Facebook Break

Saturday morning, September 22, should have gone down as a momentous point in the history of my life but it didn’t.

Why so?

It was the day I unilaterally decided to suspend my Facebook account.

The ridiculous is par for the course on Facebook

No, I didn’t flick the switch in a fit of piqué after having been snubbed, overshadowed, upstaged by some upstart diva or anything vile like that. The thought had gnawed at me for a while, months, and I kept on putting it off. I was too hooked on Facebook to do it, it would be the equivalent of plunging my life into a social black hole, I would die if I didn’t read about what James Onen and his retinue of free thinkers were talking about … and so on and so forth.

I finally made the decision to take a hiatus following two days when I was down with a cold.  Over those two days I was on Facebook more or less constantly, learning … precious little actually.

People I knew and didn’t know were jet lagged in New York City, others were about to arrive in New York City, were about to go out and drink beer in Bern, were sleepless in Vancouver, were in the line waiting to pay for their groceries, were guffawing at yet another faded picture of yonder years they had dug up, congratulating themselves on being God’s gift to humanity, the usual suspects were dispensing yet more love advice, cut and uncut men (and women!) were haranguing each other about “male genital mutilation,” others were having a heated debated about having sex in a car as opposed to while standing up against a wall … were, were, were ….

To my horror, I was engaged in a number of discussions, in various groups, for hours on end that every sinew in my body was telling me were inane, asinine, pointless. But there I was adding my two pennies’ worth, all the time wondering how I could allow myself to trade opinions with people who either couldn’t or wouldn’t construct proper sentences even if they could spell to save their lives.

Images that invite SMHs, LOLs, LOLESTs, WTFs from across the globe

Me? An English major with two university degrees and countless hours of teaching children how to read and write? How could I stoop to this semi-literate internet banter with strangers I had no chance of bringing around to my point of view and, more pertinently, who didn’t have the education and/or intellect to discuss at the level they were attempting to discuss?

Tss!

So, I pulled the plug Saturday morning.

To my consternation, the earth didn’t move off its axis. In fact, the color of the leaves outside didn’t change to beetroot red so I had to physically pinch myself to make sure that I was really still alive. I was.

I have now gone back to reading my news off Yahoo, the BBC, Washington Post, and the various formal channels I used to frequent before I allowed myself to sink rather lower than I should have. I was today about to sign on again and make a snide remark about Romney’s 14% tax paid on the $20m he made in 2011 but I then realized that only his wife and death-warmed-up Anne Coulter (that woman has spent enough on Botox to pay off  a sizable chunk of California’s public debt) are pretending to buy his argument so there is no point in my adding to the disgusted responses of which there must be millions out there. With or without my two pennies’ worth, that man is going down … and deservedly so. I don’t have to let the world know that I know they know it. Some things are best left unsaid … even on Facebook.

I shall not stay away from Facebook forever if only because it has proved useful for me to communicate with a number of people all over the world quickly. My messages to them pop up on their smartphones instantly, saving me the tedious chore of sending SMS text messages. To shut down completely will thus stymie an obvious avenue of easy, cheap, communication. So, I have given myself until October 1 to reassess.

Call it my Facebook bathroom break, taking a Facebook dump. I shall perhaps also allow myself a thorough colonic irrigation and a lobotomy while I am at it. Now and then one needs such a ‘cleansa.’

When I get back in, my first task must be to sift through my list of “friends” and conduct yet another mass cull. I don’t for the life of me know how I could have 450 friends. 450 friends? That’s outrageous. Anyone I have not ‘talked to’ in the last two or three months, or with the parts below his navel showing, will have to go. So will anyone calling himself James Dean, Fela Kuti or Brenda Fassie . I will not be friends with famous dead people even if I might have admired them at some point.

Fake profile picture? I get what you want to look like but you have to go!

The list of people requesting to be my friends will have to be pruned as well. Before I went off air, I think I had about 100 people waiting to be my friends that I could have sworn I didn’t know. Some of them confusingly shared the same pictures as professional adult film actors I had seen in various pornographic movies. Now, I know I have an irresistible personality, but why would a porn actor who has never met me want to be my Facebook friend?

But that’s Facebook for you. It’s probably not what whoever coined it had in mind  but it certainly does validate the saying that there are no strangers in this world; just friends you haven’t met yet. Or is it ‘strangers who want to be friends with you?‘

I have at least another seven days to find out.

