For the past two trips home from Uganda, I have committed myself to doing whirlwind tours of the U.S. in short time periods.
Part of this has to do with the fact that my job, my friends, and my family are now so spread out that trying see as many people as possible, and get as much work done as possible, usually requires at least three to four stops. And the U.S. is a big place. Somehow I never realized that while living here.
In October, it was Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington, DC and New York (with two final out-of-country side-trips to Dubai and Doha in the United Arab Emirates to finish off a crazy two weeks).
This time around, I tried to be more practical but didn't do so well either. I started in Florida again where my mother and brother live and then took a trip out of the country to Central America (Costa Rica) for five days. I had planned to finish out my last week in DC but, after realizing that I was doing nothing to cure my serious case of emotional and physical burn-out, I made a decision to go "home." Or at least what I consider "home" in the U.S....Philadelphia.
I was born in the state of Connecticut, part of a select handful of places in the northeastern part of the U.S. that locals like to snobbishly call "New England," and spent most of my early life there.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Connecticut. It is a beautiful state. But I never really felt at home until I moved to Philadelphia in my late teenage years.
I think it is because the last five or so years of my life in Connecticut were both traumatic and dramatic. They were riddled with so much personal and family-related pain that it took me about five years before I could actually return to the state without feeling a deep sense of unease and panic.
But Philadelphia saved me. Actually, and much more accurately, Philadelphians saved me. The man who took me out of Connecticut and brought me to Philadelphia in my absolute lowest state and the woman who then stepped in to make sure I never went back to that place of desperation are from Philadelphia. Later, the person who taught me to travel the world, appreciate culture, and be brave enough to speak and write my soul is from Philadelphia. The teachers who mentored me for four years of college were professors from Temple University in Philadelphia. When I was at a crossroads about living abroad, going to graduate school, taking jobs way outside of my "credentialed" realm, I found cheering support from Philadelphia.
In short, the place and the people that not only saved my life but also taught me courage, self-respect, and how to laugh were from Philadelphia. For fifteen years of my life, I lived, worked, and loved in Philadelphia. It left an indelible mark on my soul. It is the only place in the world that I will always consider "home."
Mind you, Philadelphia also has its flaws...as do people from Philly. Blunt to an almost polished extreme, racist--but not-- in a way that is impossible to explain to people who haven't lived in Philly for years, inflammatory, rambunctious, insular, protective, and suspicious. Yes...those are all descriptors of people from Philly. Hard to get to know, too.
But...I can't even remember anymore...it has been almost two decades, how or why I overcame those things. I think it is because my first formal introduction to Philadelphia is my best friend in the world (besides my mother), Connie, who is all but still none of the aforementioned characteristics. She essentially took me by the neck and introduced me to Philly and everything about Philadelphia. I also went to an inner-city school for college (which, by the way, is one of the best in the country) and you can't act like a paranoid asshole for long in that environment.
Philadelphia is by far one of the best cities in the world to come of age in. From the age of 17 until I formally left many years later, I couldn't have asked for a better education in the world. I cried each time I left and I cried each time I came back. Philadelphia creeps into your heart and your soul and you just can never leave it...no matter how many times you go away. I am a testament to that one.
So, after eight years in DC and one year in Uganda, I wanted "home."
It started last week in a bar/pub in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where my mother and brother live. The owners of the bar are from Philadelphia and it caters to a mainly Philadelphia crowd that come down during the winters to tend bar and work side-jobs in the sun. It, essentially, is a small piece of Philadelphia in south Florida.
I had been creeping around going back in because I thought I had become so "foreign" so as not to be accepted any longer. I live in Africa, I dated a Midwesterner for fourteen months, I felt I didn't have anything to say or contribute.
Plus, I didn't think I knew how to interact with men from Philly anymore. That was my biggest shame of them all.
Before I left Uganda, my French friend Sabine (formally known as "Monique" before she declared she had no problem with me using her real name) said, "What kind of man will get you back in the saddle? What kind of man is that one?"
I thought about it and said, "A guy from Philly."
"Why?" she pressed.
"It is just so uncomplicated. It is not hard to meet a normal, nice guy in Philadelphia. It is normal to go to a bar and meet someone you might be interested in. Philadelphia has a developed bar and restaurant culture and also various neighborhoods where you can go to meet people. Guys in the bars I would go to in Philly would be able to hold a conversation without asking me for my business card. No one really cared that much about that. No one asked about my credentials. You could just...well, have a conversation," I said.
"Well, I think you should make time during this trip to go home to Philadelphia, then, no?" she asked. "Sounds like you need some grounding and that is where you get grounded."
I don't have time, I assured her.
"Look, you spent all that time trying to be 'Washington DC' then trying to deny what you loved about your part of the country to your ex...why don't you stop denying who you are and what you love? Sounds like that city did you a world of good...but that's just my opinion...and what do the French know?" she said, and then smirked at me.
Then I walked into the bar in Ft. Lauderdale last Saturday night and was greeted warmly by all of the Philadelphians who I had known for years.
"Hey, hot shit, how is the book? I almost wiped my ass with it and then saw it was your name on the cover...hah, hah...just kidding! Welcome home!" Rick said.
"Patti! You carrying any weird tropical diseases with you? If not, come sit next to me...I want to hear about your travels! I will buy the first couple of rounds!"
"You in on the bet? We got quite the kitty going on here!"
"Hey! Come over here! Let me hug you...you been keeping up on the news out of Temple lately? Watching Villanova?"
I sat down in a booth with my mother and smiled.
Home...sort of.
Ten minutes later a very handsome guy named Chad sat down next to me.
"You a Philly girl?" he asked.
"Yes and no. I live in Africa now...but I used to live in Philadelphia," I said.
"OK, wanna watch the Eagles game? I would love to buy you a beer. You're very pretty...even if you're now from Africa and not Philadelphia...hah, hah!"
I smiled and relaxed.
"Hey, how are Ugandans feeling these days about Idi Amin? He was a crazy motherfucker. I felt so bad when I was a kid and saw that shit happening. That looked like such a beautiful country..." he reflected.
I sat up and looked at him.
"How'd you know about Idi Amin?" I asked.
It was his turn to look at me.
"You don't remember that?" he asked.
Yes...but no...I was only a kid...
"Big shot lawyer now? And you didn't know about Amin?" he jibed.
"I was ten!! I knew later!" I insisted.
"Yeah, Miss Tough Stuff, well, I knew THEN!" he laughed.
Point taken.
And so it went.
For two days, seven football games, nine rounds of darts, twelve games of billiards, and one very long night of dancing to Motown classics with fellow Philadelphians...I felt much, much better.
I arrived in DC this morning and had two "power meetings."
Then I stood looking at my ticket and hailed a cab.
"Union Train Station, please!" I said to the cab driver.
One and a half hours later I was in Philadelphia.
The same woman who saved my life nearly twenty years ago picked me up at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia at 1:30pm.
We went shopping, did a tour of her new house, went out and had dinner, and spent time in my hotel room laughing and crying about the past twenty years.
We were leaving the bar in the restaurant when one of the patrons made a off-color crack about someone on the television screen from an opposing team. He saw me smirk and said,
"Hey, I hope I didn't offend you!"
Connie, my friend, said, "You can't offend her. She's got thick skin...too many years here...and one in Africa."
So glad to be back home.
And, also, to go back home.
30 December 2009
11 December 2009
Death: The Ultimate Pina Colada Song
Once, talking to a friend who had come through a particularly brutal illness at the age of 41, he remarked, "Sometimes, Patti, you never know how good it feels to be alive when you have felt that close to feeling like you were going to die. That's when it's time to thank God."
I said I understood, then, and thought I did. But I didn't.
Now, I understand.
It started last weekend and I should have been paying a lot more attention, but I wasn't.
I had been working like a dog for the prior three weeks trying to get ready to a big week (this past one) of meetings, conferences, and workshops which my organization was hosting. I had nearly a non-stop VIP visitor's list that began in mid-November and would continue until mid-December. I didn't sleep well, didn't eat well, and spent far too many evenings up past midnight squinting at computer screen. In short, I had worn my body down to shreds.
So when Saturday rolled around and I felt unusually raw and tired, I chalked it up to stress and not taking better care of myself. I decided to spend the day in bed and give myself some time to recover.
By Sunday, however, after I had slept 18 hours straight, I found that I was more tired than ever before. In addition, I was beginning to get pounding headaches and felt like I had a fever. I called my driver, Robert, and had to beg off his school opening where I was scheduled to be one of the guest speakers. I felt awful, like the most terrible person on the planet, but I was in agony.
