Aiii Karrummbaa…damn my leg hurts. Here is some advice: don’t play high intensity basketball on a balmy afternoon if you haven’t touched a ball seven years. It’s just not a smart thing to do!

Now if anyone had given me this advice on Friday before I decided on a game of b-ball with the boys I’d have been saved all the pain I’m in.

Usually, the Friday ‘gahunda’ is nothing except the Shady Bar and maybe H20 or the MTN Center as an afterthought. Trust my luck.

I arrive all the way from Butare and, instead of getting a cold, affordable beer at the Shady, I’m told to get shorts and find the boys at the Fiesta Mexican Restaurant in Kimihurura.

"Hmm.., I think, do these guys just want to laugh at my toothpick legs while they sip their cold Mutzigs?”

Well, I’m not a party pooper and if these guys wanted a cheap laugh on me, then I was willing to ‘take one for the team’.

Dressed to the tee in thigh high shorts, I descended to the Fiesta and, to my eternal surprise, found them decked in the same garb.

Lo and behold, I didn’t even have the funniest legs…the prize went to Mr. AGG (sorry I can’t reveal his name in a national paper, he’d kill me).

On asking I found out that the boys had become fitness freaks; they were trying to push back the beer belly by playing basketball once a week.

Well, well, I wasn’t going to be ‘chicken’, so I jumped on court and promptly started showing off my best moves. So, there I was, huffing and puffing like the unfit fool I am when, to the bemusement of all those watching, I tried to dunk the ball into the basket.

How can I best describe this? How about foolish, crazy and suicidal? Good enough for you? I missed the damn basket, flew out of the court, fell poorly and promptly sprained my ankle.

I pretended that nothing happened and luckily the game ended (my team won). That’s when the festivities began. After swallowing a few cold ones and eating tortillas, we found out that Fiesta had a karaoke machine.

And another competition started; who can sing the best. All I can say is that it wasn’t any of the boys or I. But a pair of lovely white ladies have the record for the lousiest singers. Their respective scores? 00/100 and 11/100!

Contact: madogz2002@yahoo.ca