Let’s talk politics 5

Maggie Thatcher: Britain’s best prime minister of the last 60 years

The other day a friend from another forum made the following sardonic riposte to an opinion I put forward that he didn’t quite agree with: “Oh, I have remembered your political affiliation.”

Which got me to thinking about my “politics” a little more critically than I have perhaps ever tried to.

What is my political affiliation?

I loved Margaret Thatcher (Maggie) and still think she was the best political event that could have happened to the United Kingdom given how she took that country by the scruff of its neck and wrested it away from the ruinous grip of the trade unions. And who can today question the home ownership revolution Maggie presided over in Britain? That was probably her single most significant success for the average person in Britain.

I then gave a nod to her successor, John Major, thinking that he was going to be a Maggie replica only to be sorely disappointed by his writhing and spineless leadership. That dull-as-dishwater man set the Tory Party back 20 years, to the bad old days of Ted Heath.

While Maggie ruled Britain, I had mixed feelings about her close friend from across the pond, Ronald Reagan, mostly because I felt (and still do today) that Reagan’s record was a triumph of style over substance. Bill Clinton was a more effective and productive president and I feel he doesn’t get enough credit for his presidency which left America with a budget surplus for the first time in generations. Unfortunately,while president, he failed to maintain control over his zippers.

I look back with disdain at the reign of George W. Bush but don’t particularly care for the namby-pamby ‘tree hugging’ politics of Al Gore who would have become president hadn’t the US Supreme Court intervened in the hotly contested Florida vote-counting debacle of 2000. George Bush was a terrible  president but it’s not lost on me that had Al Gore gotten in, we would all have been required to wear banana skirts, adopt a monkey and sing Kumbaya.

God’s gift to America: Bill Clinton

In a general thrust, while I believe that we should not think only about ourselves, I have no patience whatsoever for leftist thinking that seems to assume that everyone who is ‘poor’ deserves our tears and attention. We should help those less fortunate than ourselves but there is nothing to be ashamed of if you cut them adrift to face the vagaries of the world when the help you have provided is not used productively.

I don’t believe that there is anything such as God’s intent. So, we get the cards we are allotted by where we are born and how we are raised, and it is our responsibility to play those cards, not God’s. If you fail your exams, it is because you didn’t prepare well enough or you don’t have the aptitude to pass them. God has nothing to do with it and the sooner people stopped putting fatalistic faith in God’s power to make them do things the more we would all understand the importance of personal responsibility.

I am totally sympathetic with the fight for human rights for black people in America, women, children, the handicapped, gay men and women all over the world. But I don’t think that African-Americans, gays or women deserve special consideration till the end of time simply because of their race, gender or sexuality. So, once the basic help has been provided in the form of education, food stamps, and other state support for a specified period, there should be no shame about washing one’s hands of those who don’t grasp the nettle to lift themselves up by their boot straps. Cradle to grave state support should never ever be countenanced by any responsible government anywhere in the world.

As a gay man, I see the merit in marriage equality (or civil partnerships) but I also believe that respective states (in the case of the USA) should decide to grant gays the privilege to marry or not. Marriage is not a right in my view – it is just a social construct that one can opt in, out of or avoid totally. As long as gay men and women can love each other, cohabit, bequeath property to each other and do all the things that straight people take for granted (such as hospital visitations and joint taxation filing), churches and local governments can refuse to marry them if the majority so wish it.

I am sympathetic with the gay struggles in Africa and understand why activists continuously push governments on the issue of gay/LGBTI rights. LGBTI rights have never been won by lying down supinely and waiting for a hostile public to come round, at least in the beginning. But I am also too well aware of the conflict of interest when the activists have nothing else to do but be activists. That engenders a climate that encourages crying wolf at the expense of the larger good, the truth and the really pressing grassroots priorities.

Overrated (Reagan) and a disgrace (Bush)

While I cannot help but admire the bravery of gay activists who engage in running battles with police authorities in Africa and elsewhere, I also hang on to my feeling that there is ultimately nothing wrong with the African way of treating love and relationships as a … secret. That’s why  I am not in favor of flag-waving gay parades or lurid discussions of gay sex on radio and television even in the most repressive African communities – unless that sort of battle is brought to our doorstep by our enemies such as Martin Ssempa has done on several occasions. Parades and sexual talk shows are cut and paste ideas that mistakenly try to buck the [rather successful] low-key African way of handling marriage and relationships.

