The Gods of Football

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So she asked a set of very weird questions at the end of the world cup 2014 final. “Why has Messi got a trophy when he his team has just lost?” “Why is Messi not happy when he has just got a trophy?” “I thought Messi was the best player in the world, how come he did not win the game?”

Now where to begin my darling…

Human beings have a strong desire to deify. A Ugandan woman who did not think she was horny, but who gets an orgasm from a man suddenly starts to worship that man. A football loving man who experiences pleasure as an Argentine man glides past his fellow professionals and scores a spectacular goal, will instantly label the Argentine a footballing god.

Please allow me to explain the god credentials of these footballers.

Consider Neymar, the star of the Brazilian side. The entire country’s hopes rested on his shoulders. One more straw would literally be the only extra weight needed to break this camel’s back. So imagine instead what effect a 75kg Columbian would have. The fact that Neymar only broke one bone in his back is evidence enough that he is a god. But since you want more evidence, please look at how they collapsed once he was out. Before they met Germany in the semi-final Neymar dazzled most teams and got rough treatment in return. Because they so worshiped him, his teammates responded by employing some rough tactics of their own on the opposition. That is what we call inspiration.

Now there is this chap nicknamed El Pistolero. True he has quite a reputation as a gunslinger, but he rose to almighty status once the British media decided to make an enemy of him. As happens, the universe decided that Uruguay would play England in the group stages of the world cup. Then Suarez got injured and from that point on the British media went to great lengths to portray him as a paraplegic who would be lucky to ever walk again. The entire British nation, including their silly football team believed the lie. I call them silly because some of them are friends and teammates of Suarez at Liverpool and should really have known better. So the match itself was like that movie The Usual Suspects. Jagielka, Stevie G and Hart were very generous as usual. And the genius mastermind was the ‘crippled’ Suarez. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was deceive the world that he did not exist. Only in this case the devil was the British press and they were left screaming … Keyser Söze!!! And they were not the only ones. Italy also soon discovered that in Suarez, Uruguay had a player ready to fight TOOTH and nail.

When we were growing up as kids, no one liked to play in goal when we played football. So usually the fattest least mobile kid ended up there. This was fine for normal play, but as soon as a penalty was awarded suddenly everyone on the team that conceded it would scream “CHANGE KEEPER!” So I was not surprised when just before the end of extra time in the match between Holland and Costa Rica the coach Luis Van Gaal replaced his keeper. What was surprising was that for doing something that kids everywhere in Uganda do, he was declared a god by pundits the world over. Forget that he failed to win the game in regular time but spare a thought for the poor Costa Ricans for whom the antics of the dutch keeper Tim were a Krul end to their world cup.

Talking about Dutch penalties, there was that one at the end of the game against Mexico. Jose Mourinho declared him the god of the dive, but Arjen Robben is a joy to watch when running with the ball at his feet. In the final minute of added on time, Robben raced into the box slaloming defenders like a downhill ski champ. He was having so much fun that he almost failed to notice the byline fast approaching. Noticing it in the nick of time, he stopped and attempted to ski uphill. Waiting for him was Mexican captain Rafael Marqueze who stuck out his big toe in an attempt to nick the ball. The next thing the world knew, Robben had collapsed in a heap and Huntelar buried the penalty that sunk Mexico. The inquest into that Dutch penalty will continue for a long time but here is what I have discovered so far. Robben takes a step to steady himself after the alleged contact but then he gets shot by the 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll; flying into the air like a redbull sky diver. That stuff gives you wings.

Back to the questions asked earlier. Unlike all the gods I have talked about above, Messi is like a proper big God (ignore his midget frame). The whole world believed he would stand up against the efficient German machine and lead his country to the Promised Land. So he was given the golden ball in recognition of his majesty. He was not happy because as a big God, it was annoying to be done by Super Mario, whose only claim to fame was as a video game character on old Nintendo machines.

But Messi should be consoled that even the one true God makes mistakes sometimes and messes things up. I am sure there will be a rainbow in Argentina for the whole week.

When I looked over I noticed She had dozed on during my monologue.

Lately I am having trouble sleeping

This week I have had trouble sleeping despite feeling extra tired every night. Regularly at 7pm having dinner, watching TV and the head starts to feel heavy. I can barely keep my eyes open and yet when I get into bed I am tossing and turning. I am struggling with the constant compromise between thinking and breathing.

It started on Sunday after Liverpool beat Manchester City in the most dramatic of fashion.

