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Life dishes out surprises at every corner

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s a feeling of dread. Maybe you’ve experienced it before.

You’re heading home from a hard day at the office, negotiating through fellow commuters  and suddenly the hunger pangs demand that you give attention to your stomach. Visualising that supper at home 2hrs away just isn’t cutting it and in any case, knowing that you will be going it alone as your partner has had to answer to an urgent call-out means a takeaway is the remaining viable option.

The enticing takeaway joints are just too much as you make it to your connecting terminal for the last leg of your commute.  Will it be sushi or a cornish pastie? Or perhaps a skinny latte with a cookie? I really dislike that description. Why the need to give fancy names to what is basically coffee in milk,I give up! In this case white coloured liquid with coffee, is something I’ve long given up hope in asking. 

But I’m hungry and I haven’t eaten since…well, let’s just not go there. The sushi bar has run out of stuff and I don’t fancy a pastry. I definitely don’t want to eat rice. So that leaves good Ol’ McDonald! Quick fix it’ll be! 

No sooner I’m I sat down trying to chomp through my meal, when some guy arrives asking if I don’t mind sharing my table as he proceeds to drop off his laptop case and some other bag in the chair opposite me. At least I think that’s what he’s asking. I’m listening to Tony Braxton banging on about some dude who is So yesterday! I think I replied to the guy… because he went off and left me to mind his property. 

Midstream of Tony’s so Yesterday rendition, I think to myself, crap! Could this guy have left me to look after something that could cost me a chance to live out my life to old age? What exactly did he say to me anyway?  I should have taken the takeaway option and eaten on the tube – much to the annoyance of fellow commuters.

As I’m about to raise my concern to the staff, the owner returns mumbling something about there not being anyone to give him a direct answer. He then proceeds to get on all fours to plug his laptop in to the power socket. He is rather of a generous frame in body and believe me, for such a person of this size to do that, you too would stop mid-track to witness. I now deduce what he initially said. He asked if I didn’t mind him sharing my table because it was near to a power socket. 

By this time, I’ve listened to Tony Braxton’s Yesterday and unto to her affirmation that she’s all Woman. Who actually would question her on this? My meal almost over, I’m contemplating what next when my temporary table sharing guy goes back to his all fours routine. Weird things happen to me …but it so happens he’s in search of his earphones that dropped. Apologetically he tells me he’s not a perve.  I tell him, he shouldn’t be that much concerned. Given the way I’m dressed, he’d need to have x-ray vision and besides, looking never hurt so long as it never led to touching, I tell him.

Big mistake. I think. For somebody that only intended to make a pit-stop I got drawn in to a fascinating story of a man who has been a global traveler that claims to have worked for a mining company in Africa, ex-soldier-cum-catholic charity aider. He said he was born in Angola, considered his home as being Congo but had an American passport (and accent) which prevented him from drawing European benefits even though his family resided in Belgium! Are you confused?  So was I. But he had battle scars and the way of the homeless about him which was rather tragic given his age. The laptop is just a ruse to enable him to get in to places and rest his feet/body for a while and even catch some sleep amongst fellow humans that will not aim to make off with it.

I find it fascinating listening and observing fellow humans. Perhaps this is what drew my humanity to empathise. From the narratives of his life’s journey, I deduced a lonely old, but proud man albeit still cunning enough to survive. For how long though, is anyone’s guess.  Maybe he spurn me a yarn for audience and some cash donation, but given how he was able to talk about how he got from being a high flyer residing in a prestigious part of London’s Mayfair to being a homeless person, touched at the human soul. Life dishes out surprises at every corner that you can never be certain what will be coming around.

Karma is indeed a powerful thing. For his sake, I hope he can make peace with his ghosts and family. Where possible, spare a thought or deed for fellow humans.

Why solidarity is a challenge among some in the African communities

building in progressThe idea to pop in to our nearest DIY shop only took on out of being asked to wait for another hour to get the car’s headlights aligned in order to have it pass its annual MOT.  Otherwise, given the fact that I felt like death warmed over and the weather outside further compounding the pitiful situation, my bed would have been the better alternative straight after the necessary car service.

Topps Tiles is not a DIY shop I’ve frequented before although I have heard of it and seen their TV adverts.  Normally we head down to Homebase if we need to work on anything around the home.  But this time round given the vicinity to this particular one to the place our car was being serviced, and the awful weather, we found ourselves dropping in. It was purely out of curiosity on my part – but also to get out of the rain and cold I must admit.

I have to say, this “window shopping” episode turned out to be quite an eye-opener. I am not saying I’m leaving Homebase – that would be silly given that they do have more of a range on offer in their stores.  But when it comes to specialisation in the tiles or wood flooring, I am won over by Topps Tiles.  We were very impressed by the range of services they had but more so, their sales staff who went out of their way to give us full attention, guidance and advise, even throwing in a free DIY DVD that trains you how to lay tiles etc!  It is a pity the costs of exporting most of what we want to use abroad in another building project outweighs our budget, but if this wasn’t the case, I would most definitely buy and export.  Still we were very impressed by all we learnt and saw.