Tarzan is an Expatriate by Paul Theroux

I have tried to see what good NGOs (of almost all hues) do in Third World countries and I struggle to find more than a handful that I think are of any value to the people they purport to support. NGOs, to me, are vessels for bleeding heart expatriates, often with mediocre qualifications, who traipse into countries such as Uganda, load it over the locals who ultimately do the real dirty work, and then enjoy hefty salaries and hardship allowances despite enjoying a better standard of living in the Third World than they do back in their own home countries.NGOs, too, have a glaring conflict of interest in the sense that if poverty, world hunger, malnutrition, malaria, wife battery, child abuse, LGBTI-bashing were all eradicated they would have to shut down. So, it is really in the interest of NGOs for all these problems to continue and, now and then, escalate as happens in Somalia, Southern Sudan and Ethiopia. That’s how they stay in business.

Stuck with tradition: King Ronnie and his very modern wife, Queen Sylvia

I dislike coalition politics as I think it encourages vague, wishy-washy governance. But I can see that it has worked well in Germany for more than 50 years and it brought Zimbabwe back from the brink, messy though that coalition has proved to be. That is why I loved Maggie Thatcher; whether you liked her or not, you knew exactly what she stood for. Maggie would never have entered into the kind of ideologically confused Con-Lib coalition you now see in Britain.

I don’t see a lot of practical merit in communism but can’t help being in awe when I see how Cuba has managed to stand up to the USA for generations; spiting its face in the process, yes, but standing tall nonetheless. I also have no respect for China’s small-minded murderous red communists but look at how they have transformed that country’s fortunes in less than 25 years.

I detest dictatorships, but I also see that the benevolent dictatorships in Singapore and Malaysia haven’t done badly for those two countries. I also support hereditary monarchs and all the pomp and circumstance that come with them and so would like to see Buganda’s King Ronnie have more powers over his people than he does at the moment despite some of the anachronistic cultural traditions he still takes advantage of and the glaring weaknesses I see in his administration.

Contradictory? You bet.

I happen to think that Barack Obama is the most important event to have happened to America since Bill Clinton and will be totally bereft if America doesn’t give him a second term given the threadbare and dishonest alternative. It’s nice to know your man’s back is covered in your backyard but what a difference it would make if all the guaranteed 98% of the Washington, DC Obama votes could be transferred to Virginia! Or North Carolina.

I think Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has no credibility or new ideas left whatsoever but what could come might infinitely be worse so I can see why Ugandans may best be advised re-elect him in 2016. Given that he is the only reason the Bahati anti-gay bill has not been passed already, I have to admit that it makes good political sense for the gay movement  if Museveni stays in power for another 30 years.

What does that make my political affiliation out to be? I don’t think it matters, but I also recognize that I hold views that a lot of friends will never agree with.

In my mind, that’s okay, too.

My HTC smartphone stolen! 1

My HTC smart phone is gone. It went in a split second as I sat waiting for the lights where Kampala Road branches on to Entebbe Road.

Some hoodlum, banged on the passenger window, I turned to find out why he was banging and then his accomplice put his hand in my car, grabbed the phone and ran into the traffic.

I was transfixed for about 5 seconds and then sense came back to me. I rolled the windows up (too late, I know), stepped out of the car, locked it and left it right there in the middle of the traffic.

And then I went after the thieves. Weaving through traffic, with bystanders guiding me as to where they had gone, I chased after them, catching up with them about 200 yards down the street, in front of the city post office. Unaware that I was on their trail (they didn’t expect me to get out of the car and go after them), they were walking casually, clearly happy with their day’s work.

I grabbed hold of one from behind, turned him around and demanded that he return my phone.  The other one ran. The one I grabbed started pleading his innocence but it was futile because I remembered him as the one who had put his hand in my car while I was distracted by the banging on the passenger window.

I demanded that he gives back the phone he had stolen from and he protested again. I started slapping him, kicking him and then pinned him to a lamp post. I have no idea where the mob came from but within seconds, we were surrounded by about 20 people, a number of them pointing accusing fingers at the little thief I was holding by the scruff of his neck. And then the beating started.

