A harlot in drag

Well, it seems like no matter how hard I try, I end up either looking like a man or like a prostitute.

Actually, I often end up OK, as I brought a lot of flowy skirt type things and blouses. The difference between what's considered acceptable dress for women in Canada and Uganda is quite interesting, however.

Here's an example of a serious letter to the editor sent to the respected New Vision newspaper:

Women should keep away from wearing pants
Monday, 28th November, 2005

SIR — In Uganda women have become masters at encroaching on men’s domain. First they tried to oust us in the corporate world, then in sports and for now, after the female condom, they are fighting for trousers with us.

For smooth running of our nation, let women keep away from trousers. Some of these women have decided to forego decency, leaving men to feast their eyes on the display of stretch marks and navels.

Yet they claim to understand that men are weak creatures who ‘melt’ at the sight of such delicate body parts.

Women seem to forget that trousers display their worst flaws which vary in degree from one wearer to another.

Until women change to long, loose skirts or decent trouser suits, men will not let them pass by undisturbed.

Chuma Festus Gakuo
Makerere University

(note: I am pretty sure that "stretch marks" refers not to those marks on skin from gaining or losing weight, but to the pull of fabric tight against the body)

The status of women here is something I haven't yet touched on. I'm trying to keep things light here, so I'm going to skip articulating a long list of incredibly depressing and graphic things and just say it's different than what Canadians are used to. At the same time, the status of women changes depending on who and where you are. The life of an educated woman in Kampala is worlds apart from that of most rural women, and the attitudes of the men are just as divergent.

As a foreigner, I can largely get away with doing whatever I want, but my wardrobe choices do sometimes have an effect.

As the letter to the editor indicates, the men here are particularly obsessed with the bottom half of a woman's anatomy. I try to be as inconspicuous as possible (not very easy for a white person in Africa) and so I tend to keep my shorts in the closet. An exception was when I ran the Kampala 10km race. During the race was fine, but I suffered endless harassment both to and from the race.

Women who exhibit certain behaviours commonly associated with men are assumed to be prostitutes. Of course, unbeknownst to me, I have been exhibiting these behaviours pretty much constantly.

I also wear pants at every given opportunity, something relatively new here. My neighbour Rebecca went to visit the Kasubi Tombs the other day. The Tombs are the burial site of one of the Kabakas, the kings of the Baganda (who live in Buganda in Uganda, where each individual Muganda can speak Luganda -holy complicated!). Anyway, Rebecca went there with her friend Blaze (a Ugandan). The man selling entrance tickets gave her a dirty look, threw a sarong-type piece of fabric to her and in a most accusatory tone told Blaze, "She must wear that because SHE IS DRESSED LIKE A MAN!"

So here I am, dressed like a man and acting like a prostitute, but I am assured by my friends that people here understand that my culture is different and they forgive accidental transgressions. Except for when dear old Chuma Festus Gakuo of Makerere University sees me in my running clothes. Then it's no holds barred.

Is there anybody out there?

The Uganda I’m living in now is not the Uganda I arrived in two months ago. Two months ago Uganda was a success story. High rates of economic growth for sub-Saharan Africa, increased quality of life, more political freedom, and so on. There were still some very bad things, like the never-ending war in the North with its 1.5 million displaced people, and some ominous signs of what was to come, like President Museveni amending the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. But despite these things, Uganda looked like a country on the rise.

In ten days everything has changed. President Museveni has betrayed his true intentions. The best leader Uganda has ever had has taken a serious turn for the worse. He could have bowed out and retained respect, like Tanzania’s Nyerere did. Instead, Museveni is following the footsteps of Mugabe and his ilk.

Here are the latest headlines.

• The men in black who surrounded the Court last week were a government paramilitary group that has become known as the “Black Mamba Urban Hit Squad.” An army official said they were there to re-arrest the 22 co-accused of Besigye and take them to be tried in a court martial (a military court). The 22 co-accused are all civilians.
  


