By Pascal Mwandambo
The excitement over Obote’s birthday party could be felt at virtually all the corners of Mavumbi Boys.
Last year the party came a cropper due to the tight government restrictions meant to check the spread of Covid 19.
Those who enjoy freebies like my colleagues Napoleon and Marashi had been grossly disappointed.
I am told Marashi had tried to convince our principal to hold the party while observing the Covid regulations, but Obote could not buy that.
Our principal is a very principled person who stands on what he believes no matter what other people think.
“Let’s treat this like any other day and move on. After all it’s not a matter of life and death. This corona thing is not a joke,” Obote had turned them down, much to the chagrin of Marashi.
However, this time round things looked all rosy and we began making arrangements for the event.
In a show of solidarity with our boss, each member of staff contributed five hundred shillings.
Napoleon pledged to hand in his contribution after the party, but being who he is, your guess is as good as mine as to whether he will honor the pledge nor not.
Anyway Obote is not the kind of person to gloat over petty issues like someone failing to surrender five hundred shillings only.
After all, the party could still be held even without staff contributions.
Another intrigue was getting fish out of the school fish pond to supplement the food variety.
“A whole goat (sic) is already bought for the party and I see no reason for adding the fish,” Napoleon, who is the patron of the fish farming project, protested.
I reminded him politely that the fish was ready for harvesting and if he was unwilling to give to the party, they should be harvested and sold.
His next excuse was how the harvesting was to be done.
This fellow was throwing spanners in the works just to dissuade us from harvesting the already mature tilapia.
“We should use hook and sinker to spare the smaller fish,” he suggested, a wry expression on his face.
I was taken aback. I told Napoleon that extracting fish from a pond was not the same as fishing in a lake.
I stood my ground that we would harvest the fish by draining out the water from an existing outlet.
And that’s what we did.
As the party preparations were going on, all of us were curious to know Obote’s family members and his true age, which had been a well-guarded secret.
This time round our principal decided to bend one of his rules and allowed party animals to drink alcohol, but only at the end of the meals.
However, Napoleon was shrewd enough to imbibe a bottle of Chrome vodka before the meals were served.
We came to learn that Obote had three children; two daughters and a son. He also had a mother, an elderly lady with varicose veins.
As for the age, blowing fifty six candles meant just that. Age 56. Some things don’t need to be put in black and white for people to realize.
We were all busy munching our food when Obote let out a scary fit of cough.
We all turned round to look at our colleague, who had now thrown the fish back into the plate and fumbling for water. Apparently, a fish bone had stuck in his throat.
We all desperately made frantic efforts to save him, but as the biology teacher, he was the one best placed to offer first aid service.
Luckily Obote’s personal car was on standby and we rushed our colleague to Mavumbi Referral Hospital.
It was double luck as the doctor charged with performing minor surgeries and pulling out swallowed objects was available.
We returned to the party after being assured that his condition was stable.
As we began imbibing our drinks, we could feel the light touch of our colleague’s predicament.
“Don’t eat fish in a hurry if you are not conversant with the delicacy,” I opined.
I could see Obote grinning as he sipped his wine.