Every bone and muscle had started to ache and I couldn't get out of bed. I started treating myself with every known over-the-counter medicine I had. Thera-flu, Tylenol, Alleve, leftover antibiotics, anything I could get my hands on. They all worked for about an hour but then the symptoms would come raging back just as strong, if not stronger. By Sunday night, I was wearing sweat pants and two layers of shirts and couldn't keep a thing down. That evening was spent, throughout the night, with one of those fevers that produce the kind of hallucinations that are so realistic that you have to get up and make yourself walk around to shake them off.
"Grandma, is that you?" I wandered the halls muttering, scaring the shit out of my housekeeper and gardener.
By Monday, my head was hurting so badly I thought about cutting it off. It felt like my brain was too big for my skull and my ears wanted to abandon me altogether. I managed to make it to work but, by early afternoon, I was so dizzy I would end up sitting on the floor. Hadijah, my office manager, came in to find me, sort of lotus-position with my head to the cool tiles, and exclaimed,
"Patricia! Go to the doctor now! We don't sit on dirty floors here, that is terrible! Please get up..."she kept glancing out the door to make sure no one was looking in.
I went home and went straight to bed, waking intermittently but essentially sleeping with a raging fever, pounding headache and muscle spasms for another 18 hours. On Tuesday, I went with my driver, Robert, to the airport to pick up my boss and was shivering in the front seat in the glaring sun.
"It's the flu," Robert told me.
I was trending towards believing him because essentially everyone in the office had been befallen by some mystery illness that had many, although not all, of the same symptoms my current illness was characterized by.
I went back to bed after taking an impossibly hot bath to make my muscles uncramp. I managed to make it to dinner that night with my boss from DC and my colleague, Liz, but I was not in good shape.
I couldn't keep more than the soup down and when I went to the ladies room, I had a hard time finding my way back. I was completely disoriented.
Finally, on Wednesday, it all fell apart. I went to the office early after spending most of the night hallucinating about my dead grandmother, Eric Clapton, Shakespeare, and then sitting out on my porch talking quietly to my dogs about my philosophy on life as the sun came up.
I tried to sit through a full mornings-worth of meetings and tried to pay attention but I just couldn't. It was like I had forgotten the English language. My boss from DC, Paul, and Liz finally insisted, "Alright, that's enough. You need to go to the doctor now."
I kept repeating that I was fine as Liz propelled me out the door with a strong arm.
"See that panda in the corner?" I asked her.
"Yeah, OK. You get to the doctor now and I don't want to hear another word about it. And for God's sake stop babbling about pandas and Eric Clapton, you are delusional because you have a very high fever. Now get in the car and I will call you in an hour," she instructed.
I did my best a to keep quiet to Robert on the ride to The Surgery, the British-run clinic here, but I did scream a few times as the shooting pains that had come to characterize my headache started up.
Robert jumped and nearly swerved off the road. I focused on making no noise whatsoever.
When we arrived at the doctor's office, I took a number and tried to be as quiet as possible.
Finally, an hour later, a kind, young Ugandan doctor called me into his surgery.
"Hello, Patricia, I am Dr. Clayton," he said.
ERIC CLAPTON??!!!!
"What? Sorry? No, Clayton...with a 'y'" he corrected me, looking at me oddly. "So tell me what's going on?"
I described the symptoms, settled down for a brief exam, and then got the inevitable question:
"Have you been taking your anti-malarial medications all the time?" he said.
"Yes! Well, sort of. Mostly. I don't always take them in Kampala but I take them when I go outside of Kampala, especially to Gulu and parts of the North," I told him.
"ALWAYS?" he asked again.
Then I thought hard and realized I had been to Gulu two weeks ago for only a short day and a half and, indeed, I might have forgotten to take them. It was such a short time though!
"Well, maybe I missed just once a week or two ago...but this isn't malaria!" I told him.
He cocked his eyebrow at me, "Oh?"
(Doctors love it when their patients interrupt them to diagnose themselves...)
"I've had that before and it wasn't anything like this...this is horrible!" I finished up.
He ignored me and escorted me down to the lab while quickly ordering a bunch of blood tests, urine tests, plasma tests, and all other sorts of tests I couldn't understand.
"My plasma is fine!" I told him meekly.
A sweet, young Dutch nurse sat me down and said, "Have you been taking your anti-malarials?"
"No, I missed once when I was in Gulu, but only once!" I said.
"Once is all it takes, my dear," she said.
"I have had malaria before here in Kampala," I told her. "It hurt but it didn't hurt anything like this...it was painful but this is agonizing," I admitted.
"You know there are several species of malaria, right?" "The one prevalent around Kampala is ugly but the one found in Gulu and South Sudan is deadly; very deadly, very quickly. Now, I am going to do a quick malaria test and we'll know for sure," she told me.
The quick malaria tests are like pregnancy tests except you use blood. In about two minutes, however, you know.
Mine turned red (positive) in about ten seconds.
"Alright, we have to admit you now, at least for the night, maybe longer, while we finish these tests," she declared.
"No!" I insisted. "I promise I will take all of the medicines when I am supposed to...I promise I will call if I get more sick...I promise..." I trailed off.
"So you honestly think, given that you have been hallucinating for the past 48 hours, that you will be timely about taking these medicines every four hours? You honestly think that your housekeeper and gardener will now what to do if you have a seizure or slip into a coma? Really? Because with your temperature, that is definitely what's coming next..." she pushed.
I thought about the past two days of having Kate and Godfrey watch me walking around the house trying to find my dead grandmother and sharing Proust with my dogs and realized I couldn't possibly subject them to this.
"Alright, I'll stay," I said.
"Good. Now take these," handing me four huge tablets," and I will get you set up with an IV in a few minutes," she said.
I looked her straight in the eye.
"Tamara, I don't want an IV. I don't doubt the cleanliness and efficacy of this clinic but I really still have an aversion to putting needles into my veins anywhere outside of the U.S., and even there I rarely submit. I don't mean to be rude but, please, is there another way?" I begged.
"Yes, there is. But that is going to entail you drinking a minimum of ten liters of fluid ever four hours. The malaria that you have infects not only your blood, but your tissues. When we start killing them off with those tablets, you have to flush them out so they don't lodge anywhere and cause hemorrhaging. Can you drink ten litres of fluid...and by this I mean juice, not water, in four hours?" she asked.
I promised her that I could.
Then I went out to the parking lot to find Robert and send him to the store to get me ten boxes of juice...big boxes.
He was so thrilled to hear it was malaria he almost hugged me.
"Such good news, Madame Boss! Such good news!" he said.
This is quite sad, actually.
Most Africans suffer from malaria dozens if not hundreds of times in their lives. It is so common that me telling him I had malaria was like me telling him I had a common house cold. Much better than the mysterious "flu."
"No, Robert, it is not good news. Whites from North America don't get malaria so we have no resistance. And this is the malaria from the Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, the bad kind," I told him.
Then he asked me what kind of juice I wanted. At this point the medicine was starting to kick in and I was beginning to get much worse (treating malaria is often much worse than actually suffering it) and I muttered, "I don't care, I am OK with anything but bananas. I like other fruit just fine."
As he walked off I had the fleeting thought, "And coconuts, I hate coconuts," but then shelved it away as so random that soon I dismissed it. I had never even seen coconut juice here.
I crawled back into my hospital room and made a series of phone calls to Liz, my boss here, my bosses in DC, and explained what was going on.
What ensued was panic as, I have said, North Americans don't get malaria where we come from so the mere mention of the word scares the hell out of people.
I finally dozed off about thirty minutes later when Tamara knocked on the door with my bagfuls of juice.
I peered inside.
Pina Colada Juice.
Coconuts.
10 litres of coconut juice.
I groaned and my stomach turned.
"Now, these two boxes, right now, in front of me and then I want to see the other two gone in an hour and a half," she said.
So miserable that I was resigned to my fate, I closed my eyes and slugged down the two litres of coconut juice, willed myself not to vomit, and went back to bed.
For the next six hours, I was admitted at 6PM, I was in a complete daze. I got up and took my medicine, slugged down a box or two of coconut juice, and went back to bed. I was sweating from the fever so profusely that my entire room smelled like a tropical island.
Finally, at midnight, a new nurse came on: Cathy the German.
Like most Germans, Cathy was no bullshit. She was kind and sympathetic, but also direct. My kind of doctor or nurse, in short. She came in and saw that I had failed to finish my pina coladas and went to get the IV fluids.
"Cathy, please...can I just have water? It's not that I can't or won't drink...it's just that my stomach hurts so badly from the coconut juice that I feel sick all the time, is there anything else?" I begged.
She returned with four liters of water and a syringe. In the syringe was a super-dose of painkiller and an anti-nausea drug. I dutifully rolled over and, within, ten minutes, was out cold.
I awoke again at 4AM feeling marginally better and wandered out to the nurses' station to find Cathy.
"Here, look at this!" she said, scooting over from the microscope.
I peered in and, previously gotten acquainted with looking at dog's blood under microscopes who had blood parasites, immediately felt myself recoil.
"It that mine?" I whispered.
