Friday Frivolities

One

It’s not enough for you to be a good friend of the bride to qualify you as her bridesmaid.  The New York Times reports that some women in the U.S. now require their bridesmaids to have breast enhancement, a spray tan and teeth whitening before their weddings.  Others schedule their bridesmaids for botox treatments and chemical peels months in advance.

 

I am certain lots of women would jump on the chance to make themselves and their bridal entourage to look better on their wedding day.  Unless, of course, they are afraid of their bridesmaids looking more beautiful than them …

 

Two

So Uganda didn’t get any Olympic medals, get over it.  What we should be doing is to campaign for the inclusion of sports we know, without a doubt, we will win.  Here’s a few:

1. Omweso
2. Roadside urination (Lookie hiyah! I can pee the farthest in public! And I’m not ashamed!)
3. Ekigwo
4. See-how-many-traffic-rules-I-can-break high speed bodaboda races
5. Survival of the corrupt-est

Three

I could have been an Olympiad if sports like tug-of-war, dueling pistol and Jeu de Paume hadn’t been discontinued from the Olympics.  Find out here what discontinued Olympic sports you would have been good at.

 

Four

I know I don’t appreciate my country enough.  I’m sorry about that.  Today, I would like to appreciate my country for granting the media a cautious freedom (The President giveth and the President taketh away; blessed be the name of the President). 

 

I sympathize with bloggers Mohamed Refaat of Egypt, Penarik Beca of Malaysia, Nguyen Hoang Hai of Vietnam, Woeser of Tibet and Zhou “Zola” Shuguang of China who have been arrested and tortured for exercising their right to ‘speak’.

 

Five

Why do lolcats exist?  What are they for?

 

Six

I hereby kwanjula Eyeing Africa, an interesting new picture blog on Uganda

Have a great weekend!

Garbage Gold

Tired of this common sight?

 

 

Here’s a little good news …

 

Kampala City Council (KCC) has signed a deal for the conversion of municipal solid waste into low sulfur diesel and electric power.

 

The pre-agreement between KCC and Cobal-USA will see the building and operation of a waste-to-energy plant, whose plasma reactor and gas-to-liquid conversion system will convert 10,000 tons of municipal solid waste into 52,000 gallons of Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel every day.  It will also generate 50 megawatts of clean electricity that will be added to the national grid.

 

More details here.

 

A few facts regarding municipal garbage in city from the Kampala Solid Waste Disposal Report:

 

• Each household in Kampala generates approximately one ton of waste every year
• Each Kampala resident contributes about one kilogram of domestic waste every day
• Vegetable matter constitutes the largest amount of waste, followed by paper, street debris, plastic and glass
• Nakawa Division generates the largest amount of garbage in Kampala

Living the Ugandan Dream?

I’m neither rich nor poor.  I’m a ‘Middle Class Ugandan’.

 

On the surface, I live the usual middle class life – I have a car, a decent job, my family does not go hungry.  However I cannot afford many middle class amenities.

 

Despite the savings and investments I have made, I still have to bite the bullet to gather sufficient collateral to get a housing mortgage.  My car is parked in my garage for four days out of seven because I can’t afford the rising cost of fuel. My insurance premiums eating into the little I had left to support a group of dependents who rely on me for school fees, clothing and food.  I can barely go on holiday because leisurely travel inside my country is too expensive for me.  I feed on last night’s supper to avoid paying for lunch today.

 

Still, I am the model of progress in my growing economy.

 

However every once in a while, nature hits me with a memo titled: “You Thought You were Invincible You Silly Snob, Here’s a Bout of Malaria for You!”

 

There is nothing like falling sick as a ‘Middle Class Ugandan’ to remind you how far away from the Ugandan dream you are.

 

After a beautiful weekend away with two beautiful girls, I came down with a horrible bout of malaria.  Over the past two days, it has cost me about Ushs 150,000 ($90) to treat the malaria and its accompanying ailments.

 

Ushs 150,000 for two days!

