Diaspoman: When we faced the effects of cultural differences

During the mid 90s, Aggrey and I used to throw parties almost every weekend. But on one particular party, Aggrey and I faced the realities of cultural differences! Whereas we had been used to having outdoor parties in our previous countries of residence, the situation here was different. During those mid 90s, parties were usually held indoors. As for us, we had fridge in the house which was packed with all tribes of booze that had been left intact by the previous occupants. The store was packed with cartons of Heineken beers and sodas. Our only worry was about the expiry dates of these products. Could we possibly guzzle all these drinks in time? Well, we surely had to do something. It was very clear that our two thirsty throats could not wipe out the whole fridge plus store. That is why Aggrey invented a sensible idea. He suggested a weekly birthday party! Wow, we sat down to craft certain strategies. We decided that although the booze had only six months to go before reaching the expiry date, we could add in six more months. We convinced our heads that six extra months could do little harm to us.So this implied that our booze was around for at most one full year. How were we going to create over fifty birthdays in one year? Would this not imply that Aggrey and I had twenty six birthdays each? Who would believe us anyway? Okay, let the number of birthday boys increase a bit. If we increase it to say four individuals, then each one would have thirteen birthdays. That sounded reasonable. We therefore contacted one person who would certainly give us a helping hand. That had to be the one and only Afande Niko in Gisenyi. When we contacted Afande Niko, he was very happy to help out. In fact he said that there was no need for a fourth volunteer. He said that, he alone could accommodate fifty birthdays without raising any eye brows. This is because Niko had very many friends of both sexes. He pulled out a phone book which comprised of hundreds of names. There is no need to worry my dear brothers. His strategy would be to mix and match. He promised us that he would come up with a viable action plan, in which names of special invited guests would be sorted and rearranged in such a way that nobody could ever suspect that we were just cooking up birthdays. If one group came this weekend for my birthday, then an entirely different one would attend my birthday the next weekend. In order to avoid any hiccups, we unanimously agreed that Afande Niko goes first. And like a bushfire, the news was spread about Afande Niko’s birthday. As usual, Afande Niko had slashed his age by five years so that he could appeal better to the fairer sex. That Saturday evening, our house at Kiyovu of the poor was suddenly packed with invited guests. Revellers joined in from all corners of Kigali. Somehow, word had spread about the flowing Heinekens at our modest home. Indeed, guests flooded in with birthday presents wrapped in huge boxes. As guests filed in, Afande Niko received his gifts in style. For men, Afande Niko thanked them my pounding is head against theirs three times. As for the ladies, he planted three kisses onto their velvet faces. For Aggrey and I, this was quite a new culture which we felt we had to partake! That is why I grabbed one of the gentlemen and proceeded to bang my head against his. Wow! The experience was not the very best as I immediately earned myself a serious headache. Upon evaluating the situation, Aggrey decided that he would neglect this head butting business with the male guests. In light of this, he decided to try his experiment on the ladies. It was disastrous. Instead of targeting the lady’s cheeks, Aggrey innocently went for the lips. Before you could blink your eyes twice, a blow emerged from nowhere, flooring Aggrey in the process. It was like a rocket. When Aggrey finally managed to open his eyes, the party had ended many hours ago! Cultural differences had reared some ugly heads! diaspoman@yahoo.com