Women keep the World Together

This morning, at 6am, my phone started ringing.

I tried to ignore it but it was insistent. I finally got up and looked to see it was my friend, Monique, calling.

I picked up and said, "Are you crazy? I am not getting up this early to talk to you unless you have discovered some growth of an unspecified nature or have just been visited by Martians...otherwise, forget it!"

She laughed her perfectly dismissible French laugh and said, "Today, I made a bastilla!"

I sat up and tried to clear my head. This was a big announcement.

A bastilla is a pastry found in North Africa, mainly Morocco, that might be the most delicious thing ever invented. It is layer upon layer of soft phylo dough with a center of either ground meat or fowl, scented by amazing spices and normally covered in powdered sugar or honey. I know this sounds disgusting but, trust me, it is not. It might be the closest thing to heaven that I have ever eaten on earth. I am not a big fan of the "savory and sweet" fare but this dish is one that most of my friends, including my friend who is a Michelin-star chef, will wait for hours in lines at Moroccan restaurants to try. Monique, a Parisian soon-to-be ex-wife of a soon-to-be ex-diplomat, is a baker...although not formally. She stays up all night and makes baguettes and sweets for a small distributor in Kampala, but not formally. Formally, she is an economist.

I met Monique through another friend, Jane, and we instantly got along because Monique stays up all night baking and I sometimes stay up all night writing. We both pour our souls out at least twice a month; her in her darkened Kampala kitchen and me in my home over my keyboard. Monique's in the middle of a messy divorce and I am still smarting from an ugly breakup so it just seems natural for us to talk at 2AM when everyone else is sound asleep. I sometimes call her at 3AM and say, "Hey, can you just take a look at a few lines for me? I am not sure if they make sense. Can you just have a look?"

She always agrees. And so I normally also pick up the phone at 2AM when she is rolling out dough or waiting for a souffle to rise. We are also normally on the same schedule, meaning that we are both up all night on given weekends. She drinks champagne from her husband's wine cellar of the oldest vintage while she bakes. I drink red wine of the newest South African vintage and listen to Coldplay, Elton John, and the Dave Matthews Band while I write. She's getting her husband back for his betrayal, I am normally just weeping because I don't have an inch of revenge left in me anymore these days.

But, whatever, it works for us.

She is one of the few friends that I have that keeps my schedule. I grew up loving and appreciating good cooking and she grew up loving and appreciating good writing so we can just automatically connect...even in the middle of the night.

The announcement of the successful execution of the bastilla was huge. I was exhausted, having spent four days in Northern Uganda and moving the final things into my new home. She had just gotten the most recent divorce papers from a husband, that she has two children with, who had failed to show up another night...out with his lover and not even trying to cover it up anymore.

"I am sorry to wake you but I had to tell you...it's not the egg wash! You should never use the egg wash...it is only water that is needed!" she said.

Then:

"Who did you talk to last night? It was him, wasn't it? I KNEW it! Dammit!" she said.

Women are simply amazing.

I have always sort of known that, having been raised by a strongly intuitive mother, grandmother, and best friend. But sometimes I forget this and get caught, as I did with Monique, into thinking I am invisible.

"Come over now! You have to taste this bastilla and I have just opened a new bottle of 1964 champagne. Get on a motorcycle taxi and come over now!" she barked.

I was working on about two hours of sleep and probably still a little buzzed from the glass of Cabernet I had at 3AM.

But I did it. I pulled myself together and got on the back of the lone motorcycle prowling the streets at 6:30AM and made my way over to Monique's house.

I literally fell into her kitchen, tripped by her dog, a big hulking German Shepard that would sooner have sex with you than kill you.

"Monique! Get Dick (named after Dick Cheney in some bizarre French version of humor that she finds hysterical) off of me! I am not in the mood to be mounted at this hour!!" I yelled.

She came rushing in, covered in flour and notably tipsy.

She shouted something at Dick in French of which I only caught, "Stop! We love Obama now!"

She sized me up and said, "Why are you talking to him again?"

Quickly followed by: "Here, try this champagne. I know you are a pagan and don't like champagne too much but just have this glass and then I can open a bottle of 1976 Bordeaux for you next...but just try this one first!"

I sighed and tried to rationalize.

"Monique, I have to move some more today. I can't start drinking at 7:30Am. I will be drunk all day and nothing will get done."

Dick was humping my leg with eagerness at this point.

"Who cares?" she asked. "Take a day off. No one is going to punish you, you are an adult. And I just made the most amazing bastilla that we must try. But not until you have some champagne or wine...you must remember that God gave us the ability to eat, drink, write, bake and fuck because he wanted us to be happy."

Then she screamed at Dick the Dog, "Get off of her, you are making her nervous!!"

Dick retreated into a corner but I swear he winked at me first.

I took the glass of champagne, had one sip, and handed it back to her.

"This tastes like some old French man's balls!" I said.

"Well, that might explain a lot of things about me, I guess," she said as she had her house cleaner fetch a bottle of Bordeaux from the wine cellar.

One hour later, no bastilla in sight, I was getting drunk.

"So tell me why you talked to him again? I thought it was finished?" she asked.

"I don't know, I still love him and I don't like messy endings. I don't want it to be bad between us. He is not a bad person and I am not a bad person. It just didn't happen at the right time," I said.

She smiled and said, "Americans, always so idealistic! Here, have some more wine!"

My head was beginning to pound but I drank it anyway.

Dick skulked back into the room and put his head in my lap.

"Look, Dick loves you!" Monique said.

"Monique, I am a wreck right now. I feel like my life is falling apart and I can't do one thing right. I think my boss is upset with me, I just found out the my secretary tried embezzling money from our company before I caught her, I spoke to my ex last night and it was fine until he called me back and then it descended into the same fight, and, and...well, I am drunk at your house at 10:30 on a Friday morning and I don't think that is really OK either..." I finished.

She sat down on the Ottoman foot rest in front of me and held my hands.

"Patricia, sometimes things fall apart as a way of coming back together again, do you understand? Americans are so uptight about having everything 'right' but there really is no need to think that way. I don't know why my husband is leaving me but, right now, I don't really care either. We had a good time and we have two beautiful children. You and S had a good time and maybe there is unfinished business but, for now, RIGHT NOW, it is not up to you. So finish your wine, keep telling me your stories about the judiciary in Uganda, and lighten up a bit. This is not going to kill you."

I felt like I was going to cry because her words hit such a soft spot with me. She was right.

I finished my glass and let Dick crawl up onto my lap. He weighs half of what I do but he seemed comforting. He settled into my lap immediately and licked my chin.

Monique said, "OK, good...now that you are drunk and happy...now is the time for the bastilla!"

She came back from the kitchen a few minutes later with a covered plate.

She uncovered it and showed me the most perfect bastilla I had ever seen. In perfect Moroccan style, we dug in, with our hands.

It was likely the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my life. Monique had nailed it. This was perfect.

I was so happy that I grabbed her hands and kissed her sugar-covered fingers.

"How did you do this?!" I asked.

She turned her head for a few seconds and said,

"I just said, last night, that I needed to create the perfect thing. I love to cook and I have tried to make this so many times and I have never gotten it right. Now, I got it right...do you understand?" she said.

Yes, completely.

We ate the entire bastilla and drank an entire bottle of wine. We passed out at noon on her plush rug in her plush living room with Dick sleeping between us.

I awoke at 3PM and got back on a motorcycle and came home. I took a shower and then went straight to bed.

Monique called an hour ago to announce that she thought she had a good grip on a new pastry recipe.

I said I was writing the story about last night and this morning.

One day, we will both sleep. But not tonight, not tomorrow, and probably not for awhile to come.

But women really do keep the world together.

Cheers, Monique.

And, thank you.

Ugly American: God has a Plan?

One of my closest friends here, let's call her Jane, has decided to get back together with her ex-boyfriend.

We were all nervous about the decision, "we" being the flock of hens that describe a group of us comprised of Ugandans, Americans and French women that watch over each other's every move. We were nervous because Jane and Sam had broken up so many times in five years that it just didn't seem like the best decision to give it another go but, hey, that's what she decided to do so we eventually just shut up when she brought him here to Uganda.

I met Sam three weekends ago. He is almost absurdly handsome. He is also very smart. I was tricked for a few hours until I saw it. The "freak out" factor.

I watched, in a very beautiful and posh Kampala restaurant, as Sam descended into chaos. He was nervous, of course...who wouldn't be in front of this many hens?...and started criticizing everything and everyone. He spoke to the Ugandan servers in a manner that you would have thought appropriate in colonial times (p.s. Ugandans speak perfect English). He enunciated every word, jumped when the waiter put the dinner cloth on his lap, and sniffed his food like a dog about to be poisoned.

I said nothing because I remember tormenting my own ex-boyfriend, Ed, fifteen years ago when I first moved to Hungary. Granted, I didn't insult my hosts but I know the feeling of being scared and out-of-place. I know how it feels to have culture shock. I watched Sam for a few minutes and thought, "There before the Grace of God..."

But this weekend I just had to speak up.