• The judge hearing the civil case recused himself, ostensibly too intimidated by the prospect of military squads in his courtroom to continue hearing the case.
  


• The 22 co-accused, having already been arraigned in civil court, were also arraigned in a court martial for the same offences. This violates a well-known principle of law that prohibits being tried twice for the same offence. If found guilty in either court, they face the death penalty.
  


• An unknown gunman shot at Besigye’s cousin and close ally while she was driving in a car. She was not injured.
  


• Principal Judge James Oogala spoke out against the Black Mamba’s attack on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, referring to it as the “rape” of the justice system
  


• On Monday November 21, the Uganda Law Society convened an emergency meeting in Kampala. Members spoke out against recent events and resolved to sue the government for violating the constitution. They declared Besigye and his co-accused to be prisoners of conscience, and resolved to hold a sit-down strike this coming Monday. They are to not come to work but instead come to the High Court in their court attire to stand in solidarity with the Court in silent protest against Museveni’s trampling of the rule of law. It was big news.
  


• At the same Uganda Law Society meeting, Fox Odoi, the presidential legal assistant, said that the Black Mambas overtook the Court because they had received intelligence indicating there was a terrorist threat to be directed at the many diplomats in the courtroom. The Mambas were simply there for their protection. In response to this, a lawyer present at the meeting asked, if that was the case, why did the Mambas follow the prisoners to the jail, leaving the diplomats alone and unprotected?
  


• On Tuesday, Museveni issued a decree banning all “demonstrations, processions, public rallies and assemblies” related to the case against Besigye. This is despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and association. The Uganda Law Society’s planned strike is now illegal.
  


• Besigye was offered a deal under the Amnesty Act, which provides Amnesty to rebels who admit their guilt. He rejected it, maintaining his innocence. This deal was not a real deal at all, as by accepting the amnesty he would be barring himself from holding political office.
  


• On Wednseday, the government banned all talk shows and media debates on all pending court cases, including Besigye’s. The Minister of State for Information, Dr. James Nsaba, had this to say regarding cancelling the licences of media houses that disrespect the ban: “Revocation of the licence is something I am very eager to do” (Daily Monitor, Nov 24, 2005, p 1).
  


• On Thursday, riots are anticipated in response to Besigye’s scheduled bail hearing. The military deployed throughout the city. Uganda People’s Defence Force lined major streets with guns and batons. The Black Mambas were seen driving around town in military vehicles. Police were also deployed at Kampala fuel stations. Apparently this is to prevent “suspicious” people from purchasing fuel that might be used to destroy property in riots. One might also note, however, that preventing people from buying fuel has the additional effect of preventing them from leaving.
  


• Instead of being taken to the High Court for his scheduled bail hearing, Besigye was taken to the court martial on Thursday morning.
  


• Later on Thursday morning at the court martial, Besigye’s lawyers were arrested for “contempt of court” for arguing that the court martial does not have jurisdiction over Besigye, a civilian. The detained lawyers are Elias Lukwago and Caleb Alaka. My Canadian colleagues, imagine if you will being incarcerated simply for representing your client. It truly boggles the mind.
  


• Besigye, after being charged with terrorism and being in possession of illegal firearms at the court martial, was transferred to the High Court. Besigye was returned to Luzira Prison later this afternoon. His bail hearing could not be completed because his lawyers were still in detention at the court martial.
  

So, here we are. The situation has deteriorated rapidly, and who can really say what will happen next?

But wait, before you write this off as just another example of African failure, to be sighed at and then brushed from one’s mind, like so many other nameless places -Burundi, Zimbabwe, Congo, Rwanda- I want you to remember. Remember Innocent, the smiling night guard bearing sweet potatoes. Remember Max, the singing taxi driver. Remember Margaret, my cleaner from the war-torn north who cares for 6 children alone but never complains. Think of the child skipping behind me gaily, then presenting me with the gift of a coveted grasshopper before running off in a fit of shy giggles. Think of the man who walks for 10 minutes out of his way to make sure I find the place I’m looking for. Think of the lawyers sitting in prison because they fulfilled their professional duty. Don't worry if it makes you feel uncomfortable, that just means you're human. But remember them. Whatever happens, let it be recorded somewhere, anywhere.

