This post started off as a well-intentioned attempt to re-write “Twelve Days of Christmas.” My mind got in the way and the “remix” fell flat. Oh well.
Merry Christmas, all the same!
On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
World peace forever, Amen
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Seven dead dictators
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the eight day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Eight perfect workmates
Seven dead dictators
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Nine bladiblah
Eight perfect workmates
Seven dead dictators
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Ten more blahblah
Nine bladiblah
Eight perfect workmates
Seven dead dictators
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
This is insane
Ten more blahblah
Nine books deals
Eight perfect workmates
Seven dead dictators
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
12 comments to this post
This is insane
Ten blah and blah
Nine book deals
Eight perfect workmates
Seven dead dictators
Six studs in Speedos
Five years of fame
Four oil fields
Three free vacations
No more mosquitoes
And world peace forever, Amen
I always knew there was something strange about a man who wears crimson red.
Picture taken in Athens, Greece; December 7, 2008
Haven't abandoned blogger. Just moved to another forum for 'more serious' discussions. Will use this site for my budding microfiction talent. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
But seriously, I am an insomniac on wordpress these days. Check it out when you have the time.
To be born in Uganda. To live in Uganda. To be Ugandan. What does it really mean? What makes me part of this nation? My parentage? My heritage? A birth certificate? Am I really Ugandan?
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Clarissa wanted to get out. To get out now. She clenched her teeth, closed her eyes and screamed on the inside. AAARRRGGGHHH!
This life, this existence was too much for her to bear. She couldn’t be around these people anymore. They were driving her insane.
- Take. Me. Away. She silently shouted at God. Take. Me. Now.
She smelt him before he reached her. She opened her eyes.
- Okay Auntie? Sick Auntie?
Clarissa looked disdainfully at the grubby boy in front of her. She couldn’t understand the child’s fascination with her. She certainly hadn’t done anything to encourage it. From the first day she arrived in Mbuttu, he had been attracted to her like a moth to a flame. She shooed the child away, ignored him and even once slapped him and yet he continued to follow her around like a loyal puppy.
Tony called her a sadist. He said maybe she wasn’t ready to be the mother of his children after all.
Clarissa focused her attention on the boy again. How old was he? Four? Maybe five? She couldn’t really tell. He was the victim of poor feeding and a horrible diet consisting of little more than that tasteless plantain, matooke, a little watery soup and a teaspoon of the nastiest vegetables she had ever eaten. The boy was a poster child for malnutrition. A distended belly, red-brown hair, scurvy, rickets.
How often had she seen pictures of children just like him in the newspapers back home and angrily lambasted the photographers for typecasting Africa? She labeled the western media colonialists and accused them of trying to keep Africa as poor and as dark as possible.
But now? Here he was. Flies gathering on the scab on his knee, a huge gob of mucus stuck somewhere between his nose and his upper lip and his breath reeking.
- Get! Me! Out!
- Auntie Clarissa crying?
- Go away, she told him.
She couldn’t even remember his name.
- Go away, Al Stinko. Go play with your friends.
He smiled at her, oblivious to the insult, and sat on the ground in front of her. Clearly he wasn’t about to go anywhere.
Clarissa saw Tony in the distance. He was like a chief among his loyal, adoring servants. Groups of men old enough to be his father followed him everywhere. Women throughout Mbuttu flirted with him, rolling their eyes and offering him choice pieces of meat to eat. He reveled in their attention.
- You have grown! They exclaimed when they first saw him after 15 years. So handsome. So strong.
- You are a doctor now? They asked in wonder. You are so clever. Your parents would have been so proud.
- How many cars do you have? Two? Eh mama! You must be rich!
Clarissa hated to see Tony like this. Proud, self-righteous and self-absorbed. Those were her traits. He was supposed to be different. He was supposed to help her become a better person.
Tony spotted her looking at him and waved at her.
- Oh no. They are going to turn and stare at me now, she mumbled.
And they did.
- Hello! She shouted her greeting in their general direction.
They stared in silence for a few seconds and then turned away. Back to their Tony Worship. Almighty Tony, you are the best. Only you are good, only you are wise. But that woman you brought us …
AAARRRGGGHHH!
- Hello! She yelled again.
The boy laughed, smiled knowingly at her and stood up.
- Hello! He shouted.
Clarissa looked at him in surprise and joined his laughter.
- Hello! She shouted.
- Hello! He replied.
She stood up and waved her hands in the air. Hello! Hello! Hello! He joined her, mimicking her actions enthusiastically. Hello! Hello! Hello! They shouted and screamed to the dirt at their feet, to the open sky, to the bright yellow noonday sun, to the trees around them and to each other. Hello!
A large crowd grew around them, but energized by their manic behavior, they didn’t stop. They couldn’t stop. And then, with one frenzied cry Clarissa and the boy shouted in unison, HELLO! They fell into each other’s arms and down on to the hard ground laughing hysterically.
