Yet another BHH

First a nice picture.

But I am so ashamed to be the one beats the kalango for BHH when I barely pass for a blogger myself but what can I say? I am uninspired but not unhappy which is not the best state for writing. I just finished reading What is the What - Dave Eggers and Purple Hibiscus- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and am now reading The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander Mccall Smith and all these reviews will be up at some point this year.

Anyway, BHH this time round is at Efendy's on Thursday the 31st of July, 2008 at 6.30pm. I really hope you guys read this and show up.

Wonder Years.

Two days later and I have already finished 'The Family Way' and dearly paying for it. Why, you might ask. I'll tell you. I was up till 2.00am last night reading it and I had to be up by 4.00am because I had to be in the office by 5.00am. Just know I am dying of sleep, I have no idea how I am going to make it through the rest of the day.

In other news, I found some old baby pictures of myself and I really wanted to put them up but we have no scanner or if we do, I have never seen it so I did the next best thing and took pictures of the pictures. Wasn't I the cutest?

You know what killed me about these photos? The 'fros. They were awesome weren't they?

I love the way my mother looks all regal with her head held up high and I just look confused. I remember I loved that outfit and only finally gave it away when I was 16 or so.

What can I say? The 80's were not the best time for high fashion. That's my dad, by the way, in the Malaachi (the shoes) he loved so and made us where for about 3 years of our lives. (My siblings and I.)

Another confused looking picture of me. I really wonder what it was I was staring at? Was I attracted to the camera from so young an age?

This is my favourite. I'm positive my Mom was off to the side making sure my head was turned to the camera by dangling some shiny something. I can almost remember it.

I thought these would be apt seeing as its my birthday on Thursday. Send me hugs and presents on Facebook.

African Reading Challenge

I said I would enter the reading challenge and I have but I don't have a list of books. I have decided to read the books then add them to the list.

I just finished A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and like he said it is worth the read. It is told in a very matter of fact way, no embellishments, no style but it gets the message across. I don't know if I would have been able to read it if it hadn't been written like it is. It is a harrowing story, a 12 year old boy slitting someone's throat with a bayonet is hard enough to comprehend without it being written in language that evokes the images vividly, so I am kind of glad it is not very well written. It is a very sad reality where these boys are taken from their families and recruited into the army (the army, not the rebel forces, the bloody army.) I am inspired to find out more.

Read this but I emaphasize, the writing is lacklustre at best.

I am going to take a break now and read the only Tony Parson's book I haven't yet read, The Family Way.

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

This is my attempt at a proper book review.

This book is beautiful, I realize I say that about a lot of books but I mean it all the time. There is something about books where the protagonist remains unnamed; there is a way one relates to characters that are nameless that is different from those that are named. You don’t assume anything and every little description helps you form an opinion as to what kind of person this character is.

The main character in this book, the man as he is referred to, is trying not to be corrupt in a country riddled with corruption. His family chastises him for not wanting to advance and make them happy when all their friends around them are doing so well. What is so sad is that he knows it is wrong and that he is doing the right thing but he feels guilty for not doing the wrong thing? Do any of us even know what that is like anymore in an age where everyone is so preoccupied with their own fiscal satisfaction, where we step on the little man to get to the top of the ladder, especially here where nothing can get done without a few hands getting greased? Even sadder is the fact that even in the knowledge that the man is doing the right thing does not help ease the futility of his life. The man feels that all there is to life is living it by not complaining about his station in it, going to work, going back home and then going back to work. The author masterfully describes everything in this book, there is a scene where the man takes a lunch break with no lunch to eat and decides to take a walk that leads him to cross some railway tracks and I swear you can see this man, you are there with him, as hungry as he is and totally worn out but glad for the fresh air and sunshine. There is a line that stayed with me, “His breath reeked with the rich stench of rotten menstrual blood”. Who but the most awesome writer can pull a line like that off?

If you can read this masterpiece and let it change your life.

