KABANDA'S MUSINGS:My datiliva finally remembers me

Love can be compared to a charcoal-stove: over time you need to add some more charcoal or fan it; else it becomes very cold. My Dearest Datiliva got busy with what she does and dust-binned me until a younger workmate and her friend came to say hello to us at home. She happens to be a new employee on probation at work. It was a good surprise to me but my Dearest might have felt threatened because in the afternoon she said she was accompanying me to my drinking hole. She said she had not had her dose of Kigali brochette lately and was missing the talk of town from drunkards who after downing a couple of bottles of booze lose their oral breaks and say it the way it is. Besides, she was missing the old days when she and I would keep each other’s company all evening. For some time, we boycotted the old drinking hole due to poor customer care. Not that we stopped drinking, we simply shifted to the new place adjacent and when Mama Nunu asked why, we simply pointed out that the service at the new place was simply irresistible. Within a week, she had put right all things that had made her customers “elope” with the new kid on the block and nowadays we alternate depending on our wishes. That is the way to improve customer care/service: create a competitor, period. Creativity is spurred by competition, so Rwandans do not have to pull their hair demanding for good customer care, competition will create/improve it. The patrons were in a drinking mood and booze flowed like ELECTROGAZ had stopped pumping water and had changed to alcohol. It was not long before Ndayambaje, who it seems always has something new in his hat, brought the news that more power will soon be generated in Rwanda and that which is not needed will be exported. Gakwandi said that the villages in Rwanda by 2012 will at night shine like Kigali city. Someone expressed concern over a lot of electricity crisscrossing our villages. Will it not affect our crops such that they do not grow properly? Gakwandi said the crops will grow well, forests will no longer be destroyed for charcoal and population figures will stabilize. Instead of people retiring to bed at dusk which leads to the manufacture of unmanageable numbers of children. Then Ndayambaje said that “50% of Kigali city will be upgraded in 50 years”. Thereza retorted that, that will call for long life and patience comparable to those who trekked to the Promised Land from Egypt. Ndayambaje said that we need to look beyond ourselves and look at the future; he did not know who built the bar but was happy to drink from there. It is when he said that the planning Department of Kigali City was planning…that people did disagreed with him. Mbarushimana said he agreed there are many false accusations about Kigali city, but that it has a Planning Department was below the belt. Jean Claude, who seems to always be looking for something in his beer glass and will look somewhere else when ordering for another bottle, nearly choked on his drink trying to swallow and saying something at the same time. He said there cannot be a planning department in Kigali considering the fact that people build as if Rwanda was elastic. Had there been a planning department, he argued, there would have been a general direction for developments in the city. “You find factories being built in residential areas, you find people constructing while encroaching on road reserves and there is no limit to the size of residential compounds. Will Rwanda in future be stretched to create more space?” he asked. “That is why Gasabo breaks down hotels that encroach on road reserves,” said Ndayambaje. “And how many storied buildings will be torn down in the city centre to widen roads if traffic jams that are beginning to clog parts of the city are to be avoided?” asked Gakwerere. Ndayambaje explained that we were talking from an uninformed point of view and asked if we have heard of the City Master Plan. Jean Claude replied that the Master plan was a good thing for the future of Kigali City but what was taking place in reality was contra to the plan. He said designation for different activities should start now and not when the plan is implemented. “Can you imagine the economies of scale that would accrue to traders and industrialists when they are concentrated in one area?” he asked. Jean Claude asked what “economies of scale” meant and Gakwerere said it means traders using scales recommended by Rwanda Bureau of Standards. My dearest, seeing an opportunity to prove how much she differs from the average babes, said that economies of scale simply means the benefits enjoyed by those whose activities are located in close proximity of each other, like access to utilities, shared transportation means etc, much like the benefits of Midugudu. On our way home, Datiliva said how much she was happy that she and I had shared the evening and said that we should do it more often. When a friend called to say “hello”, Datiliva asked who it was. I said it was a workmate. “Is it those young women?” she asked. I said no. “Who are they anyway” she asked. I said they are on probation. “By whom,” she asked. “By me, of course,” I said. She grabbed me by the lapel of my jacket and dragged me home. Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com