Yellow, the vaccine you have called…

Dr. Paul Kaggwa, the Assistant Commissioner of health at the Ministry of Health cut a very nervous picture; wringing his hands from time to time- only stopping to pull a wet handkerchief from his tailored trouser to wipe rivulets of sweat pouring from every crevice on his skin and pacing back and forth. You see, the good doctor was anxiously waiting for a telephone call from mars to no avail. Didn’t Pakalast cover the entire galaxy? And so he fumed and puffed and perspired on…

According to the New Vision Tuesday 4 Jan 2011, the Ministry of health has postponed the mass vaccination exercise against yellow fever that was slated to kick off the same day due to scarcity of the vaccine. Dr. Paul Kagwa said this was because the ministry had not yet gotten feedback regarding the availability of the vaccine. According to the article, the vaccine is being procured from WHO and United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) (at shs 8 billion) all bodies which I am quite certain have their head quarters here on earth and could be reached for feedback never mind that by the time the ministry communicated dates for this mass exercise we expect them to have carried out their homework about simple logistical issues like shipping and such.

What is baffling about a situation like this is an incident plastered in today’s press report in one of the dailies detailing the unmasked shamelessness and haste with which MPs donned their Santa hats a trifle late and ‘forced through the approval of more than 600 billion in emergency spending’ (Daily Monitor Jan 5 2011 pg 1) 95 billion of that being a late Christmas gift to State House. Quite possibly the same chaps that voted to scrap the presidential term limits and got compensated handsomely according to unconfirmed (who are we kidding) media reports.

They have a mandatory I-do-not-know-how-many plenary sittings a year that they use as opportunities to catch up on lost sleep (since they probably spent the previous night counting the millions they have accumulated from bribes) while bill after bill is tabled and eventually trashed and yet a ‘special’ sitting of parliament is held and all of a sudden they are eager to cast votes. This while their people languish in poverty, rot from a jigger epidemic, are washed away by floods and die from preventable and treatable diseases.

It has been two months since the Yellow Fever outbreak in which 45 people have already died and two million at risk of catching it and we are still just waiting for confirmation about the availability of the vaccine yet no ‘special sitting of Parliament’ has been summoned and dizzying amounts allocated in a ‘spare no costs’ type show of generosity they are easily according their boss. And so you have to wonder what these MPs’ motives really are evidenced by the snail pace they pick up when it is time to address issues facing real people with real problems and real needs other than an obsessive need to please egotistical self serving childish desires to cling to and abuse power.


All hope is not lost in the fight against the disease as ‘experts have been deployed to areas bordering regions that have been hit by the disease ...to prevent further spread of the disease.’ And so do not be alarmed when you find human experts from the Ministry of Health tussling it out with a yellowish looking virus creature thingy to try and prevent it from heading on to the next district. I am sure this measure will provide a lot of comfort to the families of those that have lost loved ones, have patients battling the disease all the while wondering whether it is their turn next and will somebody please hurry up with the damn vaccine already?

‘mpenkoni, mpenkoni…’ chimes the ringtone on Dr. Kaggwa’s iPhone4. He anxiously tries to pull it out of the other pocket that thankfully does not bear the now uselessly soppy handkerchief but it is stuck in the maze of keys to his Mercedes, his Ntinda flat, Kololo Mansion, Range Rover, Lexus and the intricately designed key to his safe. He finally disentangles the phone.

Hello? Is this the call I have been waiting for from the space shuttle? Are the yellow fever vaccines ready? Should I just call the whole thing off permanently? He bellows.

No. This is Cathy. I think your wife might have found out about that trip we took last month to Dubai. Remember? The one where you were supposed to be on State Duty attending a conference on Aids in China? Yea. She’s obviously upset about it and is still screaming on the second blackberry you bought me…

You are black! Said Ofwono Opondo to the Media

Shock gripped Uchumi Supermarket employees recently when they came to work in the morning and found, converging at a meeting; the entire stock of underwear and pens laughing heartily and high fiving. No they weren’t. They were cowering under the shelves because they had read in the news that Ofwono Opondo had attacked journalists. They thought they were next.