"Sure is! We're all surprised, quite frankly, that you didn't seizure before this point," she told me, matter-of-factly.
"Cathy, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Just tell me, am I going to get better?" I asked.
"You should be just fine in about a week. You've got one hell of a case but you'll recover. Just don't wait so long the next time, what were you thinking?" she admonished.
I was out of excuses and went back to bed.
At 9 o'clock the next morning, Dr. Stockley, my normal physician, bellowed from the hall:
"Taft!!!! Where the hell are you...you insane cuss?"
Dr. Stockley is the owner of the clinic and a former British Navy doctor. He has no bedside manner to speak of, whatsoever, but he runs the best clinic in Kampala and hires damn professional staff. Nevertheless, we became friends when he treated me for my first round of so-called-malaria back in April and also fixed my leg after I got in a motorcycle accident in November.
He came storming into the room and said, "What the fuck is going on in here? It smells like I am in goddamn Tahiti or on the set of Hawaii Five-O...what is that shite?" he gestured towards the coconut juice on the bedside table.
I opened my mouth to explain and he held up a hand.
"I don't want to hear it. I would slap you if I didn't think you were going to throw up all over me with that vile coconut shite you've been consuming, Christ, girl!!"
"Alright, you can go home. Your temperature is back in normal range and your parasite count has dropped significantly. Someone loves your dumb ass because you should actually be dead by now, but just get out of my sight and take your medicines and CALL ME if you start talking to Elvis, your dead aunts, or whoever else you were seeing," he instructed.
I stood up unsteadily and went downstairs to pick up my bags of medicines and pay my tab.
(As a note on the asinine American healthcare debate...I have no health insurance. I get a decent monthly stipend to pay for healthcare costs but I do not have formal healthcare insurance as most companies will not insure Americans who have spent more than 35% of the past decade in a third world countries where they may or may not have been exposed to infectious disease. Thus, this put me shit-out-of luck along with many of my friends as the type of insurance that will cover us costs about 15 times what normal health insurance does. It also pretty much guarantees, now that I have had malaria twice, that I will never get decent coverage again).
Waiting nervously to hear the tally, I nearly fell down when the nurse said, "250 thousand shillings, please."
That would be about $125.
I couldn't believe it.
"That's it?!" I asked, shocked. This is a clinic that mainly caters to white people, afterall.
"Is that too much?" she asked, "We can set up a payment plan for you since you are such a good customer," she offered, pulling out the forms.
"No, no! It's fine. Thank you so much!!" I told her.
In America, a day-and-a-half of intensive care, antibiotics, bloodtests, and injections would have been over $5,000. Probably more. Probably a lot more.
When I got home, before I crawled back to bed, I checked the price that the drug I was given for the malaria, Lomart, was charged at, per pill, in the U.S. for someone without health insurance. $85. In Canada, $10; in the UK; $8, in France, $7. In Uganda? $0.08. Same maker, same drug, same everything. It made me very angry.
So I went to bed.
I don't remember the next twenty four hours too well at all. All I know is that treating malaria is indeed almost as bad as suffering it.
On Thursday night at 11pm I found myself begging God, Allah, Yahweh, the Universe, whomever, to make it stop. It was getting better, but not without a fight.
I wandered out at 5am to try to get some tea and bread down and found Kate peering at me across the counter.
"Your grandmother here again?" she asked.
"No, I am done with that, I promise. Can you just make me some tea...and, um, I am sorry I have been acting so strangely the past week..." I said.
She shrugged as if to say, "Hey, white people are all nuts...what are you going to do about it?"
Last night, around 10pm, it started to go away completely. I felt so much better that I actually went out in the garden and played with my neglected, but erudite, dogs for an hour.
I couldn't believe how good I felt. I couldn't believe how good it felt to be alive.
I remembered my friend's words from years ago and added my own prayer to his.
Never, ever again without the anti-malarials, I can promise you that much. I think I'll be taking them in the Arctic.
Even though it was fun talking to Eric Clapton and Shakespeare for awhile there.
I said I understood, then, and thought I did. But I didn't.
Now, I understand.
It started last weekend and I should have been paying a lot more attention, but I wasn't.
I had been working like a dog for the prior three weeks trying to get ready to a big week (this past one) of meetings, conferences, and workshops which my organization was hosting. I had nearly a non-stop VIP visitor's list that began in mid-November and would continue until mid-December. I didn't sleep well, didn't eat well, and spent far too many evenings up past midnight squinting at computer screen. In short, I had worn my body down to shreds.
So when Saturday rolled around and I felt unusually raw and tired, I chalked it up to stress and not taking better care of myself. I decided to spend the day in bed and give myself some time to recover.
By Sunday, however, after I had slept 18 hours straight, I found that I was more tired than ever before. In addition, I was beginning to get pounding headaches and felt like I had a fever. I called my driver, Robert, and had to beg off his school opening where I was scheduled to be one of the guest speakers. I felt awful, like the most terrible person on the planet, but I was in agony.
Every bone and muscle had started to ache and I couldn't get out of bed. I started treating myself with every known over-the-counter medicine I had. Thera-flu, Tylenol, Alleve, leftover antibiotics, anything I could get my hands on. They all worked for about an hour but then the symptoms would come raging back just as strong, if not stronger. By Sunday night, I was wearing sweat pants and two layers of shirts and couldn't keep a thing down. That evening was spent, throughout the night, with one of those fevers that produce the kind of hallucinations that are so realistic that you have to get up and make yourself walk around to shake them off.
"Grandma, is that you?" I wandered the halls muttering, scaring the shit out of my housekeeper and gardener.
By Monday, my head was hurting so badly I thought about cutting it off. It felt like my brain was too big for my skull and my ears wanted to abandon me altogether. I managed to make it to work but, by early afternoon, I was so dizzy I would end up sitting on the floor. Hadijah, my office manager, came in to find me, sort of lotus-position with my head to the cool tiles, and exclaimed,
"Patricia! Go to the doctor now! We don't sit on dirty floors here, that is terrible! Please get up..."she kept glancing out the door to make sure no one was looking in.
I went home and went straight to bed, waking intermittently but essentially sleeping with a raging fever, pounding headache and muscle spasms for another 18 hours. On Tuesday, I went with my driver, Robert, to the airport to pick up my boss and was shivering in the front seat in the glaring sun.
"It's the flu," Robert told me.
I was trending towards believing him because essentially everyone in the office had been befallen by some mystery illness that had many, although not all, of the same symptoms my current illness was characterized by.
I went back to bed after taking an impossibly hot bath to make my muscles uncramp. I managed to make it to dinner that night with my boss from DC and my colleague, Liz, but I was not in good shape.
I couldn't keep more than the soup down and when I went to the ladies room, I had a hard time finding my way back. I was completely disoriented.
Finally, on Wednesday, it all fell apart. I went to the office early after spending most of the night hallucinating about my dead grandmother, Eric Clapton, Shakespeare, and then sitting out on my porch talking quietly to my dogs about my philosophy on life as the sun came up.
I tried to sit through a full mornings-worth of meetings and tried to pay attention but I just couldn't. It was like I had forgotten the English language. My boss from DC, Paul, and Liz finally insisted, "Alright, that's enough. You need to go to the doctor now."
I kept repeating that I was fine as Liz propelled me out the door with a strong arm.
"See that panda in the corner?" I asked her.
"Yeah, OK. You get to the doctor now and I don't want to hear another word about it. And for God's sake stop babbling about pandas and Eric Clapton, you are delusional because you have a very high fever. Now get in the car and I will call you in an hour," she instructed.
I did my best a to keep quiet to Robert on the ride to The Surgery, the British-run clinic here, but I did scream a few times as the shooting pains that had come to characterize my headache started up.
Robert jumped and nearly swerved off the road. I focused on making no noise whatsoever.
When we arrived at the doctor's office, I took a number and tried to be as quiet as possible.
Finally, an hour later, a kind, young Ugandan doctor called me into his surgery.
"Hello, Patricia, I am Dr. Clayton," he said.
ERIC CLAPTON??!!!!
"What? Sorry? No, Clayton...with a 'y'" he corrected me, looking at me oddly. "So tell me what's going on?"
I described the symptoms, settled down for a brief exam, and then got the inevitable question:
"Have you been taking your anti-malarial medications all the time?" he said.
"Yes! Well, sort of. Mostly. I don't always take them in Kampala but I take them when I go outside of Kampala, especially to Gulu and parts of the North," I told him.
"ALWAYS?" he asked again.
Then I thought hard and realized I had been to Gulu two weeks ago for only a short day and a half and, indeed, I might have forgotten to take them. It was such a short time though!
"Well, maybe I missed just once a week or two ago...but this isn't malaria!" I told him.
He cocked his eyebrow at me, "Oh?"
(Doctors love it when their patients interrupt them to diagnose themselves...)
