A great discovery

This is going to excite all the bachelors in the house. Because,
finally, the cure to your kitchen woes has been found. It is even more
exciting because I didn't spend reclusive days and nights in the
labaratory conducting several  experiments leading to this great
discovery.

Those who have not been there may not fully appreciate this simple-to-prepare yet special dish that is here to save us from the distresses that come with trying to fix a meal. If you have not had to throw away rice because it is too burnt or too watery and looking like
some stale pottage, if your tongue has not been burned like pepper as mine has been after putting way too much salt in my macaroni, then you will not appreciate the potency of my discovery.

With this discovery, we are not going to be hurried into marriage so that somebody can cook for us. You women are no longer going to brag that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his belly. Even
this fallacy that all men bumble in the kitchen whereas for women the art of cooking comes effortlessly, is going to be disproved. In fact, it already has because the last time I checked, a man was the bestchef in the world. 

Anyway, my discovery started with my beautiful neighbour
returning from the village after the New Year holiday, and knocking on
my door with a huge cluster of matooke. I don't like matooke and the
labour of peeling but it would have been rude to refuse the generosity
she moreover topped with a killer smile. So I accepted the provision
intending to pass it on to a friend who cooks. But I forgot until five
days later. By this time the cluster was beginning to yellow and I
found the idea of cooking ripe bananas irresistible. So I unwrapped
the peels with the dexterity of a monkey, filled my small saucepan,
sprinkled pounded groundnuts on top, added water and cooked.

A few minutes later I was having my meal, and oh how sweet!
All a bachelor has to do is buy some matooke, leave them a couple of
days to start ripening, peel, add pounded groundnuts and cook. That is
all it takes to have the quintessential bachelor's katogo that will
have you licking your fingers ravenously. How I would love le grand
chef Kadumukasa Kironde II to try it out and tell the world what he
thinks!!

Oh time be my ally

Beloved reader, welcome to the New Year and the first Sunday of 2013. Most of all, welcome back to reality after all the eating and lazing that defined Christmas and the New Year celebrations. I hope the holiday had anodyne effects on you after a year of hard labour. You need that freshness and readiness to confront the challenges that are already lurking and ready to pounce.  

oh time be my ally!

I’m talking about those New Year resolutions that fill the first few leaves of your sleek new 2013 diary and that are already begging for the implementation to begin! And if you are a nonconformist that abhors anything to do with resolutions, at least your boss or wife expects you to perform better than you did last year.  

Just in case you don’t realise, it is some good days into the New Year already. That says as much about the rashness of time. It’s a precious commodity that we cannot afford to squander. As it has been rightly said, time waits for no man. But I’m not saying it should hold us for ransom. And I’m not saying we should rush lest we crush. I’m only saying let’s utilize time better.  

Moreover diviners of pessimism have already spelled out that this year is going to be way tougher than the previous. They are partly right because there’s no worthy quest without a major test. And the person with the winning mentality cannot be intimidated. He's already preparing and when the test comes, it will get the best out of him.   

If you are saying it’s easier said than done, you’re among those that let others stifle their potential. Don’t listen to anyone with dispiriting words. We all enter this world naked and crying, meaning we share a measure of vulnerability and invisibility that make us fail or excel depending on our attitudes and approaches. Whereas some are busy unfurling their potential, others are busy becoming shrinking violets. Saying the odds against you are insurmountable is giving fear the license to rob you. Fear is that great robber that robs man of his greatness beforehand. One must therefore adopt a fearless stance to become a man or woman of substance.  

Also learn to encourage yourself through motivational literature. Find someone with whom you gel and motivate each other to the top through words and deeds. With this, you can make your life sublime, and as poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow beautifully put it, “leave footprints on the sands of time.” 

The lessons and the new melody

I remember it so well. The hour striking midnight and the fireworks

cracking through the Kampala sky seismically! It was special because
it was Sunday - a good sign that got me prophesying that 2012 would be
a year to "increase, bloom and make a difference."

The next thing I knew I was strapped into a rickety rocking
chair that was turning haltingly in circles I would rather forget. I
didn't buy my first car and didn't take my company to the level I had
hoped I would.  But it was not entirely hopeless. I bettered my work
ethic and made a difference that makes me want to gloat.

