Last Sunday, a solar eclipse was viewable in parts of the country. You’d need heavy feet not to have been swept-up by all the hype that followed it. Talk of the eclipse crept stealthily into this country at the beginning of the year and asked if it could take a seat. “No!” we said.
“The sun, going dark? Ha, we see that everyday. Every evening actually.” Unfazed, it took a seat nonetheless and waited.
We side-eyed it and made uncomfortable grunts to signal to it that it wasn’t welcome. Some were not so subtle and they laughed at the possibility of it amounting to anything. This columnist is one of those that laughed.
A few weeks to the day, the noise from outside countries about the eclipse started to become more prominent. The people seated next to it decided, ‘’mmmh, maybe it’s not too strange after all’’ and they began to chat with it. As the days went by, the bug that initially bit just a few now started to swallow entire beings. Tour and travel companies now had ‘eclipse packages’.
It was not long before rumours of celebrities creeping into the country started to sip through the woodwork. Seeing as the sightings of the said celebrities were not forthcoming, let us choose to believe that they wore elaborate disguises.
Tom Cruise probably bought a boda boda and registered at a stage in Bwaiie. Angelina Jolie opened up Mama Jo delicacy, with an extra cook in there to stand for just how they will cook their food. Brad Pitt, too lazy to go to the lengths his buddy and wife had gone to, grew his hair and a moustache and played the part of a rich, spoilt tourist with all the dance moves from the future. You probably bumped into him a number of times in Kisementi.
We need another eclipse. If not for the dollar bills the nation will soak in, then for the chance to sit on Tom Cruise’s boda. Or for another chance to see our beloved head of state in shades – that sight is as rare as the eclipse itself.
How do we go about creating one though? This columnist doesn’t have all the ideas but Umeme, the people who make it go dark in our homes every so often, surely they can come up with something for the sun.