You see on Saturday as I walked through Rosebank Mall I was accosted by a white man. Yes, a white man run towards a black man in a crowded mall shouting “JUSTICE”, at the top of his voice. The problem you see is that I was wearing my Liverpool replica shirt and he happens to be a Hillsborough survivor. This week marks 25 years since 96 people went off to watch a football match and never came back.

But he did not let on right away that he was a survivor as he put his hand around my shoulder and started to lecture me about the history of the club that is Liverpool Football Club. He informed me of how when the club was just formed 13 of their players were called up to fight the Boer war for the British. How they chose to play a game against Leicester City before departing and they ended up missing the ship to South Africa. How they then had to take a ferry cross the Mersey to catch the ship. They sailed to South Africa and had to walk inland for days to catch up with the Boers. Arriving in a place called Spioenkop tired and hungry and were promptly ordered to take a nearby hill. They all died on that hill. Their cremated remains and the blood soaked sand from that hill were used to build the famous Spion Kop at Anfield.

Meanwhile a small crowd, attracted by the initial fracas, had gathered around us. Someone in the crowd started tugging at my new Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro (my precious old one had been snatched from my hands on the streets of Kampala). I held firm, but I later learned he wanted to record the scene for me.I need to start being more trusting perhaps. But imagine this black man in South Africa surrounded by all these white people gawking.

As I watched Liverpool crumble in the early part of the second half of the game at Sunday lunchtime, I could not help but wonder if the players were feeling the effects of not having eaten lunch. I then remembered those poor sods that died, tired and hungry on that hill in Spioenkop. I found myself singing that famous song about dreams being tossed and blown in the wind and how we strangely were not walking alone; as I too was hungry (unable to eat before the game due to some very playful butterflies in my belly). Then Vincent Kompany sliced his clearance and Philippe Coutinho swung his right leg at the ball.

So yes, I am having trouble sleeping.

My time in South Africa is coming to an end. Could it be am suffering because I now associate this place with inspirational good memories? I don’t want to say that am falling in love. I hate the weather that causes temperatures to drop below 10 degrees Celsius in the mornings and evenings. I hate that my wife and my kids, the wonder girls, are not here with me. 

But I love my work mates. I love how a bunch of us goes out to the Great Dane or Kitcheners to drink most days. I love how they never let me win any arguments. I love how they are always asking the question why. I love how cosmopolitan and multicultural the office is. I love that South African women are prudish in public but every bit as Zuma described when he discovered that hot showers could prevent HIV infection. But I wont say am falling in love with Jozy.

I think I am going to need therapy when I return to Kampala.

When Coutinho swung his leg on Sunday and scored, I jumped out of the sofa with a star jump. My legs hit the coffee table so hard that I have been unable to wear shoes since.  As such I was unable to control my landing and ended up slamming my back into the arm of the sofa. As such it hurts when I take a deep breath, laugh or move my back in anyway. Obviously sleeping is uncomfortable…

Hang on...

I am having trouble sleeping…

Latin Banned!... Rainy season finally here.

Nomvula and I were discussing those 2 newspaper headlines in the title of this blog that are doing the rounds this week. One is on the front page and the other is on the inside pages. Yes I know our country is a poor agricultural country, but please note that those peasants excited about the rainy season do not buy newspapers.

So she asked me; what do you think of this new law that criminalises the speaking of Latin? I told her that I know the old law that made the speaking of foreign languages illegal was already dodgy but this new law was even worse. There are provisions in it that criminalise the promotion of Latin as a language. At one stage it even obliged people to report known Latin speakers or spend 7 years in jail. Thankfully this provision was removed before the president signed the bill into law.

Meanwhile the conduct of the president on this matter has also been suspect. Acting like Pontius Pilate, he declared that he thought this law to be wrong, but was forced into it by the will of the people. To further illustrate his point he spoke, tongue in cheek, about the practice of using the mouth to speak English. “Given all these pleasurable and rich local languages, why should anyone engage in oral English?” So she asked me, “but how do you know that he was speaking tongue in cheek?” And I reminded her that it was her friend the minister that had told us how she regularly used her mouth to speak to the president in English and he seemed to enjoy it very much. Tsk tsk, throttle throttle.