We passed here. Like you, we lived, we loved, we died.

The wind beneath my wings

I have found a regular taxi driver. His name is Max and he’s awesome. He drives me around at night in a beat up old hatchback. His car always smells of gasoline. One day we drove through a puddle and my feet got wet. Sometimes we run out of gas (people here tend to drive with very little gas in the car.)

He loves singing, and we frequently sing together in the car. He’s a romantic, so he likes to sing romantic pop ballads from the 80s. He does a fantastic rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings.” He’s into word games too, referring to our car singing as “cara-oke.”

He offers fair prices without having to bargain, and sends me inspirational text messages on occasions such as when I ran the 10km race yesterday.

Speaking of that race, there was a picture of the runners on the front page of the New Vision today. If you look really closely you can see me standing next to my friend Shannon. I have saved it to lord my moment of fame over you all! (Just kidding, of course).

Kampala marathon

I ran in a 10km race today. A marathon started at 7 a.m., and then the 10km started at 7:30. Surprisingly, they both started on time.

The route avoided the worst of Kampala’s hills. It was hot though, and when I arrived at the water station at kilometre 3 I was told “the water is finished.” There were boxes of what appeared to be sealed and therefore full boxes of bottled water all around, so I suspected the water intended for the runners had been “diverted.” Apparently nothing is exempt from the corruption that is so endemic here.

I got some water at km 5, however, and managed to hobble along until the end, when I used the exertion as an excuse to spoil myself with rich meals and drinks on a poolside patio for the balance of the day.

There was also a 10km disabled race. The disabled racers don’t have the racing wheelchairs you see in Canada. In fact, most people don’t have wheelchairs at all. Instead, people fashion pads for their knees and wear flip flops on their hands and crawl around the town, which is dangerous considering the traffic. Those same people who doggedly crawl through life also crawled through 10 kilometres under the hot sun. Do you ever have those moments where you feel like the biggest whiner on earth for having ever complained about the relatively trite difficulties in your life? Yeah, me too.

Safety first!

I went climbing at a climbing wall in Jinja today. It’s the closest place to climb anything that I’m aware of. The next closest place (with real rock!) is Sipi Falls, about 8 hours away. The wall at Jinja is attached to a bungy tower. It’s made of planks of rough wood.

Not surprisingly, the safety measures were somewhat lacking. The top-rope was set up with a strand of fraying webbing tied to the iron girding of the bungy tower. The rope was attached via a single carabiner. The climbing guy tried to tie us in by tying a knot in the rope, attaching it to a carabiner, and then attaching said carabiner to the harness.

As we climbed, the holds frequently spun around, sending us flying. We climbed in bare feet. Bare feet + wooden wall = I’m sure you can imagine.
I’m usually much more frightened climbing on real rock than at climbing walls, but this was an exception! Anyway, we managed to get a little climbing in and survive to tell the tale. I have procured photographic evidence of the sketchy set-up, so if I ever manage to post pictures, you can see it for yourselves.

Culinary delights

I was taking a coaster (read: smaller than a regular bus, bigger than a minibus) to Jinja. When you stop at certain points, people in uniforms trying to sell snacks and drinks surround the bus. This includes water, fruit, and the omnipresent meat-on-a-stick. If you are foreign you can expect the snack-mongers to be particularly pressing. On this day, a gentleman was trying to sell me some meat-on-a-stick. We went back and forth, him telling me to buy meat, me politely shaking my head and saying “no, thank you.” Eventually he could take it no longer, and thrust the meat-on-a-stick through the window, waving it about 2 inches from my face, yelling “MUZUNGU! YOU EAT GOAT”

Needless to say, his tactics did not make me feel inclined to taste his wares.

