I’ve never been much into religion. Those who know me may be surprised to hear, since I am tone deaf, that I was once a member of the church choir. My reasons for joining though were purely mercenary. Firstly, I knew that they passed notes in the back of the hymn books during the sermon, secondly, they sneakily ate Polo mints throughout the service and finally, you got paid a pound to sing (or mime along) at a wedding on a Sunday. I am, however, a firm believer in passing on random acts of kindness.
Kampala is still a cash based society and consequently my friends and I often find ourselves caught out. There is rarely a moment when I am not either owed money or in debt to somebody else.
This weekend was no exception. I wanted to have some money to go to the Christmas Bazaar to buy presents for folks at home and also needed a bit of shopping. Typically, whenever you need money it is hard to come by. Every ATM I tried was either completely down due to the power cut or had a network failure. I was not impressed. However, a couple of things put a smile on my face that day.
- I used my entire cash reserves and a little more on presents for myself and friends on the awava stall. I emptied my wallet and was given a hefty discount for being a loyal, returning customer.
- When I went to saloon (as they say here) for my wash and blow dry before the Scottish Ball (precautionary booking in case there was a power cut) I asked if I could pay by card. There was afterall, a big sticker saying Visa on the counter. When I was told that it wasn’t working I was about to skulk home, contemplating what I could do with my post bike ride hair in twenty minutes without the aid of a hairdryer. I was delighted to hear the words ‘you can pay us when you have some money’.
Call it karma or whatever you will, but I like it.
