If things continue to become monkey in my pockets, I may have to search for a part time job here in Rwanda. The sector I may have to join is in the fitness club sector. These so called coaches have made a lot of money from the public and the motivation is coming from an unlikely source! Yes; this motivation is coming from young and old medical Doctors in town. You see, whenever ladies and lads go to visit the clinic, the medical Doctor examines them and decides that the only medicine is to carry out enough “sports”. In the process, aerobics classes have become so jam packed as young, middle aged and elderly folks pay a visit in the name of keeping healthy! Thank you medical doctors because without you, coaches in aerobic classes would find themselves unemployed and financially handicapped! So when I recently went to La Palisse Nyandungu, I was very impressed! No wonder, whenever the coach was doing his thing, he had a wide smile planted on his face. The more participants in the Gym, the more cash comes flowing into the coaches’ pockets. That is why I want to get myself a job as a coach. But first, I have to trim down on my Tusker belly! Alas! Could I really slash down this tummy to an acceptable level? I wonder! I remember, more than a decade ago, Aggrey and I used to frequent the famous Nyamirambo Gym where we joined young people as they sweated and jumped to the tunes of rumba music! Those days, we had slapped a real embargo on anything that resembled Amstel beers. So, we just had to consume bottles of Sprite and a plate of rice. This was agonizingly very difficult, especially as we would gather around the table with friends, guzzling those ice cold Amstels. Our stomachs could be heard from a distance, rumbling in anticipation as our friends chewed on roasted meat and French fries. We had to endure such misery in form of strict diet and physical pain caused by the exercises. But despite this suffering, there were two aspects of the gym that had really got us excited and hooked on. The first one was the background music that all participants had to follow, as they bent and stretched their aging muscles. The music played was awesome, ranging from Britney Spears to Koffi Olomidde. As the music heated up, you could sometimes hear a creaking sound of disjointed bones emanating from the members, who happened to be twice our age. The second aspect that got us excited was the sight of the dot.com girls, who joined us in the hall. They always spotted tight bikinis and sleeveless tops that left very little to your imagination. When they swayed to the left and back to the right, the gentlemen in the room would behave like car wipers. Our heads would turn from one side to another, like lightening itself. That is why you would always find us rushing to the back of the hall, where we would get into strategic positions, and have a full menu of eye nutrition. Fast forward to 2012! My beer belly has become a real mountain. I must find ways of making it flat before I post an advert on the websites to invite members of society to join my aerobics class. I am sure that there is a real market out there and thanks to medical doctors who have offloaded a sizeable group of their patients to fitness clubs. I must start looking for a loan from one of the SACCOs so that I set up a fitness club and start minting real cash…
