THE SOJOURNER: Why I’m left with gapping financial holes in my pocket

As I pen this third rate column a cold chill flows down my spine. I am afraid this portends that the coming 2018 will be my ‘annus horribilis’ – a horrible year.

It all began a few months ago, in September 2017, to be more precise.

You see, I have this daughter of mine – my investment, as I fondly call her, who this year began her teenage years. To be more precise, she knocked 13 years on September 14, this year.

At that tender age of teenage girls, as I have come to bitterly learn, tend to believe that they have reached a stage in life, which calls for the enhancement of their social life.

That is why on that date she insisted that I treat, not only her, but her whole class to a sumptuous birthday party at her girls only boarding school in the suburbs of Arusha City.

Being a caring ‘daddy’ I easily consented to her request and indeed I went on to arrange for an appropriate treat as part of her birthday celebrations. Cakes, meals and drinks were consumed rapaciously.

That was my first mistake on account of the gaping financial hole left after that incident.

A month or so later, on October 31, 2017 and thanks to the openness of the Facebook, many friends of mine came to learn that it was my birthday.

Normally, I do not mark this important day of my life. The last time I did so was many years ago, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I was in secondary and high school at the then Mkwawa High School in Iringa.

Apparently, the school had a tradition of holding its Open Day on October 31 of every year. That was a special day, when special meals were prepared and consumed by students and visitors - exhibitions held and special entertainment in form of either some music performance by the then famous Mubarak Mwinyishehe’s Morogoro Jazz or their neighbours, the Juma Kilaza’s Cuban Marimba and sometimes the then famous Harrison Siwale’s Jamhuri Jazz, all the way from Tanga.

Actually, very few fellow students knew that very special day for the school was also my birthday. I sincerely thank the management of that school for maintaining that date as Open Day for that school for the six years I was there. I still nostalgically remember those days.

But this year, again thanks to Facebook, my birthday was broadcast publicly and who else if it is not my notorious colleagues and friends, who we always go out together to whet our throats, who convinced me to go out and mark the day. They even volunteered to partially fund the day’s activities.