While this whole idea of denying someone their fundamental human rights is at the heart of this fight; some of the Latin speakers have behaved very badly. Many have resorted to calling us locals ignorant because we are not out on the streets fighting this. But the truth is, many of my fellow country men are more bothered about where their next meal is coming from. This government has taken advantage of this apathy and enacted some very regressive laws that severely curtail the rights of citizens as enshrined n the constitution that this same government promulgated. In a way I am not surprised at the foreign Latin speakers. They have no clue of how Latin speakers have survived in this country. It is my contention that most Latin speakers are known within their communities and many of them are well liked. But as is the culture in Uganda, public displays of Language are considered taboo. Many of my Latin speaking friends have not expressed any fear due to the new law and the rest of us now instead are going out of our way to control the facts around these friends of ours. Make no mistake, just because they exist and may be well liked, they are still generally looked at as different. Also, make no mistake that there are several Latin speakers that would like to be able to declare their language preference publicly and at the very least not be sent to jail for it. Many of these people would like society to accept that they like to speak different language.

This particular bill has been largely promoted by local Christian Evangelicals with huge financial support from that country called Sole Super Power. Jesus Christ was a man of peace. He hang out with those that were rejected by society. So I find it ridiculous that the proponents of this law claim to be doing it in his name. I feel for Jesus because he was used to justify slavery, then apartheid and now this. There is one pastor who has been going around showing movies in foreign languages; particularly Latin. He has also described, in graphic detail, how people engage in all types of discourse in Latin. He is actually the local expert on "Fisting". I am sure both these acts violate the new anti-foreign language law. It is interesting to note that some penalties in the anti-foreign  language law are harsher than those in the ant-Latin speaking law.

So what to do about these new laws?

Rather than have their president lecture our president on how to run his country, Sole Super Power should just ensure that the Christian Evangelicals are unable to fund the defense of this law. They could even consider tagging that funding as terrorist funding. This would shut the tap and ensure that our front pages concentrate on activities that feeds our people.

There will, of course, be a the challenge to the law in the constitutional court. But even while that is going on, the Latin speakers could set up a fund to pay the legal fees of anyone charged under this law. They of course have to be careful not to defend those who speak to minors using the Latin language. With the law being so weak and expected to be even harder to effect; am sure every lawyer this fund pays will win every case.

Curiosity killed the cat

So in May of 2013 I joined this cool global software company as a developer. On the internal forums in this company people talk about how difficult it is to hire and keep experienced developers. Here in Kampala we are experiencing the exact same issues.

In Uganda developer teams of 5 or more are rarer than an honest politician. In my previous job I was one of 2 developers; we were superstars with the aura of magic makers or illusionists. I recently attended the leaving party for our former head of department and in his speech he described how even though we left more than 6months ago, we are still spoken of in reverential terms. That, it is universally accepted that there will never be another pair of developers as genius as us in that organisation. 

By now you are wondering why I left a place where I was the Olivia Pope, the Harvey Spector, the guy who gets stuff done. The short answer is curiosity. For a person who was adored as a messiah, the ceiling had been reached. The pressure was now on to become God's only prophet; Muhammad. But I wondered; if may be, instead of starting a new religion, I could just continue as a christian and possibly move from messiah to holy spirit. Still part of the technology trinity (ICT) rather than taking on an entirely new religion like Operations and Administration.   

But curiosity is a dangerous thing and we all know what happened to the curious cat; it ended up dead. The first real project at the new company and suddenly all my years of C# super stardom are replaced by python mediocrity. Every day I am getting scolded and lectured about bad coding practices and breaking the build. This 'feedback' is being delivered by kids on the team that just left university this year.

In addition, Agile is the project management method of choice in this new company. Agile prescribes pair programming, and bloody build monitors littered all over the office. Plus, mbu to enhance 'collaboration' the entire office is as open as my high school dinning hall. If you lift your head away from your computer screen, you can see everyone in the office. So there is nowhere to hide when the stupid build monitor turns red and your name is on it. Some of them even make weird sounds (Rick Dees bonehead song) when the build is broken. I wonder who thought that would be a good idea.

So curiosity has gotten me from messiah to Judas. Letting the team down and, worst of all, not even getting the 30 pieces of silver. The recruiter never said there would be days like these.

Air Travel Musings

Have you ever traveled through the Dubai airport? Going to one of the global north countries? Its like these guys were paid by the CIA to keep terrorists out of the western world. Your visa will be scanned by all manner of electronic devices and Sherlock Holmes' magnifying glass. There will also be random extra checks at the boarding gate. So imagine my surprise when the border chaps in New York just waved us all through, no questions asked. This despite the UN general assembly being on that week and Obama coming to town. The US had basically moved the first line of defence to Dubai.