You can remember that a couple of years back Ofwono Opondo and as he so aptly describes himself a ‘regular and reliable news source’ went into a then new Uchumi Supermarket and allegedly shoplifted a pen and two(?) pairs of underwear. He was caught. He became a disgrace. His party NRM kept him on in a top position even eventually made him the party spokesman. I wonder how that played out though

-so, we are looking for an individual that will be the mouth piece of the party
-let’s see, we have embezzlers, the corrupt, timber thieves, HIV and Tuberculosis money thieves, power sticklers….
-hmmm, we seem to be in a bit of a pickle here, chimed one as he tried to balance his fat behind on the fat wallet of cash in his back pocket
-the visionary man then looks around the room and then points at a man trying to knick a pen nestled in the cranny between the ear and the hair of his colleague.
-you. Kleptomaniac. You talk for the party.

And that is the story of how Ofwono Opondo was elected NRM Spokesperson and has since been interviewed and quoted as an authority and well, talked to as if the world held him in high esteem.

At the end of last month, Ofwono penned what was a very insightful and quite frankly spot on and a long time coming article about the diminishing integrity of journalism stemming right from the top Editors and seeping right to the overly exploited, poorly paid freelance journalist. He said that at a concluded NRM National Conference journalists attacked NRM officials demanding for cash…

As a journalist who always used to be treated like a common criminal every time I went to the accounts department to ask for a miserly 3,000 transport refund from the company, I can understand why when presented with a brown envelope or wads of little cash, a journalist would quickly jump at it.

Either that or arm chair journalism which I am ashamed to say that for most of the time before I left the journalism field that I loved so much, I turned down assignments that required for me to travel further than the middle of the town to get to a source because at the end of the day, the trouble you went thru to get the refund from accounts coupled with the miserable wages at the end of the month are just not worth it. But at the end of the day, miserable wages or not, it is disgraceful for journalists to ask for and expect monetary and or any other favors in exchange for stories.

Of course corporate companies will go to all lengths to ensure that their stories run at all costs including paying off editors and ‘facilitating’ the journalists that have come to cover these functions. Journalists who are used to this kind of treatment will then always expect that whenever they are invited by a company or organisation to cover a story, it is only given that they are compensated for the time and effort.

So here is the diagnosis. That journalists are underpaid and hence have no qualms about taking and sometimes even demanding for monetary favors from organisations. This Diagnosis however, does not offer any solutions. Dr. House is not going to strut in on the 38th minute, wave his cane at the patient’s toe ring, proclaim that if she were to take it off, the levels of toxins in her brain would decrease and she would be healed forever. No. Perhaps this show will go on longer. First, they will amputate the toe in the 40th minute, snip off the foot at the hour, maybe the leg will soon follow at the 90 minute mark and hopefully by then the gangrene will have been curbed. And the amputated leg will forever be buried with all the editors in chief who have no qualms about selling advertising for editorial favors, who take millions in cash in exchange for ‘killing’ a story about a high profile member of society while they practice double standards to their employees preaching the evil in accepting brown envelopes. And hopefully with intensive treatment, better pay, better working conditions, better medical and other benefits, long after House has ended, we shall find a cure for brown envelope journalism.

Meanwhile, let Ofwono Opondo continue to point his soot covered fingers at the culprits.

Rocktober!

And so there’s been two BHHs without a recap from me. I am awful proud of that thank you very much. It demonstrates that I have shed even that little shred of dignity I had as a blogger. I mean if I cannot even make up a bloody BHH re-cap what is the world coming to? I suck.

While we are at confession, here is more. I had promised myself that since this is my special month, I would blog every day of the week for the whole month. I lied again. That is what happens when you make resolutions at the end of the year. You are too busy trying to keep track of the ones you have not lived up to since the beginning of the year you can hardly take time off to keep a simple one as writing about my crappy life every day.

Now quickly let me make a last confession. That while I was away from here, I fell in love with another hairy man. Facebook. I tell you I tried to stay away but you know how men can be. Always luring you with those big blue eyes and promises of bigger things. But now I am back. I can’t promise that I will stop seeing him or anything but I promise that if you take me back oh dear blogger, I will endeavor to er, nuh, I have no offers. Just take me back with no terms and no conditions

Done confessing. Be back soon. I miss you all.