I have since tried goat-on-a-stick, and while it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t something I’d care to repeat.

Speaking of tasty treats, it is grasshopper season. The grasshoppers here are big and bright green. When de-winged and de-legged and fried in a bit of oil, they are considered a great delicacy. At night people catch them in this huge corrugated metal traps. The grasshoppers fly towards the bright lights surrounding the traps and fall in somehow. You’ll note that while power cuts are happening all over the city at any given time, the grasshopper lights shine on the whole night through.

I tried a single grasshopper. It was actually quite tasty, with a flavour evocative of some sort of legume. But the yummy taste wasn’t quite enough for me to get over the fact that I was picking antennae out of my teeth, so this is another snack that I likely won’t try twice.

Calm

The riots of Monday and Tuesday gave way to calm on Wednesday. But despite the peace and quiet, there is a palpable air of uncertainty. More and more it seems that, despite almost 20 years of successful and relatively peaceful rule, President Museveni is acting like yet another strongarm African leader who refuses to relinquish power. It certainly doesn't make any sense to me. Museveni recently paid $US 1 million to promote Ugandan tourism on CNN, probably money wasted now. Over half of the Ugandan budget comes from foreign aid. If the president continues along this path, donors are sure to pull funding, and the results won't be good. At Besigye's court date Tuesday the room was full of representatives from the UK, Japan, the U.S., Scandinavian countries, etc.. They are watching.

Fourteen of Besigye's co-accused were granted bail yesterday, but elected to return to jail as a group of unidentified armed men in black t-shirts were waiting for them outside the court. The BBC has good coverage here. The BBC also has a good piece summarising some of the commentary in the local press. For anyone interested in following the news, I have linked to Uganda's two main dailies in the link section of this blog. Another good publication is the East African, published weekly.

I am going to a Scottish dancing class tonight and heading to Jinja for the weekend to see the source of the Nile and partake in other thrilling activities. So, assuming things remain as they are, I'll have more lighthearted fodder for my next entry.

Unrest in the capital

I have many amusing stories to share with you about grasshoppers, goat mongers, and taxi drivers, but that will be at a later time. This is not going to my best writing as I’m trying to be hasty, sorry if it’s not very readable.

Kampala has experienced some unrest over the past few days. On Friday, a student protest at Makerere University turned violent. One student was shot dead by riot police. My colleague saw about 5 people on stretchers not moving, so it is likely that there were additional casualties, although this was not reported in the media. The police here use tear gas at the slightest provocation. My colleague was gassed Friday and his eyes still have not recovered (which is unusual). Yesterday some rioting continued at the campus. Vestiges of the tear gas wafted into my office, making people cough.

But that’s not all. You may know that multiparty politics is a recent phenomenon in Uganda. There is a whole long history here that I will not get into now. The current leader –President Museveni- ousted the old leader via armed uprising in the mid 80s. A new constitution was passed in 1995 and elections were held in 2001. Parties, however, were banned. Everyone had to run under the auspices of Museveni’s National Resistence Movement. At that time, a gentleman by the name of Dr. Kizza Besigye ran against Museveni. There were serious irregularities in the elections, but Museveni won. Besigye fled the country. This was to be Museveni’s last term, but he spearheaded a constitutional amendment to allow him to run for a third term. Are your suspicions piqued yet?

Anyway, Besigye returned in late October. Now that parties are allowed, Besigye heads the Forum for Democratic Change. He has been campaigning all around the country. We have been speculating about if and when he will be arrested at the behest of the current president.

It happened yesterday.

He was returning by car from campaigning in the west when police surrounded him. He has been charged with treason and rape (allegedly from 1997) and remanded to Luzira prison. His supporters immediately surrounded the police station and a riot commenced. Cars were burned, property was destroyed, shops closed. The police used rubber bullets, tear gas (on peaceful protesters, I saw news video of people standing there quietly; it was only after being gassed that things got hectic), and water trucks spraying water from hoses. Luckily, I am friends with a bunch of people from Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) who receive SMS updates whenever something like this happens.

