Just don’t cry out ‘Thief!’
Early morning in Go Down, the shanty town next to the railway in Namuwongo
6.20 a.m. and it’s still pitch black outside. It’s a heaving sweaty mess; we need rain. The Woodland Kingfisher’s piercing call fills the compound and I hear the unmistakeable cawing and crowing of the Hadada Ibis as they fly over the marshes in the distance.
The first cockerel rouses me at 5.40 a.m. I have a love-hate relationship with these bawdy brash birds but this morning I can tolerate them.
Other birds are joining in the morning chorus now. Next door I hear our neighbours stirring a pot over a charcoal stove. I’m relieved the electricity’s back on this morning. The supply is usually reliable but it’s been on and off recently.
I hear coughs and splutters as people awake on the far side of the compound, in the shanty town. Life here has definitely become louder in the two years I’ve lived here. People have built houses (squatted) right next to us. They’re probably refugees from the North; I don’t recognise the language they’re speaking.
I hear the occasional beep of a car and a passing boda boda [motorbike] on the road at the end of our close.
6.30 a.m. and there’s a fierce red-orange glow in the eastern sky over Lake Victoria.
The slum / shanty town – it’s so awful let’s not mince words – is dire. Snaking around the muddy, carrier bag-lined railway track between my house and the Mukwano roundabout on the edge of town two or three miles away, live 100,000 people (according to some…) but would you call it living?
Every morning thousands of clean and well-dressed men, women and children pour out of the slum down the railway track into town; the lucky ones go to work and school. The simple act of being smart for work puts many a scruffy Westerner to shame. Washing is done by hand in cold water, water that has to be laboriously collected in a jerry can every day (there were 40 people queuing for water last time I passed the pump). Clothes and underwear has to be left to dry in the open (no such thing as privacy here), and are ironed using a charcoal ‘ironbox,’ literally a metal box filled with dangerously hot charcoal.
A man is calling like a banshee at the top of his voice. He’s met with screaming and shouting by another man. I want to know what’s going on but, at the same time, am glad to be ignorant.
Two weeks ago we heard a major commotion beyond the wall. Dozens became hundreds of people, talking, running and shouting. I couldn’t see what was going on but I sensed agitation as the noise got louder and louder. Suddenly – gunshots! Women screamed, men shouted, there was a great whoosh of fear. The pace upped and you could sense people fleeing beyond our wall. A few more rounds were let off, just a few metres from the house. My heart was in my mouth – what were we bearing witness to?
My friend Ronald disappeared to find out what was going on. I wished I hadn’t asked. “A man abused a one and a half year old child. They’ve found the man and they want to kill him,” Ronald told me. “The police have got him and just let off the gun to disperse the crowd. The child has been taken to hospital.”
Within minutes the crowd had dispersed. As quickly as it escalated, so things returned to normal.
Mob justice is common here. I have no sympathy for a man who abuses a child but mob justice can be swiftly meted out – sometimes to an innocent person – for the most trivial of offences.
This week-end was not a good one; I felt ill, no-one was around and I actually wanted the week-end to be over. To kill time I switched on the TV only to see a public lynching. A man was punched and kicked to the ground, someone jumped on his head and a big truck tyre was rolled on top of him. I willed the man to stand up, to get away, as people lined the streets watching. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, as a man waved around a small water bottle. “They’re going to set fire to him” Simpson said matter of factly. The water bottle contained kerosene.
The end was swift – but televised.
And what was his crime? He was alleged to have stolen a boda boda.
This isn’t much of an advert for Uganda, but it’s one of the realities (for Ugandans). The police did turn up; they just didn’t get there in time. A word of caution though: if you do ever get robbed in Uganda, be careful before you shout the word “thief!” You can’t be too sure what might happen next…
The call of the wild
I feel in limbo today. I’m waiting for friends to come back, I’m waiting for them to go, I’m waiting to get better, I’m waiting for a call. I should be promoting the new blog but I’ve run out of steam.
The three day week feels more like a six day week and I’m getting tired, wondering if even considering writing a book – yet another area of my life that I have to run and manage on my own – is just madness.