The thief begged but the blows just rained on him from every direction. Someone then suggested that he should be undressed. By this time the situation was well out of my control and I had become an onlooker in the drama I had started. In seconds, the thief was undressed and his clothing had disappeared.

When he started frothing at the mouth, I thought we were going to kill him. Kicks here, blows there, belt welts too. The poor fellow stood no chance, as he cowered on the ground, trying to hang on to his privates as well as protect the rest of his body from the beating. But then he managed to get up, startling the crowd which gave way. Stark naked, bleeding and crying like a little boy, the thief scampered across Kampala Road with the entire city now laughing at him, me inclusive.

I didn’t get the phone back but I must admit I got a kick out of meting out mob justice to the little crook.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. We don’t work that hard for stuff only for hoodlums to pinch them in such a brazen manner. Since there would have been nothing done to the thief had I managed to take him to the police, the rough justice he got served him right. He will think twice next time before he puts his thieving paws inside someone else’s car to pick what doesn’t belong to him.

I am not sick at all after all! 2

You might recall that I recently visited XX (name withheld) Hospital in Kampala where the nurse referred to me as ‘you,’ the lab attendant manhandled me brusquely, and the doctor nonchalantly diagnosed my illness and prescribed antibiotics without so much as laying a finger on me.

Well, today I finally ended up at yet another facility (after two more had concluded that they couldn’t see what the first doctor had diagnosed)  following a recommendation from a friend. The first thing that strikes you at this place (name excised) is the breezy friendliness of the receptionist. She makes eye contact with you as soon as you step off the threshold.

I explained that I had received what I felt was a questionable diagnosis from XX Hospital and I wanted a second opinion about what the x-rays that had been taken actually meant. She  directed me to the x-ray room behind some ambulances and there I found yet another cheerful young woman who looked at the image I handed her.

Thus far, not a cent paid but rather professional service offered. The x-ray technician then remarked about the quality of the images. “We use digital imaging here because it offers the best quality.” she diplomatically criticized the images I had gotten from XX  Hospital. “In any case, despite the quality of this x-ray, you have perfect lungs.”

Huh? But the doctor at XX Hospital looked at the same image and declared that I had fibrosis! “I don’t see that here,” reiterated the technician, studying the film one more time. “But to be sure,” why don’t you see the doctor?” I don’t think we need to have another x-ray as I don’t see anything that suggests fibrosis but if the doctor decides, he will send you back.”

And so I went back to the reception desk and signed in to see the doctor.

The doctor I saw is what is what you might aptly call a seasoned man of medicine. Think of him as a combination of tough love, excellent medical knowledge, and a total lack of pretense. He would not survive long in the United States where medicine has become so commercialized and defensive that tests (almost most of them needless) have totally replaced practical medical knowledge. As soon as I walked into his examination room, he asked me a series of questions about my complaint, took careful notes and then declared: “That’s sounds like a pinched nerve!”

He then guided me to the examination table, sat me up, felt around my back with his hand and listened in with his stethoscope. “Yes, your 9^th vertebrae is pinching a nerve which is why you have that piercing pain where you have it. What you need to do is twist like this way (twisting my torso to the right) and that (twisting me to the left) when you get out of bed every morning and you should be fine.  “What do you think, doctor?” The trainee doctor who had been shadowing him all along concurred.

So, I asked him, after the twisting was done why the other doctor had prescribed Brustan (Paracetamol/Ibupfrofen) and Azithromycin. “What on earth did she do that for?” he asked, barely managing to conceal his astonishment.

And so it went on like that for about 3 more minutes with the doctor barely able to contain his consternation at the medical incompetence I had been subjected to over the last few days.

So, possums. that is how I went from having “Fibrosis” to merely having a “pinched nerve” in the space of five days.  One of my friends suggested that perhaps the XX  doctor had meant “fibroids!” I can now see  the sardonic point my friend was trying to make, but it wasn’t so funny at the time.

Please check out what fibrosis is (http://www.medicinenet.com/pulmonary_fibrosis/article.htm) to appreciate the irresponsibility of the doctor who diagnosed that I had it without stepping from behind her desk to examine me or refer her suppositions to any specialist despite the fact that one was available the evening she made her throwaway conclusion.

What helped me, of course, is that I had the money to seek a second and third opinion.  Four  trips to ‘hospitals,’ doctors, labs, etc set me back enough money to pay two Ugandan school teachers their monthly take-home pay. Now, imagine if the incorrect “fibrosis” diagnosis had been given to one of those teachers – which in fact happens all the time in this country.

