The elements have been whacking our cousins in the North as if they (the elements) have been sent by Lucifer. Luckily, from last Tuesday they are abetting, it’s said. Hopefully, this snowstorm and the freezing cold will let up completely so that our people can carry on with the business of living. As it is, even in the North that alone is no joyride. It is a shame that we as fellow humans can resign ourselves to simply watching helplessly while our people in the northern hemisphere suffer at the hands of our collective guardian – Mother Nature. Why should she kill us with the water that she gave us for our sustenance? And if it’s not that, she shakes open our home (earth) to send our brethren in the western hemisphere (Haiti) to an early grave. In the tropics, Mother Nature has not yet reached this. She freezes water and sends it down, yes, but it is not in the form of snow or sleet. The frozen water comes in the form of hail. The difference, search me, but I’m made to understand that while snow and sleet form as they are coming down, hail forms while it’s going up! I cannot hazard an explanation beyond that, so take it that snow means a collection of ice particles floating down to the ground as snowflakes. Snow mixed with rain is sleet. As to hail, water droplets that have been cooled in clouds freeze into pellets, then gather more water as they sail up. On becoming too heavy, they drop down as hailstones. Take that as ‘researched wisdom’ from a layman. Otherwise, I’ll stick to what I know, that is – you guessed right – the slopes of Mount Muhabura. At the slopes, you could see hail in the process of forming. If you observed carefully you saw dark clouds circling the top of Mount Muhabura. They’d be conspiring to send down a barrage of hailstones! Most often, however, they’d be friendly hailstones and only the elders needed to seek shelter from them. We young ones used to relish the fact of their bouncing off our bare torsos and cascading down our bodies to the ground. Then we’d pick them and tuck them under our armpits until we were frozen into insensibility. We’d then let them drop and run indoors to sit near fire and dry-warm ourselves. For going through that process, today I am enamoured against any ticklish feeling. If we were to meet a wise adversary, for instance, he’d lick you without a fight if he chose to. And I’d be laughing into his face while you’d be laughing yourself into a helpless heap! All the adversary would need to know is that you haven’t got the ‘hailstone cure’. Then he’d direct his fingertips to your armpits and around your ribs and you’d be hollering like a drunken hyena, more vulnerable than a wet chicken. But, actually, a ticklish threat is no threat at all, and you’d be surprised the spot you can get yourself out of, once ‘hailstone-cured’ and armed with that knowledge. Take this evening in Bufumbira when I was a herds-boy. You know the leopard that used to always follow me and see me to my house, whereupon it’d go back. That leopard was deadly if by any mistake you startled it. Once I’d just walked past a pool of water when it jumped in to fall in step behind me. Unfortunately, it splashed the water and the noise startled me. I whipped round with my raised ‘umuzo’ stick and made to attack – and realised my mistake. It was too late. It lunged at me, fangs and claws ready to sink into my face. My instincts were sharp those days because in the moment it takes you to say “hail”, I’d dropped my stick and was working the beast into a wriggling jelly! When I stopped, it folded its tail between its legs and walked off, dripping muddy water like a sponge. I’d tickled it to bits! Many beasts, just like people, are ticklish and you can lick them without breaking a sweat!However, as they say in the wrestling sport, don’t try it at home. When I tried it on a dog, for instance, I got a broken collar bone in the bargain! After the leopard incident, when a fierce dog attacked me I stood my ground in the confidence that I’d repeat my wizardry. Unfortunately, that confidence turned out to be like the confidence described by Banyankore boys of my time in Mbarara! When I tried to tickle the dog, it seemed to get even more reason to sink its fangs into my collar bone. So, every person/animal with their weaknesses. The fiercest of dogs will whimper off at the slightest sign of intention to throw a stone. Equally, Mother Nature can be a killer but is all kindly when you know how to appease her. Let’s hope that we humans will onetime be able to totally harness her to a point where she’ll only serve our interests. ingina2@yahoo.co.uk