Bee Etch Etch (Because there are not many other ways to write BHH) Recap: The Facebook edition

I protested having to do this recap because what are people going to think of me; absconding from my blogging duties only to come and do a recap every several months only to disappear again and come back with a recap! Disgraceful! And so that is why I protested. But clearly I am not that good at protesting. Not good at many other things to be honest with you. Take the gym for example. Perfect place to meet nice sweaty guys, smelly sweaty guys, overzealous instructors in short shorts, and well, if you are up to it, perfect for toning up the thighs, butt and of course those flabby arms. So I sucked at that too. But I guess I came here to talk about what went down at BHH so I will delve right into it.

Do you remember how waaaaaaaaaaaay back Baz felt too good for BHH and we’d all gather and pay homage to his awesomeness and get on our knees and pray that one day he’d one day grace us low lives with an appearance? Well, now that BHH has faded, Baz can be found on street corners and at facebook campaigning for people to attend. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
This BHH was basically a facebook convention. Where previously people talked about the most recent posts etc, we were discussing facebook status messages, facebook groups, Golola Moses and whether or not it is ethical to ‘like’ your own status message.
Prettysmilesolomonking says it is tacky to like your own status message, I agreed and two days later, Baz actually liked his own status.

That Mateo’s promotion of buy one get one free I am afraid is still going which is how come I ended up with two Martinis in salt coated glasses. Disgusting. Why would I go to a bar and pay for Oral Rehydration Salts? I also got a wee bit drunk, went to the loo to wash my face and ended up drinking the tap water. That’s what happens when local chics go hanging out.
That loud guy
Spartakus was there. His pseudo dreadlocks also put in an appearance. He took one small glass of those obscenely named cocktails and got plastered. We threw him out of Mateo’s.

Anyway, I am not going to tell you what we all talked about etc. If you wanted to know you should have been there. But here is who turned up. Nevender’s cousin, a newbie called Muhumuza Mark who blogs as I-really-do-not-remember, Ivanmusokesweetheart, StreetSider who is amazingly nicer these days, Solomon King, Jny23, Ruth of dare devil and some other bold chic who said she’d not mind being banged everyday (Insert props here) and other chics who either were not bloggers, or are new bloggers or I did not get their names. Kale bye.

Gym thingies

The other day the buttons on my shirt were fighting to explode off my chest, so I figured I had to do something about my ever expanding width. So i signed up to a gym. I know! A bit much right? why couldn't i just stop eating? here's what i found.

  • My Gym figured out a way to keep business going; there’s a Pastries shop right outside the gym. A friend of mine had this to say about that, Location, Location, Location.

  • Your 11 year old brother’s sneakers are not a good idea unless rotten feet are the new fad in town

  • That laughing should not be your standard reaction to when the instructor spreads your legs wide, whilst he is in a kneeling position between them


  • I should have shaved my armpits

  • I was going to shave that morning but then I remembered that I was going to wear a long sleeved shirt that day, so what’s the rush?

  • Trainer has bad breath

  • I suck at aerobics

  • My hips don’t lie

  • Going to the gym turns a previously humble person into a show off!. I mean here I am barely inside the gym doors and I am writing about it as if I am better than all those lazy un-fat people.

Hassan's joint




Saturday Vision Page 29

Museveni update; Europeans and Chinese don’t die, his bathtub does not get cleaned up and will Bishops please stop consoling people?

In a rare show of transparency, Museveni has s decided to open up about some of the things that rile him.

Now, we would have all appreciated it more if he had told us exactly how many more years he intends to rule for, or why he appointed Janet Minister, and does she really own Garden City? How much money does he have on his bank account etc, but I guess anything he decides to unleash, we will be more than happy to hear.

At the burial of V.P’s son (RIP) Museveni was given an opportunity to speak. In his own words, Museveni had never really met Brian the deceased so it is only fair that he talk about well, anyone but the deceased.

In his speech carried by the Red Pepper today, Museveni started by attacking the cause of Brian’s death as reckless over speeding drivers. Now as if we did not already know this, he told us that his own drivers over speed and will not listen to him anymore when he tells them to stop overspeeding. Nobody listens to the president anymore!

Over speeding taken care of, it was time to tell off the pretentious of society. Museveni went on to accuse Bishops of consoling mourners! The audacity! How dare they come to officiate at a funeral and come with words of encouragement and consolation? Who do they think they are?
Apparently the president does not like it when these Bishops say of somebody that has died that “God has called him or her. But I always wonder, why does He only call Africans and not Europeans or Chinese?”