Last week my laptop went into complete meltdown. I was warned I had probably lost the laptop and everything on it: this year’s work, unpublished ‘blogs in progress,’ my entire music collection … I put off how that would feel … it seems I may be lucky and I may get it all back. But I’ve ‘lost a week’ and had to type all week when I could have been saving my wrist by using my dictaphone.
Thank god we have electricity today at least.
Six months left with UCF, still so much I’ve committed to do and projects that keep coming at me from all sides – at least that’s what it feels like.
I need a break.
Patrick says we’ll be go off to the bush once the big donor report is out of the way… that’ll take longer than we think; these big reports always do.
I need to be in the bush. I need to reconnect with my reason for being here.
Election* fever part II – feeling the heat
Election season is dragging.
No last-minute public holiday announced for today’s local election. Shame, we could have all done with a day off to escape the heat.
It’s hot, sticky and dusty. Unusually there is also a strong wind, firing dust and dirt across the road as we walk. The clean floors of the house are dirty within minutes and have to be laboriously mopped – thankfully not by me – every day.
Our compound is blocked in by various lines of Electoral Commission (EC) tape. Our little close is sealed in, to left and right. It feels like a crime scene and I hesitate to cross.
I want to take a photograph of the ladies sat in the middle of the road under enormous umbrellas but the army officer doesn’t allow me to. The sun is harsh, it must be 37° today.
As I open our compound gate, I see a large cow has broken through one of the tape cordons and is approaching the polling station. (I’ve heard about the ‘ghost voters’ but who sent in the cows?)
I don’t understand why there are three polling stations within a 100 metre stretch along our road. Enid explains that it’s for security reasons: monitoring the stations and overseeing the counting of the votes at the end of the day is much easier. So, it’s good for transparency but perhaps not quite so good for the voters who have to walk from all over the neighbourhood to this one area.
Later in the day, I pause to watch what’s going on at the polling station at the end of my road. We English would say we’re being nosy; for Ugandans, standing and watching, sometimes for hours and hours without saying anything, is quite normal behaviour.
The count is underway. An EC lady rep holds a pile of the enormous ballot papers, printed with colour photographs of candidates down the left-hand side of the sheet. As she removes the papers from the large plastic ballot boxes, she calls out the name of the candidate and hands it to one of a group of half a dozen Electoral Commission assistants standing around her. It’s a system, but it’s slow.
With the voting over for today, groups of young schoolboys trudge home in their bright yellow shirts and baggy bottle green shorts, each one carrying a heavy black rucksack full of books. On the path up the hill another group of people crowd around the next polling station: schoolboy passers-by, a soldier, boda boda drivers and I all stand to watch. The system at this second polling station is much less organised.
We’ve all become used to the increased security presence everywhere.
There are truckloads of police and soldiers. I was quite gobsmacked at the sight and sheer number of armed soldiers, in full body armour, standing sentry outside Centenary Park on the evening of the President’s (re)election celebration bash. The guns were lowered and the soldiers looked quite relaxed.
Politics and hot weather have in the past proved to be too hot to handle in Uganda. The infamous Dr Stockley commented that riots normally happen in March or September, the hottest times of the year. It’s no wonder President Museveni’s taking no chances.
In the mean time, Dr Ian Clarke, Stockley’s erstwhile chum has been the first muzungu to hold the position of L.C. (Local Councillor) III in Makindye, a Kampala suburb. He will now effectively be Mayor and govern a quarter of the capital city. Here’s the New York Times take on this interesting development.
*No I’m not being rude … many Ugandans from the south west get their Ls and Rs confused.
Johannesburg – don’t hit the panic button until after dinner
There is a feeling of space in suburban northern Johannesburg, by far the largest city in South Africa. The plots are big, the streets are lined with large beautiful trees and the treetops are full of the sound of birdsong. There are three big Hadeda Ibis on the chimney stack, a Crested Barbet appears by the dining-room window and the enormous and noisy Grey Louries or “Go Away birds” clamber about in the treetops and swoop low with floppy wingbeats.
Now on my second visit, I have become used to the high walls, the electric fencing and the electric security date.