Today Besigye is being remanded for trial at the High Court. The last communication I received indicates that rioting is continuing both in the city centre and at the University and that military police are using live ammunition. VSO volunteers from upcountry have been instructed not to come to Kampala.

Yesterday, I went home as soon as I learned of Besigye’s arrest. I knew there were riots and had no idea where they would spread. My area of town, which is far from the centre, was quiet. The area of town where I work has also been quiet, although it is still near enough to the university for the tear gas to float over here. That being said, my supervisor has suggested leaving early today, so I will be returning home shortly. My compound is very secure and I have everything I need in it in the highly unlikely event that it becomes unsafe to leave. I also have the means to leave the country at a moment’s notice, so no one worry. Also, if you avoid the riot areas Kampala remains as safe as ever. BBC.com has the most up-to-date news, aside from the Ugandan press.

Today's newspapers provided for a bit of amusement:

New Vision (Government daily): High schools are now free (no more fees)

Daily Monitor (Independent daily): BESIGYE JAILED
Government threatens to close Daily Monitor

In other news, I received an email from the Canadian consulate in Uganda today. I know what you're thinking; it was an email warning Canadians in Kampala to avoid the city centre. Wrong. The subject line reads: "CANADA COMMENTS ON U.S. PASSPORT REQUIREMENTS PROPOSAL" (now that's a headline that warrants all caps). It's nice to see that the Canadian foreign service is keeping on top of the issues that matter to me most. I'd gladly stick around to debate the merits of American passport requirements, but I've got to duck out the way of some tear gas.

I have had a suspicious feeling lately. It’s hard to feel upbeat living in a country scheduled for elections this March that has never had regime change without war. I noticed more military police driving around than I did before and had a sinking feeling. But I’ve only been here two months, am I just imagining it? The riots and the death on Friday reinforced that sinking feeling. Despite following the news, there is so much that goes unreported, I really felt like I didn’t have a handle on what’s going on. Considering the history of East Africa, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that things could go wrong. But what’s going to go wrong? Will it be a few isolated pockets of election violence or something worse? I knew things would get dicey coming here in an election year, I just didn’t expect them to get dicey this early on.

I have never experienced any form of insecurity before, so I don’t know if the tight feeling in my stomach is warranted or an overreaction. Similarly, my eyes are itching and watery –is it more tear gas or a psychosomatic reaction to stress?

In any event, I'm trying to pattern my reaction after the reaction of the people of Kampala, many of whom can remember living under regimes that were much, much, much more oppressive than Museveni's. They may be keeping their heads down and avoiding the problem neighbourhoods, but they're still smiling.

He’ll fall for you in fall’s luscious new lipsticks!

If I have any readers left after over a month without posting, you may be wondering why there are such long spurts between posts, and why a novel’s worth of posts show up after weeks of nothing. It’s because the internet has been down for about the last 3 weeks of the past month. It works intermittently, but I haven’t managed to get anything posted because I need to get my journal from home and stay after work to type it up. I didn’t manage to do that over the couple of days we had net access, especially since when it has been up it sometimes crashes again before evening.

We’ve been without a connection for a solid week now. We paid some company to pay the ISP for us. We paid until January. They paid until the end of October. We got cut off. They told us it would take 3 hours to get the service reconnected. That was 3 days ago.

I have yet to find an internet café that’s not achingly slow. Usually I check only a couple of email messages before logging off in frustration. I needed to send a single email the other day and it took me a full 20 minutes. Suffice it to say I’ve decided to wait and see if we ever get the connection back at work before I post again.

