Funny and ridiculous as it may sound, I am missing being in ‘police custody.’ Rwandan ancestors said that ‘No one fears the forest but what he encountered there.’ Well, this borders much on fear and melancholy hence in my case, let me use the same adage to explain my situation, thus, no one misses (longs for) a situation unless it really touches his heart. That is all I have to say for today concerning the reason why I miss being in custody. Please don’t insist, thank you. Well, well, for the benefit of those who were not with me during my recent escapades, I have been in compassionate detention for the last two weeks. Never heard of the term ‘compassionate’ detention before? That is because you are not a bird hunter. These things happen. Compassionate detention is a situation where a hunter goes hunting and then something leads to another, and the hunter decides to stay in the forest instead of carrying the ‘dead’ bird home. That’s what happened to me. Without going into details, I got involved with bird cops and things went the way I least expected. Little did I know that under those stone faces these birds have as a result of serious kuviringita in Gishari there is a tender soul that is capable of being melted by a few hunting words. But then, after discovering this important fact I was overcome by temptation. Instead of being satisfied with Butamwa, I demanded for Ngenda. That is the mistake I made. Hours later I found myself in a two bed-roomed cop house with handcuffs. I was given a long lecture on law and order and ….fidelity. The best way to survive police wrath is to accept everything they say and so, I played ball. That is how I parted with the handcuffs and enjoyed some comfort and freedom. For the ‘crimes’ I had committed I expected to be told to cucumaa or be shown the door.But to my surprise, the house maid was ordered to ask me what I wanted to drink. Bearing in mind that hard drinks had caused me problems in the first place, I opted for ‘Rwanda tea’ in order to unleash the ‘good boy’ side of me if I was to avoid further complications. Indeed this did the trick and I started to note a change in mood around the house. I ceased to be treated like Michael Scoffield of the Prison Break fame. The cop face started to peel away to give way to a real bird smile. People consider being compared to a dog a big insult but fact is; among all animals (human beings are animals too, aren’t they?) dogs have the best gum. My intention therefore is not to insult when I say here that the bird cop’s gum looked like that of a (well fed) dog. As I was still wondering whether I should feel comfortable and ‘at home’ or paranoid because there was the potential of things erupting, the bird cop appeared from the bedroom door, only this time she looked totally different. She looked different because she appeared without the insignia of terror. She had no cop uniform on and had thrown her hair back and was draped in a Khanga. Now I don’t know whether to tell you that I felt relieved or confused. What I know is that my jaw dropped and my eyes were not winking. I tried to shake my head so that I could come back to reality but still my eyes refused to wink. If they do train cops in torture tactics, this bird must have been top of the class at graduation. She walked around the sitting room gyrating her trunk provocatively pretending to be busy trying to connect the TV and the DVD player. All this time I was panting as if I was working on trying to break Usain Bolt’s record. Actually I had started to wet my shirt with saliva because my jaw had dropped and therefore I was agape. Before I knew it, she had planted her bosom on the space beside me. Before I could wake up from the dream, she had thrown her shapely arm around me as if to tell me “Don’t worry now, all is well” I considered this as a pledge for a unilateral ceasefire. I started to feel comfortable and by the time tea was served, I felt audacious enough to reject it and ask for something ‘masculine.’ That was the beginning of the end of my paranoia. From then on, it was party time. I partied until I could not party no more and decided I should go for sabbatical leave. It was granted and I am now back in the wide town and back to business. Catch you next week. Perhaps I will have caught some bird to tell you about. Ends
