One of the best things to come out of Primus Guma Guma Superstar Season 5 was, without a single doubt, the fresh, youthful, and catchy slogan: Jyana N’injyana. For those foreigners resident in Rwanda but who are only interested in making money and repatriating it back to their homes instead of learning a word or two of Kinyarwanda, Jyana N’injyana simply means “avoid being left behind the wooden curtain”. Don’t be so old skool. Don’t lag behind. Let your butt move with the times. And why is there suddenly a need for me to remind you to move with the times? Well, because for the better part of last week, people kept asking those they thought were in the know for “passwords” and “pin codes” to a certain high-flying and velvety-voiced American singer-cum businessman’s day long visit to the country. See, there were selfies to be taken and splashed all over people’s social media walls and handles. People were falling over themselves for this opportunity, but few seemed to know where to turn for answers. Hence the need they saw to run around like headless chicken. Which should really act as a learning curve, so that the next time your favorite international celebrity is in town, you are right in their face at every turn, ready for that priceless photo opportunity and the attendant bragging rights that automatically accrue to it. Embed yourself: However brief a star’s visit to anyplace may be, they are likely to end up in some fancy multiple star hotel to either eat, sleep, meet with press or seal their private deals. This is the reason hotel workers are always guaranteed frequent bump-in s with world-class celebs. I have talked to many oppressed and ill-paid hotel workers and managers, and one of the most frequent reasons they have always advanced for clinging onto their jobs is this very fact. So get down to work, and look for casual work at a good four or five star facility. Chances are that your number one celeb will find you here. Which is really to say that you will find you icon on a silver platter. The other strategy is to know me, and be nice to me. Need I even explain why? If you know and are nice to me, you will never run around like headless chicken in pursuit of a mere selfie with your object of adoration. If you are too proud to want to know and be nice to me, there is another option; be a media junkie, and by media junkie I mean to say that be someone who listens in to all FM radio stations in town in times of celebrity visits. Of course you can’t listen to so many radios simultaneously, meaning you will have to consider deploying several broke and idle people to monitor the various airwaves for any possible offers to “meet-and-greet” your favorite celeb.
