“Sorry I just called to request you to play for Mr. Diaspoman a song by R. Kelly – You Saved Me. I was broke and he has saved me!”Every time I put fingers on my computer keyboard, many of you always say, “There is the villager.” Yeah, that’s me. Many of us in the village, or formerly in the village, have a tendency to talk on and on.After all, why should I sit on stories that ought to be told to others? I always say, and will continue say, “You can take a villager out of the village but you cannot easily get the village out of him.” As is evident, I’m out of the village and I have almost lost the village in me; though I’m struggling hard to hold on to the village in me, lest I lose the name “The Villager”! True, if I lost the village in me, there wouldn’t be The Villager any more. Just like the former Zairean President, the late Field Marshal Mobutu Seseko Ngembendu wa Zabanga once said, “There was no Zaire before me, there will be no Zaire after me”, I don’t want to elaborate more – Res ipsa loquitur! Just pray for The Villager to remain a villager or else this column will be no more.That said, I am reminded of the situation when I had just arrived in Rwanda. In Kigali, to be precise. The year was 1994. That time, this place was a village in the real sense of the word. We would sleep with both the windows and doors open, cars were left parked outside with windows open and nothing ever got stolen. Some say that back then people were still very backward. I beg to differ from that school of thought; maybe people were much more innocent! Talking of innocence, I am reminded of a guy we used to work with. This guy (Innocent) went ahead and sent himself a ME2U from a Mzungu boss’ phone and was caught by technology. Very simple. The guy wanted to call his girlfriend for a rendezvous. As fate would have it, the chap took advantage of the Mzungu’s phone that had been left on the table as he worked on the Mzungu’s computer. No sooner had he sent himself ME2U than the Mzungu arrived! The confirmation SMS came when the phone owner was right there and that is how Innocent’s name changed to Guilty. The Mzungu called in some fellow Bazungu to interrogate the poor guy and one of them asked him: “What is your name?” “I’m Innocent,” he replied. The Mzungu went bananas, ranting: “You are not innocent! I caught you stealing from my phone!” We can call this lack of innocence! On another note, I was listening to the radio when a guy phoned in that he had picked a wallet loaded with US$500, some Rwandan francs and of course identity cards, credit cards, etc, all in the names of none other than “The Diaspoman”. We were more than happy to hear such news because our friend had been devastated by the loss of his wallet. Now that a guy had found it, we thought that this would the end of Diaspoman’s suffering. The caller started by announcing, “I have called in to announce that I found a wallet containing money and documents belonging to Mr. Diaspoman.” The presenter cut him short: “Thank you for calling, there are very few good people like you. What is your name so that we may thank you?” The caller replied, “Sorry I just called to request you to play for Mr. Diaspoman a song by R. Kelly – You Saved Me. I was broke and he has saved me!” Nice weekend.