According to him, this is how all bishops should proceed with funeral services
“Dorene’s dead. Not that God called her or anything, she just died. In an accident. Dust to dust…”

Museveni then summoned Gen. Gutti (the commandant at Kabamba where Brian was doing Cadre training) to explain why all the other co-travelers in the same car weren’t as affected (i.e. why did they not die). Would it have made him feel any better had the other occupants of the fateful vehicle perished as well?

Sevo also revealed that State House maids do not scrub the bathtub thoroughly and that is why the other day ‘God had almost called him’ when he slipped in the tub.
Anyway, just wanted to say I enjoyed reading the story that featured this interview. Find it on page 28 Red Pepper November 11, 2009.

for BHH absentees

This BHH was boring.

I read all these tales of grandeur about the previous 2 BHHs and I was hoping to see for myself this time. That plus Heaven was really mean to me the last time I did not attend. There was a low turn up. Even those that came fashionably late were awfully early! By 7:30, the few of us who were there were trying desperately hard to come up with conversations that generated more than a ha ha, kyoka you!, yea I love your tattoo, I should have one done myself, except that I won’t sort of responses. It is tough being a BHH attending blogger I tell you. Especially when Cheri is not around or when Lucy has not promised us coverage!

Darlene is high on something I want in on. How else do you explain that she never tired of huggin, huggin, huggin, even the suspiciously smelling bloggers? Speaking of suspiciously smelling,
Spartakus, not that I am saying that he is smelly or anything, it is just that suspicious and Spartakus do rhyme. Although to be honest I found it strange that you preferred to squat rather than sit where somebody could take a whiff of you, but stranger things happen. Now, why is Spartakus always marketing something? Project Fame, Poetry recitals, Viagra, NSSF, Quest Net, the presidency, you’re selling it, he will find you the buyer!

Chanel
came up in the conversation mostly allegations about her Redpepper escapades but I refused to take part in that conversation coz you know, we used to be friends

Stretsyder
is really violent. He greeted me with a whack on the nose, which I thought was so the god’s must be crazy but I said nothing of the sort to him lest now he goes for my neck or something. Having managed to successfully avoid him the whole evening he caught up with me just before I left and he challenged me to arm wrestling. How barbaric is this person?. You can take a boy(yes I said it) off the street…

Gug was there. Or maybe he was not the one. Coz later the gug impersonator left with a chic. Either it was genuinely gug and they were off looking for a shopping mall or it was Hyena come to infiltrate the bogging community. I can already see the headline.

“Hyena hooks bummy blogger and shafts her from behind CafĂ© Pap before horny waitress begged for her turn.” Or some such. I am no expert at Hyena.

Roll call: Edge of Innocence rumor has it he was hanging around me a lot, if that is true, I did not notice and can he do better next time? Dusk, brought her full blown madness with her in form of fantastic knee length high heel boots.
Darlene the hugger. She has a Chinese tattoo. Sleek and wild who lo and behold is a GUY! I think we shared a moment. Guy, you confirm. Xiona. Nobody could pronounce her name, I doubt she is a blogger. Spartakus, he offered me tickets to project fame. i would like to formally turn them down here. StreetSyder whom I shall forgive for the nose whacking incident only because he has a way with words and I suspect he is always trying to show off at his blog. Solomon King who is the only living blogger that knows who The Emry’s is.Nevender's cousin. Nevender who tried to engage the Gug person in conversation which I thought was endearing.

“So gug, assuming you are gay, how is your boyfriend?”
“Which one, I have many. But they are all fine anyway”

BHH beepers included
Dante, who came in to show off his very nice vest and Nathan who used to run a fantastic blog and went by the name Magoo, he did not act as if he was showing off anything really so I guess for him he had good intentions.

I would have loved to see some veterans; Baz, Kissyfur, Tumwi, B2B etc.

Beyonce is slutty and the Sanyu breakfast show

Beyonce’s new (?) video ‘ego’ was showing on a music channel the other day when I started in surprise. Why, that thing looked just like ‘put a ring on it,’ why was she using the same video for two different songs? But she wasn’t. Just that in this video too, she was wearing one of those swimsuit costumy things that show off her bajingo and all those other things jay man should have patented when he put a ring on it.

