I remember a sad story that came all the way from Bong-land (read TZ) about a man who made a blood chilling  noise while being dragged in a lodge by a fellow man, dozens came to his rescue, they asked what the fracas was all about.

"Please, help! This guy wants to rape me.”
 The rescuers asked the other party what his intentions were. He boldly educated them on how he had bought the subject countless bottles of beers, but now he doesn’t want to pay.

"Did he buy you beers?” Someone from the crowd asked. "Yes, he did, but I …” before he could finish, they all chorused ‘Kula Kulipa’, meaning, ‘eat and pay’. Luckily, he lived to tell his story.

Last weekend hanging in my favourite watering crack at Kisementi sipping some warm beers, while watching World Cup updates, a guy came towards me wearing the I–know-you-smile. "Where do I know this guy?” I asked myself.

Before greeting him, I thanked the Almighty for creating me from the African soil. You see, one of the countless good things of being a true African man, is the hand shake. My old man once told me, you can tell a lot about a man from his handshake. Imagine if you lived in a far land where men deep-kiss each other when greeting.

Anyway, when I shook this guy’s hand, he held my palm a little longer. At first I didn’t take it as a big deal, but then I sensed something strange about this fellow! The way he looked deep into my eyes while talking to me troubled me.
 You see another good thing about Africa, most of us don’t look people in the eyes; we learnt from our ancestors that it’s rude.

While waiting on my buddies who were still caught up at work, I didn’t mind anyone’s company, so this guy pulled a counter-stool and sat next to me, but a little too close. I got a little uncomfortable, his cologne was unmistakably feminine, I checked with him to see if he has a girlfriend, maybe he accidentally used hers.

"What did you say your name was?” I enquire. "Patrick but my friends call me Patty.” (Patty? Sounds chick-ish I thought to myself) "Well, Patrick do you have a girlfriend?”
He beamed and with a huge smile and gave me a melodious stretched Nooo, no? "How can a man be single and be this happy?” I asked.

"You see it’s a little complicated.” "How do you mean?” I insisted? "Dude, I don’t go for girls,” he sheepishly divulged. What! Did I hear right?

Now my eyes got fully open! I read all the signs; I noticed the tight jeans he was donning, a silk shirt, even possessed a red phone, everything about him sent wrong signals. He probably had his sights on me! I felt myself perspire!

This  is when Bruno, the guy I was waiting for  rolled in. He stood transfixed in the door way for a good number of minutes, shifting his gaze from me to ‘Patty’. He apparently knew him.

He finally approached us. "Man, what are you doing with this low-life-gutter-rat?” he demanded with a sneer. He was so pissed that it kind of sobered me up!
"How could you even manage to spend a minute with this...(Unprintable word)?

He practically grabbed him by the lapels, dragged and threw him out of the bar. To my outmost surprise Patty didn’t resist or try to put up a fight as a real- man would, didn’t complain about his trampled on rights, he just scurried off like an outcast vampire into obscurity.
That was a close call for me!

Ends