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.
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.
posted by Cara at 5:54 AM
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