DIASPOMAN: How we ‘enjoyed’ our very first salaries

When Aggrey and I received our first salary way back in the mid 90s, it was like we had received manna from heaven. We rejoiced so much that we were even tempted to plant three traditional kisses onto the NGO expatriate’s cheeks. As we were about to kiss this boss of ours, we realized that his face was not friendly at all. Indeed, it had last seen a razorblade a couple of years back. So instead, we gave him a soft hug and proceeded to plan for the crispy green dollars that hail from the land of many opportunities. Now, our buzzword was “Opportunities”. We began to picture real opportunities running towards us. We pictured so many and in fact we pictured ourselves rejecting and chasing some away since we had an abundance of them. Some of these opportunities came running towards our direction in form of conmen. These fellows were really experts in sensing whether someone was loaded with cash or not. They would sense that we had received some cash and instantly become more than friends to us. They would come up with business plans that would supposedly turn our salaries into hefty bank accounts. Since Aggrey and I had been through many twists and corners before, we would immediately shun these conmen and instead divert the cash to a more sensible place. This sensible place was none other than Béa’s drinking joint! As I have already told you so many times before, this was a semi pub in Kiyovu of the poor that hosted young lads like us plus some nice Kigali belles. These belles would create problems for us lads as we constantly had to visit the nearest pharmacy for a drug called Deep Heat. This drug was helpful especially when you needed it to rub your strained neck. Our necks always got strained because we happened to act like car wipers. We always found our miserable heads turning from left to right at very quick intervals. Our heads would be behaving in such a manner in an attempt to look at any belle that would wriggle past the counter where we guys would be harassing bottle after bottle. As Béa happened to be a top sales person, she always encouraged us to please the young ladies by buying a few rounds for them. Depending on the size of our pockets, we would end up buying a few beers or just sodas. Well, having now received our first salary, we decided to avoid those silly conmen and instead head for Béa’s joint. Our pockets were loaded and therefore we convinced ourselves that we could afford several rounds for the chicks. The place was in high spirits as Wenge Muzika boomed out from the erected loud speakers. Without uttering any words, we beckoned Béa’s barmaids to dish out a round for the babes. In a flash, several glasses were displayed on the counter. It was our first time to come across drinks called “Baileys” and “Amarula”. These drinks have a very close resemblance to our good old flask of tea. Since when did Béa start selling tea in her bar? Was it not time for Aggrey and I to partake from this glass of tea called Baileys and Amarula? Besides, our normal breakfast had always been black tea plus some roasted cassava. As our pockets were bulging so much, we decided to join our girls in guzzling several glasses of “tea”. Wittingly, the girls encouraged us to take more swigs. Having already downed several bottles of Amstels, we convinced ourselves that the “tea” would neutralize the beers and hence transfer us back from a drunken state into a sober one. That was not to be! Our “tea” tasted so very sweet and that is how we managed to consume not less than three full bottles. By the time we had started on the third bottle, we were now speaking a language which resembled Arabic mixed with Amharic and Chinese. The following morning found us lying outside our creaky gate. We were dressed in a vest and nothing else! Everything had disappeared. Our clothes, our documents and most especially, our first salaries! Passers-by heading for work began to giggle at our miserable sights. We struggled to get back to our feet and dashed straight to bed… diaspoman@yahoo.com