Coming to America: The Million-shilling Resolution.

Ten days into the new year and already, I'm halfway through breaking my New year's resolutions.


Among other things, I'd vowed to tackle my slopiness this year, but the dozens of cigarette stubs littering my bedroom floor are clear evidence of just how short-lived that resolution was, as well as of what happened to my other resolution to finally give up smoking. I'm also yet to destroy my Two Girls One Cup DVD, I'm yet to step into a Mosque this year and my ex girlfriend's digits are still on my speed dial. Clearly, I suck at this whole resolutions business.

However, all's not lost. You see, the reason my resolutions have the longevity of a Kenyan legislator's integrity in the face of material inducements is because like most people, I make resolutions not because I have a burning desire to set goals and stick to them, but because everybody I know and their grandmother seems to be making one and I don't want to be left out, but this time there is one resolution I made which I fully intend to see realised.

That resolution is to have ten thousand bucks in my account by the time Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete wins his second term as Bongo's big Kahuna or the first yellow NRM poster of Kagu wearing that ridiculous hat hits the streets of Kampala, whichever comes first.

By buck, I'm obviously not talking wildlife, and neither am I interested in ten thousand actions aimed at upheaval in the general order of things, such as would be inferred in statements like 'bucking the trend.' By 'Buck,' I'm talking about the legal tender accepted as payment for goods and services as well as the settlement of debts in the United States of America.

The natural questions in this case would of course be, what the hell do I need ten thousand bucks for, and how the heavens am I going to make ten thousand bucks?

The answer to the first question is quite straightfoward: I don't need ten thousand bucks. All I said was I've resolved to have ten thousand bucks in my bank account by the end of the year, period. who said anything about needing it? It isn't beyond the scope of reason to want to have any amount of money in your account that you don't need now, is it?

Getting around the second question is a little trickier. My plan when I made this resolution was to wait until December and then  persuade my MP to surrender to me his improved monthly pay package in the yuletide spirit. But although I can be quite persuasive when I want to, the brutal economic times coupled with the sheer capacity for meanness in our legislators means the chances of that happenning are only slightly less than the chances of the said legislators voting no when the improved pay package report is finally tabled in the house.

There is a fool proof way of making the money, though. Since the buck is American currency, it follows that the best place to make thousand of them is to go where then thousand of them can easily be made, i.e the United States Of America, so all I have to do is make my way there. In fact, I'm reliably informed that despite all that Economic Downturn nonsense, there is alot of money to be made there, and it won't even take me a year to accomplish my resolution.

Only one problem with this method. If they can ignore the fact that I'm Moslem, the American Immigration Department first of all requires that I have ten thousand bucks in my account before they issue me with a visa to travel to their land and make ten thousand bucks...