DIASPOMAN : When a distinguished guest was hit by a pang of fear

As students of SFB, we sometimes receive guest speakers at campus. Now recently, a guest came to deliver a key note speech to our class. But then he was immediately hit by a pang of fear! You see, when he entered, his eyes straight away focused on yours truly Diaspoman! This was because he saw a mature elderly fellow sitting in a class of 20 year old students. All my classmates appeared to have been born when I was already in secondary school. I remember that when they first saw me enter the classroom, they all stood up in total respect. Apparently, they had thought that I was a senior Guest all the way from my PhD studies. But to their surprise, I simply picked out a seat and joined the rest of the students for my first SFB lesson. Anyways, my classmates are now my buddies indeed! They feel comfortable around me – even the lecturers are now fine with me. But alas! When this guest entered to give his key note speech, he had a surprise waiting for him! The guest looked much younger than me. He put his files on his desk and cleared his voice. “Good morning students. I am your guest today and I will be talking to you about accounting and economics.” It was after this brief introduction that the guest spotted me in a corner. Instead of proceeding with his lecture, the young guest started to panic. He began to sweat and tremble. In his heart and mind, he was very sure that I was a senior Government official from the Ministry of uburezi who had come to assess how these young Guests were delivering their knowledge to young Rwandans. As the young Rwandans watched on, the guest became even funnier. He fidgeted with items all around him. He then started to deliver his first lecture but his voice betrayed him. All of a sudden, his voice became squeaky. A nearby bottle of mineral water did not seem to help. As if that was not enough, the guest’s mobile phone let out a shrilling ring tone. Now, this was unacceptable! People should never switch on their phones while addressing a gathering. In a frantic manner, the young guest tried to switch off the phone. You could have thought that he was in a wrestling match with his Nokia phone. Anyways, after several seconds of sheer panic, the guest composed himself and started his lecture. He began by praising officials from the Ministry of uburezi. “You see these officials are very hardworking people. You see how they have transformed this campus? Now SFB is an institution to reckon with. Please, give a rousing handclap for our friends from the Ministry y’uburezi.” The guest was releasing all this information in a bid to cajole me. In fact, as he spoke those wise words he continued to look towards my direction as if he expected me to say something. How I wish that this guest could discover my small history. It was a history of ups and downs. He would get to learn that I had lived here in the mid 90s with my closest buddy called Aggrey. As things had become elephant for me, I found myself heading for the Diaspora leaving Aggrey behind to suffer alone. But after a decade or so, I came back from the Diaspora to find a transformed country. Aggrey had since chewed big money and was a small king here in Kigali. He has housed me for all these years and sponsored me for this degree course at SFB. So, this guest should not fear me because I am not an official from the Ministry of Uburezi. I am a simple Diaspoman who is trying to catch up with life. That is why I have started from scratch. And for you beer lovers, SFB does not stand for Special Frothy Beers. It stands for School of Finance and Banking… diaspoman@yahoo.com