"I've had that before and it wasn't anything like this...this is horrible!" I finished up.
He ignored me and escorted me down to the lab while quickly ordering a bunch of blood tests, urine tests, plasma tests, and all other sorts of tests I couldn't understand.
"My plasma is fine!" I told him meekly.
A sweet, young Dutch nurse sat me down and said, "Have you been taking your anti-malarials?"
"No, I missed once when I was in Gulu, but only once!" I said.
"Once is all it takes, my dear," she said.
"I have had malaria before here in Kampala," I told her. "It hurt but it didn't hurt anything like this...it was painful but this is agonizing," I admitted.
"You know there are several species of malaria, right?" "The one prevalent around Kampala is ugly but the one found in Gulu and South Sudan is deadly; very deadly, very quickly. Now, I am going to do a quick malaria test and we'll know for sure," she told me.
The quick malaria tests are like pregnancy tests except you use blood. In about two minutes, however, you know.
Mine turned red (positive) in about ten seconds.
"Alright, we have to admit you now, at least for the night, maybe longer, while we finish these tests," she declared.
"No!" I insisted. "I promise I will take all of the medicines when I am supposed to...I promise I will call if I get more sick...I promise..." I trailed off.
"So you honestly think, given that you have been hallucinating for the past 48 hours, that you will be timely about taking these medicines every four hours? You honestly think that your housekeeper and gardener will now what to do if you have a seizure or slip into a coma? Really? Because with your temperature, that is definitely what's coming next..." she pushed.
I thought about the past two days of having Kate and Godfrey watch me walking around the house trying to find my dead grandmother and sharing Proust with my dogs and realized I couldn't possibly subject them to this.
"Alright, I'll stay," I said.
"Good. Now take these," handing me four huge tablets," and I will get you set up with an IV in a few minutes," she said.
I looked her straight in the eye.
"Tamara, I don't want an IV. I don't doubt the cleanliness and efficacy of this clinic but I really still have an aversion to putting needles into my veins anywhere outside of the U.S., and even there I rarely submit. I don't mean to be rude but, please, is there another way?" I begged.
"Yes, there is. But that is going to entail you drinking a minimum of ten liters of fluid ever four hours. The malaria that you have infects not only your blood, but your tissues. When we start killing them off with those tablets, you have to flush them out so they don't lodge anywhere and cause hemorrhaging. Can you drink ten litres of fluid...and by this I mean juice, not water, in four hours?" she asked.
I promised her that I could.
Then I went out to the parking lot to find Robert and send him to the store to get me ten boxes of juice...big boxes.
He was so thrilled to hear it was malaria he almost hugged me.
"Such good news, Madame Boss! Such good news!" he said.
This is quite sad, actually.
Most Africans suffer from malaria dozens if not hundreds of times in their lives. It is so common that me telling him I had malaria was like me telling him I had a common house cold. Much better than the mysterious "flu."
"No, Robert, it is not good news. Whites from North America don't get malaria so we have no resistance. And this is the malaria from the Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, the bad kind," I told him.
Then he asked me what kind of juice I wanted. At this point the medicine was starting to kick in and I was beginning to get much worse (treating malaria is often much worse than actually suffering it) and I muttered, "I don't care, I am OK with anything but bananas. I like other fruit just fine."
As he walked off I had the fleeting thought, "And coconuts, I hate coconuts," but then shelved it away as so random that soon I dismissed it. I had never even seen coconut juice here.
I crawled back into my hospital room and made a series of phone calls to Liz, my boss here, my bosses in DC, and explained what was going on.
What ensued was panic as, I have said, North Americans don't get malaria where we come from so the mere mention of the word scares the hell out of people.
I finally dozed off about thirty minutes later when Tamara knocked on the door with my bagfuls of juice.
I peered inside.
Pina Colada Juice.
Coconuts.
10 litres of coconut juice.
I groaned and my stomach turned.
"Now, these two boxes, right now, in front of me and then I want to see the other two gone in an hour and a half," she said.
So miserable that I was resigned to my fate, I closed my eyes and slugged down the two litres of coconut juice, willed myself not to vomit, and went back to bed.
For the next six hours, I was admitted at 6PM, I was in a complete daze. I got up and took my medicine, slugged down a box or two of coconut juice, and went back to bed. I was sweating from the fever so profusely that my entire room smelled like a tropical island.
Finally, at midnight, a new nurse came on: Cathy the German.
Like most Germans, Cathy was no bullshit. She was kind and sympathetic, but also direct. My kind of doctor or nurse, in short. She came in and saw that I had failed to finish my pina coladas and went to get the IV fluids.
"Cathy, please...can I just have water? It's not that I can't or won't drink...it's just that my stomach hurts so badly from the coconut juice that I feel sick all the time, is there anything else?" I begged.
She returned with four liters of water and a syringe. In the syringe was a super-dose of painkiller and an anti-nausea drug. I dutifully rolled over and, within, ten minutes, was out cold.
I awoke again at 4AM feeling marginally better and wandered out to the nurses' station to find Cathy.
"Here, look at this!" she said, scooting over from the microscope.
I peered in and, previously gotten acquainted with looking at dog's blood under microscopes who had blood parasites, immediately felt myself recoil.
"It that mine?" I whispered.
"Sure is! We're all surprised, quite frankly, that you didn't seizure before this point," she told me, matter-of-factly.
"Cathy, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Just tell me, am I going to get better?" I asked.
"You should be just fine in about a week. You've got one hell of a case but you'll recover. Just don't wait so long the next time, what were you thinking?" she admonished.
I was out of excuses and went back to bed.
At 9 o'clock the next morning, Dr. Stockley, my normal physician, bellowed from the hall:
"Taft!!!! Where the hell are you...you insane cuss?"
Dr. Stockley is the owner of the clinic and a former British Navy doctor. He has no bedside manner to speak of, whatsoever, but he runs the best clinic in Kampala and hires damn professional staff. Nevertheless, we became friends when he treated me for my first round of so-called-malaria back in April and also fixed my leg after I got in a motorcycle accident in November.
He came storming into the room and said, "What the fuck is going on in here? It smells like I am in goddamn Tahiti or on the set of Hawaii Five-O...what is that shite?" he gestured towards the coconut juice on the bedside table.
I opened my mouth to explain and he held up a hand.
"I don't want to hear it. I would slap you if I didn't think you were going to throw up all over me with that vile coconut shite you've been consuming, Christ, girl!!"
"Alright, you can go home. Your temperature is back in normal range and your parasite count has dropped significantly. Someone loves your dumb ass because you should actually be dead by now, but just get out of my sight and take your medicines and CALL ME if you start talking to Elvis, your dead aunts, or whoever else you were seeing," he instructed.
I stood up unsteadily and went downstairs to pick up my bags of medicines and pay my tab.
(As a note on the asinine American healthcare debate...I have no health insurance. I get a decent monthly stipend to pay for healthcare costs but I do not have formal healthcare insurance as most companies will not insure Americans who have spent more than 35% of the past decade in a third world countries where they may or may not have been exposed to infectious disease. Thus, this put me shit-out-of luck along with many of my friends as the type of insurance that will cover us costs about 15 times what normal health insurance does. It also pretty much guarantees, now that I have had malaria twice, that I will never get decent coverage again).
Waiting nervously to hear the tally, I nearly fell down when the nurse said, "250 thousand shillings, please."
That would be about $125.
I couldn't believe it.
"That's it?!" I asked, shocked. This is a clinic that mainly caters to white people, afterall.
"Is that too much?" she asked, "We can set up a payment plan for you since you are such a good customer," she offered, pulling out the forms.
"No, no! It's fine. Thank you so much!!" I told her.
In America, a day-and-a-half of intensive care, antibiotics, bloodtests, and injections would have been over $5,000. Probably more. Probably a lot more.
When I got home, before I crawled back to bed, I checked the price that the drug I was given for the malaria, Lomart, was charged at, per pill, in the U.S. for someone without health insurance. $85. In Canada, $10; in the UK; $8, in France, $7. In Uganda? $0.08. Same maker, same drug, same everything. It made me very angry.
So I went to bed.
I don't remember the next twenty four hours too well at all. All I know is that treating malaria is indeed almost as bad as suffering it.
On Thursday night at 11pm I found myself begging God, Allah, Yahweh, the Universe, whomever, to make it stop. It was getting better, but not without a fight.
I wandered out at 5am to try to get some tea and bread down and found Kate peering at me across the counter.
"Your grandmother here again?" she asked.
"No, I am done with that, I promise. Can you just make me some tea...and, um, I am sorry I have been acting so strangely the past week..." I said.
She shrugged as if to say, "Hey, white people are all nuts...what are you going to do about it?"
Last night, around 10pm, it started to go away completely. I felt so much better that I actually went out in the garden and played with my neglected, but erudite, dogs for an hour.
