VALENTINE’S DAY reminds me of several escapades that Aggrey and I used to have in the mid 90s. Those were the days when Valentine’s Day happened every weekend – I mean every weekend was supposed to be a time for spending lots of hard earned cash on many Kigali gold diggers. The gold diggers came in all shapes and sizes.

They trekked to our Gikondo offices dressed to kill. Thank God there were no G-strings at that time. However, they came over in tight jeans or deadly miniskirts. Their visits were calculated. That is why they never came to visit us on the 10th or 11th day of the month. Instead, they remembered us on the 25th day of the month. It was on the 25th day that our expatriate boss would emerge from his exclusive tent to announce that our salaries were ready. This was a very special moment for us. Payday meant that our hands would once again touch those greenish crispy clean dollars. As we prepared to take our dollars to BCR, we would suddenly notice a queue of gold-diggers waiting outside. They came in to partake of our remuneration. As months passed by, we realised that this would not be tolerated any further. So we started dodging these chicks by fleeing via the backdoor. But once a gold-digger always a gold-digger! They also devised other methods of tracking us. So as usual, the chicks looked at their calendars to check whether the date was indeed the 25th day. Instead of forming the usual queue at our Gikondo offices, these ladies headed for the BCR main entrance. Meanwhile, Aggrey and I boarded one of the several jeeps available in the compound. We sped off towards BCR to bank our dollars. As we entered the bank, familiar voices hit our eardrums. "Oh? As you have been lost? Why not join us for a drink please?” What a trap! Aggrey and I had little choice but to follow these gold-diggers across the street. It was at the famous Caimen joint that we started off crushing dollar after dollar. In the ladies’ vocabulary, the word "mercy” never existed. That is to say that they mercilessly crushed dollar after dollar until our whole salaries were wiped out in a flash. They did this by drinking the most expensive rums, whiskeys and wines that you can think about. They then proceeded to order for expensive pizzas and other delicacies. Once we got back to our house at midnight, we found an ultimatum from our houseboy. His stores have been empty for the last 2 months. He is on the verge of starvation. We had to either pay him or face the courts of law. But our pockets were in a weeping state. We promised him a heavy bonus if he could tolerate us for just one more month. In the meantime, Aggrey and I vowed to exert our revenge on the chicks. That is why we resorted to some wicked trickery. In order to implement our plans, we invited the ladies for a nice evening at our modest home. They promptly agreed because we promised them several liters of Amarula and wines. We then went on a mission to search for empty bottles from the backyards of restaurants, bars and supermarkets. These empty bottles still had their brands intact; Black Label, J&B, Grants, Baileys, Amarula and many others. After washing all the bottles clean, we rushed to Nyamijos where we succeeded in negotiating and paying for 40 liters of local brew commonly referred to as Urwagwa. Back home, we offloaded the two jerry cans of the local brew and proceeded to fill all the empty bottles. Now we were really in a mood for the mother of all parties…