I notice more people on the street this time around, particularly kids laughing and shouting on the way home from school. House staff sit and chat on street corners, male runners are accompanied by dogs. At clean and orderly road junctions, people sell Zulu beaded statues of lions, zebra and chameleons. The beggars seem friendly enough too.
PHOTO: Sex and shopping? Oh if you insist! Rosebank sunday market. The Zulu people have traditionally used beads as a means of communication especially as love letters. Colours and arrangement of the beads convey the message. Deep blue for example portrays elopement because it refers to the flight of the Ibis. Green is a good sign: it stands for peace or bliss.
Apart from H’s parting shot as she went out the other day “you do know where the panic button is don’t you?” I feel quite unperturbed.
H lives in Parkview. Shopping malls at Rosebank, Hyde Park and Craig Hall Park are close by. “Not another shopping mall!” I moan to H one day – even the Montecasino Bird Park is part of a shopping mall. In this paranoid part of the world, they make sense. Security is easier to manage but I have always hated enclosed shopping malls. It would be wrong to say this is not the real Jo’burg, but I feel it is only one version of it.
Perhaps unkindly, the 1998 Lonely Planet guide states:
“The northern suburbs of white middle-class ghettos – this is where you want to go if you want to pretend you’re not in Africa. White people driving Mercs and BMWs rush to busy antiseptic shopping centres and the only blacks are neatly uniformed maids and gardeners waiting for minibus taxis. There is little communal life although scattered about you find many of the city’s best restaurants and shops.”
The food is indeed fantastic, such a variety, so fresh and colourful. The large amounts of cash and diversity of immigrants in Johannesburg make for a good culinary combination. H spoils me at every opportunity. I sit drooling over another menu, savouring the choice and in no rush to order: white wine, halloumi, calamari, raspberry jam, lemon meringue pie for god’s sake! smoked salmon, egg’s Benedict, veggie shepherd’s pie. I AM IN HEAVEN. It’s such an antidote to the lacklustre cooking I’m used to in Uganda. I do not miss matoke.
In stark contrast to where she lives, H works in Hillbrow in central Johannesburg. The same 1998 Lonely Planet guide states: “Although large-scale outbreaks of violence are things of the past violent crime is still rampant especially in the centre and the Hillbrow area.” How those words must have stuck in H’s mind when she arrived in Jo’burg with VSO hmmmm, when was it – 1998?
South Africa – Under a blood red sky with U2
Soccer City fills up and the countdown starts ...
U2’s ‘Beautiful Day’ will forever remind me of a great ten days in Johannesburg this February, with a great friend and her beautiful daughter, and something deeper – retracing my political and musical roots. Thank you Holly! For the trip, for the friendship and for being a part of my VSO journey.
I’d watched excitedly from Uganda as “the claw” was put into position and an incredible 5,600 person crew prepared Soccer City for “the biggest rock band in the world.”
Billed “The 360° Tour” because of the revolving stage that is surrounded by the audience on all sides, the rigging had to be seen to be believed. The big screen suspended from the claw above the centre stage was actually hundreds of smaller screens, a complex multimedia experience simultaneously broadcasting live and recorded footage.
Note: although I live in Uganda where we don’t have anything like this sophistication, I’ve seen a few big bands in my time – but this show was in a league of its own.
With 100,000 people converging on Soccer City (the FNB Stadium), Russell decided to drive us through the back streets of Jozi. Our journey gave me a feel for the sheer size – and sprawl – of the Johannesburg megapolis. The dual carriageways looped back on themselves giving a vista across the city. “How exactly do you know this side of town then?” his wife quizzed. “You’re showing me places I’ve never seen before.”
“Do you know Mayfair in London?” Russell asked. “Well, this Mayfair is the complete opposite.” More Whitechapel than Mayfair, he wasn’t wrong. We drove through an area of typical urban dereliction: sacks of rubbish heaped on street corners, piles of discarded car tyres, a broken sofa lying with its guts spewing out onto the pavement. Men idling outside squat blocks of flats and shabby shops, metal bars on every window of every building we passed. Even the football pitches were made of concrete.
We sped on through.
