As children received Christmas gifts from Santa Claus, Bwana Diaspoman was also quite lucky to receive a nice Christmas present from the one and only – Aggrey! He has been a very supportive friend to me ever since I came back from the Diaspora about 3 years ago. Aggrey has not only housed me at his Nyarutarama villa, but also sponsored me for a 4 year degree course at School of Finance and Banking. Now, to crown things for the year, he gave me a very expensive Christmas gift. It is a wonderful N70 Nokia phone because he apparently Aggrey can no longer stand my Tuvugane beeps!” For me, this present gave me mixed feelings. Firstly, I was extremely thrilled that I could at last own a mobile phone. But on the other hand, I felt so cheated in that Aggrey could fork out half a million francs to buy me a phone instead of giving me that cash to enable me solve certain personal and private problems. One of those private problems relates to the ever thirsty throat that I carry. I started imagining what that kind of cash would do for me in terms of throwing rounds of frothy drinks for both friends and foes. Such cash would really create a lot of fun at the students SFB canteen, where students trek in search for free booze. By just looking at the N70 Nokia, I felt so guilty especially when I know how my SFB colleagues eat food on an empty head. You see, for us we never really subscribe to the idea that someone has to drink on a full stomach. Ours is different. We felt that it is our right never to eat food on an empty head. That means that we have to first take in several liters of booze before eating the SFB rice and meat. That is why we always tried hard to find some dosage of frothy drinks before entering the dining hall. So, although Aggrey’s gift was very nice, I felt that I had to do the right thing. To me, the ideal was not to carry the new N70 phone around my waist and walk around as if I was the boss at one of the posh offices in town. No way! The right thing to do was to pick the N70 Nokia phone and head towards the post office in town. Once in town, I would contact a certain friend of mine who happens to be a broker. I would then offer him a lucrative deal. Indeed, I would offer to sell to him my new N70 phone! I could be better off with the cash stashed away under my pillow. I told myself that I would tell Aggrey about some pickpockets who snatched my new phone away from me. The next day, I jumped on a boda boda straight to town. I disembarked at post office where all the Kigali brokers roam aimlessly. I quickly located my broker friend and reached a deal with him. I asked for half a million but since this guy was so good at negotiating, I ended up receiving just 200k! For me, it was good enough. I swiftly pocketed the cash and sped back to one of my classmates. I told myself that if I kept the money at home, Aggrey could find it. So, I decided to take it to my SFB friend and requested him to keep it safely. Afterwards, I went back home and started to manufacture sizeable quantities of tears. I pretended to be sobbing in so much pain as I explained to Aggrey about my ordeal “Aggrey, can you imagine that the nice N70 that you bought for me has been stolen? Even the thieves kicked me in my ribs. I am in so much pain and agony! I feel so disorganized really,” Aggrey felt so touched. He offered to help me. “Don’t mind Diaspoman, I will catch those lousy thieves. I have all the details of that phone. I will immediately alert the policemen to search for the phone. Besides, I have so many friends at MTN. They will track the phone and we shall retrieve it within 2 days only!” Ooops! What had I done? Why hadn’t I thought about this before? Shouldn’t I have told the phone buyer not to use the phone in Rwanda? Instead, I should have told him to smuggle it out of the country! I had to find this buyer and advise him to switch it off. So, I rushed back to the Post office. Sure enough I found my broker friend there and immediately told him to keep the phone switched off! But alas! This broker had already sold it off to a lady friend of hers. Unfortunately, we could not find her since she had put in her own SIM card. Knowing that MTN could still trace the phone by looking at the serial number, I concluded that my days were numbered indeed. Right now I await the outcome of this search! E-mail: diaspoman@yahoo.com