The sales person giving me a set of business cards for people who could come and lay the tiles down for us after purchase brought me to recall a fellow Ugandan in the diaspora who is in this line of work.  I was about to start searching through my contacts when something my husband said stopped me. You see, being a very private individual, my husband is very cautious about who he allows in to our home – especially if they happen to be from Uganda. Experience has made him evolve to guard his private dealings.  Some of this caution I have come to appreciate stems from the lack of confidentiality or inability to isolate in a professional manner what is work, from social affairs of discourse.

Perhaps it is a cultural thing from having lived abroad for so long by both us in that it is disconcerting to head to a shop to purchase something and for the owner or sales person of the shop to lay claim to knowing you so well that he/she will happily share this knowledge (sometimes imagined or assumed) with whomever pops along or cares to listen. Or to expect you to know so and so in the Ugandan community, the current politics of this and that etc…basically the assumed social elements that appear to be so natural but which unfortunately come across as intrusive if not inquisitive.

My guess is that this is why most Africans shy away from utilizing their kinsmen. This, or the old adage: familiarity breeds contempt.  It is easier to pay someone to come do a job you’ve contracted them to and not worry about them using the opportunity to fill up on information for their social networks as to who is who and what they do or have to anyone willing to give audience.

Lack of professionalism in relation to undertaking work of any kind remains any to some persons and sadly this is not just in contractual work of this nature alone, but in other areas such as in nursing and beyond. It is partly why most persons in the African communities would not share the causes of their illness or any social issues.  This is costing Africans solidarity in being able to pool together resources, skills and finances that would bring about sustained positive empowerment and development.

I would dearly love to utilise the skills of my fellow kinsmen but how can I obtain guarantee that their only stake in working the job given is to ensure it is restricted to just that without coming across as being a snob or a pompous individual?

How are Technology and Agriculture Working Together?

See on Scoop.it – Climate Smart Agriculture

This year’s National Institute for Animal Agriculture conference provided a cross-section of the livestock industry unlike any other event. Gathered in one location are Beef, Dairy, Swine, Poultry, Sheep, Goats, Aquaculture – every important segment of meat protein production in the U.S.

 

Presentations being published at: http://www.trufflemedia.com/agmedia/article/2013/05/01657/how-are-technology-and-agriculture-working-together

See on www.trufflemedia.com

Mind the miniskirt – we are Uganda!

Pictures of scantily clad women in night clubs often get flashed on social network forums by individuals I suspect to be “marketing” venues or scheduled entertainment for all sorts. In a country like Uganda which has no coastline, it is not surprising to find advertising for bikini-themed events as the latest in-thing. Uganda is like a sponge of some sorts.

Everything is copied in excess, sadly not necessarily all positive. When you hear of strip-clubs these ends (developed/western world) that are most often licensed, in Uganda they don’t bother with licence, they will go all out with live adult entertainment that will leave very little to the imagination of what karmasutra did for Indians.

It is very little wonder therefore that you will find the dress-code of a lap-dancer or Beyonce’s/Lil Kim’s raunchy stage attire being confused for walking about in and around the streets of Kampala etc. ‘Adult social working’ has many faces – and this does not pass by those that find the source of earning to be fruitful from this venture either. They will use whatever means necessary to compete for punters and the little miniskirt is often window dressing code that has been borrowed and abused. Thing is though, with most things these days being fake, fast and preferably portable in a microscopic manner – so has the miniskirt become; give or take without anything else to cover the next layer of secrecy of the “female form” – not wearing knickers.  I think celebrities gave this a platform launch – who can forget Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, or Britney Spears just before her meltdown?

You see, I can be clean and avoid using words that will get pastors or “people of god” to not form at the mouth at my vulgarity. Though why such organs of the human body offend some just by mere mention is a debate not worth embarking on.

My contention with the miniskirt is not so much about the motives of those who opt to dress in it, but with the whole parliament of Uganda (a very large one at that of 301 ministers if I’m to be corrected making it the 3rd largest in the world) utilising tax payers time and money to discuss a ban of it.   This is in a government that has failed to look at its existing legislature on licensing for adult entertainment as well as consumption and sell of alcohol.  Instead religious dictae is to be forced under the guise of moral enforcement where it has failed even to enact personal responsibility and accountability to fight corrupt practices that is killing off all institutions? Puleeeze!  Why not ban cars too for being a dangerous hazard to road users especially if the persons behind the wheels are airheads full of ego only open to be laid astray by a piece of meat dressed in a skimpy attire?

Constant transit

In dream-aspiration I try my level best to spend a fair bit of my time focusing on positive strategies for an uncertain future. This is mostly because the other way of looking at the future would be as a big flashing ‘here be dragons’ sign.  And that could prove daunting on many levels.

Like most persons out there, we know what’s happening out there in the big wide world. Or at least we think we do even if it is in relation to our given exposures and curiosity.  I know that there are gigantic problems, some global, some not so but that whoever is at the receiving end of their wake feels similar emotions and hardships.  I am aware that the society I reside in and climate is changing,  - we’ve just experienced the very first snow out of season and the fuel bills will definitely reflect this!

I also I’m increasingly aware that my grandchildren’s world will definitely not look like this one – if anything, my great-grandchildren may not even look aesthetically or even genetically like me or my parents thanks to plastic surgery and nanotechnology.  Everything changes in this universe. We are in constant transit.

It’s scary stuff. And yes, it does sometime keep me awake some but not most nights. But then it’s morning again. The birds, bless them, still manage the morning chorus

My message to you? Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

I wish you enough.