Satire: Another writer Serugo flees to Germany, then gets lost

Veteran art journalist and curator Moses Serugo has fled the country. We first heard of this and then confirmed that he is in Germany. But the man we popularly call ‘Sure Ego’ for his acerbic mannerism is also lost out there. We also confirmed this.

Serugo joins Stella Nyanzi and Kakwenza Rukirabashaija among the writers who have recently decided that Uganda, in one sticky way or the other, can no longer hold their this-and-that. I don’t know if this is good or bad but I’ve a feeling that Germany is breaking our literary pot in a bad way.

Anyway, Serugo was seen hanging out with Stella. I mean, there was a picture of the two posted on social media. 

Serugo fled Jinja where he had relocated for sticky pastures and arrived in Germany where he immediately decided he would finally settle down. Yes, he intimated that the time is right, the moment perfect, and the place desirous – to end bachelorhood.

“Man, do you have Kakwenza’s number?” he said to me.
“Yes, you want where to sleep?” I said.
“[Expletives], I’m not in the mood now, I’m tired and I don’t even know where this taxi has dropped me off at now.”
“Ask.”
“I did. They think I’m some beggar here for alms.”
“Then impress upon them as one, even the government begs.”
“You’re such a mental relic!”
“So you’re lost in Germany and you want Kakwenza to find you, he is in the US eating life. Tone down on your diction and ask for proper direction.”

Serugo went offline for a while. When he came back later that evening, he wasn’t on WhatsApp but Telegram where I had taken refuge. He was even more brittle.
“You gobbledygook,” he started.

Well, to chat with Serugo you need to be patient with diction and willing to use five dictionaries. He keeps throwing words that you would think had to be searched with sniffer dogs from the thick jungles Mukasa Mbidde carries around for eyebrows.
“You’re already learning some German, eh?” I said.
“Look at this grammatically-starved Kakira villager, how is that German?”
“Gobbledygook cannot be English.”
“Man, you are such a pain. When you’re not broke, you can’t even tell a word. What a pontifical hooey!”
“Now what is ho-we?”
“It’s hooey, you poppycock.”
“Man, you are capable of annoying dew and cucumber combined. You should be in England flaunting your grasp of the Queen’s language and not in Germany with your senseless talk.”
“Exactly, that is what hooey means. A senseless talk, you poppycock.”
“And a poppycock?”
“Hooey.”
“Okay, I’ll give up. Did you carry along your trove of old newspapers and magazines?”
Serugo was weaned on art journalism. He lives for performing arts and can speak deeply about which company sponsored what radio programme in 1992 like he is speaking about his fingers. 

The journalism in him also gave him this peculiar trait: he isn’t just a walking encyclopaedia of art journalism but also a physical librarian. 

There are newspapers and magazines you won’t find in big libraries but in Serugo’s home.

One day Serugo had to shift from his Kireka abode. He hired two trucks: a 20-tonne haulage and a Dyna truck slightly bigger than Mr Bean’s Mini 1000 Mark IV.

The landlord had to run to his premises when he was tipped off that Serugo had brought a trailer for shifting. Apparently, he was wary that Serugo would haul off all the six housing units given the size of the truck he had brought. 

It was to the shock of neighbours when hired hands started filing out with heap after heap of coffee-brown newspapers and magazines.

They loaded these onto the truck, then the real household items on the Dyna toy.

Serugo’s home was like this. Newspapers were piled from the floor to ceiling. The coffee table was strewn with magazines and there wasn’t any space on the couch to sit in.

Serugo said he left the newspaper and is just starting the life he avoided living here.

*Disclaimer: This is a parody column