I can’t email anyone. I can’t call anyone because I can’t afford the $1.67 a minute rates. I feel completely cut off. My radio doesn’t even work. I am almost finished the novels that were supposed to last for my entire trip. I got some mail the other day though. I tried to download some music sets off my friend Laurence’s website but failed. So Matty in Canada downloaded them for me, put them on a disk, and mailed them. Three to four weeks later, they arrived. So by some miracle, DJ Sneak has dropped into the middle of Africa to play in my living room. I’m told there is another package coming. It may have sugarless gum, ginger candies, or green tea! Kraft Dinner would be nice, or any fake food that reminds me of home. I wish I had thought to ask for those little pantyhose ankle socks you wear with dress shoes. Oh well.

I also have a British Cosmopolitan magazine. In my former life I absolutely abhorred such magazines and made a point of never looking at them. Here, I’ve been anxiously waiting for over a month as it got passed from hand to hand. I am transfixed by the ads and the people in make-up and non second-hand clothes. I read 10 pages of man grabbing tips before my brain hurts and I have to put it down and go back to my serious literary fiction. After years of self-imposed snobbery I actually find it easier to understand than the magazine. But I put the magazine away carefully, knowing I will pick it up tomorrow, treasure it slowly, page by page, like candies melting on the tongue. I still don’t understand why anyone would care to read articles telling her how to please some mangy halfwit she picked up in a bar, but I am fascinated by it now. It’s like reading the National Geographic about some exotic place you once visited. Members of the fabled tribe of the Western Consumer, glittering in their native habitant. One language the world over. I believe all the lies the magazine tells me and I wonder if maybe, some day, I can go to that place too.

My friend was in Nairobi a couple of weeks ago and was totally culture shocked by how developed it was. If Nairobi is shocking, imagine what London is going to do to me four months from now! I’ll show up in late March, wearing light flowing trousers, a similar blouse, and sandals. I’ll have nothing but a thin scarf to guard against the cold, and will be sporting a variety of beaded jewellery and strange twists in my hair. I will eat with my hands. I will eat a hamburger with my hands! Yum!

Save me!

I never told you about Bible Man. Bible Man is an American television show. It involves a man dressed up as a superhero talking about Jesus. We struggle to get American anti-retrovirals but we have no lack of American Christian television. I watched it for 2 minutes once. Bible Man spurned some poor child and he ran to a female superhero and she patted his head and told him Bible Man was just having a bad day. One aspect of life here that differs from Canada is the importance of religion. Heathens walk all over Canada side by side with the pious and nobody ever knows the difference because it’s not really something you talk about and who cares anyway? Here, conversion is around every corner, and despite the sizeable Muslim population it seems that a few people can’t fathom the existence of anything outside of their particular form of Christianity. Member of the United Church of Canada? You need saving. Synagogue? You need saving. Devoted humanist? You’re gonna burn baby, better get saved quick. It started on my flight over here. I sat next to a Southern Baptist from South Carolina on his way to Mbale to start a few churches. We’re on the London to Entebbe flight and he asks me where I’m going. “Kampala,” I say, “And you?” “U-GAAIN-DUH,” he bleets. Of course everyone on the plane is going to Uganda but apparently he hasn’t clued into that yet. Perhaps he thinks Kampala is some kind of independent fiefdom. Anyway, he might not know the capital of the country he’s converting people in, but he sure knows his Bible. He brings out a folding cube with pictures on it that show people living in fiery sin, the death of Jesus, and everyone happily marching up to heaven. He cites Scripture and makes clever analogies between what he reads there and my work as a lawyer. I’m sitting in my seat quaking with fear about coming to Africa for the first time and this man is trying to get me to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. Save me! I am polite but unbending and eventually we come to an uneasy truce. I put on my headphones and pretend to be asleep. Eventually, I really am sleeping.