I couldn't believe how good I felt. I couldn't believe how good it felt to be alive.
I remembered my friend's words from years ago and added my own prayer to his.
Never, ever again without the anti-malarials, I can promise you that much. I think I'll be taking them in the Arctic.
Even though it was fun talking to Eric Clapton and Shakespeare for awhile there.
05 December 2009
Gadgets
I have lived in my new home for about ten days.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, I now have a full-time gardener/guard and a housekeeper who live with me. I haven't lived with anyone in about four years so this is an interesting adjustment.
The first night, Kate, my housekeeper/cook came to me with the can opener at 10pm as I was working on a legal memo for the High Court.
Kate, my driver Robert's sister, is wonderful but she has only worked for Somalis before me and, before that, had been raised in the same rural village that Robert grew up in.
She is super-smart and sweet as can be but she has no familiarity whatsoever with gadgets and electronics.
Robert insisted that this was a good thing as people who don't know the value of things are less likely to steal them (odd logic, but OK) but it does present other issues.
"Madame Boss (I still HATE this title and keep trying to get everyone to call me 'Patricia' but am having no luck), what is this...thing?" she said as she held out the can opener.
"It's a can opener," I told her.
Seeing the look of complete confusion on her face, I got up and went with her to the kitchen to demonstrate.
I opened a can of dog food for Ginger and Ssebo, my dogs, and handed it back to her.
She smiled at me and called in Godfrey, the gardener/guard, to show him.
The next morning, every can in my pantry was open. Dog food, tomatoes, kidney beans, soup, peas, and tuna fish. All open.
"Madame Boss!" Godfrey called, "Look, I have opened all of the cans! This thing is amazing!"
The other odd thing about having two employees who live with me is that I am fed all of the time.
Kate makes me breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I have never been a hearty eater but waking up every morning to a three-course breakfast is overwhelming. My lunch is always neatly packed in a container and ready for me at 9am when I leave for the office. At 7pm, Kate starts cooking dinner.
"There are plenty of leftovers from last night," I told Kate on Wednesday evening, after she made a massive chicken dinner on Tuesday night. "Don't cook dinner again, I can eat the remaining chicken you made last night."
She looked at me like I had fallen off the moon.
"My job is to cook for you and make sure everything is clean. If I can not cook tonight, then what am I supposed to do?" she asked me.
I felt embarrassed and told her to go ahead and cook, we'd figure out what to do with the leftovers.
By Thursday, I had enough food in my refrigerator to feed half of Kampala.
Wasting food in a country where people are hungry stresses me out. So I gave all of the food to Kate and Godfrey and told them to give it to everyone they knew.
Then we confronted the microwave.
"Thank you so much for the food, Madame Boss," Godfrey said, "But how do we heat it?"
I was in the middle of editing a 120-page legal opinion for the government, on a Skype call with a lawyer from my organization recently relocated to Tanzania, and doing the end-of-month accounting so I was completely distracted.
"Just throw it in the microwave," I said, not thinking.
Kate came into my office an hour later, looking upset.
"Sorry to disturb you but...it isn't working," she told me.
I went into the kitchen and discovered that all of the food, about 17 containers, were shoved in the microwave and the internal light was switched on but that was about it.
"Oh, it's OK, you switched on the light, not the actual microwave...here, let me show you..." I said.
As I proceeded to heat up seventeen plastic containers of food, Kate made an interesting observation.
"Americans are strange," she said, "Why do you need all of these things? Doesn't fire work just as well? Are all Americans like this? You need all of these...gadgets?"
Meanwhile, Godfrey was in the pantry opening the newest cans I had brought back from the store that day.
Godfrey is currently the most favorite person in my world right now, besides Eric, the handsome internet service provider who smells so damn good.
Like Eric, and hundreds of Ugandans, he fought in the civil war here that went on from the late 1970s to mid-1980s and he is half Ugandan and half Rwandan. He went back to the war in 1994 during the genocide in Rwanda on the side of the RPF (Tutsis) and is probably more loyal to President Kagame of Rwanda than President Museveni of Uganda.
He also speaks flawless English.
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that killed almost a million people in 30 days, Kagame often used aid money to hire instructors who were mainly Irish and British to teach his troops English. Sometimes at the expense of not giving his soldiers medicine or weapons. It was an odd strategy but, to this day, you will find regular foot soldiers from Rwanda who speak English perfectly, even if they cannot read or write. Godfreyi s one of those people.
But Godfrey has been at war for a good portion of his life. So living with me, my dogs, and my other pets in this huge house in Kampala overlooking Lake Victoria seems to be paradise. He wants to please me so badly that opening every can in my pantry seemed logical. He also knows I love flowers and puts roses from the garden in each room daily. He waits for the hour in the evening where we spend time on my balcony with me teaching him how to read and write English just as well as he can speak speak it. He wants to be a teacher when he saves some money for school.
As for me, I wait for our final ritual of the evening, training the dogs, just as expectantly. It is normally midnight when I wander outside to meet him and the dogs and we spend 45 minutes training them how to sit, stay, lie down, and roll over. Then Godfrey stays up all night with them reinforcing the command, like a drill sergeant. When I came out of the house Friday morning to go to work, Ginger ran up to me and immediately obeyed every command that Godfrey and I had worked on the prior night.
"You are amazing!" I told him. "How did you do that? It takes dog trainers in America weeks to teach a dog those commands that easily!"
He shrugged, it was easy for him.
The microwave was a different story.
Kate, clearly annoyed with American technology and gadgets, said to Godfrey, "You figure out how to use this machine, I don't want to be involved."
Godfrey stood beside me as I demonstrated the skills of "Microwave 101" to him.
He looked me straight in the eye and said,
"Madame Boss, this is amazing. But why don't we just heat this food on the stove? It is so much easier. This microwave is not like the can opener...now THAT has a purpose..."
I paused and declared that he was right. It made sense.
Kate was watching though, and discovered a new purpose for the microwave: drying clothes.
I saw her do it with a wet towel at one point and thought, "Well, OK, if that works, who am I to correct her?"
But then Friday, sitting in my office eating the leftovers from my breakfast at 7pm as Kate was cooking me up another round of dinner, I smelled something burning. I ignored it at first, thinking something must have spilled on the stove, until it became overwhelming. It didn't smell like food, it smelled like...plastic or something.
"Kate, what is burning?" I called from the office.
I heard her gasp and ran out to see what was going on.
I found my underwear on fire in the microwave. All of the tiny flowers and cute appliques that seemed so durable reduced to a smoldering, melted, pile in the microwave.
Honestly, I burst out laughing. Yes, it was a bit of an expensive loss but I just never thought to put underwear in the microwave before.
"Kate, why did you do this?" I asked when I could breathe normally again.
"Wasn't me, " she said, "These were the last things I needed to iron before cooking dinner and Godfrey thought they could dry in this...machine. It worked for the dish towels but not for these. I am so sorry, though."
I walked out onto the lawn, where Godfrey was training the dogs, and said, "Hey, Godfrey, don't put my, um, clothes...my women's clothes...my women's, um, underclothes, in the microwave anymore, please, they burn."
He looked horrified so I let it drop. No one has touched the microwave since.
Then there was the missing box of red wine.
Admittedly, I am obsessed with grocery shopping. It is both a practical and spiritual event for me...and even a social one. I love going to the grocery store and Robert and I go on a daily basis. It's not that I NEED to shop that much, I don't, but it is just a habit carried here from the U.S. that I never got rid of.
This practice confounds Kate and Godfrey who, rightfully, see it as wasteful. They also don't quite understand the products I bring home because I actually don't shop for basic staples at the grocery store (either me or Kate goes to the bustling African market for those supplies), I buy alcohol and whatever happens to catch my fancy on a particular day. I have a rule: I never spend more than $20 on anything but, prices being what they are here, I can sometimes do a lot with $20.
"Hey, Kate," I called on Tuesday night, as my colleague Liz and I were setting up for a series of long phone conversations on the computer with the home office and both felt like a glass of wine, "where is the box of wine I brought home yesterday?"
(Yes, I am drinking wine in boxes these days but that is because it is decent South African wine and not the crap found in boxed wines in the U.S.)
Kate came out to the porch and looked at me nervously.
"Which box?" she asked.
"The wine. The box of wine. I have looked all over the kitchen and pantry for it and I can't find it anywhere. Do you know where you put it when you helped me unpack yesterday?" I asked.
We went to the kitchen together and Kate opened the freezer to reveal a perfectly frozen 3 liter box of Merlot.
"This?" she said.
"Yeah, that would be it," I said.
"What IS it?" Kate asked.
"Wine. The grape juice of the Gods. The nectar of heaven. Wine..." I tried.
I had part of a bottle left in the pantry so I opened it and passed it to Kate. "Do you want to try it?" I said.
She hesitantly took a tiny glassful, took one sip, and spit it out in the sink.
