When Brick and Lace visited the country, I was lucky to attend the big do at the lake side city of Gisenyi. Wow, Gisenyi City always brings back memories of those wacky days when a certain Afande Niko used to show us good times during the mid 90s. He used to drive us from party to party in his open roof jeep But that was over 12 years ago. This time around it was not Afande Niko who offered me such a memorable time. It was my long time buddy Aggrey. Aggrey arrived home in his cool Land Cruiser clutching three tickets for the show. Two tickets for him and his girlfriend and a third one for me. I swear, if I had the opportunity to sell my ticket for half the price, I would have immediately. But alas, Aggrey was wiser than I had thought. He knew for sure that if I was to take the ticket from him, I would have sold it off and used the cash for something more sensible. He decided to keep the tickets in his safe until it was time to hit the road to Gisenyi. In my mind, I could imagine what this kind of cash could have done for me. I could imagine places like Migina and Kabeza, where I could have bought rounds of booze for my booze-mates as talked about a wide range of issues. In addition, I could have used some of the money to eat chips and kebabs at Kimironko, before impressing a young Kigali chick by taking her to the Black and White discotheque for a taste of the golden oldies. Now instead, we were going to burn fifteen thousand francs for a few hours, of young wannabes leaping up and down in a disorganised manner. Anyway, times have changed indeed. I remember those days when Aggrey and I were as poor as church mice. We used to find ourselves at the entrance of such functions, seriously negotiating with the bouncers. You would find us pleading with the bouncers to let us in the dancing hall, where the likes of Samputu, Masamba and Degaule would be performing. We would find ourselves offering the bouncers soft bribes such as our used pair of socks and sometimes our sandals. The bouncers would eye us from head to toe. Then they would reach for their walkie-talkies and exchange some jargons via the airwaves. Aggrey and I would look at each other in sheer glee, knowing for sure that the bouncers would accept our soft bribes. But instead, several muscular biceps would lift us from the waistline area and toss us across the road like sacks of cassava. I remember one weekend when it was announced that a concert was to take place at the stadium. Ugandan artistes such as Shanks Vee Vee Dee and Emperor Orlando were to grace the occasion. It had also been rumored that the popular Afrigo Band from Uganda was to perform. This was a show that Aggrey and I were not ready to miss, especially since our so called girlfriends had given us an ultimatum: they had threatened to dump us if we did not take them for the concert. We confidently assured our girls that we would buy all four tickets for the show. We told them to get prepared as we would come to pick them up from their homes at 6 p.m. sharp. Meanwhile, we knew for sure that we could not even raise cash for one ticket only, let alone four. We also knew that the idea of bribing the infamous bouncers at the entrance could easily backfire. As we were still planning, a young guy approached us and offered to sell us four tickets at a 70 per cent discount. Without hesitating, we paid this Good Samaritan and sped off. Well, at the entrance, we perched our heads very high so that our noses pointed towards the sky. We were walking in this fashion in order to show our girls that we were indeed on the knob. When we presented our four tickets, something unusual happened. Together with our girlfriends, we found ourselves at the mercy of some tough biceps. “You! Why do you want to cheat us?” they barked. “How dare you bring forged tickets? You are now under arrest!” Perhaps it is needless to say that our girls dumped us with immediate effect? diaspoman@yahoo.com