Have you flown on the big bird; the A380? First you may be stunned, as I was, when the man mumbling on the PA introduces himself as Captain so and so; and also introduces another Captain so and so. Since this is the A380, you may conclude, as I did, that it was so big that it needs 2 whole Captains to fly it. So do not be surprised when the person who comes on the PA 12 hours later to prepare you for landing introduces himself as 1st officer so and so; and thanks you on behalf of the other 2 Captains as well. Basically the damn thing needs 3 people to fly it.

So we are boarded. Sitting next to this lady with a baby who has just soiled his diaper. But she cannot change it because we are taxiing to runway13-R. Going by my previous experience, we should be in the air in no more than 5 minutes; not such a long time to stand the stink. But this is JFK, and, using Entebbe as a reference again, bloody runway 13-R is in Ndebba and there is that massive jam from Stella too. It took well over 40 minutes to get to the runway and then we stood in a line for a further 10 minutes awaiting our turn to take off. A whole hour smelling the poo of a vegetarian baby. Forgive my pun, but that shit aint cool.

Not surprisingly, when you get to the super clean dubai the only 2 houseflies in the superbly sanitized airport somehow home-in on you. Including the 13 hour flight and the 2 hour cab drive from Manhattan to JFK, you have been in these clothes for just over 20 hours (nanti you checked out of the hotel at 12 noon and lingered in town to await your flight at 11pm). Thankfully there is a hot shower; and using the remaining soap from the Carlton hotel on madison, you smell fresh again. Flies banished to find the chap just in from the 16 hour flight from San Francisco or Australia.

If you were flying to Uganda from Dubai, am sure you noticed how the gate was like in the basement of the old terminal building, with no proper shops but just a few kiosks. Then on top of that they load you into buses, and if we use Entebbe for reference, they drive you all the way to Bwebajja to catch your flight home. That stuff pisses me off. Surely they can devise a system whereby the plane to Uganda parks at the terminal just in time for us to board without having to endure 30 degree Celsius heat. As Ugandans we are just not used to that kind of weather. Especially when we have been waiting in an air-conditioned terminal building for 13 hours.

Have the mighty fallen?

So they had been great in the past. I mean really really great. There was continental titles that few today even know about. Really badasses and serious heroes. But lately those accolades sounded hollow. They looked lost and had to endure taunts from fans of the new hero.

But this weekend, just for a few days, the feeling of being admired and respected by multitudes was one they got to experience again. They did that by defeating the new hero. And it was done in the most clinical of fashions. No slicing of the throat and the mess that can cause. There was no affixiation and the leaving of DNA that can arise. This was more like a single bullet between the eyes; BAM!! Very little blood and no struggle.

She said Titus (what a name) Tugume and the speeding magulu kumi he walked into in the form of a Golola Moses right upper cut.

He said Manchester United and that 1 nil defeat at the hands of their greatest rivals Liverpool FC.

Of course now obituaries are already being written for the heroes downed on the weekend. It is funny how people are always waiting for the gallant to fall. They come up with the very well researched obituaries immediately that indicate the hate is just under the surface waiting to come out. Humanity is such an envious bunch.

The Kenyan Job

Finally a big job. The call came on a nondescript Tuesday evening. Someone wanted some Kenyans taken out by the next Thursday. The lead came from the Chennai super king, Kivev a.k. Minion. "Magso you will run this", he simply said.

So I set about setting up a team. I reached out to my advisor Reemas in Jozy. Over there he was simply known as the delivery guy. Well, he delivered a list of names from India of people who had the sort of experience I would need for this job. The unit was led by Diptra the slave driver; and consisted of Vivek the singer, Hareesh the thinker and Sriram the brain.

For the trigger man, I chose a Kenyan lady Buiwam. Even though she was new in the organisation, she had a massive reputation in Kenya for this sort of operation. Working with her would be the American Doctor, a.k.a the Haitian. Legend has it that he cut his teeth in Haiti's health space.

To round up the team I roped in Christopher the philosopher. Originally from a potato farming background in Australia, Chris had solved many a quagmire in Europe and Africa.

I sent Buiwam in to case the places where the hits would go down. It turned out several of the targets were actually Ugandans living in Kenya. In fact I had an old childhood grudge to settle with one of them. This would be a gratifying job on a personal level.

D-day came and tick tock the hit went off like clock work. Looking forward to the next bog job.