I guess the question that now lingers in my mind is this: how can six professionals read the same x-ray image and five of them come to a completely different conclusion to the first one? That has bothered me no end because that first conclusion was arrived at without examination or consultation. Do doctors now pronounce potentially terminal diagnosis to patients without consulting with anyone else?

In Uganda, it would appear that they do.

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• ILL!! (sebaspace.wordpress.com)

ILL!! 4

I am sitting in the waiting area of XX Hospital (name withheld) in Kmpala. A few minutes ago, I had to give a blood and urine sample and now I must wait 30 minutes for the doctor who is going to do some sort of scan to show up. But let me start from the beginning.

Two or so days ago I started feeling this pain in my back, sort of near where the kidneys are supposed to be located. I ignored it. By yesterday afternoon, the pain had grown to a level where it was uncomfortable to sit, lean on anything or stand for too long. So, I drove home to rest. It was all I could do to make it up the stairs. Then the pain killers refused to work. I knew then that this was serious.

So, after I eventually made it out of bed, I ended up at XX. Why XX? I visited this hospital when I was running a high fever one evening some months ago and was well taken care of by a 30-something doctor called Simon who surmised that I had picked up a bacterial infection, most likely due to something I shouldn’t have eaten. That visit put me back in shape nicely and so this time I decided to return to the same hospital.

Everything here is paid for upfront – cash only, no credit cards.

Consultation fee: ($12.00). Then it was off to a messy room where two Indian-looking women and a man waited. But before I arrived there, I had to tell off the woman who came to fetch me when she summoned me with a “You, come with me.” “I am not a you. You have my chart, read the name on it and use it!” She looked totally taken aback, no doubt wondering how any patient could talk to her like that.

The elderly gentleman who decided to do a number of lab tests seemed efficient enough. In Uganda, you don’t want to deal with any doctor younger than 40 unless he/she has trained in the first or second world abroad. Young doctors trained in Uganda are incompetent, careless, arrogant little bastards who you agree to diagnose or dispense treatment to you at your peril. So, it was comforting enough that, though he didn’t bother to examine me when I told him of my back pain, the doctor who decided what should be tested for was in his late 50s.

So, I returned to the reception desk to pay for the blood and urine tests ($30.00). The nursing aide (he didn’t look like a doctor to me) who took my blood didn’t bother to introduce himself or ask for my name in order to confirm that he had the right patient. He simply read my file, grabbed a swab of cotton wool, daubed it in alcohol and proceeded to pull my arm to him.

So much for bedside manner.

After failing to find the vein he was looking for (that is the story of my blood-drawing life and I wanted to show him the best place to draw my blood but he wasn’t looking remotely interested), he nonetheless proceeded to insert the needle where he thought the vein was, all the time complaining that the air conditioning was making his fingers too cold to feel the vein.

Needle in. Nothing, no blood, zilch. Nada. Mr. Blood-drawer simply pulled the needed out, picked up another cotton swab and proceeded to feel my arm again – without a word said to me about why he had got no blood the first time. Second needle in again and, voila, this time he drew blood. He promptly picked up his samples and walked away, leaving me to wonder what I should do next. The lady in the corner of the lab saw my perplexed look and helpfully suggested that I return to the waiting area. The tests results would be ready in an hour.

So, I returned to the waiting area which is where I am sitting right now. The receptionist has, however, just told me that for the next set of tests to be done, I need to drink a lot of water because I have to fill my bladder! What? But I just emptied my bladder when I provided the urine sample for the lab. How on earth am I going to fill up my bladder again in 30 minutes? Drink lots of water. But, I asked indignantly, even if I drink lots of water, it doesn’t go directly into the bladder, does it? Yes, it does. Drink lots of water, she commanded.

The lady sitting next to me then suggested that perhaps the nurse meant filling my stomach with water. To which the receptionist, who had overheard, shot back: “Fill the bladder, drink lots of water.” That ended the discussion, but by this time I was giggling uncontrollably at the ridiculous nature of the command, with pain wracking my back with every giggle.

