Being a journalist in December is not fun anymore 

It’s been December for 25 days and all we’ve got to show for as journalists is a Messi Christmas today – which is agonising for Mwambu and Kanyomozi, and a joy for a few like Kabuleta, Aldrine and myself. 

Many of us journalists have made it into today with chopped lips, flat wallets and sour-sore memories of a month that used to be.

There were days when a journalist arrived into today loving every reason for having been. Society journalists were the best lot, followed closely by business journalists. 

December meant a string of gift hampers arriving into newsrooms from all corners of the corporate world. There was party after party and the best of them all, the MTN media party. This was an invite-only thing that drew a thick veil on all pretences of being known as a journalist.

There was a business journalist called Odomel. Boy had a stomach for laughter, literally. He was this big, the village mother pot would break in envy. And he was so warm, you loved to be around him.

Good Odomel, the friend of all, spent the whole of December laughing so exuberantly he would shriek like a conveyor belt in a dingy maize mill. He was loud in the most likeable way because December made a thrill of life.

I can picture Kintu. Yes, the ‘brown’ guy who probably prompted people to bleach because he seriously had it all. Girls wanted to hang around him and look like him, and the boys wanted to be him.

If you see a man bleached like he is competing with Congolese, blame it on Kintu. And if you see a woman bleached like they stole the manufacturer’s secrets of Peau Claire, also blame it on Kintu.

December belonged to guys like Kintu and Odomel. And the many they represented. Of course, there were the lot of us hanging on to the camaraderie of being around these guys. We even did ‘Posta runner’ errands for them. These were the guys who checked into Kirisimasi bloated and belching the fruits of outside-newsroom-journalism.

By this day in 2005, toothpick-sized guys like Harry and Kabuye would have read every article about detoxing because they badly needed to. The string of media parties came with all sorts of bingeing from the booze to the bites, and then it would flow into the gift hampers that defined one’s class in the newsroom.

Now today I’m here, it’s Kirisimasi and all I remember for December is seeing Hellen Lukoma seek attention. Imagine being broke, empty and stressed and then a vixen adds you such a trauma!

And the problem is you can’t even sue – even if you wanted.

I’ve this gut feeling that when I arrive home today, Pat Shange’s ‘Coming Back From the Mine’ will be playing loudly. A kilo of beef in a kaveera and the face of a man traumatised by Lukoma’s antics is all that will be there.

Back in the days, MTN had Sheila in their PR office. She made that party the one to attend. We didn’t even care if our employers organised an end of year party too. Now it could be the only party a journalist attends, the employer one.

The only other would be someone’s event when they badly need publicity. That one follows with constant reminders on when their story will come out. You attend such a party, drink a mug of cheap beer and eat badly skewered steak that Dr Kasenene frowns upon and then spend the next few weeks seeing WhatsApp messages asking you to ask the editor when the story runs.

Had it not been for Messi and his Argentine, this Xmas would be badly messy already. But I also know Messi has already made a mess of the same for guys like Odeke and Mwambu.

Head or tail, the coin reads a Messi Christmas. But life goes on – just avoid seeing Lukoma today, tomorrow and the other day so that you enter the New Year with some peacock frills in your stomach.