An African-American man was bitter to me recently, that if we continental Africans stopped wasting time in eating snakes and rats maybe we all would hasten our emancipation.
My first instinct was anger at him, but then I remembered the herds-boys in South Africa who, while grazing the animals, roast snakes. ('They hold the tail and swirl the snake - making it "drunk" and immobile, and then put it aside, to make fire').
Still, I was mad for our categorization as rat eaters!!
But lo and behold - hardly more than a week has passed and rat-eating rears its ugly head; and morever, as part of President Museveni's State dialogue with citizens!!
One wonders whether to laugh or cry!!
============================================================= Rat eating Iteso are not serious!
It is interesting to note that although civilization has been around for years, some citizens still hold onto outdated cultural practices. A headline in the The New Vision of Friday, March 4, 2005: Man Eats Rat For District is very instructive. I was stunned to read that some Iteso chewed raw rats in front of President Yoweri Museveni, to prove their ancestry in Tororo County and to demand that the county be elevated to district status. Such barbaric and horrendous acts do not justify ancestry.
Rather, they portray insanity. Rodents are supposed to be a delicacy for cats but not for human beings! The Iteso from Tororo should learn that it is not the number of rats eaten but the number of reasons given that will convince relevant authorities to grant them a district.
Henry Onyango, Kampala.
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