The reason I hate writing reviews is that I will never ever write as beautifully as the authors of the books I am writing about and as such can never convey to you just how beautiful the writing is. Just trust me because even though I can’t write, I sure can read.

Smorgasbord

Of (oh so ) Dry Men.

So last night I go out after forever and I remember why I stopped. There was a kasiki for one of my workmates at Pa Lui and I had to walk out every now and then to breathe. Anyway, the interesting bit happened when I was on my way home.

A bunch of us left the club and this guy asks where I live and it turns out we are neighbours so I take the ride he offers. We get to the exit and he meets two of his friends whom he decides to first drop in Wandegeya. This is cool up to the point we stop in Wandegeya and these guys in a white car park right next to us and the driver jumps out brandishing a gun, I think it was an AK47. Instead of the expected flash of life, I imagined being found shot to pieces in this guy's car whom I don't even particularly like and getting my pretty white vest all soiled with blood. Turns out, these guys followed us from Ntinda and tried to stop us (they didn't try hard, none of us noticed them) because this guy didn't have a number plate. He had a receipt for one though and it was all sorted. We eventually get on our way home and he parks outside my gate and tries to kiss me. I tell him I have a boyfriend and he asks me what that has got to do with anything. Now, this boy is starting to infuriate me and I want to make it clear to him that I don't cheat on my boyfriend, not because of how he would feel about it, although I am not saying this doesn't matter, but because I need to be able to live with myself. Oba, where has he been living? He assures me how in Uganda, women don't know what they want and therefore I can't know I don't want him until he convinces me that I do. WTF?! (This dude does not know my pedigree) I summarily tell him that even if I didn't have a boyfriend he still wouldn't even be close to the type of guy I would be with. I have never been so disgusted in my life, I got out of that car and into my house. I have been thinking, is this how all you guys feel? Do you think women don't have brains or that we don't enjoy sex and can therefore not be picky? Please tell me.

Padded Panties

My mom told me last night that there is a shop that sells padded underwear for women. I found that unbelievable and I can't wait to see them, apparently they are called bum panties. Aparrently they are all the rage and she keeps getting phone calls to give directions to where the shop is. If you feel you could use one, please let me know in the comments and I will direct you.

A Fine Balance

I just finished reading this book and right now all I can say is it is the saddest book I have ever read and what's worse it could all actually have happened.


See y'all on the flip side.

Excerpts

I read these and wished I could write.

'To know clearly what you surrender, what you gain, and to have no regrets; to revisit without envy the scenes of a surrendered joy, and to taste it ephemerally once more, with a delight undimmed by the knowledge that it is momentary, that is happiness, that surely is freedom.'

- Iris Murdoch, The Bell -


'And it might be absurd to us that one Iqbal can believe the breadcrumbs laid down by another Iqbal, genarations before him, have not yet blown away in the breeze. But it really doesn't matter what we believe. It seems it won't stop the man who thinks this life is guided by the life he thinks he had before, or the gypsy who swears by the queens in her tarot pack. And it's hard to change the mind of the high-strung woman who lays responsibility for all her actions at the feet of her mother, or the lonely guy who sits in a fold-up chair on a hill in the dead of night waiting for the little green men. Amidst the strange landscapes that have replaced our belief in the efficacy of the stars, Millat's is not such old terrain. He believes the decisions that are made, come back. He believes we live in circles. His is a simple, neat fatalism. What goes around comes around.'

- Zadie Smith, White Teeth -



'And then I felt sad because I realised that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.

- Douglas Coupland, Life After God -



'Everything was gone. But not everything. This sort of evil does not subside, this sort of evil grows as it feeds. They would turn to other villagers with their machetes swinging in dull whirrs of dark iron and if they could not slice the lips, ears, noses cleanly off or of they did not chop the hands, buttocks, legs cleanly off, if the flesh lung to the body by a string of bleeding desperate faith, their hands would grab in, nails digging in for a stronger grip, and pull, to tear it off. And then they would laugh and let the man, thus mutilated, live because they thought it was funny.'