So let me speak with 'authority' about the things I know, the
things I learned. Let me share that in spite of the mistakes and
frustrations, and even the rip- off, there's always some sweet fruit
to reap, something always prevails from our travails.

You have heard it said that it takes vision and a good plan and
self-belief to make it. Even then I've learned that one can still
fail. The beauty of it however is that being down does not mean being
out. You cannot let a couple of failures distract you and obstruct the
fulfilment of your dream. It's time to change approach and rearrange
that masterplan.  It's time to renew our convictions to succeed.

To paraphrase actor Courtney B. Vance in the movie "The
Preacher's Wife", now is the time to judge not our past but our
future, not our failures but our dreams, not our imperfections but our
possibilities. Remember your columnist is not just an encourager but a
true friend that has his right arm wrapped around your shoulder
because I believe in the real you that was created to shine. I believe
we can change our prevailing circumtances and together redeem the
destiny of our country.

So let's rise and step forward into 2013 in love and with a new
approach. One that is action-oriented and bursting with optimism. And
if the going gets tough, we shall remind ourselves that we are tough
too but also reach for help because we are here to lift one another
up.

For now though, let's tear down the dancefloor with boogying. If
you have no achievements to celebrate, at least celebrate the fact
that you still have that precious breath and can start anew in 2013.
Happy New Year, and may your important dreams come true.

What Christmas is and is not

A joker posted on Facebook a picture of a bloody Santa Claus after getting knocked down by a car. A man is weeping over the tragedy and the caption reads: "No Christmas for me: Santa is dead!" I like the underlying message: Christmas brings more misery than joy if you really think about it. And that's only because we wait to do good and be generous around this time when we ought to do this everyday. 
    
Moreover, Christmas gifts ceased being about goodwill so long ago that there is no longer shame in demanding for them. That's why somebody will be dumped for not buying the "perfect gift!" Last Christmas a friend of mine received a brand new smart phone from his brother abroad. As soon as his girlfriend saw it, she cajoled and employed all tricks in the book to own it but failed. She then threw a 'tight' tantrum, asking my friend to choose between her and his phone.  
 

"Gifts are exchanged by people who can barely sit in the same room without suffering severe nausea," wrote a Monitor journalist in a recent article, aptly capturing the hypocrisy and superficiality associated with Christmas giving. 

Well, the optimist is saying it's high time we returned to the basics of doing it the right way. The Ugandan Police shouldn't come out now to say bars will close at 10pm on Christmas. This should be an everyday phenomenon if children are to have quality time with their parents and grow up to become responsible citizens. 

 There are also those people who are clueless about the essence of Christmas.  All they know is that from mid December until the New Year kicks in, they have to let their spirits loose and party like the world is coming to an end. "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year," they holler in deep voices they believe to be flawless replication of Santa's, and clink their glasses in multiple toasts. And on the second day of January, they are broke, heavily indebted and thoroughly restless.

 It's for this and more that we should not jump on the bandwagon. Refuse to be blackmailed into buying a gift you cannot afford. Refuse to give something if you don't want to. For Christmas is not about the hullabaloo that is rending the atmosphere already. It's about loving and sharing and being there for one another all year through.

--This was first published in the Sunday Monitor of December 23, 2012

………

The ladder of happiness

A television ad shows a young man saying he would buy a ladder if he won Shs200m. At first I found the idea not just funny, but ridiculous. But I have since had to reconsider seeing he could have been speaking symbolically. Maybe the ladders are the networks he would build to take him to the top and give him the satisfaction that is elusive to most of us.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised how much I need a ladder too. I need one with huge rungs to take us (family, friends and colleagues) up the festive tree in whose branches we shall pluck the fruits of happiness and connection that we missed sharing together much of this year because of the busy-ness of our lives.

Christmas with Dad many years ago

It never used to be this way. That is why you often hear of the "good old days." Today individualism has infiltrated the hearts of men and women and taken the place of communal love so much that children no longer look to elders for meaningful Christmas. Now it is a fat, mystical creature with a freaky laugh and a long white beard that children look to. In my time we never heard of Santa. All I remember is the entire clan celebrating together with lots of eats and music and laughter whose memories sustained us to the next Christmas.