We have some local neighbours who have made it their mission to save us. People who are saved are called Savedees and they can’t fathom why we haven’t done it yet and why we consistently refuse to come to their church to be reborn. My neighbour Rebecca befriended a local man and we met him at a café. He turned out to be a minister and tried to drag us to his church. One woman made the mistake of telling him where she worked and when she got there on Monday he’d been there to drop off a copy of his uplifting spiritual book about the importance of being saved. Now, I have nothing against church. In fact, I would very much like to visit some of the ones here, as I am told they are full of wonderful singing and dancing, but all these attempts at conversion definitely grate on my nerves. I haven’t been approached this much since university, when people stalked the campus, stopping suspected heathens and inviting them to their churches so they could be saved from eternal damnation. There was someone for everybody on the main street on campus -converted Catholics, Jews for Jesus, you name it- and the school gave us all a handbook with a section devoted to aggressive religious recruiting.

There are more than just Christian shows on Ugandan television though. There are a couple of gems. Canada’s Just For Laughs Gags, where you get to watch Canadians doing funny things on the streets of Montreal. I ignore the gags and just stare at the streets and the shops and the people in their coats. I think about smoked meat sandwiches and dill pickles. There is also a cartoon with singing vegetables. I think it might be British and by the same people who made Wallace and Grommit. The singing vegetables show is the funniest thing in the history of the world, even funnier than Bible Man. They sing songs about cheeseburgers and yodelling doctors and I roll around laughing in hysterics and feeling thankful for British humour.

Looking for the moon

The huge hassle with my visa is finally over. After waiting for the appropriate person to show up to work to sign my passport I walked out of the immigration office officially legal in this country. They wrote a small essay in my passport and it’s only good until January, which means at that point I can go through this whole process again to get a two-month extension. That will leave me with 2 weeks before I leave the country where I’ll be here illegally (and this is all despite the 12-month visa I purchased in Canada months ago). I’m told you get a two-week grace period and I hope to ride off that if I can’t convince them to give me an extension for the additional two weeks. If the grace period turns out to be less than two weeks, my plan is to start crying uncontrollably and show them the year long visa in my passport. It’s a good plan, because if some immigration official tries to prevent me from leaving at the end of this, I’m sure that will be my natural reaction anyway.

Tomorrow is Eid. About ten percent of the population is Muslim and it’s a national holiday. Eid al Fitr is the holiday that comes at the end of Ramadan. Apparently you determine whether it’s Eid by looking up at the moon. If you see the moon, it’s Eid the next day, and if you don’t it won’t be Eid until the day after next. I’ve been told that in many countries the day is set in advance and everyone ensures they see the moon so the holiday can be at the anticipated time. That’s not how things are done here. Everyone was convinced Eid would be today. I had the news on and at around ten p.m. it was announced that, no, the moon had not been sighted and everyone had to go to work tomorrow. Of course, many people missed this news and didn’t bother showing up to work anyway. I’ve been talking to other foreigners and they’re perplexed, “How can you run businesses when you don’t even know when national holidays take place?” A very good question. Surprise national holidays seem to be somewhat commonplace, so I guess people get used to it. At least with Eid they know it will be one of two days. You might also ask, “how do you run a business with a lack of serviceable roads, traffic jams, unreliable telephone, electricity and internet service, and employees who are wont to sleep on the job?” but somehow people manage anyway.


Bruno returned to Uganda and we had a party. Bruno worked in the Mabira forest and speaks Luganda and is the man to go to if you want to buy a Ugandan drum. Bruno is also from France, and that is what’s relevant to this story. He smuggled in all manner of luxuries for the party. Compté cheese from his area in the northwest. Saucissons from the south of France. Wine from wherever Bordeaux is (forgive me, my grasp of European geography is fading as I become filled with information about where the different tribes live with their infinite number of languages; the shifting colonial and then national boundaries; the paths of rebel fighters and refugee flows). Bruno brought Brie and it was unlike any Brie I have ever had in my life. They obviously export the rejects. We munched on this with slightly stale baguettes and ate Swiss chocolate for dessert. Can you even believe that such things exist?