- Ernest Bazanye -



'What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll - then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of urselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us that everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

- Zadie Smith, White Teeth -


'She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop. Man attempting to climb to painless heights from his dung hill.

- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God -

More Books

I finally thought of something to write about. I was going through my old posts and noticed I should have talked about other books that I read, I'm sorry I forgot. Since that last post I have read so many books but I can only remember 8 and I will write about four to begin with in chronoligical order from the last one I read.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket:

A Bad Beginning - Book the First.

I just finished reading this last night and I must say I really liked it. It is funny and easy to read. I like children's books and I usually enjoy them immensely and this one was no different.In this book the Baudeliere children become orphans and must stay with Count Olaf, which as you can imagine, does not go well. My 12 year old sister read Book the Third and really liked it. You should give it a try.

The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There is something about these South American writers and magical realism, they do it so well and I am quickly getting hooked to this genre. This book was a bit different, in that, it was very believable, I guess that explains the realism bit. It is about this boy and this book, it is truly a book for people who love books. Rev, you will be getting this soon, don't fret. It is very well written and the imagery is beautiful. Have you ever read a book and so clearly seen it? That's what reading this was like for me.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket:

The Wide Window - Book The Third

I read this one before the first one by mistake. When Ernest bought it he thought it was the first one and I took it of him before he could read it. I guess you could say it was the beginning of my obsession with everything Snicket but that wouldn't be strictly true because the movie was the beginning. I really liked it and I knew I wanted to read the book it was based on. Just recently I find that it is actually 3 books. In this particular one is when the orphans go to stay with their Aunt Josephine. It takes on basically the same vein as the first one and it is worth a read. While you're at it, check out the website lemonysnicket.com

Fury - Salman Rushdie

Now anyone who knows me knows I am a huge Rushdie fan, I adore his books. This man is a genius, genius, I tell you and this book is no different. How do you begin to describe the thing you love most? I feel my words are inadequate to impress upon you how his words make me feel. I am planning to read everything he has ever written and I don't think I am a long way off. I loved this book, though not as much as I loved 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet.'

I am tired of writing now so I will stop and write some more soon. I will also put up a list of the ones I want to read and see if you guys can help me get them.

I'm out.

Those books.

A while back I told y'all how I bought a bunch of books, I have read a couple of them and I think it is time I talked about them.

Memoirs Of A Geisha - Arthur Golden

When I told a friend of mine who devours books like I do that this book was written by an American who lived in Japan and put in print this Geisha's memoirs, he asked me what frame of mind that man was in to be so entranced by another culture that he moves there and studies their history and learns their language. Well, whatever he was on, he manages to enchant you with this world in the book. It does what so few books do to me these days which is completely transport me into the world of the book that to tear my eyes away from the page yanks me so violently from it that I am jarred for a second till I realise I am actually in a taxi way past my stop. I loved it. The language was like a clear stream flowing gently over rocks on a path it has not strayed from for ages. (That sounds alot like a line from the book) Suffice it so say, I strongly recommend this.

Stories We Could Tell - Tony Parsons

Tony Parsons happens to be one of my favourite authors and when I saw this book in Fareed's I could hardly walk out without it, I didn't. I have tried to read everything he has ever written. This book, for me, was very reminiscent of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. The music was the focal point for the book and even though I don't think it is nearly as good as Man and Boy or even One For My Baby, I liked it. Like Ernest would say, "Infact, parts of it were excellent." If you are into the music of the '60s and '70s this book is like an amalgam of all the best songs of that time and it captures just what that music was about, the place everyone was in then and the way they felt. It also reaffirms what I like to believe, which is, that the music of an age aptly describes the genaration that made it and listened to it. I would give it 3 stars out of 5. There were some really good lines as well. He is still an awesome writer.

