Diaspoman:The long strides taken in promoting hygiene

The fight against diseases such as cholera has been such a success in Rwanda. Whereas other countries in Africa still battle to keep their cities clean and hygienic, Rwanda has already taken incredible strides. Tourists and visitors are left in awe whenever they visit our beautiful country. The success in Rwanda was due to the constant education to the population about avoiding certain habits that would help in spreading diseases. For example, the habit of unnecessary handshakes was discouraged. That is why most of us began to concentrate on Rasta-like gestures. The Rastas use clenched fists as a sign of friendship and solidarity. With clenched fists, there is no chance of being contaminated by bacteria. Another lesson that was preached to the population was the issue of; – sharing local booze. People used to drink alcohol with the same straw or the same glass. The drinking spree took places in the suburbs of the city. These were places where you would find elderly men sitting in large groups passing around a shiny calabash full of local brew. You would find an elderly man sucking up the potent drink as the dirty old straw dangled freely into the calabash. With his eyes closed in sheer pleasure, the old man would be taking in several liters before passing it over to the next person. And in the process no one would rule out possibilities of passing around any funny disease. This kind of drinking was not entirely new to yours truly! Way back in the mid 90s, Aggrey and I used to also participate in such communal boozing where containers of booze used to rotate in both clock and anti-clockwise directions. Actually for us, we never shared a calabash of local brew by using the same straw. No way! For us, we used to share a tough liquor which hailed from the slopes of the snow capped Mountain Rwenzori. This serious liquor is popularly referred to as U.G. Its other name is Waragi. So when Aggrey and I thought of wetting our throats, we would go visit our immediate neighbour at the Kiyovu of the poor. If your memory serves you well, you will recall that our neighbour was always referred to as Mr. Waraje. He had earned this name due to the fact that whenever he guzzled enough U.G, he would start singing praises for that serious drink. He would start singing; “U.G Waraje, U.G Waraje…” Anyways, whenever Aggrey and I got into the spirit of tasting some of that U.G, we would go cajole Mr. Waraje who would then take us to Béa’s joint. Here we would join another gang of U.G consumers. As I mentioned before, we never used a straw and a calabash. Instead we used a funny looking tin which had always seen better days. Usually, the tin would be an ex-blue band metallic tin. Since the poor section of Kiyovu could not afford real glasses, the barmaids would head for the nearest dustbins and proceed to pick a nice selection of old used tins. Then the barmaids would clean them up and proceed to put the tins into the desired shapes. That is why Béa would pick up a stone and start hammering the tins. She would hammer them until the tins developed deep dents. When we asked Béa as to why she served us the liquor in spoilt and dented tins, she told us that those dents were meant to serve as a cup handle. She argued that those dents were supposed to provide space for our fingers to clutch tightly lest the tin would drop down. But after secret investigations by Aggrey, we received the truth. Apparently, Béa banged those tins so that whenever she measured our dose of UG, the tin would appear to be full up whereas in the actual sense the tin would be holding half of our usual dose. Talk about economizing! Gone are those days. No more unhygienic habits in Rwanda. All is clean. All is bright. diaspoman@yahoo.com