As dusk fell, we approached the stadium, the red glow of the sky showing the multi-coloured glass it at its brilliant best. In the lead-up to the concert, I’d read in the newspapers a long list of concert do’s and don’ts. One of the banned items was “any whistle, horn, musical instrument, loudhailer or public address system.” Do you mean I’ve come this far not to be able to blow my Vuvuzela?
Walking to our seats, a large black South African man came up to me and gave me a big hug. He wanted to hang out with me but I joined my friends. I gave him a big smile and we waved goodbye.
The sight as you walk into the gigantic stadium bowl is just mind-blowing, especially for a visitor from Uganda! Our seats were halfway up the auditorium. What did it matter that we weren’t close enough for either of us to be the lady who Bono pulls onstage at every show?
While H’s friend Francois gloated by SMS from the hospitality tent, I queued for beer. The confusing beer token system was very African (queue for tokens then queue for beer, why?) the difference being that in Uganda, the main act would be half way through their set by the time we reached the front of the queue ( at which point we’d probably find they’d sold out of beer anyway!)Tick tock.As nine o’clock passed on the big screen, something weird happened. The second hand appeared to be getting faster and the clock seemed to start melting. Not expecting the show to start for a few more minutes, I was caught off guard. The near-capacity crowd went ballistic as the band walked onto the stage. H mumbled something under her breath about the band’s Adam Clayton being too old to wear silver sequins and white trousers. “I hadn’t realised how U2 are the soundtrack to my life” H yelled. For me, ‘I will follow’ takes me back to being a teenager and listening to the ‘Boy’ LP on my record player! (You didn’t know I was that old, did you?)
“People who sit down between songs aren’t real fans” we jibed at the couple in front of us as we sang and screamed our heads off to every song.
I’m not a music writer, in no way can I describe the show and do it justice, so I hope you enjoy our short video U2 – 360 degrees – live in Johannesburg – and if you ever get the chance to see – just go! Bono’s energy was mind-blowing, but the night belonged to Nelson Mandela, on the 21st anniversary of his first public rally after being released.
As the band laid into Sunday Bloody Sunday. the video screen showed images of Egypt and Tunisia in turmoil. The previous Friday had marked the 21st anniversary of Mandela’s release (27 years captive) and marked the resignation of the Egyptian leader 30 year rule. Poignant times.
The world's favourite Uncle: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Bono “the first anthropologist of modern rock” (according to the Saturday Star) paid a very moving homage to Amnesty International.Seeing and hearing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s favourite uncle, up on the big screen was an emotional moment. The appearance of the legendary trumpeter Hugh Masekela during ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’ was a magic moment too. Imprisoned during the apartheid years, he’s one of the first South African musicians I listened to.
All in all visits to South Africa close the circle for me. South Africa politicised me. It was the Anti Apartheid movement in the 1980s that made me decide to study politics at SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies). H was a flatmate during those student days. I made my first enquiry to VSO when we lived together and in fact she arrived in South Africa with VSO 12 years ago – and stayed.
It was at dusk, at another stadium – the now defunct Wembley Stadium – in 1990, when H and I were flatmates, that I saw Nelson Mandela, a few weeks after he was released from prison. ‘Free… Nelson… Mandela!’ We sang, and there he was in the flesh. Another day I’ll never forget.
Main Set: Beautiful Day, I Will Follow, Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, Mysterious Ways, Elevation, Until the End of the World, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, North Star, Pride (In The Name Of Love), In A Little While, Miss Sarajevo, City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo / She Loves You (snippet), I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight / Two Tribes (snippet) / Relax (snippet), Sunday Bloody Sunday, Scarlet, Walk On / You’ll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
Encore(s): One, Amazing Grace (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, With Or Without You, Moment of Surrender
A new start for the Sudanese but ‘same same’ for Ugandans
Welcome South Sudan! With 98% of the Sudanese voting ‘yes’ to partition of the country, I look forward to a new stamp on my passport.
There are nine days to go until the presidential elections here in Uganda. The walls, lampposts and Palm trees are plastered with election posters, some giving basic guidelines to candidates and the excitable electorate. Notices like “it’s illegal to cover your number plate with a candidate’s election poster or to create an effigy of a candidate” tickled the Muzungu.