Thing is, Beyonce, you do not have to go naked to be able to shoot music videos. It is getting annoying Bey. Also, please stop blaming your randiness on your alter ego. All I am saying Bey is that you do not have to sell your soul or thighs to make a good music video. Ok, so you are sexy, your curves are fantastically sculptured but get over it already! Although you do look good naked

I was surprised to wake up to Crystal on the Sanyu Breakfast show the other day. Turns out Melanie was not feeling well (they always say that). Anyway, so Crystal bless her, actually hosted a good show! Props to her for doing a mean press review actually breaking down and explaining the implications of the different newspaper items! I thought to myself, that’s just what we need! A brilliant person on morning radio and not just someone that will say ‘hmm’ or ‘oh yeah yeah’ or ‘am like yeah yeah yeah’ or ‘ha ha ha ah’ or’ moving swiftly on, or what else is new’ after they have read the day’s headline. You want to listen to a show that will inspire you, not people who make you feel smarter than you actually are. Kudos Crystal.

A friend of mine was joking (?) the other day that the only thing they say with conviction on the Sanyu breakfast show in when they are announcing the day’s special people.

Blame it on the weatherman

The President wore his best ‘pained expression’ as he looked around at all the stick thin people around him. “My fellow Africans and indeed good citizens of Somalia; it is unfortunate that this famine is threatening to wipe all of you out. Unfortunate because back home in Uganda, the fields are flourishing…”

“No Mr. President” whispered his most trusted aide who was by now perspiring in shame. “We are actually in Teso. It is a district in Uganda mind you…” at which point the president amended his speech and cut and paste the word Teso where previously was Somalia.

It has been a while since Uganda got associated with severe famine. Sure biting poverty does still rage on but an actual calamity where famine was killing off people like an epidemic has been out of the news for a while.
The famine in Eastern Uganda, Teso to be exact, which has claimed about 35 lives, has taken many of us by surprise. Some of us even first heard of it during the momentary gasps for air as we took a break from stuffing our already bulging stomachs. It is sad and we should be ashamed.

But not as ashamed as Andrew Bageire, Minister of State for Agriculture, and Tarsis Kabwegere, Minister of Relief and Disaster Preparedness who tried to water down this fiasco; Bageire by saying that the people of Teso were paying this heavy price for being lazy spending most of their time drinking ajon (local brew) instead of growing and stockpiling food and Kabwegere by insisting on describing it as a “food shortage” but not famine. (source; Observer)

Bageire also implied that their (Itesot) otherwise avoidable situation was compounded by the unpredictable weather changes because his ministry last month released sh910m to the Teso region for planting materials. His boss the President picked up on this and tried to ride on this as well going a step further to blame the Entebbe meteorological centre. Apparently these guys did not predict the drought. So then he called the guy at the weather center

“Hello? Yea. So then you are the manager of the weather station? ”

"Yes. We expect light showers around the lake Victoria region with sunshine expected at the source of the Nile. The rest of the country will be relatively…"

“Listen to me. I am the president calling. How come you did not predict sunshine and drought in Teso? Now my ministers are here looking foolish…”

"Is that true Mister President? How weird! Only last year there were floods. I never thought that all that water would have dried out by now. “

All this nonsense has not gone down well with the area MPs especially the females who walked out of parliament in protest over the insensitivity of the likes of Bageire and Kabwegere (read men) in reacting to this disaster. Tears rolled down the cheeks of two female MPs Rose Akol [Bukedea] and Akiror Agnes Egunyu [Kumi] in what was a grieving demonstration of the emotional toll of the famine. (SOurce; Daily Monitor)

Some industrious person was seen collecting those tears to go and try to produce food and water from it.

Only last night at 8:00pm in a posh house in Kololo, a frustrated mother is trying to force feed beef to his son who just had a chicken sandwich for an evening snack with a gold spoon. In Teso, a starved rainmaker can be heard over the cries for food asking for five kilos of meat before he can summon the rains.

Note; the writer has done absolutely nothing towards contributing to the famine victims. There is a Help famine victims corner at Garden City that I intend to make good use of after beating myself up in shame.
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