I can’t believe there are places out there where you can walk in and see all of these things and more, sitting in neatly arranged rows under bright lights. Supermarkets. Do they really exist like I remember or was that some sort of a dream? There are a couple of supermarkets in Kampala for rich people like me to shop at and the variety available is unlike anything in Uganda. But still, the shelves are often half empty and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get what’s on your shopping list. I bought olive oil and mediocre pecorino cheese from South Africa and when I dip my bread in the oil or sprinkle some of the precious cheese on my rice I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. And always, always, whenever I feel deprived or frustrated I think of the huddled masses in the camps, the hungry children, my housekeeper Margaret from the war-torn north who takes care of 6 children by herself and never rests, my smiling guard Innocent who brings me sweet potatoes and French books, who came to work when he had malaria and lives on $13 a week, and I feel ashamed. I feel the shame seep through every pore of my being until my body is so heavy I have to lie on the bed. But lying around moping is even worse so I get up and smile and go to my Ugandan drumming lesson.

I send Innocent home to rest. Does he have tablets for the malaria? Yes, he does. Chloroquine, which nobody is supposed to use here anymore because the parasites have developed a resistance to it. When he gets better, he comes back and shows me a bottle of mosquito repellent. It had citronella in it and was empty. All you hippies and environmentalists out there are going to kill me for what I did next. I told him that stuff was useless. I brought out my mosquito repellent. It has tons of poisonous, evil DEET in it. It is sold only in the U.S. and was developed for the American military. It’s polymer-based so it won’t seep into your skin as much. I place the poison on my porch and tell him to use that on his ankles where the malaria mosquitoes bite. God knows whether that antiquated chloroquine will save him next time. Malaria kills many people here. He sits outdoors all night guarding my house instead of sleeping safe under a net because he can’t get any other job since he’s a foreigner with no official status in Uganda. He fled here from the Congo to escape the war, and there’s no way I’m going to let him escape death at the hands of rebels only to die of malaria in my front yard.

Before I left Canada I went into my friendly local Mountain Equipment Co-op to look at their mosquito nets. I asked them if they had insecticide treated ones for use abroad. The woman looks at me snidely and says “There is no reason anyone would ever have to use one of those. It’s a terrible poison, and everyone should wear repellent anyway, so it’s unnecessary.” I decline to point out to her that repellent is also a poison. Insecticide impregnated nets cut malaria deaths by a huge fraction because the mosquitoes don’t slip through the net via tiny gaps and holes. Without knowing it, this self-righteous yet well-meaning woman has sentenced a million African babies to an early grave. It’s so nonsensical, would she have everybody on the continent slather unaffordable mosquito repellent over their bodies every night, with a hope and a prayer that the killer doesn’t strike them? This lady is so clueless, loving the environment and the world, but she can’t even imagine using a net for anything other than a few days pretending she’s roughing it at a Northern Ontario lake surrounded by hundreds of dollars worth of camping gear. I want to tell her if she really cares about the environment she’d stop driving that big SUV up to the country, and move out of her snug warm house that burns all the precious fossil fuels, stop showering in gallons of hot water and flushing toilets left and right; cease eating organic veggies from California that travelled in trucks burning the same fuels. She leaves a footprint the size of Kentucky but begrudges the children the poison nets that save them from at least one form of early death. It’s impossible to imagine. She must not know. No one could ever know and still say what she said.

Life is simple. Poison is bad. Dead babies are worse. Find a way to get those babies houses with window screens and medicine if they get sick, and then you can rage against poison nets all you like.

Innocent covers up and uses my unaffordable repellent when the bugs are especially bad. There isn’t much malaria in Kampala and I know he’ll be OK. He caught the malaria while travelling to the DR Congo to visit his mother a few weeks ago. “But what about you?” he asks me in French as I leave him my repellent. I tell him not to worry about me. I’ll be fine. Innocent is safe, huddling in the guard post of my compound. I tip toe around my house feeling embarrassed for living in it. Feeling the shame, and the shame for the shame. No matter what I do here, it is not enough. It will never be enough.