The high profile Electoral Commission (funded by external donors) is doing its best to educate voters, (although it hasn’t been above criticism). There’s a large poster by the side of the road showing people how to vote properly e.g. showing a tick or fingerprint.
I read in Saturday’s Monitor newspaper how the opposition is proposing a delay in the election day. One of the unconstitutional aspects they are complaining about is that there appear to be 400,000 more people on the register than there are of voting age.
There are some interesting election strategies at work. There are some good debates by some very intelligent people but there are some shenanigans too.
Many uneducated people are being bought off: I hear a vote can be as cheap as 500 shillings (15 pence), a bar of soap or a bag of sugar. This weekend we read the rumours about the wife of the leader of the opposition wanting a divorce. “Where do you want me to go if I leave such a handsome man?” she asked. The NRM are jealous, she said, and are just trying to cause arguments and detract from the issues at hand.
It seems a certainty that President Museveni will remain in power for another term.
There’s been a noticeable show of strength. In the last two weeks we’ve seen a lot more police and military police on the streets. Yesterday a military helicopter flew over the house. It’s not intimidating, they’re not doing anything but they’re there. Crossing Jinja Road during rush-hour yesterday several trucks full of police moved past us. Up country, people are wondering whether the influx of troops will be used to cast additional votes. Rumour and counter-rumour, the muzungu’s not sure who to believe.
In the light of what’s been happening in the Arab world, particularly Egypt, you have to wonder whether that excitement might spread to Uganda. People think it unlikely “but you never can tell” said my friend who works for the US Defence Department.
The poster in a taxi window summed it all up for me: “Don’t vote for sugar. Vote for issues.”
Early morning sights and sounds
A parrot just flew overhead, its unmistakeable call heralding fun.
It’s a misty morning but you can tell it’s going to be a bright day. As we walk up Muyenga Hill, a glimpse of Lake Victoria in the distance never fails to lift my spirits.
It seems my favourite ‘worst’ road is being improved. This steep marram road was incredibly difficult to navigate, especially after the rain, even in a 4 x 4. I saw a matatu minibus taxi stuck here once, marooned for the night, forcing the passengers to disembark in the pitch darkness into a churned up sea of red clay.
I love cutting across this clear open patch of ground between the houses. A few large mango and jackfruit trees remain and the open stretch of land is cultivated with maize and cassava. Kampala is one enormous construction site so it won’t be long before the crops here give way to a new building.
“Baldrick loves his walks!” exclaimed Ronald last week.
Baldrick looking into one of the pools in Bukasa quarry, Muyenga
Baldrick and Percy on a rock ledge overlooking a pool in Bukasa quarry, Muyenga
Baldrick is excitedly sniffing the area. Any moment now he’ll run across the field.
‘Poison release training’ with Ronald seems to be working well – in the compound. Out here the training continues. Twice I had to shout at him “DROP IT!” There’s still plenty of sniffing going on. (I wonder what a bloodhound looks like? I think to myself as I watch Baldrick run with his nose skimming the ground).
As we walk back down the hill, we pass a man standing in front of his house, handsome and bare-chested, a traditional African kanga wrapped around his waist, a little baby in each arm. He smiles and points out ‘mbwa’ – the dog – to his children.
A sight for sore eyes! I amble home with a smile on my face.
Recorded on my digital Dictaphone one morning.
Erection* fever
Every monday evening I run through the slums and wetlands of Kampala, through the traffic or across the golf course, in and through the lives of thousands of Ugandans along with 150 fellow Hashers. Dr Ian Clarke, founder of Kampala’s International Hospital (IHK), is one of us.
Like him or loathe him, he’s an impressive character. This month he is standing for the seat of L.C..III (Local Councillor) and, if elected, will govern a quarter of Kampala, Uganda’s capital. He’s popular with many Ugandans as they think if he has his own money – IHK is the biggest private healthcare provider in the country – he’ll be above corruption.
International Hospital overlooks Namuwongo which has a slum of some 100,000 people. With inadequate public health infrastructure, many Kampalans look to the free service offered by the Hope Ward or the Touch Namuwongo outreach project. For many in Ian’s constituency, he’s already proved he can deliver. His public promise to improve the roads is already having an impact: I hear that hundreds of potholes across the capital have been patched up in recent weeks, as if to prove the point.
