December is here and Christmas is a few days away. The Ba-summer are quietly jetting into the country for the festive season. For starters, Ba-Summer as they have come to be known, are Ugandans who ply their trade abroad and return for the festive season to make merry like city socialites in their loaded days. They have such a peculiar character that any Ugandan who has not been abroad will find foreign. Here is how to recognise a Mu-summer.
Ba-Summer don’t wear clothes, they wear designers! I repeat, Ba-Summer don’t wear clothes, they wear designers! Don’t be surprised when hanging out and one starts spewing lines like,” As I was walking towards the projects (read a slum) in my granny’s neighbourhood, I hit my Gucci on the gravel but my Versace towel was in hand so I couldn’t stain it like my Chanel tee. You see, back in the day, Polo was everything”. Did you understand? I doubt and that’s the point! When it’s a T-shirt, they go for that with a screaming logo. Same for caps and shoes! And oh, they love to match them!
Reserved tables
Ba-summer don’t love walking into bars and city hangouts to mix with ordinary Ugandans. They want their presence to be felt and recognised. Ba-Summer love to reserve tables and while they are it, they will ask the barman if they have Visa payment option. (You see they don’t like handling cash. They swipe dollars off the overseas account)
Ba-summer will always have a bone to pick with the weather. When it’s sunny, they complain of heat. They will say it’s much better during autumn and spring. They will curse the African sun and its ancestors for being too harsh on their new delicate skins.
Speaking currencies
Ba-summer don’t love the Ugandan shillings. That’s for the local folks. Ba-summer love to speak in dollars, pounds, yen and dirham. When you hear one speaking dollars or pounds this festive season, most likely the individual is a Mu-summer. They will be at the bar and ask a bar man for the price of a beer, when he says 5k, they will reply, ‘that’s less that’s about a dollar and 50 cents.’
Unaware of local political trends
While you are obsessing over Togikwatako or age limit, the Ba-summer are speaking about Donald Trump’s golf vacation or British royal’s marriage proposal. They will laugh off serious political talk and prefer to talk about the MP who peed along the road. They will ask about the local sherrif and then say, oh back in the Denmark, or where they were hustling, people have developed toilet manners.
Afraid of “African” diseases
While the ministry of health goes all about promoting washing hands after visiting the toilet on local radio stations, the Ba-summer are not taking chances with just washing hands, they will pull “sanitiser” out of their handbags after shaking hands with village folks to avoid catching germs.
They take a notch higher, washing their hands with mineral water and while at it telling all who care to listen that back in the UK, tap water is safe for drinking but you don’t what disease you can catch just washing your hands with our water. And by the way, they say there is no medication for malaria in Europe. “Those are tropical diseases,” the say, so smearing their bodies with mosquito repellant is a must every evening. Don’t tell them about sleeping under mosquito nets – Africa is already too hot.
If you hear anyone blubbering about how “this place has changed” wherever they go, it’s another way of them saying they are Ba-summer. “Wow, this place has changed. Bukoto now has traffic lights …. Wow,” you will hear them say. Duh, we have had them like all year.
