Looking back at the year 2010, I can safely issue out an ultimatum. I have decided to take upon a challenging New Year resolution and its going to be very tough for me! YES: I am going to abandon booze once and for all!

As you may know, I am now completing a 4 year degree course at SFB that Aggrey happily sponsored for my benefit. It’s here at SFB that I managed to learn some new tactics of how to obtain free SFBs.

Of course, free SFBs mean free "Special Frothy beers”. Unfortunately, my quest for free SFBs landed me in all sorts of trouble over the years. And that’s why I have decided to take a good look at my New Year resolutions.  

A few years ago, I escorted some SFB classmates over one weekend. I recall that my two classmates had been looking for someone to go with them to visit their rich parents.

Being the kind of person that loved free booze, I was ready to pounce. I wholeheartedly agreed to go with them for the weekend. I remember how we cruised in their top of the range 4x4 Jeep, which had been dispatched to campus to pick the lads.

What I had forgotten to take into consideration was the age difference factor. Apparently, these two fellows were half my age. So, in fact one would have mistaken me of being their senior uncle all the way from the eastern province.  

And that was the kind of attitude that the rich parents showed us when we entered their huge mega sitting room.

Whereas they offered their sons a soft hug each, I was surprised when their parents almost dropped to their knees to worship me! They gave me a very tight and hearty hug as if they had met a long lost relative.

This situation began to make sense to me when the man of the house praised his sons; "Dear sons, we are very happy that you could come over for this weekend. But most importantly we are very grateful that your lecturer was kind enough to find some time and space to escort you here. We know how busy you lecturers are so we really appreciate this gesture”  

Eh? So, these people thought I was their sons’ lecturer at SFB. OK. Since opportunity usually knocked once, I decided to snatch the platter. Indeed, I confirmed that I was a senior lecturer and I informed the parents that it was only my duty to be close to such bright kids whose future mattered a lot to our great country.

With those sweet words, my throat started to enjoy endless bottles of Amstels. I guzzled so much until I was on a verge of a blackout.  

I was later told that I had acted as a real nuisance and that eventually, the parents had realized that I was no lecturer in the first place. They realized that I was a mature entrant at SFB who had escorted their sons in order to enjoy free booze on a jolly good weekend.

I am told that the disappointed parents just asked their driver to bundle me up in their jeep and drive me back to campus.  
Another experience is when I was returning from Kira dodora land after my attempts to make free cash were aborted prematurely. I had gone to Buja in the name of I.T exports.

I had figured that I.T was the in-thing within our region. I had also tried to convince myself that since Rwanda was the leading I.T nation, I would easily convince the payroll clerks in Buja into abandoning M.S word and instead embrace MS Excel.

But my trip was cut short after my nocturnal escapades landed me in some logistical problems. My only way out was to catch the Yahoo bus out of Buja and head back home.

It was in this Yahoo bus that I decided to Google for a future bride. As we drove along, I kept pumping myself with some hot alcoholic liquids that I had stashed away in my pocket.

And with this booze dancing in my head, point kept flowing from my mouth as I tried to woo a certain future bride! 

 By the time we reached the Rwandan border, I had already shared all my secrets to this nice looking chick. She also shared all her secrets to me.

In short, we had fallen in love with each other. What I didn’t really know was that love is blind. That is why my brains refused to think properly when the chick begged me for a soft loan to be paid later in Kigali.

My love was already so blind that I decided to give her the small change that I had kept. It was around $180. I also found myself giving her my expensive Diaspo watch.  

The blindness of my love was healed the next day when I called the chick on her phone. Whereas I was expecting her to coo me with love songs and love poems, I was rudely shocked when she yelled at me "Never call me again!

I do not know you!” I tried to remind her about a guy who had sat next to her in the Yahoo bus and who had loaned her $180 plus a nice Diaspo watch.

Instead she denied ever having met me and she threatened to call the police! Eh! I had been conned mercilessly.  

It’s with this mercilessness that I hereby outline my New Year resolution. I will not touch that bottle of beer again! But will I really manage??? God have mercy… 

diaspoman@yahoo.com