Hashers are crazy for free T shirts! So this Monday we waited in line to collect our free Ian Clarke T shirts and off we ran, shouting “Busuulwa!” Ian’s Ugandan name. It was hilarious.
We stopped at a few trading centres along the way to pose for photographers.
PHOTO: Ian leads the ensemble.
Silly songs, complete with embarrassing movements, are all part of the Hash culture.
Local kids couldn’t wait to take part in our silly antics
PHOTO: “ON IN” we cry as we take the last leg of the hour long run, back into the venue (a bar!)
It’s very hot at the moment and we were all glad to get back.
The dust was immense.
Much as I love the kids running alongside us, their little flip flops kicked up clouds and clouds of dust, making breathing even harder!
PHOTO: gathering at a trading centre.
A chance to catch your breath – and for Ian to meet another journalist.
*A word about this week’s blog title: these T-shirts must have been printed by a Westerner. The letter L doesn’t exist in the local languages.
“So what’s your plobrem?” they ask. It gets confusing.
Human Wildlife Conflict – in my bedroom
We are living through an extreme period of mosquitoes. It’s also incredibly hot. On Friday night I killed 30 mosquitoes in my little bathroom. On Saturday night, much the worse for wear, I staggered around and killed a mere 20 before giving up and seeking refuge under the net before I quickly started snoring.
Every house needs a Gecko
Last night I wasn’t quite so lucky. I didn’t notice the sound of the mosquitoes until I turned out the light. Then they seemed to be everywhere. The noise was so loud they distracted me from sleeping. At one point I was actually scared; scared that if I was to put the light on I would see an angry black swarm around my bed. The noise can be very misleading – there may only have been three of them.
Today I took action! I threw open the curtains and the hanging covering the bookshelves and sprayed the hell out of them all. I felt guilty afterwards: the spiders and geckos have been my friends, even though the geckos do make me jump sometimes. Will I now have the smell of a dying gecko to find? It seems so unfair; they and I are on the same side after all, hunting down mosquitoes.
Justice in the balancing act – Owino Market Kampala
Owino Market (St Balikuddembe) and the surrounding markets in downtown Kampala have more clothes than I’ve ever seen in my life. Imagine London’s Oxford Street, Petticoat Lane, the biggest Marks and Spencer you can find and Primark: take everything off the shelves, pile it high in neatly folded layers or mountainous heaps; remove the roof, take away the flooring and replace it with a fractured and muddy uneven mess; run some sewers through it. Condense this into some dark passageways where it is almost impossible for one person to pass – let alone for one person to pass, one to sell and another one to try on jeans – turn off the lights, fill it with more people carrying suitcases of goods on their heads; and then perhaps you can start imagining Owino. How our friend Alan came shopping here with three young girls quite amazes me!
So, well over her luggage allowance and having already purchased one excess bag for her flight home, Nat had talked herself into needing even more clothes to return to the UK with.
I needed some new clothes; I’ve put on far too much weight to fit into most of the clothes I brought with me two years ago. As someone said to me before I arrived in Uganda: “women go to Africa and put on weight. Men lose it.” And some!
There are serious bargains to be had at Owino if you’re prepared for the constant calls of “muzungu-how-are-you?” and the haggling. It’s persistent but mostly fair and a firm “No” is usually enough before you get sidetracked by the next sellers. The occasional “Sagala” (I don’t want it) from me generally stops people in their tracks, unaccustomed to hearing Luganda from a muzungu. You should hear the howls of laughter!
Nat caused quite a stir in her own right: every third or fourth man was trying to call out to her or touch her arm as we went past… “Is she your daughter?” They asked me. Humph.
Two hours of incident-free shopping behind us, we emerged into a sunlit area of the market to buy ice cold water and I spotted a ruddy faced lady selling sheets stacked high above our heads. One of the luxury items I brought back to Uganda was a duvet. My English friends back home scoffed at the idea – but they haven’t experienced a cool Ugandan night.