I am now seated here drinking from a 1.5 litre bottle of water whose contents are, I am sure, not going into my bladder, and won’t be heading there any time soon if my primary school biology serves me right.  Meanwhile, the old(er) doctor who examined me without examining me has just passed by, informed me that another doctor will pick up from where he left off, and he has sauntered out of the premises.

I must now wait for the next doctor to arrive. She (they told me it is a woman) is already 30 minutes late, but who is counting?

Ugandan hospitals!! Does the expression ‘death-trap’ mean anything to you?  If you have been to a Ugandan hospital (government or private), it should.

Hello world!

I have finally made the move to WordPress!

It will take a bit of getting used to the new navigation, but already I notice that this platform allows for simpler linking and tagging. I am sure in about a week’s time I will be asking myself why it took me this long to switch.

There is going to be less titillation on here, given that I have, ahem, been nominated for a Nobel Prize (or was it the Guinness World Record?) for my humble literary efforts.

I have thus vowed that unless someone’s life depends on it, there will be no full frontal nudity on this blog. Anyone who visits my blog with titillation in my mind shall not be disappointed, however. I shall from hereon only provide links (if I really have to) to the sites where that sort of smut is peddled. Man does not live on Sebas’  intelligent writing alone, after all, I know, but one can try, can’t one?

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken"

Who, being loved, is poor? (Wilde)

AfroGay promised himself that he would end this year on a positive note, but it is proving to be quite the feat, achieving that. So, he must turn to none other than the inimitable Oscar Wilde for guidance through the few hours left of 2011 as well as preparation for 2012.

So, rather than dwell on the negative things that have happened this year, it seems much better to focus on what one has learned from them. As Oscar Wilde once remarked: experience is merely the name we give to our mistakes. 

In that light, 2011 has been a year of a number of some notable experiences. The most notable one was a building project that was, well, quite an experience.  An entire structure, built up to ring beam level, had to be leveled due to unprofessional and incompetent workmanship. 2012 must be used not to repeat that experience.

On the personal relationship front, AfroGay reiterated to himself in 2011 the efficacy of steering clear of young men who know it all.  Having been 35 for all these years, and looking all the better for it,  I am no longer young enough to know everything. I must thus socialize in very measured dozes with those young enough to know everything.

In creating man, God overestimated his ability

2012 is going to be the year of hard work even though hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do. So, AfroGay must, sadly, join the ranks of people who have nothing to do in 2012 and work hard.

I shall not define my successes in 2012 because to define is to limit. In 2012, the sky shall thus be the limit in everything I do, feel, or touch.

Yes, I am going to be 35 again in 2012. To talk about one’s real age might appear to be too calculating and I shall not sully my reputation in that manner.

To the detractors who have sought to destroy God’s beautiful gay (good as you) creations in 2011, and will no doubt continue trying in 2012 and beyond, please remember:  “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” Thus far, mercifully, the gay community has shown that it will never succumb to the selfishness that others might want to impose on it.

Finally, to my in/out/closeted/semi-closeted gay friends wherever you are:

My advice for 2012 is also straight out of Oscar Wilde’s genius: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”  This life is not a dress rehearsal. If it is the fear of death that holds you back, remember that you’re already dying; everybody is. And you’re going to be dead a very long time.

Make the most of the time you have left by living (most people just exist), loving  (who, being loved, is poor?) and stabbing your friends only in the front. Above all, forgive your enemies (nothing annoys them so much).

Happy New Year!

AfroGay/Sebaspace Blog Stats

Popular Sebaspace header image

Following prompting from an article that Kenyan Gay Man wrote, I decided to check out what the most popular posts on my blog are – in terms of hits/page views:

At the bottom in the left column of this blog and here below, the most popular posts of all time are shown. These, however, don’t reflect the individual posts under labels such as “Images” or Images – African Men, which have combined visits that far exceed the 6,000 visits to the Collin Jackson posting, for instance. My Battle with the Bulge also generated more interest than I would have envisaged – more than 1,000 visits combined. Which goes to show you that a lot of people are interested in other people’s personal business than let on. Coming Out and Gay Cures have combined visits of more than 5,000 thanks in most part to all those hypocritical Republicans and “pastors” who are outing themselves because they can’t keep their penises flaccid when they see another man’s nakedness.

