NO…,NO…,NO-NO!

Three haircuts and different colour tints, binge eating, terrible mood swings and interrupted work schedules later, I still don’t have a passport, and I will not get it.

 It is a no deal, the passport officer put his foot down; no Ugandan passports shall be issued to my kind- don’t ask me what kind that is.

Even after that recommendation letter from my place of work, and another from the Prime Minister, and a meeting with the Minister of State for Internal Affairs, he (the passport officer) wasn’t going to be swayed.

He said to me that he could give me the passport, but then he would have to give up his job since he was sure they would fire him any way. Must be tough, his job.  Maybe I should have known earlier on that meeting with him, and or his people, every once a week for the last three months with a different and “more Ugandan Girl look” wouldn’t help any.  Now that I think about it, I could have instead invented a new name, as one of his people had hinted, and denounced my dead mother, since as it is, she is the major reason –bless her- why I couldn’t get the to-die-for passport.

And what is this big sin she committed, which now, more than 20 years later I discover that I have inherited? She was Ugandan of Rwandan origin; her great grand parents were Rwandan- that is the major ’stain’.

See, she could have had me with a Munyakole, Muganda or an Acholi man, but that is not important now because she chose to name me-, names that are, according to everyone at Internal Affairs office, a label of my Rwandaness. It doesn’t even help matters that she decided to have just her side of the family- who are in every way citizens of this country- raise me.  I have, until recently (now am confused), lived, loved and generally carried on as a Ugandan. Because that is who I am, right?   No one at the immigration office cares that I hold a voters card and have been voting since I turned 18.

Maybe one doesn’t really have to be Ugandan to vote in this country after all considering that one of the staff members informed me that any one can get a voter’s card, and just about any one can forge a birth certificate and basically any one can lie about being Ugandan and  with legal backing.

 And that they, because they are the professionals, know how to tell a non-Ugandan a part from a Ugandan, (little miracles!) and no, according to them, I am definitely not Ugandan, because look at my surname! Did some one mention that this country is devoid of geniuses?!

I have tried to adopt a sense of humor about this whole circus that not getting a Ugandan passport really was. Because, lets face it, you do not have both the passport officer- he seems like a good man by the way- and the immigration office lawyer- who always came off as absolutely uninterested in my case- ask you to apply for Ugandan citizenship then turn around (literally), and in the same breath, assure you that it would still not be easy for this citizenship to be granted, because, hmm, you don’t exactly have any grounds on which to apply for it. You are, in other words, not exactly a non-citizen .

And it is at this point that the lawyer, almost serious for once, advises me to get myself a Ugandan man, trick him into marrying me and then make sure that we are a happily married couple for the next seven years. And then, only then, shall I qualify as a Ugandan.

Who knew that I- with all my independent woman rhetoric- would one day need to be defined by a man who, poor soul will actually be doing it involuntarily?!So I have had to not take this learned person’s advice, after all, seven years of marital bliss is a lot like those fairy tale stories from which I stay very far. 

From Me to er, Me.

Hi little woman; its been really long since we last were  together. I miss you. How could you just up and leave. Just like that?! no letter, no warning, not even an offline.

You could have hinted, you know. told me you were over it, or almost over it. Informed me that you couldnt go on like that, living my life, listening to my stupid little, almost hilarious lies. You could have complained, even slightly about the carelessnes that i have started to carry my heart with. you had a say in it all, a right to give me an ultimatum to either choose you or my reckless ways. Although, i never thought of my ways as reckless, and i dont think i carry my heart around carelessly.

Oh wait, this is the reason  you up and left- without a word. You knew i would be defensive, start claiming how i know what am doing and that it is right for us. because i am the body that carries you. You are just a soul, the world doesnt need u. It has been running steady (crazily steady) without u for this long. why would i need you. You knew about all these, my subconcious thoughts.

But you should also have known that i am no good without you. I am nothing. A body. a shell. and the world needs me only from a distance. am no use upclose. because am all empty.

Now i sit here; all alone, empty, cold, hollow and more many of which i will mention soon as find the appropriate words.

When this month began, i promised myself i would come out and search for you. but you hid so far. And because its dark and scary, in the places where i have gotten stuck while trying to find you (no, i am not blaming you)- i have become too frightened to try and search  farther. To go on farther into lost land. To search around blindly, bumping into shadows and undefined forms.

Maybe if you were here, i would know where to go, where to search, which lead to follow. But then again, if you were, i wouldnt need to go around searching in the first place.

And in this cold, dark, damp in where am stuck, i have met owls, rats, one or two doves that have also turned to no good in a place like this and different kinds of vultures. There times when i decided to stick with the no-good doves. But they were no good, so i moved on. Then i thought about the rats, but come on, even in the movie Ratatouille  i couldnt shed off that feeling that they are rats ughrrrrr. So no i never did get around to them. i actually have stayed very far away from them.

So I am with the vultures. They have a way with me. They know how to make me laugh, make me feel needed and wanted, they know when to shut up, and start listenining. But they also are vultures. So they’ve been nibbling, chewing on me, and little by little they have eaten all of this shell that is me.

Now i need you. I need you to rescue me. come to me, you know where I am.

Please come for me. come be with me. 

A Poem By Antipop (for me)

A beautiful world

The kind we have not seen before

Where mad men don’t drive on our streets

Where we talk, not just speak and shout

Where you hum and I strum a guitar

And together make beautiful music

That world 

But all I see is this dark mass

Where I hate my coat, you hate your shoes

Slaves speak of bravery, as snails dream of racing

But empty is what the world is

Devoid of the beautiful soul, you see in a baby’s eyes

Man this world

And now with thoughts and wishes,

I pray for peace.I pray for love. I pray for patience

A kind that’s faithless,

And yet I still pray

That the world becomes a safe dwelling for us all

The world.

The V-Monologue: a Phybie Special

Like the original vagina monologues, this one is not about my ‘Grey Anatomy’, no.  It is about the things that i as a woman, uniquely go through, in silence…. i cannot speak of them, especially in public. when i have to talk about them, it must be with a fellow woman, and in hushed tones- even when it is just the two of us in the room; the world has got invisible ears my friend.

It is things like my period. I am not supposed to say that i have a period- even if it was my first. And when the cramps kick in, mine can be terrible sometimes (there are times when, for a full hour, i have thought i am goin to die), and i cant go to work, am not supposed to tell my boss excatly why i wont be able to make it to office that day.

When i tell him, or any other person who asks why my face is cringing, why am crying and why i cant sit still, they make this face of “too much information.”

I try to let my boyfriends know about my cycle (obviously it changes, so its not like my exes keep tabs on me), only so they can understand why am irritable, and overly sensitive (emotionally) sometimes.

The most heated arguments i have had, have been  when am experiencing PMS. it makes me a whole different person. I cry easily, i get frightened by even the slightest thing, i get pissed off by the tiniest of things…

So why am i blogging about this today?!

I am experiencing my dose of feb. Pre-Menstraul Symptoms; and i have become a little vegetable as a result.

Last night i witnessed a hit and run accident at the Jinja road round-about. it was a govt veichle, the new toyota hilux, grey; hit a boda-boda guy and his female passanger. They died on the spot, or atleast they were both unconscious, and i highly doubt that either one of them is going to live (if they werent already dead).

It was, for me, closer to home. i was, even right then, on a boda-boda. my friends use them just as often… so that lady could have been me or any one my friends. I went numb, then i was shaking, then i started to cry. i havent stopped crying.

I am pretty sure if this had happened on any other day, i would have been able to talk about it, to tell the story, to get mad at that driver who had no respect for the red light. I would be trying to get past it. I would have stopped crying, carrying on with the attitude “poor Souls.”

But this is not one of those normal days. i am experiencing pms. So you go figure

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SPICE GIRLS?!

 

 

A Letter to My Fav. Bachelor (part.1)

Everyone falls in love sometime
Sometimes it’s wrong, and sometimes it’s right
For every win, someone must fail
But there comes a point when
When we exhale (yeah, yeah, say)

Chorus:
Shoop, shoop, shoop
Shoop be doop, shoop, shoop

Sometimes you’ll laugh
Sometimes you’ll cry
Life never tells us, the when’s or why’s
When you’ve got friends, to wish you well
You’ll find your point when
You will exhale (yeah, yeah, say)

chorus

Hearts are often broken
When there are words unspoken
In your soul there’s answers to your prayers
If you’re searching for a place you know
A familiar face, somewhere to go
You should look inside yourself
You’re halfway there

Sometimes you’ll laugh
Sometimes you’ll cry
Life never tells us, the when’s or why’s
When you’ve got friends, to wish you well
You’ll find your point when
You will exhale (yeah, yeah, say)

Many a girl  have run to Miss Whitney Houston in times like these