Good riddance, 2005

The season’s long, eh? But for the rest of us, there’s no resting. While the rest of the world reclines at their desks, glancing at their wrist watches to see how much time there’s left before they can go back on the town and make merry in the fast disappearing hours of the old year, I am relaxing at my desk, looking into my crystal ball…what’s the new year going to be like? What is in store?

At least I didn’t die. Thank God for small mercies. Small!? That’s not small, dude! Surviving 2005 has not been easy. The landmines are still littered everywhere and it could be the end even now. But having come this far, I must say I’m impressed. With y’all. Knowing the crazy things writers get themselves into, y’all should be toasting.

The traps were many. People changed jobs, people got dumped, people got promoted, Paul died, people fell in love…What a year. But there is nothing strange, if you look closely. It is that time of the year again. Come to think of it, that phrase is a template for every December. Timothy started his year ender article with “The silly season is upon us again…” this year but he wrote the exact first paragraph last year. So you see, there’s really nothing new. One thing we have to be happy about though is that this year, we didn’t have a Tsunami.

The effects of that monstrous flood are going to be felt for decades. Heck, some peeps will never recover. How do you forget such a tragedy and go on eating meat when you saw all that carnage?

Back home, this has been a political year. Of course, politics is everywhere but in Uganda, it seems it is a staple. We have to find a way to numb the pain that comes with the politics, y’know. Because there’s going to be pain, trust me. It might not necessarily be because people are going to take up arms but the whole shebang is going to cause grief. Some of us are lucky; we are not supposed to vote.

But the campaigns have brought up some interesting things. Like the boyish guy on Museveni’s posters. Apparently, we are supposed to believe that its Kagu. Then Ssebaana’s silky voice! What was he waiting for all these years? What did he do to it anyway? The guy is not the Lord of Croaks anymore. He can probably sing a duet with Mariah now.

Then of course we are supposed to be taking our seats and waiting for the hundreds of songs that are going to be commissioned for the different campaigns. This is what multi party politics is about, right? That’s what we are told used to happen back in the day. That’s when all those Twagala Obote songs and Nyamurunga were dropped. So now we should be listening to pimped up versions of these beats. Those old guys had fun, strumming guitars and then hacking each other…

It’s a brave new world we are going into. Everywhere you look, there’s a serious expression on someone’s face. Brace yourselves, peeps. Kansas is going bye, bye.