Here are some of the other posts which made it past 500 hits/visits, in no particular order:

1. Butts – God’s gift to mankind
2. Are you a top or a bottom?
3. How to catch an unfaithful partner
4. Thug Love
5. Twinks
5. It’s raining men on Obama Weekend
6. Lydia Sembuya – a  pleasant surprise this, I must admit
7. Paying for sex
8. Terrell Carter - over 4,000 hits
9. Michael Ezra Mulyoowa
10. Bareback porn is back        11. Nudity going mainstream
12. Memorial Day 2011           13. Sexual positions
14. Benon Makumbi
15. Why Ugandan girls don’t win beauty pageants
16. The curse of the small dick
17. The state of Uganda’s gay scene
18. Bend over, bend over 
19. Cultural barriers to discussing sex and sexuality
20. Rio de Janeiro
21. Homophobic rant sows discord and disarray

Here are the all time raw numbers of the highest hits (from Blogger):

Where does most of my audience come from? I must admit I was surprised by India and Brazil being on the list. Who in India reads this blog? The mind boggles:

And there you have it. I think I shall do this every end of year, focusing on the annual statistics, since it has been such fun going over the numbers and checking out the most visited posts. The lesson, however, seems to be that people are gravitating towards the suggestive pictures more than anything else. It might put off a less thick skinned blogger from writing (opting to post pictures instead). But there are a lot of very popular blogs doing nothing else but post pictures so AfroGay has no intention of going in that direction.

I write because I want to and because I think I have something that deserves to be aired, not because only 100 people might read what I have written. Yes, all work (writing) and no play (images, fun) makes Afrogay a dull boy so, now and then, the images shall make an appearance.

Thus far, I find the entire writing process cathartic – which is the point, come to think of it. And, even if I am the one saying so, I write because … I can.

Why under 25 is too young!! 1

This is going to be my most personal article in a while and I must promise myself not to get this personal again unless I really, really, have to.I had an awful row with a young man in a public bar last night. It was on account of a bottle of beer.

What had hitherto been a great night suddenly jarred to a shuddering and embarrassing halt on account of … a bottle of beer. The ins and outs of the bottle of beer are not relevant. What is is that I got so angry over something that should have been a two second discussion, ending in a “no.”

When I woke up this morning, I was still livid about the incident. I was embarrassed, yes, that I had lost it like that on account of a beer, but I was still seething about something else that I couldn’t quite figure out. Before I proceed any further, I want to say that I am sorry that I got so mad where I did [in a crowded bar] no doubt mortifying those around, but that I am not sorry I got angry. The reason I am not sorry that I got so angry is that it finally focused my mind as to why I was so angry.

The entire day today, I have thought about nothing else but the lead-up to the incident last night. Given the focus I have managed to give it, I have finally been able to figure out why I have in the past sneered at relationships that cross the generation divide.

You see, possums, I have finally understood, almost at 47, that I don’t want to, cannot, date anyone I don’t respect. I can find it in me to be nice and sociable with people I don’t respect, but I don’t really want to be their ‘hang-out’ buddy let alone their lover. And truth be told, I don’t know of many under-25 Ugandans that have yet got the qualities (an educated mind, fierce independence, pride in whatever they are/do, self-respect, treating others the way one would like to be treated, personal/professional integrity, worldly outlook and/or exposure) that would make me respect them. Those qualities come with time. I shall stand to be corrected but I think I am absolutely right on this one.

Disclaimer: 25 is an arbitrary number plucked from the air to establish a benchmark. Much of what is to follow may relate to many people older than that. But a benchmark is necessary to have some sort of apex to work with and so 25 it is.

Young men in their early 20s are, to me, wonderful to be around for 10 minutes and then you send them home for their bed time stories or back to their studies to do prep. Spending time around men that young is a chore that I have realized is simply too reminiscent of what I was like at that age – not knowing much even if I thought I did, and definitely not able to contribute in any meaningful way to any conversations that veered away from my limited exposure at the time. I want to be around men of that age in a skills/career/personal development environment (yes, I have some Life Skills training from my past) where they talk and I make sure I say as little as possible since the session is really about them.

I once told this person I berated last night that I don’t want to spend time with anyone who sees me as a sort of cash cow, or omnipotent benefactor with limitless resources. But I now must admit that I have not been terribly good at enforcing my own rule. No, I have not been sleeping with young men under 25 and do not plan to do so. But I have been giving them conflicting signals given my avowed wish not to hang out too much with them. No wonder then that I kept on getting more and more angry without realizing why. I had broken my own rule and the resultant irritation whenever I felt taken advantage of by people who are the same age as my adopted son kept on eating away at me until, last night, I finally exploded, unfairly as it turned out, on the young man I ripped to shreds.

