I have been working at this office for the past few months. My weeping pockets have now begun to appreciate the fact that a few thousands are better than nothing at all. At least, I cannot fail to raise funds for a bottle of Tusker at the end of the month. The other day, I was surprised when my new boss announced to me that the company had decided to award me with a gift. Yes! He told me that since I was a hardworking donkey, the company had bought a Blackberry phone for me! Woo!! But then, I started developing mixed feelings! Firstly, I was extremely thrilled that I could at last own an internet enabled mobile phone. But on the other hand, I felt so cheated in that my boss could authorize a payment of half a million francs to buy me a phone instead of giving me that cash to enable me solve certain personal and private problems. One of those private problems relates to the ever thirsty throat that I own. I started imagining what that kind of cash would do for me in terms of throwing rounds of frothy drinks for both friends and foes. Such cash would really create a lot of fun in my neighborhood. By just looking at the Blackberry, I felt so guilty especially when I know how my drink mates eat food on an empty head. You see, for us we never really subscribe to the idea that someone has to drink on a full stomach. Ours is different. For us we feel that it is our right never to eat food on an empty head. That means that we have to first take in several liters of booze before eating the staple rice and peas. That is why we always try hard to find some dosage of frothy drinks before entering an eating joint. So, although my boss’ gift was very nice, I felt that I had to do the right thing. The right thing was not to carry the new Blackberry phone in my hand and walk around as if I was the boss at one of the posh offices in town. No way! The right thing to do was to pick the Blackberry handset and head towards Nyabugogo Taxi Park. Once in the taxi park, I would contact a certain friend of mine who happens to be a broker. I would then offer him a lucrative deal. Indeed, I would offer to sell to him my new Blackberry phone! I could be better off with the cash stashed away under my pillow. So, I started to plan my mission. I told myself that I would tell my boss about some pickpockets who snatched my new phone away from me. The next day, I jumped on a boda boda straight to Nyabugogo. I disembarked at the taxi park where some of the Kigali brokers roamed around aimlessly. I quickly located my broker friend and reached a deal with him. I asked for half a million but since this guy was so good at negotiating, I ended up receiving just 200k! For me, it was good enough. I swiftly pocketed the cash and sped back to office. When I reached the offices, I started to manufacture sizeable quantities of tears. I pretended to be sobbing in so much pain as I explained to my boss and workmates about my ordeal “Can you imagine that the nice Blackberry that you bought for me has been stolen? Even the thieves kicked me in my ribs. I am in so much pain and agony! I feel so disorganized really” My boss felt so touched. He offered to help me. “Don’t mind Diaspoman, I will catch those lousy thieves. I have all the details of that phone. I will immediately alert the policemen to search for the phone. Besides, I have so many friends at MTN. They will track the phone and we shall retrieve it within 2 days only!” Ooops! What had I done? Why hadn’t I thought about this before? Shouldn’t I have told the phone buyer not to use the phone in Rwanda lest it was traced? I had to find this buyer and advise him to switch it off. So I rushed back to Nyabugogo. Sure enough I found my broker friend there and immediately told him to keep the phone switched off! But alas! This broker had already sold it off to a lady friend of hers. Unfortunately, we could not find her since she had put in her own SIM card. Knowing that MTN could still trace the phone by looking at the serial number, I concluded that my days were numbered indeed. Right now I await the outcome of this search!
