Blaaza Butcherman

Yeah, I know the title may look weird to some of you but that is how the locals in Kampala say it. Blaaza; it means brother. And, no, I am not talking about the ghetto VIP Buchaman, because, quite frankly, hes not on my family tree. This is about a cutter of meat; the variety that sits by their stall all day, waiting for a customer to show up, and when you finally arrive, they slowly rouse themselves like they do not want to be disturbed; like you actually distorted their no-customer afternoon and ruined their whining over the economy at a kafunda later in the day. The kind that shows you the true brand of Uganda Customer Care. With a twist. You click? Kale let us continue So, this butcherman, whom I only see occasionally sees me approaching the row of butcheries and corners me with, Come here blaaza. How are you these days? and such unrelated niceties I had wished not to associate with this particular errand. See, I had been sent to buy meat. And to do so, I had to visit aforementioned roadside meat-cleaver. Now, the butchers we go to are not clean cut, overcoat wearing labrats, like you may be thinking. No such luck! On the contrary; they look like they killed the cow, gutted it and portioned it and then carried the meat on their back, without changing their clothes. Now a shirt that once was probably white cotton is looking like a greyish brownish, transparent sack. Anyways, enough mental torture; I was aware of all this when my mum asked me to stop somewhere and buy meat. I freaked out! I was like, This is not my territory! But after a bit of, How are you blaaza. I thought I was cool. I thought I had even picked out the best piece of meat in the butchery. Little did I know that all that Blaaza talk was bull (the meaty pun fully intended)! These guys are magicians! They can get a perfectly good piece of meat and turn it into a mess of meat, bones and fat, with meat in the minority, without you even noticing. Mehn, wheres the blaazahood? At supper, people are asking me, Where did you buy this mess? because all kinds of things are floating in the soup. I kindly retort to the lady of the house, From your friend who you used to buy from! The bushy moustached Blaaza. She then says, We stopped going there ages ago he sells too much fat! Blaaza my foot.