The lady didn’t seem to speak any English and wasn’t at all personable (unlike most of the other people in the market) but we agreed a reasonable 18,000 shillings (£6) for a duvet cover, a fraction of the 65,000 an earlier seller had asked for one. As I handed over the 50,000 note, I sensed something wasn’t right.
These valuable – & therefore rare – notes are much cleaner than the rest
Wary of being pick pocketed, I’d carefully stashed notes in various pockets of the handbag that I always have strapped to me. I knew exactly where the 50,000 note was – few ever pass through this volunteer’s hands! – and I can picture its distinct brown colour as the lady briefly disappeared behind the tower of sheets to get ‘the balance.’
“Where’s the other 10,000?” I asked without hesitation as she offered me change of a 20,000 note.
I wasn’t having any of it. She was trying to say something to me but I was adamant. I’d given her 50,000 shillings and I wanted 32,000 balance.
Her (apparent) lack of English meant other people quickly took over the argument, all taking her side and questioning my memory and my knowledge of the local currency. Within minutes ten men were arguing with me, insisting I’d made a mistake. I kept my calm, I didn’t accuse anybody but I was completely sure I’d passed over a 50,000 shilling note, so was Nat.
“All I’m saying is someone’s made a mistake” I insisted.
Ugandans love to argue and they love to stand around and watch, for hours on end so we were soon in the middle of a blazing row, watched from all sides, everyone keen to have their say. “We’re not getting anywhere here” Nat said after about ten minutes. I muttered something about contacting the police, hoping that somebody might back down but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
“So what are you going to do?” Someone asked as we prepared to walk off.
“What can I do? I am one person and you are 30.” I fumed.
Ooh I’m still cross about it now!
I handed back the duvet cover and the lady gave me the bright red 20,000 shilling note that she insisted I’d given her.
A hundred metre walk away, lo and behold we stumbled upon the police station! Nat and I exchanged looks and before we knew it we were inside the station filing a complaint. What were we getting into now though? And how much of the day were we about to lose? What would VSO say? Was I doing the right thing or about to cause a load more trouble for myself? Would this spiral out of control and end up in court or a plea for school fees that would exceed the amount that I was out of pocket?
With all these questions going through my head, we were quickly ushered in to make our complaint and within five minutes we were making our way back through the market, accompanied by three armed policeman. O god, no backing out now!
The ruddy faced lady was still there. The main protagonist in the argument looked surprised to see us again. Ha! But nothing changed. We had the same arguments all over again as the police listened to both sides. The market sellers’ rep chimed in too this time. I was 100% sure that I was right but I was careful not to call anyone a thief; I hoped I was offering them a way out.
Another ten fruitless minutes passed. The crowd grew, arms folded, all staring (you become immune to it).
Back at the tiny two room police station, I was surprised to be led straight to the chief, a senior policeman in his 50s. I greeted him in Luganda and he smiled from behind his big desk. He was very charming and held court over the assembled group of ten people seated either side of him on narrow wooden benches.
I wondered what the chief was thinking as he asked how long I’d been in Uganda and what I’m doing here. The questioning carried on around me in Luganda and I just had to trust that justice would be done.
Mid-questioning, someone walked past and unlocked the metal gate to the cell five feet to my left.
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that this was all going terribly wrong. Who was being thrown in the cell – me or the lady I was trying so hard not to accuse?
“We have never seen this lady in here before” he said “and since you both insist you’re not mistaken, perhaps you’d consider a compromise?” (This kind of situation must happen all the time).
With the negotiations over, and an agreement to buy the duvet cover which (perhaps surprisingly) I did still want, ‘the balance’ was down to me. (OK OK it still riles me but at least I didn’t get a bill for school fees!)
I handed the boss a 20,000 shilling note. As he passed it through the bars of the window to a boy in the street to get balance, I cried out in mock horror “Oh no! It’s starting all over again!”
There was a pause before one person laughed and the others quickly reassured me “No, no, it’s ok we know him.”
“I was joking,” I said, relieved to be on my way.
It’s official: life in a developing country wears you down
Striding through Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5, travelling back from Uganda, laden with heavy bags, I realise how this place suits me.
I don’t have the same energy levels I left the UK with two years ago.
