CANDID TALK : After free office lunch, we all have potbellies

Hussein the Uswaz wag argues that the good Lord upstairs created men and women to eat. In other words, he lives to eat – and not the opposite – like eating to live.

That’s why any time I pop up at his shack in Mbagala, he will be wolfing down some form of food, belching and loudly munching away with gusto, attacking the food as if it will at any time going to develop wings and fly away.

I imagine that if any of the tribe living under my roof – my twerp Jenny, Koku the housemaid or I would dare eat with our mouths open like Hussein does, we would attract instant wrath from my one-and-only woman Bisho Ntongo – she hates bad eating manners.

I thought this blatant greed is reserved for Hussein the Uswaz wag until the company where I wear my fingers on keyboard churning out third-rate stories like the one you are reading, decided to be sponsoring the employees with sumptuous meals.

Eyes, like huge marbles pop out, as we queue for the meals. OK, I know that for an ordinary employee to afford a half-broiler chicken, fish or gaot-causing goat ribs is like having the moon for breakfast.

That is 5-star culinary elevation from at all times feeding on rice and beans brought in plastic buckets that were formerly served by one Mamantilie by the name Aisha Mwajuma. It is a heavenly – the direct opposite of the cow socks (alias makongoro, alias cow hoof soup) that we “enjoy” in this sprawling mother of all Uswaz called Mbagala.

For some reason, the attendance at the office has tripled. The Woman (oops the Human) Resource Manager has fewer cases to solve as truancy and absenteeism is the thing of the past. Guys who were generally lethargic about work are seen at the door of the office as early as 6am. I know guys who have decamped at the office. Their children and wives probably forgot how they looked like before the office meals came to be. Look at guy like me? Before the office meals were introduces – I looked more like crossbreed between a mosquito and praying mantis – I was so lanky that that could pass through the proverbial eye of the needle.

Other blokes have sagging stomachs that remind one of a potato sack from Iringa!