“Black Dollars”

As the saying goes, “History keeps on repeating itself again and again”, not that I am trying to butcher the Queen’s Language in anyway, but just trying to emphasise my point. Going by the above, many incidents will always keep on keeping on! Eh, is that confusing? During the days of UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda a.k.a. MUNUAR, Kigali was awash with the “green bucks”, some of you loved calling them “Clintons” (after the then USA President). Kigali then, was awash with all sorts of people, there was the presence of some Senegalese, Liberians, and Sierra Leonese e.t.c. These guys were always moving around flashing dollars here and there! No problem in that, is there any? I hope not. In those years, there was this phenomenon of people rushing to get rich fast, they did all sorts of gambles in a bid to make a few dollars here and there! Those are the days when the likes of Diaspoman and company, drunk themselves to near silly in the likes of Gikondo, PANAFRIC and the then Kigali Night! The need to be seen to be “living”(loaded) was the major driving factor. There is this guy I once told you of, called Bagore (short form for Bagorebeza), coined out of his unquenchable appetites for the …. Ok, let me not mention the whole lot, just read between the lines. Bagore met with some of the above mentioned West African fellas (I do not want to insinuate that West Africans are crooks); the guys had some bundles of neatly trimmed black pieces of paper they called “Black Dollars”. I used to think of them as “Dollars for Africans”. I have never actually known how those Black Dollars got colour to become the real thing! The whole story was that, a UN staff named Unknown (for his job security) had snatched a batch of Black Dollars from the store; he was selling them off very cheaply to avoid getting caught! That, if you bought them, the guys would sell to you “medicine”(umuti) read chemicals, to “wash them into real dollars”. Bagore like any over ambitious characters did not want to hear of any odds, his eyes were set on the prize and nothing was gona stop him! For a bundle purported to produce US$10,000, he paid a cool US$200; something told me that, the deal smelt a rat! For the so called “washing medicine” to bathe them into the real stuff, he was told to “cough” a cool US$1,000. Not having the US$1000, he went and borrowed someone’s car that he used as security for a loan from the then famous “Bank Lambert”. After all, he was gona get stinking rich before the car owner even realised that his car was missing! I really don’t know why something never goes as planned; no sooner had he got the “medicine” and passed it on to the “washers” than the long arm of the law caught up with them, a case of a would be good deal gone sour! Bagore and his friends scattered in disarray and the law took over the papers and chemicals. Now the problem at hand was how he would “liberate” the car from the “Bank Lambert” guys! Whatever followed is just for you and me to guess! mfashumwana@fastmail.fm