Diaspoman: The days when environmental protection was under threat

Environmental protection is very important for all of us. That is why lousy vehicles that emit poisonous black fumes should be banned from our streets. But 14 years ago, it was a different case altogether. There was this neighbour of ours who had a junk of a vehicle which always polluted the air with little mercy. The neighbour was called Mr. Warajye! He was a loner living in this fully furnished house in the suburbs of Kiyovu for the poor. You may recall that he had earned his unique name as a result of his closest friend, confidant and housemate. His housemate was none other than the most famous bottle of Uganda Waragi. This, of course is the colourless drink that hails from the neighbouring country which boasts of green and yellow bananas. Sometimes, you find samples of black and orange bananas in this particular country. It was from that particular country that our new neighbour hailed. Like hundreds of thousands of other returnees, our neighbour found himself a free house soon after the war and proceeded to unpack his personal belongings. The house he was occupying had been abandoned by its owners who had fled to the unknown. Everything in the house was intact. So, Aggrey and I were quite pleased to find a neighbour who had acquired a free house in the same circumstances that we had found ourselves. Not only were the bedrooms and sitting rooms fully furnished but also the king size fridges were bulging with all tribes of beers. Having wiped out the beers in our fridge, it was time for us to help out our new neighbour. We had to help him in cleaning up his fridge since he was not a fan of those frothy drinks such as Amstels and Heinekens. Instead, his favourite drink happened to be that colourless liquor known as Uganda Waragi. This is the drink that really made our neighbour tick. He usually heated up after downing a quarter of the bottle and that was the moment that he always remembered his creator. He would proceed to sing praises in a booming voice that always threatened to blow away the ceiling. As he crowned off his praises, he would leave the best for last, by calling out Uganda Warajye, Uganda Warajye. As a result, people within the vicinity named him Warajye. But the problem for Mr. Warajye was that this special product was very scarce. The nearest place that he could find this hot spirit was at the Gatuna border. If he failed to find it at Gatuna, then he would be forced to cross over to Katuna side. Bwana Warajye had to visit this place occasionally and that is why he was obliged to import his ramshackle Peugeot 504, right hand drive vehicle. When the 504 crossed the border, onlookers could not figure out whether it was a wheel barrow or a tricycle that was rolling from the left lane to the right one. Behind the wheel was Warajye himself, negotiating the wheels at a snail’s pace. It took him approximately 3 hours instead of the usual 45 minutes from the border to the capital city. As he guided it around the sharp corners, the 504 left behind a cloud of black smoke that polluted the whole village. Those days, the traffic police were not as strict as they are today. That is why they always failed to discover the several bottles of Uganda Waragi hidden under the seats of the 504 Peugeot. When the vehicle finally pulled up in his compound, we never got bothered by its looks. For us, we knew that this was more than welcome as it would probably solve our transport problems. However, it was going to be a case of tit for tat. We had to scratch Warajye’s back so that he could in turn scratch ours. What I mean here is that if we were to get a daily free lift from our home in the 504, we had to sacrifice a bit of our muscle power. You see, every morning, the 504 would wake up very tired and thirsty. That is why we had to refill its radiator with several litres of tap water in order to resurrect it. In addition, Aggrey and I had to position ourselves behind the car and give it our very strongest push up and out of Warajye’s creaky gate. Once we managed to push it out of the compound, we would stand aside and watch Warajye reverse backwards into the compound in a bid to kick start the engine. If we were lucky, the car would start by coughing, spitting, sneezing and then croak out as the engine burst into life. In most cases, the car would cough; spit, sneeze and then snore back to sleep. That would imply that Aggrey and I had to push it uphill once again. No wonder, we never needed the Gymnasium for body building. Warajye’s junk vehicle was sufficient enough for that purpose. And then the Kigali air would get fully polluted by our newly found old junk of a car. Contact: diaspoman@yahoo.com