HUMOUR: Letter To My Straka Baibe

PABLO HUMOUR
Written by Pablo

Wednesday, 16 December 2009 19:25

Dear Straka Baibe,

How do you survive in this atmospheric cosmogony? My mobility is fine though there are some calamities trying to minimise my creativity.

My heartfelt sympathy upon the wedding that never was. There has been lots of verbal artillery gunned towards you lately. They have called you all kind of things. Mbu you have a multi coloured garden of hair on your head, that you are a manifestation that God has a sense of humour, mbu you make peoples TVs look bigger. Your name STRAKA has been turned into an acronym. Mbu it’s Some Things Rarely Attract Kampala Audience…!

Just so you know, you are still my hero. Some of us stay up to watch your Late Show because you brighten our TV sets. It’s only in your programme that my black and white TV set shows colour. You have managed to beat the fashion police pages hands down. They have run out of captions when it comes to defining your sense of fashion.

My nephew thinks you would make a good advert for Sadolin paint. I have nostalgic memories of you as Pamela Otti emceeing at karaokes. You rocked the world and now it wants to rock you. Shya! Do they know who they are dealing with?

I won’t say, but do they know that you are a local investor with a boutique, a music band and a salon? Do they know how many pairs of gum boots you have? Do they know that you wear different attire for every show? Do they know how many languages you speak?

Do they know how many women you have inspired downtown and in Pader? Does Sylvia Owori know how much money she would mint if she used you as the face of her African woman magazine? Do they know that you even launched a website? The world pretends to hate you but we love you paka last. Your smile is so infectious.

You have a body to die for my dear Straka baibe. I’ve watched beauty queens and models on the catwalk and I wonder whether the organisers haven’t heard of you. Some of the models are too skinny that they can hide behind a cigarette. Your body is wonderfully and beautifully created in God’s image. At times I wonder whether you ever go hungry.

Designers deliberately make clothes that won’t fit you. They think you are still in kindergarten or heading to Didi’s amusement park. I really feel sorry for the men who have let you down. They don’t know what they are missing. People can’t stop talking about you. They wonder how old you are. I keep telling them that age doesn’t count.

That’s why these adolescents, who can’t handle a wedding, keep playing with your mind. Your concert-like wedding was going to be the first in history were people pay to dine on samosa and cassava as the main course. I’ve heard people say that it was a fake wedding.

Let me remind them on your behalf that Uganda is full of ghosts. There are ghost students, ghost soldiers, ghost seedlings, and yes, ghost stories like this one. Take heart my Straka baibe, it’s not the first ghost wedding.

If I may ask, which church should we hold responsible for not wedding you? Secondly, did you manage to hook some sponsorship from corporate companies for your highly billed wedding? I would love to have a copy of your proposal.

One has to be stone hearted to watch four shows flop in a space of two years. For a moment I thought you were finished when debt collectors started hunting for you over unpaid loans. People should leave us alone. There are better ghostly things to think about like CHOGM.

Like any other teenager, nothing lasts like my love for your show. It’s a lesson. It should be added on the UPE syllabus. The music is chemically reactive; you are biologically functioning and physically fit, the callers know everything about nothing and your attire is always very economical. That’s a done curriculum for social studies.

I would have sent you some money but I have already sealed the envelope. Allow me to dedicate some songs to you before I zip zap this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious letter.

• Coat of many colours by Dolly Paton
• Katulepuke by Mathias Walukagga
• Mwana ayagala mafaranga by Ceasarman

Your numberone fan, Pablo