I saw Jane and Sam again in Gulu, Northern Uganda. We were in one of the best restaurants in the city. And this "city" is a former war zone. A REAL war zone where at least one of three people have been seriously affected by war. You can pretty much be guaranteed that the person who is serving you or speaking to you at any given minute has lost a family member--or his or her entire family, been abducted, raped, tortured, or otherwise devastated by the 23-year long war that ran in this part of the country until three years ago. The war in northern Uganda did not get big headlines like the genocide in Rwanda or the American disaster in Somalia but I can promise you that it was just as devastating in so many ways...

So we were meeting with a bunch of Ugandan friends from Gulu for dinner and I made the mistake of recommending a dish to Sam that didn't meet his expectations. When it was put in front of him, same as Kampala, he sniffed it like a dog and then proceeded to deconstruct it at the table, cursing the entire time. I saw Jane go pale across the table and try to start a new conversation. We all tried to start a new conversation.

I knew it wasn't going to work.

When Sam stood up and marched in a rage over to the waiter that had served us and started screaming, I finally found, as my friend Liz says, "my pair."

I walked over to Sam and said, "Stop. Now."

He looked at me incredulously.

"What the hell are you talking about? This shit is inedible. There are bones in my chicken! I can't believe they serve this crap. I am not paying for this!" he screamed at me.

"Sam, stop. Now. This is not the time or the place. Please stop...the person who is serving you and the person who you are now screaming at is a former LRA abductee...he can no more control what the chef did than you or I can. Just stop it, this is not America," I pleaded.

Sam wasn't having any of it. He continued screaming.

I went back to the table where we all sat in a sort of stunned silence for another twenty minutes.

When Sam returned everyone ignored him. Jane passed him her dinner, apparently edible, and he quieted a little as he ate all of her food. Then the waiter brought him an entirely new dish, bones-free, which he refused. He said, audibly, "I hate this fucking place!!"

I closed my eyes and prayed. I was humiliated by this person. I was humiliated to be an American. I knew, to a level, his frustration, but this was way beyond anything I ever pulled when I was 22 and living in Hungary. This man is 34 and in "Africa-lite," as I have come to refer to Uganda.

He eventually realized no one was speaking to him and turned to me with apologies.

"I have a bad temper," he said, "I apologize...but THAT was ridiculous. I can't wait to get to Ethiopia in two months! I am sure they know how to cook food there!"

I wanted to continue ignoring him, I was humiliated. I frequent this restaurant all the time and most of the service staff are friends whose phone numbers are all in my mobile phone. In Gulu, as in most former war zones, people rely on person-to-person relationships since there is nothing else left. The fact that I had gotten two of the best rooms for me and Liz, arranged a huge dinner at the last minute, and gotten the best waiter in the restaurant (the one Sam screamed at) is because I have been there at least seven times in the past six months and we all talk on the phone regularly.

I wanted to ignore him...

But I decided not to.

"Sam, I used to be a little like you. I know how frustrating it can be, trust me. But this is Uganda. Uganda is probably, other than Ghana and South Africa, the most friendly country in Africa for Westerners. You are going to Ethiopia next, right? Well, I have been there too and if you do what you did tonight, they are going to kill you. And I am not joking. They WILL kill you," I said.

He scoffed at me and went and got Jane.

"She's telling me Ethiopia is dangerous. Listen to the world traveler!" he joked.

Jane looked at me like a dog who had been kicked too many times. I wanted to hug her but didn't dare.

As they left, the server who Sam had screamed at sat down with me, Liz, and two of our other companions. He brought a bottle of wine with him...that he paid for.

"I'm so sorry..." I started.

"It's OK. It's not your fault. He says he's going to Ethiopia next?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Well, what happened to you in Ethiopia?" he asked.

I smiled.

"I got the worst food poisoning of my life," I declared. "I was so sick that my hair hurt."

The server looked at me and raised his glass. "Yep, exactly! And he thought the chicken was bad here! God has a plan!!"

We all laughed.

Ugly Americans...but maybe God...or someone...does have a plan.

Oprah or Bust

Yesterday, over lunch, my colleague Liz made an interesting and accurate observation about Ugandans:

"It takes about three months for them to trust you and about another three for them to even consider you as a friend...once they do, however, you're in for life. It's kind of like Italians...reminds me of my mother's family."

She is absolutely correct. Ugandans are extremely friendly and polite but you might as well budget at least six months to a year here before you are really going to go anywhere "deep" in a relationship. I have thought a lot about why this is true, having spent time in other African countries where time frames are much shorter, but have come to no solid conclusions.

It's not so much that Ugandans are cautious, it is just that they take their time in considering the merits of your friendship and their willingness to invest in the relationship. They don't rush to befriend you (like, say, Nigerians) or attempt to ignore you (like, say, Ethiopians or Somalis), they just take their time. And, quite frankly, I don't blame them. This is a gorgeous country filled with some of the most generous and loving people I have ever met. They are just not about to squander those resources too quickly. But, as Liz observed, once you're "in," you're in.

Ugandans, like most Africans even of the poorest resources, will not hold back on giving you love, support, money, advice or whatever you need. It is always a give-and-take relationship---you need to be willing to give and take too---but nothing is ever withheld and you are always allowed to have bad days and make stupid decisions and still know that your friends will be there no matter what. It's a societal and personal safety net that I have come to rely upon heavily. And, yes, actually, quite a bit like the Italian one that operates in my family as well as Liz's.

The one exception to this rule, and the real topic of this blog, is one of my favorite people in Uganda. I can't give his name but let's just say he is the equivalent of a Supreme Court Justice in America. He is one of the most beloved and visionary Ugandans out there and a magnificent legislator. Unlike most "big men" in Uganda, he does not wield improper power and does not seek political position. He is just a damn good judge and an enormously kind human being.

The best part of the whole deal is that he likes me too. A lot. And he liked me from the very beginning, without the three or six month test.

The reason for this is that we share a common bond: we both want to be on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Actually, that bit wasn't revealed until last Wednesday but it came out in a discussion over how to further both of our personal passion: writing.

You see, both Justice J and I are writers. He writes poetry and I write...well, whatever...essays, blogs, etc. The reason that Justice J and I get along so well is that during our first private meeting, after all of the big shots in my company flew off to America, he asked me a direct question, sitting across from me in his office behind his big, intimidating, desk:

"What do you love, Patricia? Tell me what you love. And I don't mean all of the things on your CV (resume)...what do you really love and want to do in your heart?" he asked.

I decided to be completely honest with him.

"I want to write books," I said.

At that point I pulled out the battered copy of the book that I had co-authored on peacekeeping and had just been published by Georgetown University Press and set it on his massive desk.

He raised his eyebrows as he flipped through it and said, "How old are you?"

"Thirty-three," I answered.

"This is quite an impressive feat. You should be proud," he observed.

Then he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a massive volume on the rule of law in Africa published by Cambridge University Press in the early 1980s. He was the author.

"Wow, this is amazing," I said. "How old were you?"

He winked and replied, "Oh, around thirty-three."

Then he asked me if I liked poetry or if I wrote it.

I told him that I loved poetry but it was not my genre. I was an essayist and maybe, one day, a novel writer but definitely not a poet.

He then proceeded to spend the next hour reading me his poems. Some were really good, some needed some work, others were simply inspired...but it was clear that this man, this amazing judge, had some serious talent that rested far outside of his "official" position as the leading judicial figure in Uganda.

"So what do you have...besides this?" he asked, pointing to Georgetown book.

"I have written probably 125 essays over the past four years," I said.

"Can I see them?" he asked.

I hesitated. Some of my stuff is pretty racy and I didn't want this judge thinking I was strange...but I agreed to print off a few for him and delivered them to him the following week.

I heard nothing for a month. In that time my heart raced and my mind entertained tremendous fears. Had I just lost my job? Had I insulted or scandalized a judge? Was my writing so bad that he didn't even want to comment? I lived in terror.

Then one day his secretary called and told me to be at his office at noon. It was a matter of "official business," of course, but I was still nearly wetting my pants because I was so nervous.

For the first hour, we talked business. For whatever odd reason, he seemed to suddenly accept me and my company. For eight weeks I had been knocking on doors and struggling to get more than a few minutes of face time with folks and was treated with kind indifference (see above about Ugandan culture) and then, in a heartbeat, it all changed.

"This is quite brilliant," he said, holding out the dozens of legal opinions that me or my organization had delivered over the past two months. "And this is particularly good, I appreciate someone who can condense a lot of heavy material into one digestible piece," he continued, holding out my explanatory cover letter.

He was sitting across his huge desk from me.

"I like Americans and I lived in the U.S. for almost fifteen years. I have never been particularly receptive to people descending on Uganda trying to 'help' but you are doing solid work. Keep it coming," he said.

(After that point, in December of 2008, I never met a closed door again).

Then, as I was about to leave, he said:

"And these...I really like these!" he was holding out the printed essays that I had delivered a month prior.

My heart was in my throat.

"You have excellent timing...which is something I lack in my poetry. I can find ways to improve your essays but perhaps you can also find ways to help me improve my timing in my poetry," he said.

After that, I spent most Friday afternoons in his office listening to him read his poetry.

Eventually, around March of this year, he asked me to start printing my blog entries for him.