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

It is so hard to believe this book was written in 1937. It makes so much sense and I am quickly falling in love with it. I'm not done with it yet but what I have read so far is so not disappointing. This woman rocks (I guess I mean, both the author and Janie the main character). It is funny too.

Next

I am going to read If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things by Jon Mcgregor which is apparently an amazing book. Everyone I've told about it assures me it's awesome. Then I'm going to read White Teeth by Zadie Smith which Ishta says is the story of her life. Then I'm finally going to read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, don't tell me again how awesome it is. In a while, I am going to put up my list of the books I want to read and y'all should help me get them, you and Fareed both.

I am done, I guess. Out. xoxo

I Have Arrived!

For those of you who read the Sunday Vision thoroughly you will have noticed that my name was in the ‘It’s Kawa’ on Sunday. Yes, as a writer. Granted, all I did was the reviews but still I was so happy to see my name in print. I will take this moment to clarify that the review for Ocean’s 13 was actually written by Ivan Musoke and it was mistakenly attributed to me. I did the one for Pursuit of Happyness and I did the pick of the week, which was Dirty Jobs. I am so proud of myself and I know it seems like I am making a big deal out of only appearing once but it is so cool. I have actually already written my reviews for this Sunday. I am, must be, the hardest working employee you have Ernest.

In other news, the Ntinda Shopping Center is fast becoming my new home. I am always there, be it buying books at Fareed’s, having ice cream at Chilling Pleasures, having a drink at Michelle’s Pub, borrowing movies at Lids Video Lib or just hanging out at Kamikazi. It helps that it is only a 2-minute walk from my home and I know this is quickly starting to sound like a paid ad (I wish) but it is so much fun. If it had a cinema, there would be no reason for me to ever leave Ntinda except maybe for the awesome Club Sandwich at Café Pap.

I think this post is making it obvious that I really have nothing to say so bye bye my sweets. Till later.

Moving on up... more like out.

I have been meaning to put this post up for like 2 weeks but like I keep saying, I loathe internet cafes. Think I can get one of you guys to blog for me, we can work out the terms.

We moved!!! I know for some of you that is barely news worthy but the house we moved from is legendary. We had lived there 21 years, 21 years people. That is almost all my life and all my siblings lives. I like the new place though and the whole moving experience was so much fun coz it was all so new to me and also because I went to Mbale I missed all heavy lifting. I just came home to a new place, it was awesome. We have so much more space for everything and we are in Ntinda which is awesome, everything is just a short walk away.

In unrelated news, I bought 7 new books. I love reading, incase you didn't know, and there is this place on the Ntinda Shopping Centre that sells all their books at shs5,000. Believe it. It's called Fareed's. One of my favourite authors is Tony Parsons and I loved the 3 books of his I read, Man and Boy, Man and Wife and One for My Baby. At one point, I owned all these books but somehow they were 'misplaced' by the people I lent them to. I walked into the shop one afternoon and she had all three, of course, I bought all three. This is only the first shelf I have been looking through, mind you. I go on and see Memoirs of a Geisha which I have always wanted to read, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which I have also wanted to read and If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things which I vaguely remember hearing about and vowing to read. I spent all my money in that shop because I knew I could walk home. The next day, I go in there with Ernest and we see another Tony Parsons I had never even heard of and I had to get that one too. I am so in love with the chic who runs that store, she has no idea.
When is the BHH? Is it on the 21st of June like The Danes want it to be? Below is an email from them that should help us make that decision.

"Hi guys.Have you planned the next BHH yet? We were wondering if we could influence theplanning a bit.. One of Sara's friends from MS is coming to Uganda a long withfour Danish reporters who are interested in the 'blogging' story. This would ofcourse give the documentary publicity but it would also bring the story ofblogging in Uganda out to more people in Denmark.Would you consider doing the BHH on Thursday the 21. of June?"

That's it for me. Bye.