Oh, it was ugly and, I think, quite scary for those around. But I now accept that it was necessary in order for me to focus again on what I want.

Yes, age is just a number – when you are talking about a very, very unique type of young man; a very rare specimen to find in a place like Uganda where, thanks to children being raised by television, plus the rampant corruption in the country, the loss of personal and professional integrity has seeped into every facet of life and dishonesty is now the norm rather than the exception. All these young men have essentially been brought up to think that they are entitled to anything they want, and that life is about them. If it makes sense to them, it is the right thing to do. So, they have no qualms about coming out to a bar, sometimes with their friends in tow, and asking you for drinks as though you invited them out, and then they take umbrage when you don’t move to buy the drinks immediately.

I was raised to the standard that begging is demeaning and I don’t know any people of my generation who begged or beg the way these boys brazenly do. If you didn’t have money, and no one invited you out, you stayed home like a good boy and read your books, stared at the ceiling  or jerked yourself off till your wrist went numb.

We certainly liked free drinks but we made sure they were negotiated beforehand with whoever was going to buy them so that when you walked into a watering hole the rules were already clear. True, we also went to parties with limited money and then resorted to pilfering drinks off other guests’ tables while they were distracted. Young people do that and, the scurrilousness of stealing drinks notwithstanding, I have more respect for that kind of creativity than for someone standing there, doe-eyed, with people he didn’t come with and barely knows, waiting to be bought drinks and then he has the temerity to ask for transport money home. The first one is really theft, but the second scenario is, to me, worse because it is irritating, craven, embarrassing, whiny, writhing, Uriah-Heep-like sliminess. It is ill-bred conduct camouflaged as street savvy that guilts people into doing things they don’t want to do in order to be agreeable. Steal my drink off my table while I am looking the other way any time. I will be irritated, yes, but will likely get over it in two minutes because I will learn my lesson and, if I ever come back to the sort of place where that kind of petty theft happens, will be more mindful to keep an eye on my drink.

So, I have again reached the conclusion that I reached many years ago and then somehow have been ignoring to the detriment of my temperament and, I am sure, the extreme discomfort of those around me:

1. Hanging around young men under the age of 25 should be limited merely to niceties as much as possible
2. Dating them must continue to be a no-no
3. While there is nothing wrong with buying them drinks, they must be made aware that I offer the drinks – they cannot, must not, should not ask me for them. If I don’t offer, they are free to go find someone else to siphon
4. I must continue to respect the older guys who find the under-25s alluring because each to their own. But that also means that I must be clear about my expectations from the young men that hang with my older friends should there be any whiff of a sexual or dating interest

God give me the strength to carry on!!

My car was jimmied two days ago and my laptop and IPod carried off – in broad daylight, on a busy Kampala street, right in front of a security sentry who of course denied having seen anything. He looked drunk at 4pm anyway so it was easy to see why it was possible he didn’t see anything. But everyone around agreed he had worked with the thieves as there was no way they could have gotten into the car and away without him seeing what was going on.

All the consultancy work I had been working on was lost with the laptop and I am now back to square one, trying to figure out what can be retrieved from my ever rusting memory. Then there is the feeling of violation and outright betrayal that someone paid to protect your property connives with crooks to upend your in that fashion.

The other night I was introduced to a “date” by a straight friend who, despite all my protestations, decided I need to be fixed up. The following day, the “date” called, asked to see me. He seemed nice enough on the phone and so I went along with the conversation. Towards the end of it, he requested that I do shopping for his family and take it to our meeting. All along I could hear kids screaming ‘daddy, daddy’ in the background and what sounded like the mother berating the kids. I flat out told him I would not show up. The friend who had set up the date then called me up and castigated me for being a spoilsport – apparently he was working as a pimp for the ‘date’ and would have gotten something out of the deal had I started coughing up money and groceries for the family.

I must admit that I can about live with everything this country throws at me except the crooked mindset of the people. This is one week where I said to myself that if all these slimy, leechy, lying, thieving, conniving, cynical, soul-less, selfish Ugandans I am meeting were a fish, I would throw it back. And then I would starve to death for good measure.