Great week this has been. Two Public holidays on the back of Umuganda Saturday, what more could an overworked girl ask for? The best part was sleeping in without worrying about getting to work on time. I also managed to read a substantial part of a book I borrowed weeks ago but just couldn’t find the time to read. The other nice thing about the break was that I didn’t have to fight to get on the bus after a stressful day at work. God knows I hate those chaotic evenings at crowded bus stops. The only downside to the extended holiday was the timing. We had to wait till 5th to get paid and holidays aren’t that much fun when you’re broke. Overall though, the rest was priceless. Speaking of rest, a couple of people in our neighbourhood are giving us sleepless nights. There’s a guy who just bought a car and I think he wants all of us to know. He lives about five houses from mine but I can hear his horn and alarm like the car were parked right in front of my house. He comes home late and honks like his life depends on it. And then in the morning, his car alarm goes off for what seems like eternity. During week days, I don’t mind the noise since I have to be up anyway. But on Sundays when I don’t need to get up before 10a.m, it is irritating. One of the days, I just might walk up to his house and tell him what I think. The other annoying thing is the dogs that roam day and night. Somebody must have taken in some stray dogs because they weren’t there before. They make it their business to sniff at anyone who crosses their path and one thing crosses mind every time I run into them. Rabie!. I don’t even want to think about that. Enough of my home blues to my late take on Euro 2012. I enjoyed every minute of it, well except England’s exit. Spain more than made up for that though. Like many Liverpool fans, I was rooting for the Spaniards. My friends tease me about supporting multiple teams and equate it to a cheating spouse. I don’t know, I guess I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket. My “disloyalty” is even worse during the world cup where I support no less than four teams. My heart is really with England and Brazil but the Spanish are just beautiful watch. Throw in Germany, Argentina, Portugal and at least one African Country… That way, I’m sure that as the tournament progresses, I still have a team to cheer. Back to the Euro, I have a bone to pick with commentators. There were days I couldn’t watch the match either because we were working late or the service provider didn’t screen the match as promised. I then turned to radio for updates but I was disappointed. First of all, no local radio broadcasts in English and I respect the fact that French, Kinyarwanda and Swahili are the languages of the land. However, I wish the few who don’t have a good command of those languages would be taken care of as well. BBC carried only about three live commentaries but for the local radio stations, there were just a few English lines like “That was close” or “Lovely pass”. Most of the time, it was screams of “ekitego kyakabiri” or “kuluhande” and other expressions I couldn’t comprehend. I really must work on my Kinyarwanda. The other thing presenters should work on are pronunciations of players’ names. I got impatient every time someone referred to Lucas ‘Poduroski”, Andrea “Piro” and ‘Wine” Rooney. That and giving us stale statistics. There are things I’ve known for years and some presenters were relaying them like breaking news. I hope they’ll do better with future commentaries. To be continued…
