Humour: The Villager: Distilling of “Kasaquine” in Kasese

As I have always told you in my earlier stories, I have carried out many escapades in a bid to make ends meet. I began by “cooking” waragi (kanyanga), while I was at it, I narrowly escaped being “hit” by exploding “distilling apparatus” (drums) several times. Many people weren’t so luck but I was. While in the art of distilling, I developed into a good “tester” or is it “taster” or both! Surely, as I distilled, I would taste the quality of my product to make sure that it stood the test of time; how else would I have had the edge I had over fellow “cookers” or is it “cooks”? This reminds me of a guy who was our ardent promoter, yes, I call him an ardent promoter because, he would not spend a day (period of twenty four hours) without having tasted “kasaquine”. The name kasaquine was connoted from the fact that, most of the Waragi finding its way into Kampala ’s drinking joints was coming via the Kasese town. One may ask as to why it was distilled from Kabarole, and then had to travel through Kasese! Simple, the bulk of the stuff was “manufactured” in Kabarole District villages neighbouring with the Kasese railway line; it found its way into Kampala by train, the Kampala market could not tell the difference between the point of orin and the train by which it came and since it was brought by the Kasese train, they automatically assumed it was from Kasese and hence it was called “Kasese”. Secondly, because of its taste that was nearly as bitter as quinine (the anti malaria drug), it earned its name “kasaquine”. As I was saying, the ardent promoter once went to the hospital because he wasn’t feeling well at all, his world was rapidly turning round and around. Let me keep the guy’s name out of the public domain, lest he may read this column and get annoyed, the last thing I want is being sued by anybody, I ant got the money to pay for damages caused. The guy was damaged long ago by the Kanyanga, I don’t want to be the victim of his old habits and so help me God! He had developed funny pains in his lower abdomen and went to see a doctor, the doc decided to carry out several examinations, first on the list, they took a fool oops, sorry, I mean a full syringe of his body fluid (you can call it blood), when they took the sample to the laboratory, they discovered that, they had alcohol contaminated by some blood patches! After the examinations, the doctor announced to him, “You have scattered blood spots in your alcohol”! In brief, he had very little blood in his alcohol! When the guy was discharged from hospital, the doctor advised him to “drink a lot”, meaning a lot of fluids, the guy began taking a beer for breakfast, lunch and several in the evening. When his health deteriorated, he was rushed to the hospital and the doctor was quick to ask as whether he had resumed taking alcohol! “Surely, you advised me to drink a lot” he replied. Thank God I learnt consuming “waragi” at a tender age of three, my old man used to give me a tea spoon full of the same as “medicine” for “stomach snakes” (worms) and cough. I have to admit, the old fox must have been very brilliant indeed! Having administered those doses on me, he was “inoculating” me against the consumption of the same. Since I had grown up consuming the stuff in small doses, I got used to its consumption and hence got immune to toxicity. In brief, he had helped my demystify the waragi, as I speak now, I stopped consuming any spirits, even if you brought me a nice looking glass of dry gin or kanyanga or whisky, I would not touch it, not even with a ten foot pole! I have no drinking problem, though I get drunk when I taste. There is a guy who is a son of a former Anglican Pastor; this guy was brought up knowing that alcohol is bad. The mistake the good Pastor made was not adhering to his preaching; he taught one thing but did the contrary. Don’t get me wrong, this good man of God neither took any form of alcohol nor ran after any member of the opposite sex; he was a perfect man of God. Alcohol was his number one enemy and hence, it never set foot any where near him or his children. Though he preached “love thy enemies”, he hated alcohol his enemy number one! This was his greatest mistake, when his sons were of age, “the devil tempted them to have a taste of the forbidden drink”, guess what? His sons soon became alcoholics; I once had one of them bragging that, “their father would quit his job if he knew how sweet the waragi was”. This is quite ridiculous, the stuff is far from being sweet, it is bitterer than quinine. Those who learn taking alcohol much later in life stand a risk of being harassed by the same. Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm