Sports Day or rather circus day

I really don’t know what it was. But we all stayed standing in the hot sun cheering! We looked like we had been glued to our positions. Or like we were being paid to be extras in some movie.
The higher the sun rose, the more we cheered on. When our throats got dry, we opened our big bags and drunk so more water...or quickly ran to the water seller under the big jackfruit tree and bought a cold soda!
It simply was magic and fun watching as adults in all colours and sizes screamed and clapped their hands as they cheered on their children, grand children, nephews, nieces or possibly neighbours or friend’s children on the track field.

The place was Daffodils Nursery Academy track field. The event: The annual sports day.Children all under 6 years were competing in what I think was track and field. Because from the programme I could see, relay, going to school race, ball picking race..and so many ridiculous names.
Competition it was promised was going to be tight after all, these children had been practicing for about a month.

On Saturday as we dropped them off to the field at 8am clad in tshirts of different colours to reflect their different houses. I thought to myself there was going to be WAR!! The children looked mean and tough…they were only short of painting their faces with black ink…but no.. wait a minute...these are black kids, so they don’t need black oil :) .

Ok, I take that back…been watching too many movies :)

Anyway, I should have guessed from the way they sang both the school anthem that it was far from a competition .

The games begun and like I have rightly, put it, they were games. The children run slower than tortoises and were more confused than a maze!! It was amusing the way, they crisscrossed lanes but still managed to be crowned as winners in the various categories.

My nephew and niece were placed in the same race named " Go to school". The plot was easy...run pick up a backpack from the ground, place in the container that was lined next to it and then make off to the finishing line. I saw their teacher turned "coach" give each of them lat minute instructions and my excitement grew! Now this was it...world class competition. Was about to grab the microphone from the announcer and say : " ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for. Now seat back and watch this world class act.And for those with kids in this competition, all I can say is : Watch as they swallow the dust"

Jared second from the right and Jasmine third from the left

My nephew started off well, picked his pack, run to the container...all the time, I was screaming...go, go, go , go Jared! But then what does he do. As soon as he zipped the bag, he waited on for his (slow) sister to finish the process. He could have been the first, but no, Jared waited till his sister finished then they run together. I didnt know whether to cheer on or cry:)Well atleast they came in 3 and 4 out of 8.

By this time, all the adults were in a frenzy cheering . I guess this noise is what pissed off some children who then decided demanding for “mummy” and “ daddy”. As the sun rose higher, announcements like “Will the parent of x please come for him/her” were more common than the soap bubbles being blown by the older kids standing at the sidelines.
The future Usain Bolts, Asafa Powell, or Florence Griffith-Joyners were no longer amused by the different t shirt colours and caps that their parents had put on to match theirs. They had played and were tired. Period!
I stopped watching the track and I enjoyed as other parents were called to pick their rebellious little ones. The kids clamped on to their parent’s legs and were soon starting a screaming or should I say lung exercising competition. Which I guess would have overpowered the set activities. I watched in amusement and openly showed it until my nephew joined the rebellious list.
From then, thanks to my nephew and several others’ cry babies the house colour I was cheering, we made it first from the bottom!

Chaos as I say Sayonara Japan

I wrote this piece as I was on transit to Nairobi from Japan. I had forgotten about it till today. It has brought back alot of memories of what happened between Japan and Nairobi.


On April 23, 2009, the moment that I knew was going to happen but wasnt really prepared for actually happened.I knew that time would come when I said bye to Okinawa. I cant believe I crossed that sayonara bridge and there were lots of tears involved. I am surely going to miss everyone.. Each one in their own special way was a star. They contributed something to my life. I am eternally grateful to each person I met in Okinawa.

My flight to Tokyo passed in a daze because part of me wasn’t believing that it had actually happened.
Now as I seat in a black chair in Schipol airport waiting for the final flight to connect, I believe
that I actually left. What has been most exciting…well it has to be the luggage fiasco at Narita airport in Japan! One of my travel mates had excess luggage. The Japanese ladies at the counter got firm on her and requested that she off loads it! It wasn’t a pretty sight. After what seemed like hours of intense discussion, we removed the excess luggage and shared the excess luggage amongst the three of us and off we went. That problem was solved.

