21st Century Vs 20th Century

I recently made the trip to Mbarara to attend a wedding of a maternal cousin of mine. Just like any such function, the elderly from the deepest valleys and crevices of Bushenyi were in attendance, pulling all the stops to look good in their colonial suits. That didn't matter much anyway because everybody looked smashing.

Fast forward to the day after. A lazy Sunday morning on which I was battling the effects of uncontrolled drinking from the previous evening of merry making when my sweet nap was rudely interrupted by the loud voices emerging from the living room. The Old Folk were having an interesting conversation. I shrugged off the heavy head and dashed to the living room and witness the drama first hand...here we go

Oldie 1: Evangelista, but are you sure this thing is not a telephone?

Evangelista: It isn't a phone. I swear.

Oldie 1: But it has numbers just like a telephone!

Oldie 2: Maybe it is a new type of telephone that Eva doesn't know about. Just because she is from the town doesn't mean she knows these things.

Evangelista: That is called a remote.

Oldie 1: What? Not a telephone? Really?

Evangelista: Yamawe! This thing is for controlling that TV in front of you. You see. You see. I press a button and it changes.

Oldie 1: Eh! How does it do that?

Oldie 2: But the muzungu has gone very far. Eh! I have never seen this before.

Oldie 1: Of course you have never. You only know how to graze. You don't even have electricity in your hut. Eva, you tell me how it works.

Evangelista: I don't know how it really does it but all i know is that I'll press this button and the TV will change a station. Don't you see. 1 2 3 4. You see!

Oldie 1: Iwe Payo, weza how does this thing work? Eva here wasted our money at school. We should have bought tonto instead. What did you call it?

Payo: Remote............

Oldie 1: Aha.

Payo: You know like how those traditional doctors treat broken bones from miles away? That is also how these things work, from a distance but only shorter.

Oldie 2: What! You mean this thing has spirits in it?

Oldie 1: I am dead. I know that the white man has stronger medicine than the traditional healer. He can even make big metals fly yet our locals cant make chickens fly! This one is going to kill me if I don't sacrifice a white hen really soon.

Evangelista: (Laughing hysterically) No. It doesn't have actual medicine. The white man just calls it technology. The white man is very clever you know.

Oldie 2: Ah Eva what do you know? If you had a quarter of the white man's brains you would have been of some use to Bushenyi.

Oldie 1: (Sternly looking at the iPod in my hands) You better throw that one away too. But why doesn't that telephone have buttons? Eh. Throw it away. That is not a good telephone. A good telephone should have buttons!

Payo: (Retreating in considerable horror) Let me go throw it away.

Oldie 1: That's my boy.

And yes they were all high on potent gin at the time.