The Flats With A Wall For A View

Back in the day when I moved out of Parents crib, the instructions I melted out to House Broker were explicitly clear. It had to be a three bed-roomed house in a wall fence and somewhere between Muyenga and Munyonyo.

Hardly had I pulled up outside Sunday Vision than he called with news. Broker Friend knew of a house in Kansanga that he was going give the once over. Hmm, he need not have called until he had checked it out or perhaps he was trying to show me that he’s on the ball and intends to earn every cent of the 50k I had swung him for his services? Keep me appraised so I told him.

Twenty minutes later I pick up his call and he’s awfully energized. The house was indeed three bed-roomed, in a wall fence and less than 100 meters from the main road. He further added that I needed to hurry and view it because it was bound to be taken by the end of the day.

I heeded his urgency and half-an-hour later, I picked him up outside the gates of Kampala International University which, was a neat place to meet because I also got to eye up a couple of 'small brown things' as they headed to class. The house was just before Kansanga trading centre and true to his word, it was less than 100 meters from the main road. More importantly, the road on which the house sat had a fine layer of tarmac.

When the gates swung open, I expected to see a driveway down to the house. But what driveway? What I saw were garage gates. To get my ride past the gate, I had to drive straight into the garage because there was no parking yard. Inside, the kitchen could barely fit a fridge, cooker or a frying pan and the bedrooms were no bigger than the toilets on Emirates or KQ. Basically, it was a box with no garden and no soul.

Any need to guess what word I hurled at him once the thirty second tour of the house was done? Yes, you guessed it – tumbavu!

The second house he took me to days later, had the door handles upside down and another, the light switch in the master bedroom was not in the bedroom, but in the corridor! Needlessly to say, more tumbavu’s were readily unleashed.

A couple of days ago, Chap took me to see some flats on Salama Road, Munyonyo that he was marketing. As we drove, his spiel was about how each flat had a balcony with lake views, a supermarket and was less than two minutes drive from the main road.

Now this is where you wait for me to tell you there is a ‘but’. There is a ‘but’. Not a mere ‘but’, but a BUT! The only thing Chap got right is that they are off Salama Road. And from Salama Road to the flats was not a two minute drive as he stated, but a 15-minute drive up an almost impassable road. There was a supermarket nearby whose shelves were bare save for a couple of bags of Nomi washing powder, some Top Up tomato sauce, coffee and a plastic jar on the counter that contained ghastly coloured lollipops. Well, I assume they were lollipops.

Before I carry on, please send Housie to the shops for a muzinga of Uganda Wa because you are going to need it once you are done reading the next part. The flats did have balconies. But the views of Lake Victoria were only visible from a small port window in the bathroom because the actual view from the balcony was of a wall and built less than an inch from the balcony railing that blocked out the sunlight!

Now look at the picture above, is this what you call a flat that has a balcony with views of Lake Victoria? And the funny thing is that, all the flats are occupied. It seems some people are perfectly okay with sitting on their balconies and staring at the white paint washed walls. 

Since I viewed them, I make it a point of driving past every evening with a sledge hammer in the trunk of my ride and in the hope of finding Owner and more importantly Architect so that I can clobber their heads together with the aim of knocking some sense into them. 


Pictures: Timothy Bukumunhe, Internet