan terms; you do understand me, don’t you? (I know a few fellas whose minds have already gone wandering to the gutter! Come back here!)

Oh yes, by talking of a bird possessing all bird qualities in Rwandan terms I meant a bird that also possesses brains functioning at optimum.

After all, isn’t it sad that most Rwandan birds posses 80% of all qualities that a bird should possess. Whether this means that some Rwandan birds have a deficiency of brains, I don’t know.

Since I have not had time to find out the truth about this factor, I decided to move ahead and mingle with the selected ones and find out for myself how a complete bird with a well functioning ‘overhead’ engine looks (did I hear anyone say ‘tastes like?’ That’s not good) like.

I took this bold decision after hearing of a planned beauty pageant that was being organized by one of the local Universities.

I went to the university and obtained all the information concerning the preparations. Most importantly I learnt about the venue where the training was taking place.

I started attending the catwalk sessions from the beginning until the time when the trainers and organizers cut down the number to a bare minimum, ensuring that only the best of the best were now left. I was dying with excitement all along the process.

It was after this activity that I decided to make my moves. One day, two days before the D-day, I decided to pounce.

There is this particular dark and elegant bird that I had been cheering all along even before the last selections. Luckily she came among those selected to compete for the crown of the university as the most beautiful bird on campus.

She was my prime target. It was after the training session when everyone was preparing to go home when I approached the bird and introduced myself.

As usual, I was like "Hi, name is Bird, Bird Hunter, one of the judges who will judge this beauty pageant”.

Her eyes shone with excitement and she went like "Oh my Gaaaaad!! What an honour to know you!!!” before I could say this was my great pleasure, she was hugging me intimately and actually pulling me to a quiet corner, away from the crowd of other contestants.

I submissively followed her to the corner where we made ourselves comfortable.

One thing I learnt about birds with ‘complete qualities’ is that they are overly ambitious. The first thing she told me was how she was ready to do anything to win the beauty pageant.

She told me that actually she thought that the Lord himself had sent me to her so she could fulfil her dream, going on to tell me about what she intended to do if she won the crown, blah, blah, ……… 

She went ahead and asked me for a favour. She told me that if she was selected as the most beautiful bird on campus she would forever be indebted to me.

I forgave her immediately for making such a statement for she little knew what she was saying but I accepted to help her. I even promised that I would try to influence fellow judges to favour her.

This earned me a big hug. She asked me if I knew the questions that ‘we’ would ask on stage and I confidently answered in affirmative. To this she even stood up and planted a kiss on my cheek!! I was left light headed for a moment.

I started taking her through the ‘questions’ (the truth is, I had no idea whatsoever about the questions that would be asked by the judges because I definitely wasn’t one of them!) and also trained her on how to answer.

At the end of it all, she was so excited and sure that nobody would beat her to the crown. She kept calling me the whole night after we parted and she even passed me over to her mother so that I could greet her.

Then several training days later, the great day of her life came. But a few hours to the time I called her to inform her that due to unavoidable circumstances I would not be sitting as a judge for the pageant.

But before she could start disapproving I assured her that I had talked to my fellow judges and since I had also trained her and told her about the questions beforehand, she had nothing to worry about.

"Do as I told you,” I said. When time came, I was seated in the crowd, watching as the birds cat-walked on stage. My bird was not doing bad. When question time came, she did answer fairly well, but none of the questions I had given her were among them.

But still I had hopes that she would be named the winner by chance and then I would have a way of explaining myself out on this. But when the time came, she was mentioned as second runner-up and apparently she wasn’t amused.

What scared me most is the fact that she almost turned down the position and when she finally accepted it without a smile, she immediately stormed off stage.

I also stormed out of the hall, bumping into the crowd of people, as I did so, she called me when I had just gone a safe distance from the venue and when I answered so I could read her mood, her voice almost burst my eardrum!

She was so furious….” You bastard fake judge…” were the words I heard before I cut her off and disappeared into the wet Kigali night which I hoped had better opportunities to offer. 

Ends