And, in July, he called me in to tell me that his book of poetry was being published by a major Kenyan publisher. I sent him flowers and an expensive pen.

He asked me to come to his book launch and consider traveling with him on his book tour. There was no way I could justify this professionally so I had to turn him down although I would have loved to have gone with him. Besides being an amazing poet, he is a fantastic orator.

He came back to Uganda briefly in October to watch me falling apart. I was going through a horrendous break-up with my boyfriend at the time and was a wreck.

After a meeting where I started crying for no reason whatsoever, he pulled me outside of his judicial chambers and said:

"Are you writing this down? Some of the best writing comes from pain. Stop crying and start writing!"

Then he hugged me. Other than a handshake, it was the first time he had ever touched me. I felt like a complete asshole sobbing on his judicial robes but, hey, it was what it was at the time.

I didn't see him for another six weeks until this past Wednesday. I knew he was back in the country and I called to make an appointment with his secretary, Betty, who I also adore.

"Oh, Patricia, I wish I could help you but the Judge is only back for three days and then flies to Tanzania and South Africa. He is fully booked with appointments and even your Ambassador is going to have to wait. I can get you in the first week of January, though," she said.

I was crushed but then decided, on a wild bet, to circumvent the system. I have Justice J's private phone number but I rarely use it as Betty always gets me in to see him. But January was too long...I had to see him on professional matters and waiting until January wasn't going to work.

I dialed with nervous hands and he picked up immediately.

"Patricia! Good to hear from you! Tell me now, what is a 'margarita'?'" he asked.

I was confused for a moment and then realized he was referring to one of my blogs, "A Blue Margarita on a Monday."

I laughed and explained and then asked if he could possibly fit me in to his schedule before January.

"Yes, of course. Come at 11am tomorrow morning. I will shift things around," he replied.

I was stunned but still grateful. I sent up a silent prayer to God and the Universe for constantly blessing me with people like this judge.

The next day I met him and his deputy in his office. We no longer sit across from each other over the big desk but next to each other on the couches and chairs in his office. Liz was with me, and she was nervous as this man is so beloved and famous not only in Uganda, but around the world. We had a fabulous hour-long meeting and arranged what my organization could do here over the next twelve months. He loved Liz, and it is hard not to, and the whole meeting was a success.

As we were leaving, he pulled me aside and said, "I am writing a new book of poetry, have you gotten those essays of yours published yet?"

I admitted I had not but that I was still writing.

"Patricia, I want to be on the Oprah Winfrey show...what do you think about that?" he asked.

I smiled and admitted that I had the same ambition. That I have watched her show, read her magazines and recommended books, and had secretly hoped that she would discover me some day. Oddly, this Justice did too.

"I often think when I read her magazine or the books she recommends, 'Hey, I can do that just as well or better!' but then I retreat and don't do anything about it," I admitted.

"Me too!" the Justice said, "I think that a lot but I have all these connections...I met this person on a plane and this other person who is the neighbor of Maya Angelou (both the judge's and my favorite poet) but I can't seem to get Oprah to read my book!"

"I will figure it out, I promise," I told him.

"Good, I know you will. I'll be back in December, you are on my calendar already. Keep writing, Patricia so we can be on Oprah together!" he said as he closed his door.

Later, I came home to find an envelope on my landing from the Court. Inside was a poem titled "A Strong Cup of Coffee on a Sunday." It was a poem, mirrored on my story about my breakup with my ex-boyfriend called "A Blue Margarita on a Monday," written by the Justice. It described his relationship with a woman in his village in the late 1970s and early 1980s during the Amin terror. It is a gorgeous piece of writing. I didn't notice the hand-writing on the back of the envelope until a day later.

It said: "Oprah or Bust!!"

So, yes, Liz was right. It takes time to gain the trust and love of a Ugandan. But thanks to this Justice, and our shared bond as writers, my life here is full of grace. And poetry.

And yes, "Oprah or Bust."

Only You

Yesterday, at 10pm, I had an Albanian weapons trafficker serenading me from my parking lot.

Indeed, it is a bit of an odd thing to happen on a Tuesday night in Uganda but, as I have come to realize about my life, if something bizarre is going to occur, it is definitely going to happen to me.

Four years ago, on a bitterly cold and snowy night in Georgia (the country of, not the American state of) I was almost killed in a thirteenth century bathhouse after a night out at the bar with a bunch of Georgian gangsters and their Russian girlfriends. In Georgia, people basically go right from the baby bottle to the vodka bottle and everyone getting drunk and naked together in the bathhouse is a pretty standard Friday night activity. Why I was involved in this whole scene is too complicated to explain here but, suffice it to say, I am extremely familiar with Georgian culture and their, um, cultural relics, by now. However, since almost every male in Georgia over the age of 12 owns a pistol or an AK-47, so carrying guns is about as common there as, say, wearing shoes would be in the U.S. But after drinking copious amounts of vodka and partying in a medieval bathhouse until 5am, guns become rather dangerous things and have a way of being knocked from slippery ledges and going off. Luckily, no one was hurt in that particular incident although some damage was sustained to the beautiful old marble walls, but no one seemed very upset about the whole thing.

Except me, of course, I was beside myself.

So yesterday started off as a relatively normal day and I could never have anticipated how the evening would end...but with me, it's usually like that.

One of my supervisors from DC had been in town for the past week and, although she is normally very easy to deal with, someone switched her "tormentor" button on before she boarded the flight to Uganda. For the past week, I have endured some of the most intense professional scrutiny of my entire existence. This was coupled with fairly liberal doses of personal attacks. She questioned my accounting, she questioned my reports, she questioned my relationship with our clients, she questioned my choice of local staff. She yelled at them, she yelled a me, she yelled at my favorite server at my favorite restaurant. It was relentless. I was so tired and demoralized by Monday night that it might has well have been a Friday after a week from hell. She also managed to upset or insult not only my local Ugandan staff, but also my American lawyer colleague, Liz, who is basically out here working for free to help me on the project.

When my supervisor finally got in the car yesterday afternoon at 4pm to leave for the airport, Liz, and I looked at our watches and said in unison: "I need a drink!"

Although it was certainly much earlier than I prefer to drink, I think if my supervisor hadn't left when she did, Liz and I were going to start pouring gin into our water bottles in order to get through the day. We were both, utterly and completely, undone.

So we rolled into my favorite restaurant at 4:30pm and contemplated the menu. After debating various choices in getting ourselves a glass of wine, we decided to be realistic and just order the bottle. We kidded ourselves that it really wasn't THAT much wine, as our friend Kay was supposed to be joining us later, but, in reality, that bottle was all for us. We definitely needed it.

An hour later, halfway through the bottle, we had started to relax.

"That very well may have been the worst week of my entire life as a lawyer," Liz related, "And I have gone up against some really mean judges."

"She's normally not like that," I said, "She is normally quite nice...I'm not sure what was wrong with her this time..."

Liz, not one to mince words, told me, "Patti, either she needs a man or she needs a sedative. In either case, when she's back out here in January, I plan on arriving with BOTH in the backseat of the car when she arrives at the airport. I simply cannot go through that ever, ever again."

We agreed and finished the bottle of wine. By now it was 6pm.

"Are you feeling it at all?" I asked Liz, referring to the wine.

"Not really, let's get another bottle," she said.

Before I could protest or try to reason why, exactly, that drinking two bottles of wine on a weeknight was probably not the best idea, the waiter zipped off to fetch it for us.

"We have a meeting with a Supreme Court justice at 11am tomorrow, you think we'll be OK?" I asked her.

"Sure, it's only 6pm and we probably won't finish the whole thing anyway," she replied.

Yeah, right.

Two hours later, with half of the second bottle gone, I looked over my shoulder and noticed an extremely large white man sitting behind us staring intently at our table. Since Kampala is small, and all the ex-patriots know each other, I was curious because I had never seen this character before. He had an intense, frightening look about him and, standing at least 6'4" and easily weighing in at 300lbs of pure brawn, I would have remembered.

"That is one scary-looking dude," Liz opined. "He could snap your neck with one hand."

Because we were now staring at him, he mistook our curiosity and, within ten minutes, the waiter brought over yet another bottle of wine, courtesy of Mr. Big and Scary. Both Liz and I immediately refused (two bottles of wine is excessive, THREE bottles of wine is suicidal). He was taking none of it, however, and insisted that we keep the bottle...at least to take it home and drink it tomorrow.

"Now what do we do?" I asked Liz, "I am not in the mood for that sort of male attention at the moment but I am sure he is expecting us to at least invite him to join us."

Liz suggested we just ignore him but, naturally, that didn't work. Within a half hour we had a new drinking buddy.

After exchanging the normal pleasantries, we started talking work. When Liz asked him what he was doing in Kampala, he paused for the slightest moment and then said, "Opening a pizza restaurant. I am also opening one in South Sudan."

At this I burst out laughing. This dude, so beaten up from God-only-knows what kind of physical violence, had definitely not spent any significant amount of time making pizzas...unless he was really, really bad at it and kept burning his face in the oven.

Liz seemed to be buying the story, however, and asked him what other locations he had opened pizzas restaurants in...

He paused again and said, "Well, let's see...Afghanistan, Sudan, northern Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, well, now Uganda..."

Because I was definitely feeling the wine by this point, I had lost any sense of trying to be discrete. This man may have been opening pizza restaurants, but pizzas sure as hell weren't the only thing he was delivering.

"You're Albanian," I said to him.

He looked surprised.

"How the hell did you guess that?" he asked.

I related that I had spent a good deal of time in Kosovo and had been to Albania itself a few times and definitely knew the accent. I also knew, from time spent in those two countries and in other less-than-savory points around the globe, that Albanians did tend to run very successful "pizza restaurants."

He looked a little nervous but then settled himself back down. When he got up to go to the bathroom, Liz said,

"Why are you laughing at his story? Why is the pizza business so funny?"

"Liz, he is not a pizza maker, he is an weapons trafficker," I told her.

"No! That can't be true....and how would you know..." then she paused.

"Nevermind," she said, "given your former line of work and the places you have been, you're probably right."

Larry the Albanian returned and sized me up.

"So you know a lot about the pizza business, then? You have been to some of these Albanian pizza restaurants?" he asked with twinkle in his eye.

Liz, who is actually a practical person and not insane like I am, said, "It was nice to meet you, Larry, but it is getting late and we have to go."

At which point she stood up and walked into the wall.

I told her I would take care of the bill and, since the restaurant is right across the street from my flat, I could just walk home but that we should definitely get her a taxi.

"Are you nuts?! I am not leaving you alone here with an Albanian arms trafficker!! You could be....well, shit, I don't know...shot or something," she said.

I assured her that I was going to be just fine and put her in a taxi.

When I returned to the table, Larry was looking thoughtful.

"What did you say to her that made her leave so quickly? Did you tell her about the Albanian pizza making business?" he asked.

"Sort of," I said.

He laughed.

"I like you, Patricia, I like women who are experienced in well, what shall we call this? Setting up enterprises in difficult places...you must have many contacts" he said.

All of a sudden I got the distinct impression that he thought I was either involved in such an "enterprise" myself or at least knew a lot of people who were.

"Look, Larry, I am really just working for an NGO here and serving as a legal advisor to the government. I only know certain things because I have traveled a lot in my life..."

("And have spent too much time dining with war criminals in the Balkans and drinking vodka with gangsters in Georgia to know your type" I thought, but left that whole part out).

He smiled again.

"OK, whatever you say, Patricia. I do like talking to you though...and you are quite beautiful so that makes it even better..." he said.

Oh, shit.

I quickly put my hands under the table and switched the ring I normally wear on the middle finger of my right hand to the fourth finger, the wedding ring finger, on my left.

"Thank you Larry, that's very sweet. But I am married," I told him.

"You just did that under the table, I already looked so don't pretend now. I would like to get to know you better...shall we get a hotel?" he asked.

This was so blunt that I started to laugh again.

I told him that although he was a nice man and I wished him well with his, er, pizza business, I was leaving as it had gotten late and I needed to work early the next day.

He clamped his enormous paw of a hand over mine on the table, pinning me to the spot.

"Please, Patricia, I really do like you. You are very intelligent for a woman and I have lots of money and could treat you very well. Men like me need women like you...women who know the ways of the world, who aren't afraid to confront the dark side sometimes, who realizes that sometimes illegal solutions are the only ones in times of war and conflict, who..."

As I sat there listening to this, I thought, "Hmmm...where have a heard this whole line before? Oh, that's right...it was from a gangster in Georgia four years ago before I almost got hit by a stray bullet in a bathhouse in the middle of the night..."

I interrupted him.

"Larry, again, thank you. But I really am just a legal advisor and I really do need to be going now," I said.

Larry clearly wasn't accustomed to rejection.

As I walked out of the restaurant, he followed me, imploring me to reconsider, telling me I didn't know what, exactly, I was giving up.

I crossed the street to my apartment building quickly with him in staggering along behind me. At one point, he just missed getting run over by a car.

"Jesus, Larry! You're too drunk to be walking around like this, you're going to get killed! You don't want to die getting run over by a motorcycle after your other ventures where you certainly be killed much more easily!" I said.

Nevertheless, he didn't stop.

I walked up the three flights of stairs to my flat while he was trying to negotiate the first and shut the door to my apartment.

I called Liz immediately to report that I was home and safe.

"Thank God, I thought you were going to be kidnapped and mailed back to Albania in a pizza delivery box..." she said, "And, by the way, what is that awful noise in the background?"

I listened carefully to what I thought was a radio from a car downstairs and realized it wasn't a recording...it was live.

"Oh Jesus, that is Larry...he is singing to me in Albanian from the parking lot," I said "And he has no shirt on...he has taken off his shirt..." I said, looking out my window.

"Only you, Patti, only you," Liz sighed. "I used to think, when we first started hanging out, that some of the stories I had heard about you and your past adventures from other people couldn't possibly be true...but, in the past five months, I have realized that they most certainly must be. In all my thirty years and in all my own fifty countries traveled, I have never, EVER, been serenaded by a half-naked Albanian arms dealer in my parking lot...NEVER."

"I don't ask for this shit, Liz, I told him that I wasn't interested and I know I wasn't flirting with him...I don't know how this happened," I said.

At this point, Larry had decided to kick it up another notch and add my name to whatever Albanian love song he was singing, thereby ensuring that all of my neighbors would know exactly who the recipient of this late-night insanity was...

"Well, whatever the case may be, I hope you get some sleep tonight...he will get tired eventually," Liz said.

It was my turn to sigh.

Having spent a lot of time with Albanians (and Eastern European men, in general), I know they do not give up easily. Larry was no exception.

Finally, about two hours later, one of my neighbors decided to call the police and put an end to the torture the entire building was experiencing.

I was mortified...in this community, word travels fast and I knew by morning that everyone in Kampala's small ex-patriot population would have heard of this.

Indeed, when I got to the office this afternoon after my morning meetings, I stared down all of the white folks who work in the building who started giggling when they saw me and said, "Don't say a word, not a goddamn WORD!!"

My American friend, Jessica, who works in the office next door, came in and sat down.

"Jess, please, I have a pounding headache and I can do without the teasing," I said wearily.

"Oh I am not here to tease you, I am here to commiserate. Remember, I lived in Albania and Kosovo for three years and I know how those men are...but I actually found it flattering...you should look at it that way," she related.

Somehow, I just don't.

And to think...it's only Wednesday.

Down on the Farm

One year ago, when I first moved to Uganda, I declared that I would never become like one of the many stereotypical white people who live in this country. I didn't want an estate, I didn't want a housekeeper, I didn't want a driver. I, essentially, was determined to continue living my life as independently as I had in the U.S.

Many of those ambitions faded away in the first six months of being here as I realized I needed a driver to navigate Kampala's streets as I was far too nervous to drive in this kind of traffic with everything on the opposite side of the road and me in the opposite side of the car(British rules apply here). I also discovered that I wasn't insulting anyone by hiring my friend's sister, a secondary school (high school) student to come clean and wash for me once a week at $25 per session. Upon realizing I was paying her way above the normal price, I asked her to cook for me once a month and things got even better.

Finally, two months ago, I embraced my inner Karen Blixen/Isak Denison. The very "Out of Africa" persona that I had hoped to never become.

The cause of this transformation was a visit to my driver, Robert's, village in middle August. I had sent money to his mother and family before and Robert has taken such good care of me that helping out his mother, who is taking care of three orphans who are not her own children, is not a problem. But his mom wanted to meet me and I wanted to meet her so off we went to the village. Once there, laden with all sorts of gifts, we were surrounded by children. One of them kept asking me if I wanted to "see the puppies" and Robert kept shaking his head in my direction..."NO!"

Of course, having spent nearly fifteen years, since the age of eight to the age of twenty-three, working in animal rescue clinics and veterinary hospitals to make some extra money during school, I thought I had seen everything. I have always loved animals and had a better bond with them than I do humans. I could always coax the meanest dog into behaving and the meanest cat into not clawing me. I am also able to negotiate with birds and farm animals the same way. I don't deserve a TV show...I just understand animals...I always have.

So when this kid asked me if I wanted to see some puppies and Robert insisted I did not, I went anyway.

This kid, severely malnourished himself, brought me two puppies in bad shape. Both were about six weeks old, had wicked mange and fleas, and had clearly not had a meal in weeks outside of their mother's own depleted milk. I picked them both up to take a look at them and recoiled from what I saw. These dogs were in bad shape.

The male looked up at me and wagged his scrawny tail and licked my nose while the female lay whimpering on the ground. I made a Hobbsiean choice and said to Robert, "The female is going to die, let's take the male, he will make it. I can get him healthy and give him to some diplomat's family in Kampala where he will have a good life."

As we were walking away, the female puppy seemed to gain every ounce of strength in her and started howling. If you have never heard a six week old puppy howl in despair, it is heart-wrenching. So we went back and grabbed her too and took them both home.

For the next week I employed every veterinary skill I knew from my previous years in veterinary medicine. I bathed them both immediately and started them on a regime of mild antibiotics and skin medications. I cooked for them and got them weaned onto solid food within 48 hours. The first two nights I stayed up all night like the mother of a newborn and answered every whimper and every howl. Within 72 hours, they were racing around my apartment and tackling each other like the six week old puppies I knew in the U.S. did.

I still wanted to keep the male and give the female away, by now named "Ginger" by my Somali and Indian neighbors. But she was having none of it. She stuck to me like glue. She did not leave my side for the two weeks she lived with me. She exhibited her personality by "talking." That howling she did at the village to beg us not to leave her has become her calling card. She talks constantly. I had to have Robert take both her and the male, named Ssebo (Say-bow), or "Sir," during their ninth week as they had outgrown my flat. He kept them for the three weeks that it took for me to locate another place to live that had a yard for them to run around in.

In those three weeks the dogs had gone from barely weighing five pound to weighing about fifteen pounds each ate nine weeks of age. Looking at their gigantic paws I knew I had to get another place in order to keep them. And yes, keep both of them.

So I sent Robert out on a house-hunting mission. He came back with a few options but I fell in love with the second one I saw.

I have become Karen Blixen/Isak Denison.

My new home is a rambling three bedroom/four bathroom English home on a beautiful hill in Kampala overlooking Lake Victoria. It is way, way too big for me and I am considering a roommate but the price was right and I didn't really pay attention to the house at all in the beginning, I fell in love with the gardens.

One and half acres, shaded by mango and avocado trees, with lime and lemon groves and sprawling rose gardens, I said, "I'll take it!" without a second thought.

Besides my dogs, I also was thinking of myself as I love to garden and had already started fantasizing about what crops I would grow where. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my friend Connie from the States in February as she taught me how to garden and she is going to love this palette.

But then something strange started happening. My house started to become a farm.

It started when I noticed that the grounds had a chicken coop that was badly in need of restoration. I asked Robert how much it would cost to restore the coop, thinking a chicken or two might be OK, and found the price reasonable.

Shortly thereafter, I hired Robert's two siblings at a very low price to be my housekeeper and my gardener as they both needed jobs and I am, as I mentioned, quite close to his family by now.

So the first non-human and non-canine addition to the farm was the pheasant. They are called something else in Luganda buy they are known as pheasants in the U.S. They are gorgeous, fat, grey-speckled birds with red beaks and big feet. Robert loves them (the way they taste AND look) and last week I was presented with one by his sister and brother, a gift from his whole family for employing them.

I took the fat young bird and deposited it in the garden (chicken coop is not ready yet) and named him "Bob" after a favorite member of Parliament who is my client but looks a lot like a pheasant.

I was happy with Bob, Ginger, and Ssebo and thought that would be a nice family arrangement until I got Madge, my goat.

Madge came from my office manager, Hadijah, who had been trying to figure out a way to thank me for hiring her and for our friendship until she spoke to her family in the village in eastern Uganda where she hails from. They decided the best possible gift, given my new land-holding, would be a goat.

A pregnant female goat.

I haven't "officially" moved into my house yet so when Hadijah and her brother showed up at the office with Madge, I was a little concerned. I knew it would be rude to refuse this goat and Madge is damn cute but I was getting worried...who would take care of this goat until I moved in?

"No problem," Robert said, "My brother and sister will take care of her, they are living there anyway."

So we dropped Madge off at "Hacienda Patricia" that night.

The following weekend, we completed the construction of the chicken coop. I had not been over in a few days but brought over some dinner (fried chicken, ironically, and some soft drinks to thank Robert's sister and brother for their fast and excellent work.)

As I was walking towards the coop, with bags of fresh, hot, fried chicken in my hands, I heard some familiar clucking sounds. I looked at Robert who could barely contain himself.

Upon rounding the corner, I came face to face with my new chicken coop...complete with six chickens.

"Oh Robert, no! I can't have chickens yet! I haven't even moved in here and already I have two dogs, a goat, a pheasant, and now chickens...it just isn't possible!"

Robert and his siblings looked confused and insulted so I quickly composed myself and thanked them profusely, as Ginger the Dog ran across my feet chasing a squawking Bob the Pheasant.

"It wasn't us, Patricia, it was the landlord. It is a housewarming gift," Robert explained.

"OK, OK, I guess it is OK...I like eggs," I tried.

We all moved to the balcony of my house to try to enjoy our chicken (I couldn't eat a bite...it was just too close for comfort with my new chickens in their house across the yard). When we arrived there we found Madge curled up on my wicker rocking chair, chewing away at the arm contently.

I then surveyed my gardens and discovered that the gorgeous hibiscus bushes I had planted the previous weekend had been reduced to sticks.

"Don't worry," said Godfrey, the gardener, "Madge is on a leash now so she can only eat the tall grasses, she won't eat the plants anymore."

I had the fleeting thought of:

"Then why the hell is she up here in my chair on the balcony eating the wicker furniture?!!" but let it pass without comment. This WAS a moment of celebration, after all.

Today, upon moving the first load of my things into the house (Madge was indeed on a leash but a long one...so she was contently nibbling away at the rose garden), my friend Eric passed by.

Eric is my internet service guy but we have become friends and I have a bit of a crush on him because he is so smart and handsome.

Eric is extremely metropolitan but he came walking through the gate, in a expensive dress suit, carrying a male chicken.

I sighed.

He presented me with this male chicken and said, "If you have female chickens you need one of these. This is how female chickens get pregnant."

I silently thought, "Thanks, Eric, I got that whole bit awhile ago..."

I have drawn the line at what we Americans know as "roosters," or male chickens. I don't want a chicken breeding farm, I am not a big fan of being forcibly awoken when the sun comes up unless it is of my choosing, and roosters can be aggressive and nasty. I DID NOT want a rooster. But knowing what I now know about animals as housewarming presents in Uganda, I also did not want to offend my friend.

So I tried to approach it tactfully.

The problem is that in American English, we call male chickens "roosters," a rather innocent-sounding word.

In British English, however, they call these creatures "cocks" which has an entirely different, and somewhat pornographic, meaning in American English. What the Brits call a "wanker," we call a "cock" in American slang. Only it is somewhat worse and more vulgar than that and I have never been comfortable discussing chickens with anyone in the UK or a former British colony.

Now I had to do it with my handsome friend who I have a bit of a crush on.

"Eric, you have a beautiful, um, well...you have given me your beautiful...cock. I really do love this cock but I can't have anymore pets. As you can see, I already have a goat who needs a lot of attention so I can't take care of a cock on top of it."

Eric:

"But this is my father's favorite cock! It is the best cock in our family! Patricia, you need to just calm down, a cock is not a pet. A cock is a cock. He is only here for one reason."

At this he smiled and pointed towards the chicken coop.

I felt myself blushing purple and tried again, as Eric was certainly getting offended.

"I love your cock, Eric, really! It is a really lovely cock and I am so honored that your family would part with it but I am just not...um...ready....for this present," I stammered.

Eric looked at me like I had fallen off the moon and called Robert over. After a rapid exchange in Luganda, Robert said,

"Madame Boss, what is wrong with you? This is a magnificent cock! A bit mature but look how shiny it still is! It will not be a problem...Godfrey will keep your cock behind his room so he can tend to it if it gets up too early. You don't need to pay attention to the cock that early if you don't want to...that's why we have Godfrey!"

At this point my insides were hurting so badly from trying not to laugh. Tears were rolling down my cheeks.

I decided to just embarrass the hell out of everyone involved (all of whom were getting pretty damn offended) and explain what the problem was...and why I was laughing.

I slowly explained the difference between what a "cock" means in American English versus what in means in British English. Thanks to a few Ugandan friends, I do know the equivalent word for the American "cock" in Luganda so I used this as an example.

When I was finished, time stood still.

Eric and Robert looked at each other and went pale.

Robert started laughing so hard I thought he was going to choke.

Eric, on the other hand, looked mortified and slowly picked up the rooster and started carrying it back to his truck.

I realized that I had indeed offended my friend and chased after him, thanking him profusely and saying that I would take this...cock...in a few weeks. Godfrey could take care of it, after all.

Eric looked suspicious but was still gracious and promised to bring the rooster back with my new satellite internet dish the following weekend.

I stood in the yard and tried to absorb this all in a moment of stillness before I saw Madge dart by with something suspicious in her mouth. Looking more closely, I realized it was one of my high heeled shoes that Kate had cleaned and left out in the sun to dry. Madge must have chewed through her "leash," yet again.

Robert came up to me, pointing at Madge and said, "Curry, they made good curry, those goats."

I smiled and said "no," I was not going to kill my pregnant goat and eat her.

Robert shrugged and said, "But that cock story...that is so funny! So this is a 'cock' in American English?" he asked, pointing down. "Americans are so funny!!!"

"Thanks, Robert," I managed to say.

I wonder if Karen Blixen/Isak Denison went through this?

The Mimosa Klatch

I hate to keep going on and on about heartache, mine and others, but in most things painful there are lessons to be learned and truths to be uncovered. Nothing quite brings that out like the ending of a serious relationship--either through divorce or just plain splitting up--so I figure it might be worthwhile to just talk about it until it is finished. A close friend of mine, upon viewing my blog a week back, opined, "Dear Lord, you have become the Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City) of Uganda!"

That was certainly NOT my intention. I prefer to write mostly about funny and culturally relevant (depending on who you talk to, of course) events in the life of a woman relocated to Africa for two years but sometimes the other stuff comes out too. Besides, as most people who write for a living know, you mostly write for yourself. Hell, I would even suggest that is the case across a broad spectrum...to include painters, musicians, chefs, gardeners, and all other forms of artistic expression. It's always wonderful when what you produce is enjoyed or appreciated by others, and you hope never to become so enamored of that appreciation as to lose yourself in it, but you do start off writing (or insert whatever here) mostly for yourself.

So this is my blog and until Oprah discovers me or I break all my fingers in a freak farming accident, I am content to just write for myself for awhile longer. If it has relevance to someone else who is reading it, all the better. But Carrie Bradshaw I am NOT...even though some of these blogs may seem that way for a little while.

Today I reluctantly participated in what I have now come to term, "The Mimosa Klatch."

Over the course of the past three months, four close or relatively close female friends of mine have been through some serious heartache surrounding relationships while one is enduring an ugly divorce. We have all been bitching and moaning to each other over email, Skype, and on the phone lately so we decided today to just all get together, face-to-face, and have it out over Eggs Benedict and Mimosas at a swank hotel in Kampala.

I was reluctant to participate because I tend to think that focusing on this stuff makes it go away more slowly but I also realize that no human being is an island and that sometimes you need to talk about these things with people who are experiencing similar.

Plus, I love brunch and sipping Mimosas by the pool under the shade of gigantic flowering trees on a late Sunday morning in the Uganda sunshine isn't such a bad thing to do when you're feeling raw and out-of-sorts.

So let me begin with the demographics of our little Mimosa Klatch:

We are all aged between 28-42 with the median age being 36.

We are all professional women: two lawyers (I count myself in this statistic although I am actually a foreign policy and defense scholar playing a lawyer in Uganda for two years); one economist; one PhD candidate at Yale, and one medical doctor specializing in pediatrics and neonatal care.

Two of us are American, one is a Brit, one is French, and the other a Kenyan who grew up in Uganda and is a former member of Parliament.

We have all lived in Uganda between three months to our whole lives with the median time spent being about a year and a half.

All of us have graduate-level educations: two of us with Master's degrees and three with MDs, PhDs or Juris Doctorates.

Three of us are white and two of us are black.

Four of us are heterosexual and one of us is a lesbian.

Three of us have grown up in middle- or upper- middle class families, while two of us grew up in abject poverty.

Each of us can speak more than one language, has traveled to more than ten countries in her lifetime, and has an artistic passion of some kind...two of us write, one of us paints, one of us sculpts, one of us sings, and all of us, but one, love to cook.

Two of us have been legally married and three of us have not.

Two of us have children and three of us do not.

So...there is the lay down of the Mimosa Klatch.

Oh, and, of course, one last thing: All of us are newly single or about to be so soon.

(Obviously, except for my own, I am not going to use anybody's real name here...you don't join a Mimosa Klatch to appear on someone's blog a few hours later.)

For the first twenty minutes or so, we all sat there in a sort of uncomfortable silence as we sipped our Mimosas and asked polite questions about each other's chosen breakfasts. Then we gossiped about work, Ugandan politics, and caught up on each other's families and children.

Finally, after drinking two Mimosas in quick succession, Helen, the Brit, decided to get on with it.

"The bitch decided to call me in the middle of a damn complicated Cesarean section and announce to me that she was getting back together with her partner of six years. After three years of me putting up with being the 'other woman' and trusting her with everything...and now this?" Helen signalled the waiter for another Mimosa.

Monique, our French member, sighed into her champagne glass and circled the rim with one perfectly painted fingernail.

"I am French, no? I should expect this of men, no? But we have been married for 18 years!! I have moved around the world with him! I have had his children and tolerated it when I knew he was having an affair with his secretary, no? But for him to do this...to do this NOW when I have just been through extensive surgeries for a year? It is intolerable, this is why I must leave. There is no option!"

Our Kenyan friend, Maggie, went next:

"I knew better. I grew up with him in the village. He used to steal chickens from our neighbors and present them to my parents as something he had bought himself. The whole village knew he had stolen but his father was powerful and my parents had six girls and I was the eldest so they all just looked the other way. I married him because I had to but I did love him, even if he was a thief. I went to Cambridge, became a lawyer and a member of Parliament, I thought that would be enough. But then I realized that I was doing these things for me eventually and he was still a thief, albeit a successful one. It is just very difficult to be a single woman in Uganda at the age of 42. Who will want me?"

Then it came down to me and Liz, the two Americans of the group. We were holding hands under the table by that point.

Liz looked at me and decided to go first.

"Listen, I don't want to spend the day speaking badly about Mark. We all know each other's stories but I think we should make this meeting about the future, not about the past. Sure, I would love to spew all sorts of ugly things about Mark...because he did lots of ugly things...but I did too. I think Patti feels the same way, right?"

Suddenly all eyes were on me and I felt my face get hot. But Liz was right, I didn't want to spend the morning bitching about S. I didn't want to tell the story any longer because I was already beginning to heal. I wanted something else out of this Mimosa Klatch.

"Yes," I said, when I found my voice. "I agree with Liz. I did PLENTY wrong in my relationship and although it ended in a crappy way, I was also to blame. But I would like to talk about what's next...not what has passed."

Helen smirked and turned to Monique.

"Goddamn Americans and their inflated sense of optimism. It's that Barack Obama, I tell you. He's got them all high on some powdery stuff..." Helen cracked.

"Hey! I am just as proud of Obama as the Yanks," Maggie said. "He is from the same tribe in Kenya as I am. And, you know what? I agree with Liz and Patti, let's talk about what is next!"

"I like Obama too," Monique said, "But I think I am too fat to get another man, ever."

We all stared at her, by far the most beautiful member among us, and collectively rolled our eyes and ignored her.

"Alright Miss Statue of Liberty, what's next?" Helen asked, pointing her Mimosa straw in my direction.

"I don't know, maybe I need to make another list..." I said.

Everyone chuckled. We have all made lists.

A "list" is something that any woman who has ever gone through a tumultuous breakup and read at least one or two popular self-help books knows about. It is also something that any woman who has seen a therapist after a disastrous relationship also knows about. It is a way of reminding yourself what you DO want versus what you DO NOT want so as not to be led into a disaster. Only Maggie had not ever made a list.

"What is a 'list?'" she asked.

When we explained, she giggled.

"That sounds ridiculous....does it work? Really? OK, how do you begin?" she asked.

We all started searching around frantically in our handbags for pens and paper. In the end, we shared three pens and flipped our place mats over. Granted, these were cloth place mats but Maggie had a quick talk with the waiter assuring him we would pay for all damages and we proceeded.

As we scribbled down the list of the characteristics we would most like to find in a future partner, Helen asked:

"Hey, Miss Freaky Guru Chick, what is this called again?"

I looked up at her...being the one in the group who reads the most self-help and spiritually-related texts of all of us...

(I have also started doing card readings on my balcony---just as my great grandmother did years ago---for friends and family but the fact that I am into this, and good at it, tends to freak people out. It doesn't stop them from coming, however. I have read for each of these women.)

"Manifesting," I clarified. "It is focusing on what you want and not what you don't want. It works but you have to be clear. If you just make it the opposite of whatever you're currently upset with in your present or soon-to-be-past partner, it won't work right."

Monique was confused.

"What do you mean? Give me an example," she said.

"Well, I make lists for everything I really want, right? I write down what I want as far as my job, my health, my family, and my love life. Somethings come quickly for me because I am not emotionally charged by them...it is easy for me to manifest jobs, friends, and things like travel. I am shitty at relationships because I am insecure there...so my lists are usually inadequate because I focus on what I DO NOT want rather than what I DO want...does that make sense?"

She nodded.

"So you focus on the opposite of what you don't want and then you get it but it is not necessarily what you do want, no?" she clarified.

Exactly.

I stabbed Liz in the arm with my pen.

"Hey, give a sister a hand here...you know about this stuff, we have talked about it before..." I said.

Liz was hunkered down over her napkin and looked slightly annoyed at my interruption but then put her pen down and paused thoughtfully for a few moments before saying:

"I do it a bit differently, I keep my lists in my head and talk to them all the time, but it is the same principle as Patti is talking about. Before Mark, I dated a guy who was hyper-masculine, aggressive and a party animal. I knew I didn't want that again so I asked for the opposite of each of those things and got Mark. We had problems immediately because Mark never stood up for himself, was far more sensitive than I am, and refused to leave the house unless I threw a fit...it is called 'careless manifesting,' I think," she said.

"Jesus, I just asked for someone without a penis," Helen chimed in, "No wonder I am in such a mess....what a crap shoot!!"

We all laughed.

Then Monique said, "I do something like that although I never write it down either. When I am cooking, I imagine a conversation that I would be having with someone I am truly in love with. I am most happy when I am making breads and pastries so sometimes I stay up very late at night or get up very early in the morning to do that and have the conversation. It always feels good."

Maggie said, "Yes, me too. Although I do write it down sometimes. When I meet a man I really like I write down what he looked like or what he was wearing. Sometimes I write down what he smelled like of felt like...even though I never touched him..."

She seemed embarrassed and lowered her head.

Liz grabbed her arm and said, "Now you're cooking with fire, woman. Let's finish our lists!!"

So we did.

Three pitchers of Mimosas later, we all had lists on the back of our place mats.

"Should we share them yet, Miss America-Nancy-Reagan-in-Ronny's-Sock-Drawer-Armchair-Psychic?" Helen asked me.

(By the way, I love Helen and her sense of humor. It never offends. Especially since she is the one who comes for readings on the balcony most frequently.)

"No, these are for us right now. Let's process them and we can share next week...or never...let's decide later," I said.

Monique sighed again...

"We are all beautiful, professional women! We all love each other so much! Why is it so hard to find a man who can respect us the way we respect each other??" she asked.

We all thought about this for a few minutes and Liz said, "Because God or whatever is making us hold out the longest for the best one, that's my idea. We are stronger and can get through this....we're going to each get our wish!"

She waved her place mat at us and said, "Now, I need to go to the gym. I can't have flabby thighs when I meet my soulmate."

Monique declared: "I am going to go make a souffle and crepes and eat them all myself. I need to have a talk with this soulmate of mine!"

Helen said: "I am going to watch soccer all afternoon and drink beer, that'll make me feel better. Fuck everyone else."

Maggie and I looked at each other and said in unison: "I am going to go take a nice, long nap!"

We all toasted each other with our empty champagne glasses and tucked our place mats into our bags.

As Maggie and I were walking to the parking lot together, she took her place mat out and showed me.

It said:

"I want someone who loves my soul and appreciates my gifts. I want someone who will love my son as much as I do. I want someone who thinks I look sexy in my judge's robes. I want someone who does not have bad breath all the time and has a nice penis."

I smiled at her and hugged her.

"Think that'll work?" she asked.

"Darling, it is a damn good start!" I said.

These are the tales of the Mimosa Klatch: Part One.

What is Uganda?: Anniversary Edition

It has now been, formally, one year and three weeks since I moved to Uganda in October of 2008. I felt compelled, for a few weeks, to write some sort of anniversary blog that tried to capture all that I have learned and experienced in the past, almost, thirteen months. I kept trying to answer: What is Africa? What is Uganda? And, of course I failed. I was far too consumed with myself and not with what Africa or, specifically, Uganda, had taught me over the past year. I was WAY too consumed with myself, the ending of a different year-long relationship of a personal sorts. In short, I was, well, self-consumed...completely.

Until Africa, and Uganda, taught me in a very succinct lesson about what I wanted to write.

It happened on Friday morning after a couple of months of tumultuous personal agony that I had, of course, convinced myself I was so OVER back about three years ago and was NEVER going to experience again. Well, long story short... not so much. But after feeling pretty damn sorry for myself for a few weeks, and getting into a minor scrape-up on a motorcycle late at night, I got tired of feeling sorry for myself.

My beloved friend and driver, Robert, shook me out of it on Friday morning.

As I piled into our Land Rover in my normal state of bleakness, he said:

"Madame Boss, when do you think you will be better?"

I looked at him tiredly...

"I am fine, Robert," I said, "I promise."

"No...you are NOT!!! You are sad all the time now and you don't laugh and make the jokes anymore. You hurt your leg and we now have this beautiful house and you don't even visit it anymore. Can't you go there tomorrow? I can bring the dogs...and Kate and Godfrey are there...we need to buy furniture...the dogs need to see you...you have gardens to attend to...please, we have so much to do!!" he insisted.

Oddly, his words got to me. As I might have mentioned before, Robert is my very best friend in Uganda. He was the first person I really got to know here and he didn't really speak English when I met him. We had a difficult four months or so but we have become very close friends and he worries over me as much as my own brother does. But he is also respectful and conservative so when he speaks, I tend to listen.

So as down as I felt last night when I got home, I took some time to talk myself out of it. I also took some time to figure out why I haven't been able to write what one year in Africa has done to or for me. Because it is nearly impossible to write.

What Africa, Uganda specifically, has done for me in a year has made me trust people in the place that you would least expect to trust anyone...at least for a Westerner. It has made me much more of a patient and tolerant person. It has also made me savvy. It has also made me love more deeply than I could have ever imagined and value relationships with people more than I ever have in my life because to know anyone here you have to get beyond superficiality and really take time to trust someone. It has made me more calm and less frivolous. Anyone who knew me before would never associate the words "calm" or "patient" with any description of me....trust me.

Anyway, yes, those are pretty words but they are true.

I hated Africa when I first got here because I am, at my deepest level, a private person. I like to socialize but hate feeling "invaded" and disliked that Ugandans felt bad about leaving me alone. But, thirteen months later, if Robert hadn't marched up to my apartment and reminded me in the car about "our" house, our dogs, our shared responsibilities to others, and the things I loved...who knows where I would be right now.

So today found me at my new house, on an acre of beautiful property in a newly developed section of Kampala that is still being carved out from fruit trees and wild flowers overlooking Lake Victoria, pruning my fifteen rose bushes. Robert showed up with the two puppies I had rescued from his village six weeks ago and rehabilitated. They are going to be big dogs so, a month ago, I had to let them go to Robert as I could not keep them in my apartment any longer but I missed them so much it ached.

They came bounding up to me, all big feet and drooping tongues and tackled me on my perch on the front porch. It hurt, my leg is still a mess, but the greeting was welcome.

"They remember me!!" I exclaimed to Robert.

"Yes, of course they do. You saved their lives. They would have died in that village if you hadn't intervened. You are good with animals, Madame Boss, of course they remember you!!" he reported.

That felt better. I AM good with animals.

Next step was a present from Robert's sister and cousin who I have hired to work on my way-too-huge-property-for-me: a pheasant.

It is not called a pheasant in Luganda but that's what it is in American English. A gorgeous, fat, grey and white speckled bird with big feet, a red crest, and a short beak. They are prized in Uganda and cost about $25- $50. In short, a lot of money.

This was an extremely generous gift, considering.

So we set the pheasant free on the property and let the dogs run after it (the dogs, of course, had already been trained by Robert not to attack fowl so they got within a foot and then trotted back to me or Robert).

Later, we climbed up to the top of the defunct chicken coop and repaired it. I got myself up onto the roof of the garage with Robert's help and did my part nailing in the metal sheeting onto the roof of the coop while everyone else fixed the wire caging. We then poured concrete and by Monday we should be ready for our first load of hens, ordered by Robert from the best farms in Uganda for their egg-laying. (No roosters--or cocks---though, I do still like to get up at 8am rather than 5am).

Afterwards, I taught Kate, Robert's sister and my new housekeeper and cook, to make lasagna which she screwed up masterfully and we ended up eating on newspapers with forks because we had forgotten to get the plates from my old apartment. It was delicious...if deconstructed.

My other new addition to my family is called Godfrey. He is Robert's best friend from the village and his family emigrated here during the genocide in Rwanda. He speaks French and Luganda fluently and is extremely handsome. He has agreed to come on as my guard and gardener as his father was a master gardener for the French government before he was killed in the genocide in 1994. I am to pay him the equivalent of $100 a month and he will tend to the acre of gardens, the guarding duties (which aren't really necessary, this is a very safe neighborhood), and all the care of the animals...my dogs, pheasant and chickens. In exchange I will spend one hour an evening with him teaching him English. He speaks it rather well but is not able to write or read so that will keep me busy from 7-8PM five nights a week.

So in two short weeks I will move to this new life. I am enjoying preparing for it.

Oh, and what is Uganda? Read above.

Uganda is, above all, the most healing place I have ever been.

I am here for another fourteen months, and I cannot be happier about the arrangement.

Things Fall Apart: My Version

When I was in high school, I read Chinua Achebe's masterful book, "Things Fall Apart" about the fragmentation and disintegration of Nigeria in the 1970s. It remains one of the best written books I have ever read because Achebe is one author who speaks the absolute truth. He didn't gloss over anything and he didn't hide his feelings...from the most bizarre to the most pitiful.

So this blog is my own version of "Things Fall Apart" although I am certainly not the master that Achebe is. But sometimes you just need to speak the truth, as bitter and crushing as it can be.

My friend from Philly and former colleague, Kay, called me tonight to ask what was going on with me. She said, "I am getting bad vibes from you and I almost never get those feelings when I think of you so let's have it out...what is going on there?"

I initially said what I always say, "Everything is FINE!!!" but Kay is not susceptible to my bullshit. She is a big, beautiful, black former Army policewoman and she knows me inside and out. She is one of those people that I can't lie to and can't bullshit, no matter what. So I decided to have it out with her.

"I am not sure where I should begin..." I said.

"At the beginning, fool. Or at least tell me about the past two weeks...just start somewhere," she said.

So I took a deep breath and started. Here is how it went:

"Well, in the past two weeks I have been to Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, DC, New York, Dubai, Doha and Ethiopia. I spent most of my time in Florida trying to figure out how to forgive my boyfriend who admitted to infidelity the day before I left. I went to Oklahoma to see him and try to work things out but his mother is dying and that kind of put a damper on things. I met his father, whom I adored, but I had to pretend the whole time that my insides were not in shreds and that my heart was not racing because I was so upset. So we decided to go to Texas because I had never been there and I wanted to see if we could work things out even though I knew I would never get over the betrayal and he knew he would do it again because our relationship, from the start, has been broken. So we drove to Texas with two dozen 'apology' flowers in the back seat of our rented Nissan and put ourselves up in Dallas/Ft. Worth after visiting Oral Robert's University in Oklahoma. We spent the next two days in Texas having some of the best times and worst times of our entire relationship. We danced, laughed, fought, and embarrassed each other in public. After that, I went to New York City with my brother and spent a thousand dollars trying to forget what had happened in Oklahoma and Texas. I ate oysters, spent nights out at the bar getting completely hammered, and walking miles of city blocks to just keep reminding myself that I was alive and at least I could do this---walk---even if I was failing in so many other places."

Kay took a deep breath on the other end of the phone and said, "OK, go on."

"Then I flew to Dubai, spent a night in an expensive hotel room, ate half a pizza and drank a half bottle of red wine and passed out. The next morning I was in Doha at a conference and my heart was racing again and my hands were shaking and I had to remember not to touch anyone male or shake their hands because I am an 'infidel' and unclean. After that, I got on a plane to Ethiopia and had to spend two hours on the ground in the plane dying of thirst because the combination of the hangover from Dubai, the nervousness at at the conference, and my own racing heart. Finally, I got to Kampala and got an email from my boyfriend indicating that, despite our best efforts, he was just not willing to continue trying. Then I got up the next day at 8AM with awful jet-lag, pulled myself through a bunch of meetings, and then went out with my colleagues and drank two glasses of wine and a Guinness on an empty stomach. I couldn't talk about what I was feeling so I just tried to drink it away. Then I got on the back of a motorcycle at 11PM and was sideswiped by a truck carrying timber and ended up in a ditch on the side of the road. I was bleeding profusely from my face and my leg was killing me but I managed to get up and out from underneath the motorcycle."

Another sharp breath from Kay and then, "OK, please go on."

"So then I ended up at the hospital and they told me my leg was broken although I was pretty sure it wasn't. Then they told me I had to be evacuated to South Africa or Kenya within 24 hours or septic shock would set in and I would die. But I just didn't believe them so I managed to get home, look in the mirror and realize I had split my lip completely open and had bitten through my tongue. I had a helmet on but I had road burn all over my face and my leg was throbbing. My knee wasn't where it should have been but I was scared and just wanted to get out of there. So I called my boyfriend to tell him what happened and, at the end of the conversation, he dumped me...formally. I think that hurt worse than my face or my leg although I knew it was coming...and it is sort of a relief that it did. As I have said, we have been broken from the beginning and the past two weeks have been pure torture. Then I called my mother and sobbed on the phone for an hour scaring her and scaring me. So I spent today at the doctor's and nothing I have is too serious and it can all be fixed. I have two dozen flowers in my apartment from the President of Uganda and a note begging me not to leave and, if I do, to take his private airplane to the hospital in Kenya. I am not going to die although I feel like crap. So...well, that's it. That is what happened."

Oddly, Kay started laughing.

At first I was shocked and angry but then I couldn't help but join in. It DID seem completely ridiculous.

"Girl, if it were anyone but you I wouldn't believe it but it is you and I completely believe it. But, JESUS...you packed a lot into two weeks!!" she said between giggles.

"Kay, I can't tell anymore which hurts worst...my leg, my head, or my heart," I said.

"I told your stupid white ass that this was going to happen although I couldn't even have imagined that you would do all of this to get the point across to yourself," she mused.

OK, fine. But where do I go from here?

"Girl, you will be fine. You are one of those people that God seems to love a lot so even when you are a complete mess, you are always fine. You know that, right?" she said.

I started to cry.

"Stop that nonsense," Kay snapped. "No crying. Forget about the man, get your damn leg fixed, walk around with your messed up face for a few days, and then get back on the horse and carry on. You don't have a choice. If God wanted you dead, he would have done it by now. So you don't have a choice. Just please, PLEASE, learn the lesson this time, OK?"

I smiled, despite my lip, because what she was saying seemed to make sense in some odd way.

"OK," I agreed, "I won't give up."

"Miss Patti, things fall apart. That's a lesson in life. For you, they seem to fall apart all at the same time so I think you are actually lucky. For most of us, things fall apart in pieces, bit-by-bit. But this time is over now, do you hear me? It is over."

Yes, OK, I agree.

"Good, I am glad I called you. You should, by the way, write this down somewhere. It will remind you the next time not to let it get this far where you have to get in a motorcycle accident to realize that you should change courses a lot earlier on. You listening to me or did you fuck up your ears too?" she barked.

"Yes, I am listening" I said.

"I love you, white girl. There is only one you...just remember that from now on. Good-bye," Kay said as she hung up.

So things do fall apart. They have fallen apart for me these past few weeks. But nothing is completely broken that can't be fixed. And, like Kay says, what is my option?

Besides, I am 34 years old and single again with a broken leg, road burn all over half of my face, and a set of swollen lips that most women in Hollywood could only dream about with Botox injections. AND the President of Uganda sends me flowers...

Who wouldn't want me?

Things fall apart. But most things can be fixed.

A bath in Dubai

It's 9pm and I have just landed in Dubai, the financial and commercial hub of the United Arab Emirates.

Granted, I am absolutely insane. I have just spent two weeks on a whirlwind tour of the United States and I should take advantage of the fact that the nice travel agency and the sweet travel agent that my company uses all the time has booked me into a comfortable airport hotel for the twelve hour layover I have here...but I don't. I march my ass up to the first hotel kiosk I find and start inquiring about prices in the city...downtown Dubai. I cancel the comfortable place in the airport and haggle for a few minutes using my various government-issued IDs until we come to a price we are both comfortable with (me and the Marriot rep) that is within my budget and also my company's per diem rates, and I set off.

Off into Dubai.

I have never been to the Middle East. I have been a lot of places, but never here. The closest I have come has been Turkey but that doesn't really count. Attaturk would love me and the current President of the Republic of Turkey would hate me but, for all intents and purposes, some of Turkey is pretty damn European. Actually, Turkey is one of the most wonderful places I have ever been in my life...but not because it is a fascinating mix of European and Asian (tip to those not familiar: Call a Turk an Arab and you have signed your own death sentence, same with Iranians), but Turkey is so unlike anywhere else that it has always just existed in my mind as...well, Turkey.

I have never gotten the chance to go to the Middle East. Thusfar, my job has never required me to go there. My boyfriend is stationed there, most of my good friends have been there or are residents (Israel, Eqypt, Syria, Iran) but I never really got a chance to go myself...which is why I broke free tonight.

"Do you want the ladies' taxi or the regular taxi?" my female friend from the Marriot asked, arranging me a taxi.

"I am not sure...what's the difference?" I asked.

"Partitions between the driver and you. Blacked out windows so no men can see you from the outside...we can even get a female driver for you if you want," she said, eyeing up my rather conservative pair of jeans, trainers, and long-sleeved black top. "But, I think you will be OK...you don't look too pretty," she finished.

I should probably have been offended but I wasn't. I travel on planes so much these days that the times of makeup and high heels are long gone. I go clean-scrubbed and in basic and comfortable gear. I carry mascara and lipstick in my carry-on and a clean change of clothes...but only one.

"I think I am OK with the taxi for men and women," I said. "Do you think I look OK?"

Naturally, I felt like a moron asking this question but, hell, I had never been here before...who knows, right?

The taxi driver took over from there.

"American, no?" he asked.

"Yes, I am. I just need to go to the Marriott. I think it is downtown between...." I started.

"Sit there!" he barked when I got into the cab in the seat behind him.

He was indicating the seat opposite. Behind the empty passenger side front seat.

I scampered over and arranged myself.

I tried to make small talk the whole time but he was having none of it. He kept smiling but also kept saying, "This is no longer Ramadan, you can go without tipping me."

I would have been pissed if I had been less tired but, then again, this isn't my country. I sat in silence for the rest of the ride as we went to the Marriot and he dropped me off. I tipped him and, despite it not being Ramadan, he seemed OK with the whole deal.

I got to the hotel, realized that after 15 hours of travel I was a lot more tired than I thought I was...and contemplated the menu.

$15 pizza and a half-carafe of wine (two glasses here) for $30. Seemed outrageous but I was too tired to bicker. I decided to do it and ordered room service.

Twenty minutes later, a Fillipino waiter arrived with my pizza

He stepped in and, upon seeing my name on the bill, said, "Ah, an American. How are you doing?"

"Good," I assured him.

"You look tired," he told me.

(I HATE this about Africa, the Middle East and Asia but they have no compunctions pointing out to you how bad you look at any given time).

"I am tired," I admitted. "Very tired."

"Let me do the bath service then," he declared.

My mind was screaming "No, no, no!!" but I was too tired to fight.

Ten minutes later, I had a perfectly steaming bath, fragrant with flowers and wonderful things, a glass of nice, hot chai tea by my side, and thousand thread count sheets at my waiting.

Dubai's not so bad...not so bad at all.