Then suddenly conscious of the crowd, she stopped, sat up and looked at the people gathered. She could almost hear their thoughts.
- Strange. Weird. Crazy. Wrong for our Tony.
She smelled the boy again and looked around, but he had disappeared.
- It isn’t him smelling. It is I. We’re one now.
Clarissa laid her head on the ground and closed her eyes.
- Thank you, she whispered. Thank you.
Library – a building in which collections of books, newspapers, CD, etc. are kept for people to read, study or borrow.
The Rwandan government is in the process of establishing its first public library. Its FIRST public library since INDEPENDENCE.
I was appalled at this finding. An entire country without a single public library in this day and age?
Oscar Kimanuka, a columnist with The EastAfrican newspaper blames the setback on Belgian colonialists who did not bequeath to their subjects a reading culture. In the December 4, 2006 edition of the paper, he argues that it was part of the colonial strategy to keep Africans illiterate.
Being from the egoistic Big Brother of the African Great Lakes Region, I couldn’t help but gloat that for once, Uganda is better than its neighbours.
“Huh, and they say Uganda is still an underdeveloped country? Where would that put Rwanda?” I reasoned to myself with pride.
After all, isn’t Uganda the country with record numbers of enrolment in primary schools and doesn’t it boast of 65% literacy figures?
Literate - the ability to read and write.
Time to eat humble pie.
Is the fact that Uganda has at least 15 public libraries spread throughout the country a cause for pride? Are the country’s literacy figures really anything to boast about? Is Uganda really better than her neighbours?
My search for answers led me to several shocking facts.
My first point of call was to a webpage published by Daniel J. Cook, a Fulbright scholar who visited Uganda recently. While I was aware that Uganda’s public libraries are in an appalling condition, nothing could prepare me for the absolute horror that is depicted on Dr. Cook’s Public Libraries of Uganda picture gallery.
They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Ah, Dr. Cook. How true.
From Arua to Kabale, Masindi to Moroto to picture was the same. Derelict buildings, rickety desks and chairs, no bulbs, torn books, empty shelves. Totally empty shelves.
Does it matter that Uganda has more than 65% of its population able to read and write when there is nothing for them to read – and therefore nothing for them to write about? Is this a country breeding educated illiterates?
Decay - the gradual destruction of a society, an institution or a system.
A paper presented by the Uganda Library Association in 2000 says school libraries continued to limp through most of the 1990s, a legacy of the tumultuous 1970s. The paper blamed this situation the fact that government doesn’t have a clear cut policy on the development of school libraries in Uganda.
Following the introduction of universal primary education, Government worked reducing the textbook to student ratio without necessarily following this up with a concrete school library development policy. All secondary school head-teachers of government schools are under instruction to recruit persons to run school libraries at certificate level.
The Uganda Library Association has taken up issue with this policy and claims to be addressing the concerned ministries over the matter.
The Uganda Library Association - a Lame Duck. A Lame, Lame Duck.
However all is not lost for school libraries because there is a general trend especially in private schools to establish modern libraries to support learning.
Under the Access to Information Act passed by Parliament in 2006, Government requires that all its agencies provide central points from which the public can access information. Resource Centers, it calls them.
These ministerial libraries are intended to serve primarily the needs of the legislature and developmental functions of the government.
Bravo Government of Uganda? Absolutely not.
The libraries mostly collect official gazettes, parliamentary debates, census reports, gazettes, annual reports, committee papers, acts, serials, monographs and other materials in the areas of their specialization. Many of them are outdated, torn and not accessible to the public. Technocrats blame financial constraints for the failed objectives of the resource centers.
A survey of all Government libraries conducted in 2004 by Sarah Kagoda Batuwa, a leading Ugandan librarian, revealed a stock of less than 10,000 volumes. Most of the books were old and the majority were donations. Subscriptions to periodicals ceased long ago, with only two libraries still subscribing to about 10 journal titles.
National Library of Uganda – the biggest literary lame duck of them all.
I think every single ‘educated’ Ugandan is to blame for this state of affairs. No one is pushing the agenda for improved libraries and reading facilities in Uganda.
Parliamentarians are too concerned with increasing their salaries and getting fat car loans for themselves to consider libraries an issue of concern. This is no surprise considering that data from the parliamentary library indicates that only 12 percent of MPs use the facility. A majority of the 21 percent only use it to catch up on their email correspondences and to surf the net for … well.
To assume that the teachers’ association will do anything to press for better library services is also a far reach. Most are too consumed with their own problems to attempt to improve their education or even their basic understanding of the world around them.
The only time you hear anything is during the annual National Book week organized by the National Library of Uganda and you can be sure that like a stuck record, the theme will be ‘improving the reading culture, improving the reading culture.’
More action, less talk. More knowledge, less literacy I say.
Frustration - feeling annoyed and impatient because of the absence of the ideal.
