Rwandans, like many other people elsewhere, have a knack of doing things at the last moment; be it paying school fees or taxes (in this case, even Christmas shopping). They always rush at the last moment thereby causing huge human traffic jams in banking halls, supermarkets and even teller machines. This Christmas is not different, only that it has given us a taste of what some of our East African neighbours experience constantly; monster traffic jams and drivers’ impatience. Christmas needs a lot of money so banks should be ready; all hands should on deck to reduce delay. If necessary, they should get more help. It does not make any good-banker sense for someone to stand in line for hours yet a few benches could have made the wait a bit bearable. But the most intolerable and annoying experience is to find ATM machines empty or networks are experiencing problems. And these things always seem to crop up during the holidays. How difficult is it to have a skeleton team doing the rounds to see that everything is fine? By now service providers should have learnt from past experience and be prepared to avoid giving people a gloomy Christmas yet it is a time for cheer and sharing. So as you sing your Christmas carols and your favourite song happens to be; “Silent Night”, just bear in mind that it turned 200 years last night. And if you need more Christmas cheer, unusually for that period, it was written to be accompanied by a guitar because rats had eaten the piano strings! Merry Christmas and stay safe.
