DIASPOMAN : Why Nyabugogo Arcade almost went bankrupt

As I have been telling you over the past few weeks, Aggrey and I once owned a serious business called Isange bar. You see, even though Aggrey and I were proud owners of some NGO jobs at the Gikondo compound, we still had to search for extra cash to keep us moving. We needed more cash, due to the undue influence forced upon us by those Kigali chicks that had flooded the city in the mid 90s. So, in order to crack through such intolerable pressure, Aggrey and I, ended up forming a mini bar at the Kicuciro triangle that was meant to target the NGO expatriates who used to frequent the area from the Airport. They always had very thirsty throats, and that is why they were always in search for a cold one or two. Having guzzled a couple of cold ones, our NGO friends used to shift gear from number three to number five. This is to say that their throats would send signals to their hearts. Such signals bordered themselves around mini skirts. I believe that I have already told you about the high sales of mini skirt, which used to arrive from Dubai and Paris and would end up at the Nyabugogo Arcade. When our Kigali dames realized that the NGO staff was in a habit of changing from gear three to gear five, they swept the whole of Nyabugogo Arcade in search of even shorter mini skirts. Then they would wriggle and twist around drinking holes in a bid to attract the NGOists. One of the drinking holes that they used to frequent was none other than our very own Isange Joint. This was fast becoming a good source of revenue for us, and indeed our pockets had started to bulge. But this did not last for long because our Kigali dames were faced with opposition. Some of this opposition was in form of the idle and disorderly guys, who used to hang around the Post office area. When the Kigali chicks strolled around in their mini skirts, our idle and disorderly guys would start imagining certain things. They would suddenly resemble a dog that has seen a huge piece of goat meat hanging from a rope. When the dog sees that goat thigh hanging naked from a tree, it jumps up in excitement and attempts to chew it off. This is what used to happen to the Post office idlers whenever they saw the Kigali chicks dressed in short skirts. The guys would jump up and chase the ladies in the same manner as that one of the shepherd dog chasing the dangling goat thigh. The guys would then grab the chick’s skirt and either pulls it southwards or northwards. Either way, the lady would remain exposed to the hungry, dirty eyes of the onlookers. Passers by never stopped to sympathize with the chicks. No way! Instead they would release a really prolonged laughter that would send a tough message to the Kigali chicks. With this kind of harsh treatment, the Kigali ladies put a serious halt on the Nyabugogo products. This of course had far reaching consequences. One of these consequences is that Nyabugogo Arcade slid into near bankruptcy. They needed a miracle to stay in business, as the sale of mini skirts had been rudely halted. Another sad consequence was that our NGOists reduced on the Isange frequency. That is to say that these NGOists saw nothing much in coming over for drinks at Isange. Besides, they could always park their jeeps at the Kisimeti and buy themselves bottles of whisky and Dry Gin. They had the freedom of taking these bottles to their respective homes, where they could drink in privacy. That meant that our Isange sales began to take a dip. Aggrey and I had to do something in order to revive sales. But what could we do? Meanwhile, Electogaz was slapping serious bills on us. The Landlord was also demanding for his next quarterly rental. Creditors were already creating havoc and were on the brink of confiscating our small fixed assets, which included a Radio cassette player and a few benches. I guess that the fridge would be unattractive, since it was just as useless as a wardrobe. This is because our fridge never worked and that is why we used to store our beers in a bucket filled with cold water. Anyways, it was time to brainstorm again at Isange. Either, we had to implement a strong marketing strategy to revive NGO bound sales. If not that, Aggrey and I had to search for more funding so as to meet our overheads as well as give Isange Joint a facelift. Hopefully, with a nice facelift, we would be able to not only retain our NGOists, but also attract more and more… diaspoman@yahoo.com