On Friendship

If you become friendly only when you need something from people and after getting it you retreat back to your busy life, people will learn to play your tricks too when you need them. That thought struck me recently when I got a text message from a 'stranger' who called me a "close friend." I was taken aback because I had not seen or heard from this guy in over five years even though we both live and work in Kampala. Yet he wrote: "As one of my close friends I expect you at my wedding meetings starting next Thursday."

Where there's true friendship there's regular contact

I had to whip out my dictionary to be sure I had not forgotten the meaning of "close." For in my world, just having gone to the same school and sat in the same class, is not enough to quality us as "close" friends. Where there is true friendship there is regular contact. Friends call or meet often to talk politics, business, and crack jokes over tea and boiled maize or something. But when you are too tied up in your affairs to check on people, how do you expect them to respond positively when you need them?

I was once told a story of a rich man who rarely showed up back in the day when things used to be done communally. He would just send money with a note that he was too busy to attend personally. One day,
he lost his son. The villagers collected money and sent it to the rich man with a note that they were too busy to get involved physically. And in those days, companies that offer funeral services were
nonexistent.

There is more that life throws at us that we cannot go through alone however rich we might be. Sudhir Ruparalia must have had this at the back of his mind when he said to Meera and Ravi at their recent
wedding:  "A man's wealth is not judged by the size of his bank account but by the number of his friends."

When a man loves a woman

Let us end the Valentine's week by talking about the love between a man and a woman. To the ladies who often ask, "How do I truly know a man loves me?" this is for you.

When a man loves a woman he'll put a ring on her finger so she can carry his name as a badge of honour

When a man loves a woman, he will never cheat on her. Never! He will find other women that throw themselves at him repulsive, however beautiful, they might be. That does not mean he has to profess a zillion times in a day how much he loves you. A man who does that is often a player.

Talk is cheap.To a man who loves, actions speak louder than thunder, even in his subtlety. If you are an intuitive woman, you will know how much you are loved without even hearing the "three magical words." There will be love in the way he looks in those lovely eyes of yours, in the way he holds your hands, in the tenderness of his text messages, in the attention he showers upon you, and in the care he takes in choosing the gifts he give you, and in the way he speaks to you.

It is widely acknowledged that men love sex. If a man says he does not love sex, he is a shameless liar or a capon. God, we love sex! Yet, paradoxically, when a man truly loves a woman, sex with her is the last thing on his mind. His interest in her is holistic, not just the cookie she has to offer. He wants you for the rest of his life, and his single preoccupation from the moment he meets you, will be to put a ring on your finger so you can carry his name as Mrs...(insert your man's name) as a badge of honour.

A man who truly loves you knows you meticulously. He knows what puts a smile on those rosy lips of yours. He knows what to say and what to do both in the good and bad times. He knows your kind of music or your kind of book. If you are a chocolate lady, he knows your kind of chocolate, if you are the romantic type he knows when to take you for moonlight strolls. Basically he will love you like you have never been loved before.

In all, a man who loves you, will do anything. I mean ANYTHING for the woman he loves.

Experience Vs. Theory

I recently returned to school to pursue a course that has always fascinated me. Yet as I sat through the first lesson, a question kept nudging: why are you studying? Is it so you can improve your chances for a better life, help humanity or are you studying to gain clout as a learned gentleman?
   

About a fortnight ago tens graduated from Makerere University and more are returning there for post-graduate studies. Ugandans today are attaching great symbolism to the acquisition of knowledge. It makes me wonder if it makes sense in the end.

Let the practical man speak

Most people who have gone on to achieve exponentially have studied in the school of life, not in formal classrooms. Consider men like Hassan Basajjabalaba, Gordon Wavamuno even Sudhir Ruparelia. Another man who calls the shots in the transport sector with his buses is a mukiga named Kanagizi. He likes to humour himself saying he does not have an "OB" because he never went to school. But his affluence has made him an influence  to important people. Even the president visits him in his home. 

"I can count a sack of millet!" he like to brag of his ingenuity with arithmetic that makes financial sense.

 It does not really change the fortunes of a nation like Uganda to sit in a classroom and be asked to "Describe and critically comment on the way the respective poets contrive and portray the descent into the underworld in Homer's The Odyssey and Virgil's The Aeneid.

 If the essence of living and fulfillment is to love and serve one another, then we must learn the hard way in the school of life, not in the boardroom with the teachers who would rather teach through handouts than eat the dust of chalk. It is true that education is the only way out of ignorance into the glorious light, as one actor puts it, but it has to be the all-inclusive education - mostly education attained on the job. I would rather have Wavanuno teach me how to make money than an economics professor at Makerere University. 

Let the man with a theory sit down, and let the man with the experience; one who has done it practically and has the fruits to show for it stand up and speak.

Let us save

Did you know that small-scale traders in St. Balikuddembe Market have a savings scheme? It is mandatory for each one of them to save Shs1,000 a day? Currently most of them live in their own houses. Simple, they might be, but they do not rent.

In Africa, you are not a man until you build or buy your own house. And as the costs of living rise by the day, the only way you are going to build without stealing is to start saving now. Saving is the discipline of putting some money aside for future use.

If you want a comfortable life work and save hard for it

Times always come that necessitate spending without earning; times of sickness and old age. Even the ants spend the summer saving food for winter. Start preparing for your winter too. The former minister and MP who didn't do that was recently ejected from a house for failure to meet rent costs -- the price of squandering the huge salary and allowances earned in his VIP days.

You cannot say your income is too paltry to save some. You cannot say you don't work so you have nothing to save either. Where then do you get money to buy your girlfriend chips? Just cut your costs! Any penny saved counts. One by one makes a bundle.

And use that brain to generate more income-generating ideas. Scientists say the average person uses only 10 per cent of their brain capacity. Do not be that average person!

If you are a spendthrift who cannot help himself, put your money onto a fixed deposit account where you cannot reach it. Remember saving is not for the fainthearted; it calls for assertiveness and self-control.

I used to be one of those people who used to spend recklessly until I learned to respect hard-earned money. Yes, money does not grow on trees so learn to spend it prudently. That's the secret of personal financial management.