There are two forces whose workings seem devoid of reason and sense: Rwanda Television and nature. I stand to be corrected but who can find the reason behind Rwanda Television’s switch from the live broadcast of the closing events of the final match of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa (the climax of world cup tournament; the biggest televised event from Africa ever; a one-in-four-year-event and the possibly most reported peaceful event on the African continent) to broadcasting local news and the weather report in which report the only thing that changes are the presenters? Who can explain the reason the Tsunami of 2004 went for Aceh, a province in Indonesia bedevilled by a 26 year separatist war, Sri Lanka and Somalia where bloodletting had not stopped for decades, why the Nyiragongo volcano poured its molten liquid rock on residents of North Kivu where Rwandan Interahamwe killers have been pillaging and killing, why Katrina battered poor black settlements in the US or why my Dearest Datiliva and I stuck together? It is the handwork of nature and it does not make sense. It is true, though, that once upon a time things were less murky: men and women looked for partners who could help carry on their genes and the criteria included issues like health of offspring, strength for protection and collection of food and size which symbolised hidden fertility. Slowly but sure, nature slipped away from the more intelligent animals and settled in lower animal species and the result shows. Consider the lowly peacocks: during the mating season and the elaborate courtship, the peacock and peahen know exactly what to look out for. Peacocks choose places to perform their courtship dance as peahens window-shop for the peacock with the most elaborate display. As the hens observe, the peacock lifts his beautifully coloured cluster of long tail feathers that are blue and green, with an eye-like spot of brilliant blue, green, and orange. When a peahen comes close enough, the peacock turns his back and brings his train erect, displaying the underlying tail feathers and consequently peahens mate with peacocks with the most coloured eye-spots. It is reported that the display feathers of peacocks continue to grow longer and more beautiful with age and their chances of acquiring partners increase as they get older. A more coloured peacock is the “man” or the “G” because it is beautiful and experienced. Thankfully peahens are not jealousy and after mating the peacocks can go off to perform for other peahens who may be interested in their genes. What do men and women look for in partners?What do men look for in women? That question has baffled women for millennia and the answer remains far off. One time it was suggested that men were interested in size, women became gluttons or starved. Then someone suggested it was breasts and women had theirs padded, pushed aside or together. Again someone claimed that it was height that men were looking for, which sent women walking on “stilts” for shoes. Others suggested it was hair and thereafter women had theirs burned, pulled or knotted. Others still suggested what men wanted was in the skin and women had theirs bleached, baked or pierced but the answer was not found. And men do not seem to know either. I sincerely do not know what attracted me to my dearest and I doubt if she knows either. It must have been nature. There was no courtship dance but a dance nonetheless and effect of dozens of emptied bottles of booze. Whoever said booze is satanic may have been nearer to the truth considering its ability to conjure up different images of angels where there is none. Indeed my Dearest Datiliva once looked like an Angel but like a phantom the angel in her vanished the day we stayed together as partners. Her once charming voice gained more decibels not only in pitch but source; she no longer speaks from the heart but the chest or is it lungs! About her beauty, that has been diminishing since I first saw her, she says, it is me who has corroded it. I think, nonetheless, she is the most beautiful thing that could happen to me. The other day, out of curiosity, I asked her what attracted her to me and she told me it was mercy for me. The poor thing that I am had induced sympathy in her and she took pity on me but then she asked me what attracted me to her. Like a practised catechist reciting the creed of believers I told I was attracted to her by prospects of her being less dominating, less talkative, less cantankerous in presence of visiting females, less inclined to drinking alcohol, less demanding to know my destination when I leave home and location when I am away, less interest in female company I keep and less interest in how much I earn per month while expecting more of her; minding the home most of the time, welcoming all visitors, producing more children and most important more libido. She said I am an African male chauvinist who must have lived in Timbuktu in my former life and had not detached myself from my past which had been controlled by nature. She said what separates modern people from the likes of poor me is that whereas Neanderthals like me worshiped nature, modern people strive to control and manage it. I was about to tell her about nations, media houses, interest groups and hordes of fans who spent money, TV time, newspaper space and energy debating the truthfulness or lack of it in the match predictions of an “insect” or octopus in Germany when I remembered that our fascination with the unknown, particularly nature, is not much different from early explorers who feared venturing further away from known territories lest they roll over the edge of the earth and get lost forever. The people who are fascinated by the 2010 FIFA World Cup match predictions by Paul the octopus in Germany, Spain, Argentina and elsewhere are not any different from the ancient Egyptians who worshiped the Nile, the ancient Aborigines in Australia who believed the earth was a product of a “huge snake”, the ancient Chinese their reverence for the dragon, those who worshiped the sun and the moon or my views of Datiliva. We are all fascinated and awed by nature and its hidden workings. Maybe the workings of nature and by extension Paul the octopus follow some reason after all, unlike Rwanda TV! Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com