 

Here’s the breakdown:

 

A dose of Coartem (anti-malarial)                               Ushs 20,000

A bottle of Robitussin (cough medicine)                      Ushs 10,000

A dose of Flufed                                                       Ushs 5,000

A dose of Panadol                                                    Ushs 5,000

A dose of IV Quinine (apparently allergic to Coartem)   Ushs 25,000

Benadryl (an antihistamine)                                       Ushs 5,000

Phenergan (for the nausea)                                        Ushs 7,500

Food (someone said a good diet helps)                       Ushs 25,000

Taxi (too groggy to drive myself)                                 Ushs 30,000

 

I feel like I have been deceived by people who applaud me for my ‘success’.  If I am a model ‘Middle Class Ugandan’ and falling sick is this expensive for me, woe unto the millions for whom quality basic Medicare is still a dream.

 

What is it they say?  Another day, another dollar?  I’m at work today.  I’m dizzy, fighting the urge to hurl and my joints feel like those of an arthritic 90-year-old, but I need to be on dole again.  I need to pay a visit to my health insurance provider for offering me heaven and giving me hell.  I need to return to work because cannot afford to get sick.  Literally.

My Mind, My Soul, My V

This post contains very mild sexual content that some may find offensive.

 

It’s the most natural thing on earth.  It’s what your body was meant to do.  You don’t have to learn it.  You will feel it.  You will know it.  It will be good.

 

That’s what Aunt Angeno told me. 

 

Aunt Angeno was my father’s sister; my caretaker aunt.  She was the person charged with teaching me what my parents and my school couldn’t.  She taught me about my history and my future.  She taught me about life.  She taught me how to be a woman.

 

“Can you hear me?”  I whisper into the night.  “Aunty, can you hear me?”

 

I am desperate for her.  I need her to rise from the grave and to undo time.  I need her to tell me it’s not the most natural thing on earth.  It’s not what my body was meant to do.  I feel it, I know it, but I can’t do it.

 

Hi.  My name is Claire.  I have vaginismus.

Helping Them Help Themselves

This is what I think.

 

I think Uganda’s bad politicians are not that bad.  Most of them just don’t quite understand the field in which they operate.  They lack the tools with which to cunningly maneuver through the political landscape with dexterity and decorum.

 

Uganda’s politicians can’t pull a Musharraf, an Olmert, a Prodi, a Taylor or a Castro.  Heck, even if they were caught in the midst of a prostitution scandal like former New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer, you’d guarantee that they would hold a bizarre manhood-affirming celebration party, instead of doing the honorable thing: resign.

 

After our bleak performance in the Olympics, will the State Minister for Sports resign from his office?  Probably not.  Remember the Minister for Entandikwa?  Why he held on to power despite the absurdity of his position and the failings of his office is beyond me. 

 

Muhwezi, Mukula and Kamugisha attempted to save face by pleading innocent during the Global Fund probe when they could have resigned with dignity.  Bukenya would rather subject his wife to shame of enduring his sexual indiscretions, than leave office.  Bakoko Bakoru fled the country and applied for political asylum in the United States when she could have stepped down from duty at the height of the NSSF scandal, ensuring her some sort of meaningful political legacy.  Now, she is nothing, but an object of scorn.

 

Then there is that talk about Amama Mbabazi resigning because he inflated the sale of his Wakiso property in a deal with (oh no, not again) NSSF.  Mbabazi resigning?  Pigs will fly.

Playing his Way to Eternity

LeRoi Moore’s sax playing first attracted me to the Dave Matthews Band.  Who can forget his versatility in ‘Warehouse’ or behind the scenes in the wonderfully mysterious ‘Crash Into You’?

 

Five years ago I heard DMB’s ‘Spoon’ for the first time and I just had to find out who the saxophonist was.  Needless to say, I became a lifelong fan.  Last year during a strange time in my life ‘Spoon’ and LeRoi carried me through the best and the worst of times.

 

R.I.P

********** 

Here’s a fun live video DMB.  It starts with “Anyone Seen the Bridge” ending gloriously in “Spoon”.  It’s a little long, but it will be worth your wait if you are a DMB fan.

