“Home Alone”

Many years ago, we used to congregate at the so called Carwash or KBC, a.k.a. “sitting-room”, not anymore. The proprietor of the “Sitting-Room” alias BABITO (Baba Bibi Toto), soon to become “BABA’s”, closed shop and bid KBC goodbye or can we say “Bad Bye”! You must be wondering as to where I am driving you to, do not worry the least. My problem is that, the pangs of hunger are driving me into anger. So the Luo say, “an hungry man is a angry man” (by the way, the Luo) have a tendency to prefix an “a” where there is a “h” and vice versa. For instance, they will pronounce the word house as “ouse (awusi)” and answer as “hanswer (hansa)”. I have been relegated to spending the greater part of the day and evening home! Of late, I have failed to get anywhere to relocate, having failed to locate any “living place” Car Wash under the good Wahome has relocated from our famous spot. We are left with only one choice, to consume the infamous “chips” (amafiriti), this stuff really disgusts me to the bone, such that, the mere thought of chewing “amafiriti” makes the “snakes” in my tummy to begin crying out aloud. In the name of sanitation and hygiene most of my popular (read notorious) joints were “condemned to death” by being shutdown, courtesy of KCC, and now here I am, an African pretending to be a French man by eating the French Fries. Idon’t give a damn, these fries or flies can go and hang, and all I care about is trying to extinguish the “fire” in my tummy, full stop. The various “Kiganda” food joints once engaged in a bitter “civil war” for clients, that, they nearly got each other shutdown! One day, one of the ladies in the trade went and negotiated to buy the other ones’ restaurant but the second vendor could not hear of it, she retorted “sha, mama nyabo, I cannot relinquish my restaurant to you, over my dead body”. The next day, the health inspectors came calling, her chicken or rather kitchen was found wanting. Her restaurant was slammed shut! She went out wailing, “mama nyabo nfudde, omukazi angobye mu kibuga” (oh dear mummy, I am dead, the woman has chased me out of town). Gone are those days of “food wars”! There are still a few joints scattered here and there but the problem is getting the money to spend therein! As I put my fingers to the keyboard (paper and pen), it is the evening of the famous “Women’s International Day”, I have just burnt out my fingers trying to prepare the family meal as “the Chain Keeper” sits comfortably in the living room watching TV, mbu, it is their day to relax! Such things never bother me much; just a day and life will be back to normal! I have decided not behave like the good old Colonel (Muamar G), he seems to be fighting a losing war. Any way, they saythat, “a coward dies many times but lives longer”. I am Home Alone! Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm