GC fighting off Papso's mistaken advances. PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION/PATIENCE NATAKWA
- Previously on the Girl Child Has Seen Days:GC survived being fired and now, it seems, she has the family eating out of her hand, almost literally. Her friendship with Mable grows, but what about Mabel’s husband Papso?
- NOTE: Find all the previous eight episodes at the bottom.
The problem with working from home is that you have to leave the house. If you need something from the bank, mall or market, for example, you cannot just send one of the interns to get it. You have to fetch it yourself.
There are some disruptive innovators in the SME field who have dabbled with offering internships to work-from-home businesses, but there are two major drawbacks that have not been satisfactorily addressed. These are, a: The interns also want to work from their home, so what’s the point? And b: If you insist that they work from your place, the interns come to your house, use up all your toilet paper and run up your yaka bill.
Mabel ran a business from her home office, and mostly online. Her linkedin profile described it as a Bespoke, Authentic, Personally-Curated African Arts and Cultural Artefacts Boutique.
In simple terms, she sold African things to Americans.
She had a client in Howard University who was very eager to collect drums and barkcloth, and Mabel was even more eager to sell them to him at the kind of brazenly excessive profit you Ugandans think is business as usual. The only downside was that she would have to go and collect the barkcloth herself.
This is what she was about to do when she met GC in the hallway. GC could not help but notice that when Mabel is going to leave the house, she actually dresses up and she cleans up nice.
GC: Eh mama. Some?
Mabel: I know, right?
GC: The kitenge is giving. Or as you millennials say, is on fly.
Mabel: Thank you for the compliment but saying fly is GenX. Millennials say “on fleek.”
GC: Oh really? Burooh. I just got here from the village a few months ago and I am still catching up. The problem is that I learn like AI. As in it's generally impressive how fast I learn but there are some errors to be expected.
Mabel was grateful for the compliment and the explanation behind why it was so old-fashioned, but she was not ready to accept it.
Mabel: But I don't really want the compliment. I'm trying not to look too good.
GC: You don’t want to slay? Why not?
Mabel: I'm going downtown to shop for my businesses. I don't want to look boojie and middle class or they will take advantage of me. And I don't want to look like a boojie middle class woman trying not to look middle class or they'll take advantage of me. But I want to look like the boss lady that I am, or else they will take advantage of me.
GC could fully understand the conundrum Mabel was in. Being a seasoned hustler herself, she had faced it before. But she had a solution, if not advice.
GC: Those people downtown, are they men?
Mabel: Yeah. My suppliers are men.
GC: Then just go looking hot. Men are stupid.
Mabel: It doesn't work that way…
GC: It does for me. Sometimes if I was looking too fine they would give me things on credit and then also give me balance. What are you going to buy downtown anyway?
GC’s reason for asking was neither small talk nor friendly interest in the activities of her boss/upcoming new bestie. Her motives were ulterior. Even though she worked here as a maid, she was still the hustlingest hustler in Bweyos, and one does not maintain that title by letting people leave Bweyos to go to buy things in Kikuubo with any attempt to grab at their cash.
To illustrate, let us flash back to before she became a maid, when GC was an upcoming mafia don.
A motorcycle revs up the hill with the logo of one of those restaurant/cafes that has branches in malls and menu items with Italian and French names. It is a place that sells wraps and not rolex, the difference being inclusion of mayonnaise and multiplication of price by ten.
The motorcycle has a box on the back.
The motorcycle stops suddenly when two tall men with garage muscles step into the road. Garage muscles, you will of course surmise, are the kind of muscles that you don’t get in a gym. Gyms give men sexy muscles, but garages gives them hard muscles. Lifting weights in the gym gives you muscles which look nice in polo shirts. But lifting parts in a garage gives you muscles with look menacing in sleeveless One Love Bob Marley vests.
The motorcycyle stops.
Biker: But blood, why? I am just trying to deliver these role… I mean and these wraps.
Muscled Goons: The Boss would like to speak with you.
An hour later the motorcyle is back in the mall. Meanwhile GC and her Goons have kept the box. From that day on, every time a customer from the neighbourhood calls to order wraps delivery from Cafe Le Bourgeois Ristorante, what they actually get is a rolex from Nyakato. She just unfurls the standard rolex, tosses in lettuce, mayo, and some strips of either beef or whatever Chomo Kinyatta is calling beef, and puts it into the box they stole from the motorcycle guy and now that money is theirs. Ugandans are such innovative entrepreneurs.
How the call is diverted to GC’s phone, I don’t know. Let us either say she is a hacker, or put it down to unresolved plot points. What matters is that she still had a hand in a few businesses in the hood. And so when Mabel said she had to purchase some barkcloth and some genuine Ganda drums, GC was on it.
GC: You don’t have to go downtown. Just take your fleekness and go enjoy some mimosas with your girls. By the time you come back I will have the best barkcloth and the dopest drums waiting.
Yes, GC would allow Le Bourgeois Cocktailesserrie to eat money as long as she was getting more. She was going to make a nice njawulo from the barkcloth and drums. You ask what njawulo is? It is economics jargon for “profit”, except that for profit to qualify as njawulo, it has to be earned in a slightly shady way.
Mabel: Where will you get barkcloth and drums?
GC: I am the hustlingest hustler Bweyos has seen since Magendo days. Whatever you want, I can get.
***
When Mabel was out of the house GC had the place all to herself and, being the ninja that she was when it came to housework, she had cleaned the whole building in no time and had nothing left to do that afternoon. Patel Khimji, one of her stable of assistant hustlers, had already delivered the barkcloth and drums she was going to resell to Mabel. Her njawulo was already calculated. There was nothing left to do.
So she was lounging on the sofa with her feet up and the Smart TV on, watching YouTube tutorials on computer coding. Learning didn’t end for this uneducated girl child from the village. She never got to graduate from any school so she didn't know when to stop.
She was so engrossed in Lesson 5, intermediate, that she didn't hear Papso come in.
Paspo was back from work early. It sometimes happens when these corporate men. Their car breaks down and has to be taken away by the mechanic and so they have to get home by boda boda. Which means they get home about two hours earlier than usual because bodas don't suffer traffic jams like the rest of you.
In strode Papso, happy to be home early, full of joy and eager to be reunited with his beloved wife. He swaggered into the living room and spotted a headdress poking over the back of the sofa. He thought this was his wife, the love that owned his love, the heart that owned his heart. He bounded over with his arms outstretched and in an instant had her in a huge, tight embrace.
Papso: Oh bujju my bujjikoo! Peng ting, fine gyaldem, kabiito, you can stop missing me now I am back.
Except of course, his peng ting was having a cocktail with a vegetable stuck to the tip of the glass at Le Loungette de Fancyposhe in Bugolobi, very far away. She was not even missing him because the waiter was a hottie. Those restaurants practise very discriminatory hiring policies. Your gender doesn't matter but male of female, they will not hire you if you don't have a big chest that can distract customers from the clock.
Papso with a confused and embarrassed expression after being tackled to the floor subsequent to his mistaken advances. PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION/PATRICIA NATAKWA
GC knew a few moves in the Ganda martial arts practice known as ekigwo and that is why Papso was picking himself up off the floor and rubbing a bruised arm two seconds later.
Papso: Joyce! What the…
GC: What the me? You what the.
Papso: I thought you were Mabel! What are you doing on the sofa?
GC: What do you expect me to do? Kneel on a mat on the floor just because I am the maid?
Papso: I don’t know what I expected. I just didn’t expect you luxuriating your whole self like that on the sofa.
GC: I had just finished cleaning it so I was testing it to see if it was fully clean and comfortable.
Papso: Really? That's your story?
GC: Come on, we both know I was watching YouTube on your WiFi because I thought there was no one else in the house. I'll just head back to my quarters…
Papso stopped her. His conscience was bugging him.
Papso: No, wait. I don't feel comfortable with this. Am I going to be one of those people who refuses the maid to sit on their furniture? Am I going to be one of those people who doesn’t allow the maid in the living room?
GC: House help, not maid.
Papso: House help yes. Please, feel free continue watching your things. What is on?
Now, at this point you are going to have to do an exercise. Call it interactive reading. Novels on the internet are different from the ones on paper. They require more participation from the readers.
Now stand up. Ball your fists and punch your hips and then keep the fists there. Lean forward slightly. About 30 degrees will do. Then drop your jaw as low as it can go and open your eyes wide. Pronounce the word “Eh” twice, first as a statement and second as a question.
That is what GC did next. I don't know what the gesture is called but now that you have done it you know what I mean.
GC: Eh eh?
Papso: What?
GC: Eh eh? You man! Eh eh? You want to watch TV on the sofa with me? The maid?
Paspo: It's house help and I was just asking what…
GC: No no no. Boss, no watching YouTube videos with me. No consorting with the maid... sorry the house help. No consorting!
Papso: I was just asking. It was small talk. Out of politeness.
GC: No consorting, whether polite or otherwise. You Bweyogere men like taking advantage of mai... househelps. You start by consorting and next thing you know, I am in a one bedroom apartment in Najjera with a Toyota Passo and your undeclared baby plus a large allowance so that I keep quiet.
Papso: Joyce, you are crazy. I don't want to consort with you, much less make you pregnant and spend my money supporting a side family in Najjera. You sit and watch your show. I'm just looking for my wife. Where is she?
Now that that was cleared up and GC was confident that boundaries had been established, she could relax and answer Papso’s immediate needs.
GC: She's not here. The house is empty. Hence my lounging on your sofa with my legs up. She left to party at a cafe with her friends. Call her.
Papso: Let me whatsapp her. She doesn’t answer the phone when she is drinking.
While he typed into the app, GC brought up another pressing issue.
GC: By the way, why do you people call me Joyce? That's not my name.
Papso: You told Mabel your name is Joyce.
GC: I said GC. I don't know how you got Joyce. Papso: To me when you just said sounded like, “I said Joyce. I don’t know how you got Joyce.” Your accent is weird. One minute you are from Buganda, the next you are from the west.
GC: I'm from both. West Buganda. And I said GC, as in the letters. Two letters. My initials.
Papso’s phone buzzed as Mabel replied.
Papso: Ooh. She is at that fancy lounge place with blue light and bad jazz music. But they have dope cocktails.
GC: You should go and join her. The night is young. Go and join your wife.
Papso: I would like to but my car is in the garage, and I don’t think I can manage a boda for that distance. At my age and with this pot belly? My back can’t.
GC: No problem, boss. I will get you a Wuuba.
Papso: What is a Wuuba?
GC: It is one of my side hustles. I connect special hire taxis with passengers. Let me see…
She scrolled down her phone and when she found an entry labelled Pesh The Spesh, she tapped a message into the chat window.
GC: Here. You can go with Patience. She is on the way to pick you up. Just remember to send the money to my phone.
In a few minutes Papso was off to Bugolobi to join his wife in objectifying the wait staff at the restaurant. GC was glad. It had been a fruitful day, she thought as she looked at her mobile phone money balance. What else was there to do but dive back onto the sofa and press play on Youtube.
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