When I recently earned myself a kiraka (temporary job) at the Gikondo Expo, I realized that I actually have more enemies than friends. That is to say that my so called friends re-surfaced from nowhere in a jiffy. All along, I have been as broke as a church mouse and that meant that not even a single telephone call would filter through to me. But after learning about my kiraka at the Expo, phone calls and beeps began to flow in. They all pretended to be my friends and cajoled me into buying them booze and several sticks of roasted meat. Within one week, all my hard earned francs had disappeared. And along with those francs, my so called friends disappeared into thin air. Now, I have decided that I will become more responsible in the future. This implies that I will be using all my funds for my throat and nothing but my throat. In fact, I want to emulate an old buddy of ours who was known as Mr. Kiviri. He had earned this unique name due to his afro hair that resembled a huge wig balancing on his head. His main diet was just Waragi and dry cassava. He never used to comb his afro hair, claiming that he was a desperate person who was trying to make ends meet during the mid 90s. Kiviri was a notorious guy who cared for no one apart from himself. He always came in alone and headed straight for the counter. He would then order for his favourite Amstel beer. When the barmaid opened the bottles for him, Kiviri would insist on keeping the bottle tops. To him, these bottle tops were important as he would just keep them in his pocket for purposes of accountability. When the bill finally arrived, he would pull out those bottle tops and compare the quantity against the bill. If any variance in the numbers emerged, Kiviri would raise hell. When his bottle tops didn’t match the bill, Kiviri would cross over to the counter and demand to talk to the owner of the bar. “You guys are petty cheats! You think I never went to school? You think I never used the abacus?” At this point, the owner of the pub would try to console him by offering him another bottle of Amstel at a discount. Kiviri would then sit back and relax with his pockets full of jingling bottle tops. All this could have been quite acceptable if only he had kept this behaviour to himself. But no way! Sometimes, Kiviri would come with visitors from afar! And after several litres of booze, he would embark on his lousy behaviour, leaving his guests quite astounded. One day, Kiviri surprised us when he walked in escorted by three dashing ladies. He told us that one of the girls was his fiancée whereas the others were her close friends. They settled down and as usual, the barmaids were on top in terms of customer service. Then, to the ladies’ surprise, Kiviri kept all the bottle tops in his pocket. Everything progressed on quite well until the bill finally arrived. Kiviri in his typical police like fashion proceeded to compare the bottle tops against the bill. Everything tallied. However, it was time to verify the quantity of the roasted meat. Unfortunately, the ladies had not kept count of the pieces of meat that they had chewed. Kiviri became so furious. “How on earth could you eat meat without counting the pieces? How do you expect me to verify the bill? Now I may be forced to open your mouths and count all those pieces of meat that you have mercilessly swallowed!” At this point, Kiviri’s future bride started to cry in shame. That was over 15 years ago! I do not know where Mr. Kiviri lives today. But what I surely know is that I am going to quickly adopt these remarkable strategies so that I do not lose my cash to hungry barmaids and so called friends. I will start keeping bottle tops in my pockets! I will also make sure that all the roasted pieces of meat are counted very well in advance. Nothing for nothing these days as the economic conditions continue to toughen! Thanks to the Expo; I have learnt some valuable lessons. See you later! diaspoman@yahoo.com
