A Unsettling Sunday

I know the sound our gate makes: chiming of keys and the sturdy thud of the padlock releasing, the metal latch creaking open and while an ownerless hand gropes for the iron bar on the inside. A push and the door sighs open. It’s a sound I hear everyday.

This morning, our fan spun above and the lopsided momentum made an even tempo. My book was propped up on my chest, legs lazily dangling over the couch. A distant sound of the gate.

But it wasn’t the ordinary sound. It was softer, less clamor. An easy exhale. Curious—maybe my roommate had just come home, it had been a late night and her keys weren’t in their usual resting place; she must have spent the night across town—I pull the curtain back and looked towards the driveway of our compound.

A dull confusion. There was a man. Not one I recognized. Reason came first: it was only too often that we were greeted by strangers who came to do odd jobs around the house for Milly, the house cleaner. Maybe it was a gardener. Our unannounced guests always put me slightly on edge (too many face to faces with random men near by bedroom) but the frustration was quickly released and forgotten. Just another annoyance of living in the too-often under-managed staff house.

But this man wasn’t here to see Milly. She wasn’t working today. Neither was our guard. The shushed confusion turned into a roaring panic. This was an intruder.

I froze for an instant. The porch door was unlocked, open, letting in the morning breeze and the ululations of Sunday worship. He was nearing it. Should I close it? The lock, a metal bar, was stubborn. I wouldn’t be able to secure it in time. Lock myself in my room? The more selfish option but the quieter, less conspicuous one. Like my quiet disappearance would mean his as well.

I crept away. But before leaving the room, before leaving his sight, I looked back. He was heading for the gate. He was leaving. He was gone. Did he see me?

Then I heard voices. He was talking to someone. Who? Had I overreacted? Was he only a construction worker from next door retrieving a tool? But that didn’t make sense.

Suddenly, I had to follow him. I had to laugh about the mix-up with him. I had to let out a sigh of relief with a smile that said how embarrassed I was for doubting him, misjudging him. My mistake.

I pushed open the door, bent down and let myself through. Anticipating the usual guys who hang out on our road, but no one was around. All I heard was the quick patter of footsteps, shouting, laughter. He enjoyed it, his narrow escape. The blurred edges of my mind closed in, resolved on what I already knew: he wanted to get inside our house.

Shaking, I ran back inside. I grabbed my phone and dialed the number of our office. No answer. I called another number and then another.

My mind stacked all of my vulnerabilities: I was a walking target as a Westerner, my white skin glowing in the night, my expensive laptop, my inability to read social cues, my desire to trust people on default despite the stories that swirled around the city. I mentally fingered the two parallel scratches than ran from my collarbone done to my shoulder blade, a scabbed over rope-burn from when two kids ripped my purse off of my body and stole away with my iPhone just a week before.

Finally, the line connected. Somebody was coming over. I took deep breathes. Heart rate down. Resolution, almost.

The rest of the day was pins and needles, telling and re-telling the series of events. Expelling verbal frustrations and worries. Weighing the contradiction of loving and loathing something all at once. Turning questions over in my mind, turning answers around and around.

The truth is, I hate feeling unsafe. I hate being exposed. I hate that people know our house and know when we come and go, know our routine and our possessions. I hate that it can be unsafe to stand up for myself. I hate that man can grope me and make kissing noises and ask to marry me and wag their tongue at me. I hate that I can’t tell them off, let my feminism roar.  I hate that there is so much out of my control.

And I hate that I hate it.

To whoever’s reading this (hi mom) I know that I haven’t written much about my ten months in Uganda. I haven’t known what to say. I’ve been afraid to draw conclusions (because they will inevitably be wrong). But suddenly, therapeutically, the words have been coming. My intensions have been to expose a life here that many of you can’t picture, to disrupt the assumptions you have of Kampala, Uganda, this continent. But now, here I am, affirming your suspicions: Africa’s not safe. So this final word is for me: an apology, an act of grace. I’m taking off that burden and responsibility for today. I’m writing something real. Today was a frightening day. Tomorrow will not be.

 

Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.

Donna Tart, The Goldfinch

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1U5JEyH
via IFTTT

Grasshoppers

I squint into the mirror and pluck out another grey hair. “If you pull them out they’ll only grow back faster,” my sisters voice taunts in my head. God.

My mind launches into a tunnel vision version of my future self and I try to picture my long, curly brown hair as a dignified silver. I shake my head to rattle the thought away. But now, everyday, I find myself unconsciously on the hunt for the next intruder.  You’re too early!

Clothes, the same ones that I’ve been wearing for the past ten months and have lost appreciation for, hang in my closet and offer nothing new. I’ve found myself doing serious window shopping on my morning boda boda drive to work, the endless second-hand shops lining the sidewalks in Kabalagala have me taking mental inventory. The shop next to the Johnrich Grocery Store had a high-low dress piece that was taken down but still crept into the periphery of my mind.

Bonni, my boda driver says something. It gets whisked away by the wind, distorted through my helmet. “Wangi?” I ask.

“Do you know ensenene?”

“Grasshoppers? Yes I know them, do you like them?”

“Ah! You have ever tried them? Me, no I don’t like them.”

It is grasshopper season. Sellers with their plastic containers walk the roads offering greasy fried grasshoppers mixed with salt and onion and garlic. Green bodies, both crunchy and soft, a pricey delicacy that seems to be in season only twice a year.

The first time I had tasted them was in Ntinda. After a late night of dancing I wound up crashing on the other side of town. I woke up dazed, unfamiliar with my friend’s place, and completely bewildered by the situation I found myself in: 1) my phone and wallet had been stolen and 2) my pants had busted open and were held together by three conspicuously oversized safety pins. Pathetic and utterly unable to help myself, I followed the voices I heard outside onto the porch. Cigarette smoke lifted around Kojo and Leslie, their conversations swirling around the events that had happened that morning, a bombing in France. Here I was living in Uganda, a part of the world so many people failed to understand and therefore failed to trust, yet it was France, the West, that was making headlines.

I sat down next to them and chugged water. It was already late afternoon, the sun bright and hot made me feel lazy and unwilling to address my predicament: no way to contact my friends, no way to get home. I made a mental shrug and decided not to care, I’d let the day carry me.

I found myself at a pork joint a few hours later. Pants fastened, checked and rechecked, the six of us had exited the compound and walked down the dirt road (bumpy, the fresh nutty smell of burning trash) to the main road. The white minibuses with blue writing sped and stopped to pick up passengers, the conductor leaning out of the left side window to recruit passersby and giving the signaling knock to continue. “Tambala.”

Pork, grilled like a kebab on wooden skewers, was placed in front of us, crisping and hot. There was matooke and kachumbari, a salt shaker, and the woman who brought around a basin of water and soap so we could wash our hands. That’s when Kojo spotted the ensenene seller. An exchange later and the aluminum tray landed on the table. De-winged grasshoppers stared at me, their little beady black eye stunned permanently open, their antennas akimbo.

Yes. Crunchy salty goodness.

It was perfect. New day, new friends, new experience.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1TK5kWN
via IFTTT