"Awful," she declared, "THAT gives you pleasure? It's poison!"
Godfrey, on the other hand, had no such issues. He grabbed a coffee mug, poured himself a decent-sized glassful, and downed it in three minutes. He looked at me and then at Kate and said, "You see, she is from the village...but me, I know wine. I have lived in the city!"
("Yeah? But then why are you putting my panties in the microwave?" I wanted to ask but held my tongue)
"Wine's frozen," I called out to Liz, "how 'bout a beer?"
She didn't even blink or register any surprise.
"Stella (her housekeeper) keeps putting my Camembert cheese in the same drawer with the sponges. No matter how many times I explain or tell her that it is food, and not a cleaning product, she still doesn't believe me," Liz said.
I love Camembert cheese too, but sort of understood the mistake.
"So what did you say to Stella?" I asked.
"I did the same thing you just did with the wine. And got the same reaction. She thought I was trying to poison her with the cheese. Said it was the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted in her life. Then she told me that if I kept eating it, my tits would shrink," she said.
"Least you're not having that problem," she mentioned, pointing to my chest.
The emulsion blender was the final straw for Kate. It is a hand held-blender that basically eliminates the need for a conventional blender or a food processor, neither one of which is too common in Uganda. But I had bought this one in South Africa and it remains one of my absolute favorite gadgets.
Kate and I were busy making potato soup on Friday when I pulled it out to demonstrate.
Kate looked at me curiously and then gave it a go.
"I like this one. But I have seen these before. You have one in your bedroom drawer," she said, "so did Amina, my former boss. I just didn't know they were used for soup too..."
I was completely confused. "Too?"
What was in my bedroom drawer that looked like the handheld blender?
When it dawned on me I blushed three different shades of purple.
"Kate, that is not for soup, the one in the bedroom. Never for soup." I said.
She looked at me like I was a complete moron.
"I thought not," she said, "But this looks a lot like it. Do you want me to get Godfrey? He likes all of your American toys..."
"No, please don't get Godfrey. Most certainly DO NOT get Godfrey about this blender or the one in the bedroom...NEVER," I insisted.
She winked at me and we went back to cooking.
Maybe a return to simplicity is needed.
In the meantime, nothing has started shrinking yet but I am watching carefully.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, I now have a full-time gardener/guard and a housekeeper who live with me. I haven't lived with anyone in about four years so this is an interesting adjustment.
The first night, Kate, my housekeeper/cook came to me with the can opener at 10pm as I was working on a legal memo for the High Court.
Kate, my driver Robert's sister, is wonderful but she has only worked for Somalis before me and, before that, had been raised in the same rural village that Robert grew up in.
She is super-smart and sweet as can be but she has no familiarity whatsoever with gadgets and electronics.
Robert insisted that this was a good thing as people who don't know the value of things are less likely to steal them (odd logic, but OK) but it does present other issues.
"Madame Boss (I still HATE this title and keep trying to get everyone to call me 'Patricia' but am having no luck), what is this...thing?" she said as she held out the can opener.
"It's a can opener," I told her.
Seeing the look of complete confusion on her face, I got up and went with her to the kitchen to demonstrate.
I opened a can of dog food for Ginger and Ssebo, my dogs, and handed it back to her.
She smiled at me and called in Godfrey, the gardener/guard, to show him.
The next morning, every can in my pantry was open. Dog food, tomatoes, kidney beans, soup, peas, and tuna fish. All open.
"Madame Boss!" Godfrey called, "Look, I have opened all of the cans! This thing is amazing!"
The other odd thing about having two employees who live with me is that I am fed all of the time.
Kate makes me breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I have never been a hearty eater but waking up every morning to a three-course breakfast is overwhelming. My lunch is always neatly packed in a container and ready for me at 9am when I leave for the office. At 7pm, Kate starts cooking dinner.
"There are plenty of leftovers from last night," I told Kate on Wednesday evening, after she made a massive chicken dinner on Tuesday night. "Don't cook dinner again, I can eat the remaining chicken you made last night."
She looked at me like I had fallen off the moon.
"My job is to cook for you and make sure everything is clean. If I can not cook tonight, then what am I supposed to do?" she asked me.
I felt embarrassed and told her to go ahead and cook, we'd figure out what to do with the leftovers.
By Thursday, I had enough food in my refrigerator to feed half of Kampala.
Wasting food in a country where people are hungry stresses me out. So I gave all of the food to Kate and Godfrey and told them to give it to everyone they knew.
Then we confronted the microwave.
"Thank you so much for the food, Madame Boss," Godfrey said, "But how do we heat it?"
I was in the middle of editing a 120-page legal opinion for the government, on a Skype call with a lawyer from my organization recently relocated to Tanzania, and doing the end-of-month accounting so I was completely distracted.
"Just throw it in the microwave," I said, not thinking.
Kate came into my office an hour later, looking upset.
"Sorry to disturb you but...it isn't working," she told me.
I went into the kitchen and discovered that all of the food, about 17 containers, were shoved in the microwave and the internal light was switched on but that was about it.
"Oh, it's OK, you switched on the light, not the actual microwave...here, let me show you..." I said.
As I proceeded to heat up seventeen plastic containers of food, Kate made an interesting observation.
"Americans are strange," she said, "Why do you need all of these things? Doesn't fire work just as well? Are all Americans like this? You need all of these...gadgets?"
Meanwhile, Godfrey was in the pantry opening the newest cans I had brought back from the store that day.
Godfrey is currently the most favorite person in my world right now, besides Eric, the handsome internet service provider who smells so damn good.
Like Eric, and hundreds of Ugandans, he fought in the civil war here that went on from the late 1970s to mid-1980s and he is half Ugandan and half Rwandan. He went back to the war in 1994 during the genocide in Rwanda on the side of the RPF (Tutsis) and is probably more loyal to President Kagame of Rwanda than President Museveni of Uganda.
He also speaks flawless English.
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that killed almost a million people in 30 days, Kagame often used aid money to hire instructors who were mainly Irish and British to teach his troops English. Sometimes at the expense of not giving his soldiers medicine or weapons. It was an odd strategy but, to this day, you will find regular foot soldiers from Rwanda who speak English perfectly, even if they cannot read or write. Godfreyi s one of those people.
But Godfrey has been at war for a good portion of his life. So living with me, my dogs, and my other pets in this huge house in Kampala overlooking Lake Victoria seems to be paradise. He wants to please me so badly that opening every can in my pantry seemed logical. He also knows I love flowers and puts roses from the garden in each room daily. He waits for the hour in the evening where we spend time on my balcony with me teaching him how to read and write English just as well as he can speak speak it. He wants to be a teacher when he saves some money for school.
As for me, I wait for our final ritual of the evening, training the dogs, just as expectantly. It is normally midnight when I wander outside to meet him and the dogs and we spend 45 minutes training them how to sit, stay, lie down, and roll over. Then Godfrey stays up all night with them reinforcing the command, like a drill sergeant. When I came out of the house Friday morning to go to work, Ginger ran up to me and immediately obeyed every command that Godfrey and I had worked on the prior night.
"You are amazing!" I told him. "How did you do that? It takes dog trainers in America weeks to teach a dog those commands that easily!"
He shrugged, it was easy for him.
The microwave was a different story.
Kate, clearly annoyed with American technology and gadgets, said to Godfrey, "You figure out how to use this machine, I don't want to be involved."
Godfrey stood beside me as I demonstrated the skills of "Microwave 101" to him.
He looked me straight in the eye and said,
"Madame Boss, this is amazing. But why don't we just heat this food on the stove? It is so much easier. This microwave is not like the can opener...now THAT has a purpose..."
I paused and declared that he was right. It made sense.
Kate was watching though, and discovered a new purpose for the microwave: drying clothes.
I saw her do it with a wet towel at one point and thought, "Well, OK, if that works, who am I to correct her?"
But then Friday, sitting in my office eating the leftovers from my breakfast at 7pm as Kate was cooking me up another round of dinner, I smelled something burning. I ignored it at first, thinking something must have spilled on the stove, until it became overwhelming. It didn't smell like food, it smelled like...plastic or something.
"Kate, what is burning?" I called from the office.
I heard her gasp and ran out to see what was going on.
I found my underwear on fire in the microwave. All of the tiny flowers and cute appliques that seemed so durable reduced to a smoldering, melted, pile in the microwave.
Honestly, I burst out laughing. Yes, it was a bit of an expensive loss but I just never thought to put underwear in the microwave before.
"Kate, why did you do this?" I asked when I could breathe normally again.
"Wasn't me, " she said, "These were the last things I needed to iron before cooking dinner and Godfrey thought they could dry in this...machine. It worked for the dish towels but not for these. I am so sorry, though."
I walked out onto the lawn, where Godfrey was training the dogs, and said, "Hey, Godfrey, don't put my, um, clothes...my women's clothes...my women's, um, underclothes, in the microwave anymore, please, they burn."
He looked horrified so I let it drop. No one has touched the microwave since.
Then there was the missing box of red wine.
Admittedly, I am obsessed with grocery shopping. It is both a practical and spiritual event for me...and even a social one. I love going to the grocery store and Robert and I go on a daily basis. It's not that I NEED to shop that much, I don't, but it is just a habit carried here from the U.S. that I never got rid of.
This practice confounds Kate and Godfrey who, rightfully, see it as wasteful. They also don't quite understand the products I bring home because I actually don't shop for basic staples at the grocery store (either me or Kate goes to the bustling African market for those supplies), I buy alcohol and whatever happens to catch my fancy on a particular day. I have a rule: I never spend more than $20 on anything but, prices being what they are here, I can sometimes do a lot with $20.
"Hey, Kate," I called on Tuesday night, as my colleague Liz and I were setting up for a series of long phone conversations on the computer with the home office and both felt like a glass of wine, "where is the box of wine I brought home yesterday?"
(Yes, I am drinking wine in boxes these days but that is because it is decent South African wine and not the crap found in boxed wines in the U.S.)
Kate came out to the porch and looked at me nervously.
"Which box?" she asked.
"The wine. The box of wine. I have looked all over the kitchen and pantry for it and I can't find it anywhere. Do you know where you put it when you helped me unpack yesterday?" I asked.
We went to the kitchen together and Kate opened the freezer to reveal a perfectly frozen 3 liter box of Merlot.
"This?" she said.
"Yeah, that would be it," I said.
"What IS it?" Kate asked.
"Wine. The grape juice of the Gods. The nectar of heaven. Wine..." I tried.
I had part of a bottle left in the pantry so I opened it and passed it to Kate. "Do you want to try it?" I said.
She hesitantly took a tiny glassful, took one sip, and spit it out in the sink.
"Awful," she declared, "THAT gives you pleasure? It's poison!"
Godfrey, on the other hand, had no such issues. He grabbed a coffee mug, poured himself a decent-sized glassful, and downed it in three minutes. He looked at me and then at Kate and said, "You see, she is from the village...but me, I know wine. I have lived in the city!"
("Yeah? But then why are you putting my panties in the microwave?" I wanted to ask but held my tongue)
"Wine's frozen," I called out to Liz, "how 'bout a beer?"
She didn't even blink or register any surprise.
"Stella (her housekeeper) keeps putting my Camembert cheese in the same drawer with the sponges. No matter how many times I explain or tell her that it is food, and not a cleaning product, she still doesn't believe me," Liz said.
I love Camembert cheese too, but sort of understood the mistake.
"So what did you say to Stella?" I asked.
"I did the same thing you just did with the wine. And got the same reaction. She thought I was trying to poison her with the cheese. Said it was the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted in her life. Then she told me that if I kept eating it, my tits would shrink," she said.
"Least you're not having that problem," she mentioned, pointing to my chest.
The emulsion blender was the final straw for Kate. It is a hand held-blender that basically eliminates the need for a conventional blender or a food processor, neither one of which is too common in Uganda. But I had bought this one in South Africa and it remains one of my absolute favorite gadgets.
Kate and I were busy making potato soup on Friday when I pulled it out to demonstrate.
Kate looked at me curiously and then gave it a go.
"I like this one. But I have seen these before. You have one in your bedroom drawer," she said, "so did Amina, my former boss. I just didn't know they were used for soup too..."
I was completely confused. "Too?"
What was in my bedroom drawer that looked like the handheld blender?
When it dawned on me I blushed three different shades of purple.
"Kate, that is not for soup, the one in the bedroom. Never for soup." I said.
She looked at me like I was a complete moron.
"I thought not," she said, "But this looks a lot like it. Do you want me to get Godfrey? He likes all of your American toys..."
"No, please don't get Godfrey. Most certainly DO NOT get Godfrey about this blender or the one in the bedroom...NEVER," I insisted.
She winked at me and we went back to cooking.
Maybe a return to simplicity is needed.
In the meantime, nothing has started shrinking yet but I am watching carefully.
Why we ask Why
So I did it again.
I talked to my ex for almost four hours last night.
I have no idea why I sometimes feel compelled to talk to him but I do. I think it is because I hate feeling like there is "bad blood" between me and someone else. I think it is because I am the polar opposite of someone who burns bridges in human relationships...I want to ensure that all of the architecture of my relationships is intact. I don't like feeling like someone out there is angry at me or disappointed in me. I don't like unanswered questions. I don't like having to ask, "Why?"
I wasn't always like this. In my teens through my mid-twenties I was one of the most destructive people you could wish to avoid. No, I was never cruel and I never set out to do bad things, but when they happened I would walk away with the buildings burning in the background and a trail of blood following behind.
I was ruled by a philosophy that said, "If this is good, then THAT has to be better!"
I applied that philosophy liberally to both people and things.
It worked wonders for me professionally, as I was always compelling myself to go for things that most people said were "impossible" to achieve at my age, being my gender, etc.
With human beings, however, it didn't work quite as well. Jobs don't have feelings, but people do.
I have always been good with friendships, but intimate relationships have been the problem.
Throughout my twenties I was the source of continual pain for my ex-boyfriend after another one of my little "dalliances" was discovered. I put him through hell. I never had multiple affairs but the couple that I did tore him apart. He couldn't understand why I was seeking outside of what was otherwise a very amazing relationship and good friendship.
We were together for the better part of eight years and, thank God, he is still one of my best friends in the world today. But he couldn't stop asking me "why" and that's what brought the house down in the end.
I have come to realize that an infidelity is like a splinter. You know it's there and you can still function with it because it is not crippling but when you start paying attention to it, then it starts getting worse. It itches and burns, you try to dig it out and it gets lodged in further, until you have created a mortal wound in an attempt to only get out a splinter.
"Why? Patti, why?" Ed would ask, night after night.
I couldn't explain. To this day I am not sure if I can honestly offer a good answer.
Finally, he left. He couldn't ignore the splinter anymore even though I was long past trying to inflict any more damage on the relationship.
"Karma is going to catch up to you and kick your ass," he told me.
He was right.
Within two months I got involved in what very well may be termed, "The most disastrous relationship of my life."
It sent me reeling into a depression that lasted, on and off, for two years.
When I got clear of that mess I declared a "dry season." No more men for at least six months.
Then I got back together with a former boyfriend who, to this day, I swear is gay.
Obviously, that didn't work out too well and I tried again to not get involved with anyone of the male species for three months, realizing that six was unrealistic.
After making that grand declaration, I got assigned to work with the U.S. Marine Corps for three months and spend eight hours a day around perfectly fit and handsome men in uniform.
"Why, God, why?!!!" I kept asking.
My mother, of course, found this all quite amusing.
"You are being tested, Patti. You and your grand statements. But hang in there, the Universe is just having a laugh at you. After all the crap you pulled with your ex-boyfriends over the years, this is your penance," she said.
Ha ha. Very funny.
Amazingly, with a near snag of almost getting involved with a married Marine, I managed to pass that test.
I was triumphant.
"See?!!!" I said to my mother, "See how I did that? Karma is satisfied now. NOW I can have a normal relationship and my debt for all the pain I have caused is paid."
"Maybe," she said, "but I don't think so."
Cynic.
So then I met Scott.
If someone could have held up a bigger warning sign that said, "DO NOT GO HERE!!!" than all of my family and friends held up to me, I don't know who that person is.
"So tell me about him," my mother said, "HONESTLY, no romantic bullshit, please."
Married, but getting divorced. Two grown children. Army. History of infidelity. Handsome. Incredibly smart.
"Are you completely out of your mind?!! Have you lost every last shred of sanity? Now you are not testing karma, you are just being an asshole," she said.
"What the hell is wrong with you? I know you don't use drugs but have you suddenly started smoking crack or shooting heroin? What the hell are you thinking, girl?" my Marine friend J, screamed at me.
"Patti, please don't do this. Please. I know this scenario. I know how it is going to turn out. I did this very same thing and I can promise you that it doesn't turn out well," my best friend, Connie, said to me.
Kay, a former Army police woman, was even more forceful, "I am NOT letting you do this. You know better. You know this cannot turn out any way but completely screwed up. I know these guys...I was one of them. I absolutely forbid you doing this. Don't you dare..."
Well, I didn't listen to anybody.
And it turned out just as badly as everyone predicted. Maybe even worse.
So when I see Scott online sometimes, I can't help myself.
Honestly, he really is a good guy. He is all the wonderful things I thought about him but he is also all of the fucked up things everyone warned me about. I knew that going into it and could never fully commit, so it is no wonder our relationship got on like two neighboring houses on fire. But I still can't get over the fact that he cheated on me and had an entire other relationship going on while he was still telling me, "I love you, you're my soul mate."
