Humour: Handshake; the fastest vehicle for transporting diseases

It is quite unfortunate to learn that people are dying of cholera in Zimbabwe. Ibaze more than 500 people have perished so far. Cholera is just a disease that is a friend of dirt! That is why we have to always keep ourselves clean so as to avoid it. I am a bit concerned here when I mention that our brothers and sisters in Rwanda are still far from being clean! Stroll down to Nyabugogo and you will share my feelings about this. One of the fastest vehicles for transporting diseases from one person to another is through a hearty handshake. And wow! The Rwandan handshake is so popular. I remember a few years ago, there was talk of banning handshakes. When I first heard about that rumour, I rushed to Aggrey with the hot news. We both recalled how we used to detest the handshakes when we had just come back from the Diaspora way back in the mid 90s. Aggrey and I had never complained about anything! We loved the Rwandan people, the beautiful hills and of course the ever cold Amstel beers stashed away at Béa’s pub. The only thing that used to bother us was that compulsory handshake. That is why we were always seen walking around with our hands full of items. These included; books, video cassettes and briefcases. Usually, those items that Aggrey and I carried around were never of real use to us. Although we were always seen carrying Jackie Chan video tapes, our modest home was void of a video deck or a television set for that matter. Of course, we posed around with a briefcase as if it was full of dollars and important legal documents. But instead of real dollars and francs, our briefcase would be full of dry beans and maybe a kilo of rice. Our briefcase was not only there to deter people from shaking our hands, but also served as a mobile dry food store. But Rwandans never give up. If he has made up his mind to shake your hand, then there is no way out. And that is how we usually ended up putting the briefcase under our armpits so as to free our paranoid fingers. The fingers would be suffering from paranoia just because our heads imagined up certain things. Having failed to dissuade people from shaking our hands, we decided to abandon the system of carrying countless items which were too heavy anyway. Instead, we began to seriously save cash which was supposed to end up at the nearest pharmacy. We were not saving cash in order to buy ourselves medicated soap for washing our hands every time we shook someone’s hands. No way. It is just that we wanted to have several cartons of hand gloves at our home. This implied that Aggrey and I would be walking around Kigali with our Michael Jackson-like gloves. We entered shops with a lot of confidence knowing that the shopkeeper would be met by a gloved hand. But with our gloves well intact, we were fully covered. I hope we do not have to buy gloves in the 21st century! Sorry once again to the families in Zimbabwe! Contact: diaspoman@yahoo.com