In Uganda, if you want her to dump you...

It might be true to say that he who is in love thinks that the others are blind; some of us just think that he is crazy. And as much as the economic recession is so published, the social one is always ignored and some causes are as minor!!!


Anyway, so I was with a friend and his colleague kept on hurrying the conversation. I realized it was unusual and asked what he was hurrying to do at home. “I have to beat the jam (traffic jam) before it’s late,” he stressed. “Late for what,” I asked? From the brief acquaintance, I didn’t think he was an early home kind of person. This time he was going to be. And thank you God, for the things love can make us do.

Yes! When you love someone you always have to do something a little extra ordinary. It could be writing a very interesting poem, when even your high school teacher knew that the last poem you read halfway, let alone wrote, was the mandatory Shakespearean verse or the Longman’s Publisher’s advert in the back of the school exercise book’s cover. For others, it may be going places they never knew even existed, or tolerating a menu she fancies yet even his mother would have to apologise if she accidentally mentioned before his friends that he liked that food. And even better still, for his shopaholic girl, the guy will learn how to spend only 2-3 hours window shopping just hours before her shopping afternoon starts on a Saturday.

For my friend’s colleague, it was watching a soap opera. Hash! Since when had he settled for soft and girlie things? The day he “fell” in love I suppose. You see, love ain’t a joke. Even Schwarzenegger stopped acting when he fell in love with Politics or do we say he fell in love with California or the Californians? Well, with love, anything is possible. Men will stop watching Terminator & Vampire kind of things for Women of their lives, Gossip Girl and even edit her shopping. My friend’s colleague was hurrying for what I guess is now the most popular soap in the country and he’d see it even if Man -U was raining down on Man - City.

Well, for the random times in Kampala streets and a few conversations with both personal friends and average TV viewers in Kampala (including kids), you’d be insensitive to seek to know what the chances might be. And if you have a friend-girl or girlfriend in Uganda and you’re really the stubborn kind of guy and you want her to dump you, call her at 8ish pm when the Second Chance Soap opera is running.

But even to make it an irreconcilable difference, do so and talk about something else other than how Salvador did what you’d not do, how so and so dumped her x and cheated on her boyfriend, with her other friend’s boyfriend which boyfriend was also seeing her cousin, what am I talking about? I think I need a second chance on this note!!! (Just don’t get lost in the mix, I’m aware it is on free-view channels, not sure you can pause, and rewind and record at convenience, but you can leave work early enough and get home and see it with her).

And if you are a strategist like some few, then you could pretend and tell how much you love the soap and can’t miss it. There you will be sure to have and spend as much time, (even if the really constructive time will be during the commercial breaks which in most cases are used to recap and compare scenes). But a piece of advice, should you pretend to like the soap...just make sure you are not tempted to do an events’ analysis (like you do when Man U loses to Arsenal) and skip some small details. You’ll get two yellow cards and a red one as you try to defend your mixed up facts and it will take you another Second Chance to be given a second chance; why you really need to master the Second Chance!!!

Whereas there’re not as many spears to throw at soaps, some things about them still make me go bamboozle. Why do ladies tolerate vile play in soaps if soaps are really a true reflection of life or are they as “forgiving” and “tolerant” as they seem in real life too?

My pen too wonders. Could it be that all of us have done some few things that when we look back we can honestly say somehow somewhere, before an ordinarily and reasonable person we all need a second chance?

That’s up to you to unearth. The monkey in me thinks if it sneaked as one of the provisions in the Country’s never maturing Domestic Relations Bill, MPs would pass that bill, making it a relational offence and a big ground for a break up not to observe and dedicate those evening hours to them; the beautiful ladies of a beloved country!