And the only way that true spirit of festivity can return is if everyone makes it a deliberate plan to bless someone; not just a family member, but a neighbour or even stranger. I learnt it does not take much during a recent visitation upcountry. I asked a boy what he wanted and he said bread. This was no milk-teethed child but a chirpy Primary Three pupil who tops his class every term. He was barefooted and in shorts that needed some mending. Yet he did not ask for shoes or some expensive toy children his age dream about nightly. He asked for bread.

I'm sure every reader of this column has the capacity to return to the village with a sack of rice or a box of soap. You would be amazed the difference a loaf of bread, a kilo of meat or sugar can make in the life of a disadvantaged individual. It could make this their best festive season. So get your ladder and help someone climb to the level of happiness never before reached. It will multiply your joy too

Giving royal love a chance

"Love is so beautiful baby when you find it you gotta cherish it yea yea..." A song like this playing on the stereo must get Prince David Wassajja singing along whereever he is! The young brother of Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi recently gave Mengo a sigh of relief after finally finding his "missing rib" in Marion Nankya who he is meant to wed early next year.

The Prince and his Marion

At only 46 and with his love in her 20s, it’s flabbergasting that the Internet is already inundated with malicious stories of how he is way too old for her, and how she doesn’t love him; that the rustle of his money and the privileges that come with royality were too alluring to resist. The implication is that the poor girl is a gold-digger and shameless opportunist. The detractors went on that she may get all the silver and gold in the world, but that she will find the Prince, who allegedly is a satyr who loves his parties and women, too hard to tame.

These speculations and prejudices that people harbour in their innermost hearts are frankly contemptible. The pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right that the Prince should be left to enjoy without people picking his private life apart and pointing discriminative fingers at his age. What if he took long to marry? Must love be harried for one’s morals to find validation?

As for Nankya, she is not the daughter of a pauper. Her father is the well-off MP for Bukoto South Hon. Mathias Nsubuga who has given his daughter a good life. Besides, she is educated, intelligent and beautiful and does not therefore need to sponge off Mengo to live a good life. Rather work harder on your own relationship and resurrect the spark, or find your own love instead of blabbering as the prince and his bride-to-be seek to be happy.

The two are certainly a perfect match. Nankya should be congratulated for 'stealing the prince's heart, and the prince should be applauded for realising it's time he settled down. With his maturity, wealth, exposure and love for a life of glitter, he will make the best husband for a modern lady as "smoking hot" as Nankya.

Also, be sure that with his alleged experiences with other women, he will not be fumbling about in the dark when it comes to intimate moments of married life. The Kabaka is assured of beautiful nieces and handsome nephews to play on his laps since Prince Richard Ssemakokiro must now be too big for that.

The power of chance in the love equation

Right now, if you ask about the most beautiful woman in the world, I might be tempted to tell you with all my heart about Ruth Komuntale Thomas, but then you do not want Christopher Thomas coming after me with an American shotgun, do you? Anyway, when the two lovebirds sighed and locked hands and gazed into each faces with amorous eyes on the day they wedded, I took stock of this thing called love and by the end had agreed with American rapper DJ Maj that 'true love is mere chance.'

Thomas and Ruth after their wedding

I can relate with that because often the people we love do not love us and the people that love us we do not love them. Yet I have seen chance take precedence whereby two strangers meet, fall in love and begin to exist together as one in marriage and happily so. And for that, it is high time our conservative society slowed down on pushing people into marriage instead of letting chance do its thing.

Someone is fresh out of school and suddenly his family is on his case to get married, or is threatened with excommunication should he marry from a certain tribe. Why hasten love when it is obvious it will always come? Man would be incomplete without it- or to put it bluntly, without a wife to make love to without feeling guilty. God was not goofing when He created them male and female, not only for procreation, but for companionship as well.

But then the world has created its own dictates about love and relationships and we are better off defying them. I have said it on this page before and I want to repeat that conformity is deformity. When you love for money or to please your parents, or when you love because time is running out, that love is bound to grow cold sooner than later and suffer the fate of salt that loses its saltiness.

This is why we must oblige that invisible force that brings together two people that are meant to be. So, instead of feeling betrayed by Komutale for marrying a 'foreigner' or instead of hating on Thomas, let us appreciate that the love they found in each other has won. They were fated to find each other.

Meanwhile, stay optimistic for someone somewhere is waiting for you. Take your risk, remembering as that famous Roman poet Ovid wrote that, "Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."