Here at Terminal 5, the flooring is flat, as far as the eye can see, and there are no potholes – you can just put one foot in front of the other, safe in the certainty you will not stumble. I have proper shoes on (not silly strappy sandals) and it’s cool.
“Wow!” I exclaim out loud to no-one in particular, as our coach pulls out of Heathrow. Anyone looking at the same view would think “she’s gone nuts,” staring at the pale grey sky and the nondescript grey industrial buildings next to them. The greyness is just so uniformly drab, I’d just forgotten how grey it can be.
We turn onto the motorway and come to a standstill in traffic straightaway.
It’s weird, I expected us to motor on. Suddenly it’s like driving in Kampala – mpole, mpole -“slowly by slowly” – I tell myself, nothing to stress about it, I’m on holiday after all.
I wonder if journeys here in the UK will ever seem as long again? Nowadays I’m used to day long drives to Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park and ten minute journeys into town (that take an hour or more because of the ridiculous traffic jams).
On the train to Oxford, a man now wears latex gloves to pick up the passengers’ rubbish. I notice the posters at the railway station, asking us to “take care not to slip” and to not ride bicycles and skateboards through the station. How very considerate, and what a contrast to the dire lack of care or information in your average developing country.
It’s just so easy to telephone everyone! I get through straightaway. I can receive voicemail. I can leave messages on answerphones. I can send a number of texts at a time for virtually nothing. In Uganda, sometimes I wonder if I’m making excuses for my frustrations; back in the UK I’m consoled: I’m not imagining it, everyday life in Uganda really does wear you down.
Keeping a close eye on my expenditure in Uganda had been wearing me down again recently too. Life on a volunteer allowance can be tough.
Everything here in the UK seems so expensive to me! Two half litre bottles of water for ‘only £2.20’ – but I only want one small one! The Sun newspaper costs only 20p and I snap it up, eager to catch up on the latest gossip (I’m going to feel a bit lost otherwise over the next four weeks). The broadsheets can wait.
Do I just need a holiday?
Leaving town for the airport and why, oh ,why does Rashid choose to drive via the Clock Tower in the centre of town? We sit motionless in solid traffic for half an hour. It’s not the delay I mind, we have plenty of time; it’s sitting in the fumes.
When I first arrived in Kampala and people moaned about the traffic, I didn’t get it; it couldn’t be as bad as London rush hour. London has a lot more cars, but it moves a lot faster too – it’s managed. Here management means a set of traffic lights that change colour pointlessly while traffic police impeccably dressed in white (despite the red dust) offer random and contradictory hand signals to the passing traffic. At the start of the academic year, hand signals become more random and unpredictable, in the quest to pay school fees. Management of the traffic is forgotten, the lights merrily change in the background, the unsuspecting driver doesn’t know which set of rules s/he’s breaking – and does it matter? The traffic policeman or woman will pull you to one side and collect money for their school fees regardless.
Rashid’s car is overrun with cockroaches, again. I spot three through the car window before I (still) get in. They’re small though so I tuck my shirt in my trousers and forget about them. They often find their way into travel bags but they won’t last long in a British winter. Funny how blasé I’ve become about the once Unmentionables! Early blog followers will remember the stories!
I wonder how Kampala will have changed when I get back. Which roads will have been (temporarily) fixed? How many more election posters can you stick on telegraph poles and walls? How well trained will Baldrick be? How will I feel about another 9 months working for UCF?
I saw a dark brown grass snake yesterday at the top of Muyenga Hill. The sky was clear blue, the evening light was beautiful and the evening light reflected off Lake Victoria in such a way I thought I saw a savannah for a second. It was magical.
I felt my love of Ugandan returning. I never tire of the view from atop the hills and I’ve been working so hard I’ve been denying myself these walks.
“There’s nothing in here for you to steal mate.” A’s comment to the attendant doing the security check at the entry to the car park was disappointing. I don’t want to be associated with some ex-pat’s cynicism; I don’t want to become one of them. Is it inevitable? Will I in time become the same?
Kampala has shrunk. Everyone goes to the same places. I didn’t worry about the size of the place when I was having fun and had lots of girlfriends to go out with. I used to enjoy the fact everyone’s connected but now I see the city’s limitations.
Or do I just need a holiday?
