CANDID TALK: We should eat cockroaches, and export some

As I have always told you, I am paying homage to Bisho Ntongo’s old folks on the shores of Lake Victoria, in a place called Katerero. Her old geezer Mzee Rubiunus Rwegambira has of late been complaining that the last time I made a technical appearance there was eons.

I had been summoned to part with real breathing cows and cash in the name of dowry after many years of illegally cohabitation with my one-and-only. I was coerced to pay a heavy fine for making her pregnant ‘prematurely’ because my step-mother-in-law, a very sinister woman, insisted on it.

I seized the occasion to make an indelible impression and mould a reputation as one of the richest fellows Tanzania has ever seen although the opposite is true! Any man or society has qualms when their daughter marries a good-for-nothing improvident loafer like me; hence the need to inflate my status.

I literally drowned in and sloshed every villager with rubisi (banana beer) for the weak-kneed and gongo (hard stuff) for those not afraid of cooking their livers with cirrhosis (when the liver caves in to excess alcohol).

Of course, the stuff being sold so cheaply in comparison to the frothy drinks from Ilala, I afforded them enough to leave a lasting impression – that of billionaire. In fact, by the time I parted, I had garnered enough popularity and stature that I am being considered the next MP come 2015.

Right now I am having a good time. Bisho Ntongo thinks that I have grown a tummy, something that has never happened before.

After feeding on bananas and fish, delicacies that I could not afford before, it’s now that I have come to realize that I am not naturally a lanky man. Instead, you can blame my skinniness on the fact that in Bongo, we are too poor to afford any meaningful foodstuffs.

A break from feeding Ugali (or kitumbo) with dagaa (anchovies) or animal offals that dogs won’t dare sniff at is refreshing.

But wait! How about those tasty insects? The best of culinary inventions after potato chips is the green grasshopper known as ‘nsenene’ in Kagera Region and some parts of Uganda. Kids and grownups risk the morning dew and snake bites in search of the insect that finally ends up fried.

It is until I tasted nsenene, that I understood what I have been missing all my life. I have deduced that since the anatomies of insects, including flies and roaches that inhabit Uswaz are the same, someone should teach us how to package roaches and insects for domestic consumption and export!