So we head to Sakura lounge...a VIP lounge for Japanese in transit. We had some refreshments in a hurry and went to check in. After check in, I realise that I had left my beautiful army camouflaged bag (hand luggage) in the lounge. You should have seen me running back like a mad woman! I was glad that I remembered when I did- before I entered the plane! As I was passing the ladies at the check in counter…looking like Usain Bolt’s fiercest competitor, one of them stopped me. I explained and she sent one of her colleagues to bring the luggage. She told me to go and sit…as I entered the plane, the door was closed!
After 3 minutes of not hearing a thing from the hostesses and yet the plane was beginning to move to the runway, I begun to panic. I then called on another hostess and told her my plight. She left immediately with a promise to do whatever she could.

When she returned after what seemed like eternity, she informed me amidst apologies, that the luggage wasn’t on board. After she said that, all I could her was “ Sunimasen, blah,blah, blah…sunimasen..blah, blah …sunimasen”. It wasn’t her fault at all but I wasn’t interested in any other explanations or options.

All I kept thinking about was beautiful bag! Then a quick thought went to its contents! That’s when I bolted.” Oh gosh, all my connecting flights’ tickets are in that bag”. This hit me like a lightning bolt as fear gripped me like I had never known before. Luckily enough when I checked my laptop bag, there lay all my tickets!

Then the other thoughts came in Oh my bag…and its contents! “will I ever see it again” on part of me was asking…while another consoled me that since the Japanese are very organised and efficient people, they would have it delivered to me in no time. But still I couldn’t help but feel “Oh why me”!

The Japanese man seated next to me on hearing the hostess’ reply got concerned. He promised to follow up with her after we had taken off so that she through her captain can contact the ground staff and make sure that the bag is sent to me!

The flight took off with me feeling so rotten! I tried to flip through the in flight magazine but I wasn’t reading nor seeing anything! The green army bag just kept popping in all the pages!!

Ok, to cut the long story short, there is a happy ending to this. 15 minutes after take off, the air hostess I had talked to, came carrying my beautiful green bag! A calm breeze rushed through me. I am glad that my trip from Japan turned out this beautifully.
Well what do you know, the Japanese are indeed a very efficient lot! People who go the extra mile just to make something happen. Everyone does their work with such passion that its overwhelming...oh let me not start! That’s a story for another day and forum.

My worst road ever

In all my road travels, I am yet to experience a road as bad as the one leading to Nakasongola district Headquarters! What is deceptive about this road is that as one branches off the smooth tarmac highway, they are met by a rough contrast.

I can’t decide whether to call it a murram or a tarmac road because I saw more potholes than tarmac. I have nothing personal against the district. I think it is a good place and judging by the numerous herds of cattle I saw, there is no doubt that the district makes a generous contribution to the tasty meat numbers sold in the city.

The drive to the district which is supposed to be 15 minutes takes almost 30 minutes. The white double cabin pickup I was in kept dancing on or was it off the road. And with this crazy dance, our backs received the full effect. I felt my back ache like my spine was going to leave the vertebrae column!!

It was a such a nightmare that whenever the driver tried to dodge one pothole, he would instead end up hitting another!
So, in order to remedy the situation, our driver was forced to drive keeping right instead of the colonially imposed Left. The right side though also pot holed looked like heaven when compared to the left. I think the tarmac had realised that there was no pretence of it being there so it had allowed itself to be eroded.

On the right side therefore, the tarmac was visible and so we not only move faster, but our backs were also relieved of the vigorous pothole hitting exercise.
We soon forgot that keeping right was wrong. But when a white vehicle suddenly appeared in the opposite direction, we got a reality check! We were forced to rush back to the left. I could swear that we hit a million potholes in the 5 seconds we used to move to back to our side!

What is amazing however, is that the agony was immediately forgotten as soon as we reached the smooth tarmac of the highway to Kampala.