 

 

*Picture in post from the dmband.com

Who is This Man?

Pervez Musharraf:

 

Democrat?  Despot?  Demagogue?  Genius?

Believing a Lie

“One World, One Dream” is the slogan of the ongoing Beijing Olympics.  What a farce!

 

Consider for a moment that the Olympics were not about winning.

 

What if athletes were not awarded for their victories?  What if the Olympics were just a large sports celebration where those who came first were as important as those who came last?  What if Uganda’s Gilbert Kaburu was considered as great an Olympian as Michael Phelps, despite Phelps winning 8 gold medals and Kaburu not even a wooden plaque?  What if everybody went home with gold medals and they were all received on the streets of their cities with the same parades of praise? 

 

The truth is the Olympics are merely a large-scale manifestation of what humanity really is: a selfish, egocentric race.

 

There is no equality in the Olympics.  There is no unity.  So why are we so bent on believing the lie?

Coming Up Empty

He hadn’t eaten for days.  He couldn’t.  Every time he filled his stomach, it felt like a betrayal of her.  He was compelled to create a balance.  To form a semblance of equality between them.  Her empty stomach for his.

 

Nobody told you what to do or how or how to mourn. Every one focused on her.  It was as if he didn’t exist.  As if it would be if he wasn’t.

 

Hunger clawed at his stomach.  It was like hundreds of tiny hands reaching inside and pulling at him.  But the sight of food made him sick.  Any swelling in his stomach reminded him of her.  Her emptiness.  His emptiness.

 

He saw the signs before her; the fatigue, the dizziness, the frequent urination, the irritability and the constant heartburn.  She was recovering from a bout of malaria and laughed when he suggested that she should visit the doctor.

 

“I know my own body.  This is just the aftereffect of the drugs.  It will be a waste of time,” she protested.

 

She was wrong.

Loving It

Ladies, you’ve all been there. If you haven’t, Praise the Lord.

SCENARIO ONE:
It was a crazy week that climaxed, literally, in a crazier weekend.

Now you’re 12 days late and panicking.

The guy was cute, but a little dumb. The two hours you spent with him were as much as you can handle. You don’t even want to think about the prospect that you might be carrying his baby.

SCENARIO TWO:
Little Amani is a beautiful one-year-old. She begun walking before her time and she already knows how to say ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ and ‘potty’ and ‘feet’. You and John love her to death. You can’t imagine life without her.

Last Friday Amani was so good. She ate her dinner on time and went straight to sleep. You and John suddenly had an hour to spare and you didn’t waste a moment making up for lost time.

Now you’re a week late and panicking.

You love John, but another baby so soon?

**********

You head off to the nearest pharmacy as early as possible to buy a pregnancy test. After negotiating through True Line, Clear Blue, Answer, Crystal, Reveal, Baby Start, SureSay and AccuTest, you settle on a generic non-branded pregnancy test and rush back home, making a beeline for the toilet.

The next two minutes are the most excruciating in your life …

I can’t help you out with the stuff that led to this, but I can help you make the wait a lot easier.

Drumroll please … Enter the USB Pregnancy Test Kit from p-Teq.

According to Think Geek,

The process starts off like most pregnancy tests. You pee on a stick, specifically the absorbent test strip at one end. But everything’s different after that first step. Remove the cap from the other end of the stick (cleverly provided to keep you from accidentally contaminating the wrong end) to reveal the USB connector. Pop it in your computer. The power from your USB port starts the electrospray ionization process, creating a spectrograph of the various masses for your analysis.

Get it? Your analysis? Urinalysis? *rimshot* Moving on.

The mass spectrometry software on the device comes with several sequenced hormones, including hCG (human Chorionic Gonadotropin), hCG-H (hyperglycosylated hCG – for detection before your first missed period), and LH (luteinizing hormone – for detection of your most fertile days).

After you’re done reviewing your test results, just pop the device out of your computer and change the test strip. The display will remain lit for five minutes and then automatically power off.

Now I know geeks like me never ‘get any’, but at least we know that when we do, we’ll be surrounded with all our favorite toys.