That's why I ask "why."
"Why?" I asked again last night.
Obviously, these conversations never turn out well.
But, like a baby with wet fingers crawling towards an open light socket, I go right back at it when I see him online.
My friend Liz is constantly amazed. She is the polar opposite of me. She is grounded, slightly cold, and able to shred people apart and not feel the slightest twinge of emotion. She's an amazing lawyer for that reason, but she treats people and things the way I used to.
I called her this morning to admit what I had done...like an addict who smoked a forbidden cigarette or a diabetic who snuck a piece of double-chocolate cake.
"Oh Jesus, not again, Patti?!" she said, "Really? Again?"
"I just want to know 'why?'" I said.
"Why WHAT? What do you want to know?" she demanded.
Before I could even start, she said, "Listen to me and don't say a word, OK? He left you for a suicidal tax accountant, OK?"
She continued:
"For me, I would be laughing my ass off if this happened. What did you tell me about the laws of karma? It doesn't just work for you that way, my dear, it works for everyone that way. For now, just picture them sharing a calculator together and get over it. It's not in your hands any longer."
"But I just hate feeling like there is someone out there who is upset with me. I hate being upset with someone out there to the point that it creeps up and annoys me every few days...it's like a splinter," I protested.
There was silence on the other end of the phone until I heard a loud WHAP.
"What the hell was that?" I asked Liz.
"I just killed a ladybug that was crawling on my wall in the hotel room, it was getting on my nerves," she said.
"Ladybugs are good luck, Liz, just like praying mantises, you're not supposed to kill them," I scolded.
"Oh well, I guess, according to your karmic rules, I will be coming back as a ladybug," she joked.
Since Liz clearly had no sympathy for my plight, I called Monique, my French friend.
"Yes, I asked 'why' too for about four months and then I decided to drink his entire expensive wine cellar and get a dog that attacks him every time he comes in the house," she said, upon hearing my tale.
"I don't want revenge, Monique, I just want to understand," I said.
"If I were you, I would just say, 'thank you,' and enjoy the rest of your time here," she said.
"Who am I thanking?" I asked.
"God, the Universe, whoever you pray to. I know you are spiritual so that's what I would do if I were you. It didn't work, you don't need to understand 'why' but you do need to thank God for making sure you didn't get involved in something that was going to take you off your path. This relationship was taking you off your path. So say 'thank you' and let it go," she advised.
"How did you get that information?" I asked.
"I don't know, I just felt compelled to say it to you. I don't know where it came from," she admitted.
"Now, come over and let's drink champagne all day and make bread. I just got a new bread machine from France and I am dying to test it out," she said.
"I hate champagne, Monique," I reminded her, "Plus I have a date tonight with Eric, I don't want to be drunk."
"Ah, right. I forgot. OK, then I am coming over to your house. Just tie that stupid goat of yours up. Last time she ate the hem off of my skirt!" Monique said.
"Tomorrow we can make bread and drink wine all day," I said, "Not today."
"Tomorrow the sky might fall down and the yeast will not rise...stop being so American, I am coming over now," she said.
I was about to ask "why?" but then shut my mouth.
I talked to my ex for almost four hours last night.
I have no idea why I sometimes feel compelled to talk to him but I do. I think it is because I hate feeling like there is "bad blood" between me and someone else. I think it is because I am the polar opposite of someone who burns bridges in human relationships...I want to ensure that all of the architecture of my relationships is intact. I don't like feeling like someone out there is angry at me or disappointed in me. I don't like unanswered questions. I don't like having to ask, "Why?"
I wasn't always like this. In my teens through my mid-twenties I was one of the most destructive people you could wish to avoid. No, I was never cruel and I never set out to do bad things, but when they happened I would walk away with the buildings burning in the background and a trail of blood following behind.
I was ruled by a philosophy that said, "If this is good, then THAT has to be better!"
I applied that philosophy liberally to both people and things.
It worked wonders for me professionally, as I was always compelling myself to go for things that most people said were "impossible" to achieve at my age, being my gender, etc.
With human beings, however, it didn't work quite as well. Jobs don't have feelings, but people do.
I have always been good with friendships, but intimate relationships have been the problem.
Throughout my twenties I was the source of continual pain for my ex-boyfriend after another one of my little "dalliances" was discovered. I put him through hell. I never had multiple affairs but the couple that I did tore him apart. He couldn't understand why I was seeking outside of what was otherwise a very amazing relationship and good friendship.
We were together for the better part of eight years and, thank God, he is still one of my best friends in the world today. But he couldn't stop asking me "why" and that's what brought the house down in the end.
I have come to realize that an infidelity is like a splinter. You know it's there and you can still function with it because it is not crippling but when you start paying attention to it, then it starts getting worse. It itches and burns, you try to dig it out and it gets lodged in further, until you have created a mortal wound in an attempt to only get out a splinter.
"Why? Patti, why?" Ed would ask, night after night.
I couldn't explain. To this day I am not sure if I can honestly offer a good answer.
Finally, he left. He couldn't ignore the splinter anymore even though I was long past trying to inflict any more damage on the relationship.
"Karma is going to catch up to you and kick your ass," he told me.
He was right.
Within two months I got involved in what very well may be termed, "The most disastrous relationship of my life."
It sent me reeling into a depression that lasted, on and off, for two years.
When I got clear of that mess I declared a "dry season." No more men for at least six months.
Then I got back together with a former boyfriend who, to this day, I swear is gay.
Obviously, that didn't work out too well and I tried again to not get involved with anyone of the male species for three months, realizing that six was unrealistic.
After making that grand declaration, I got assigned to work with the U.S. Marine Corps for three months and spend eight hours a day around perfectly fit and handsome men in uniform.
"Why, God, why?!!!" I kept asking.
My mother, of course, found this all quite amusing.
"You are being tested, Patti. You and your grand statements. But hang in there, the Universe is just having a laugh at you. After all the crap you pulled with your ex-boyfriends over the years, this is your penance," she said.
Ha ha. Very funny.
Amazingly, with a near snag of almost getting involved with a married Marine, I managed to pass that test.
I was triumphant.
"See?!!!" I said to my mother, "See how I did that? Karma is satisfied now. NOW I can have a normal relationship and my debt for all the pain I have caused is paid."
"Maybe," she said, "but I don't think so."
Cynic.
So then I met Scott.
If someone could have held up a bigger warning sign that said, "DO NOT GO HERE!!!" than all of my family and friends held up to me, I don't know who that person is.
"So tell me about him," my mother said, "HONESTLY, no romantic bullshit, please."
Married, but getting divorced. Two grown children. Army. History of infidelity. Handsome. Incredibly smart.
"Are you completely out of your mind?!! Have you lost every last shred of sanity? Now you are not testing karma, you are just being an asshole," she said.
"What the hell is wrong with you? I know you don't use drugs but have you suddenly started smoking crack or shooting heroin? What the hell are you thinking, girl?" my Marine friend J, screamed at me.
"Patti, please don't do this. Please. I know this scenario. I know how it is going to turn out. I did this very same thing and I can promise you that it doesn't turn out well," my best friend, Connie, said to me.
Kay, a former Army police woman, was even more forceful, "I am NOT letting you do this. You know better. You know this cannot turn out any way but completely screwed up. I know these guys...I was one of them. I absolutely forbid you doing this. Don't you dare..."
Well, I didn't listen to anybody.
And it turned out just as badly as everyone predicted. Maybe even worse.
So when I see Scott online sometimes, I can't help myself.
Honestly, he really is a good guy. He is all the wonderful things I thought about him but he is also all of the fucked up things everyone warned me about. I knew that going into it and could never fully commit, so it is no wonder our relationship got on like two neighboring houses on fire. But I still can't get over the fact that he cheated on me and had an entire other relationship going on while he was still telling me, "I love you, you're my soul mate."
That's why I ask "why."
"Why?" I asked again last night.
Obviously, these conversations never turn out well.
But, like a baby with wet fingers crawling towards an open light socket, I go right back at it when I see him online.
My friend Liz is constantly amazed. She is the polar opposite of me. She is grounded, slightly cold, and able to shred people apart and not feel the slightest twinge of emotion. She's an amazing lawyer for that reason, but she treats people and things the way I used to.
I called her this morning to admit what I had done...like an addict who smoked a forbidden cigarette or a diabetic who snuck a piece of double-chocolate cake.
"Oh Jesus, not again, Patti?!" she said, "Really? Again?"
"I just want to know 'why?'" I said.
"Why WHAT? What do you want to know?" she demanded.
Before I could even start, she said, "Listen to me and don't say a word, OK? He left you for a suicidal tax accountant, OK?"
She continued:
"For me, I would be laughing my ass off if this happened. What did you tell me about the laws of karma? It doesn't just work for you that way, my dear, it works for everyone that way. For now, just picture them sharing a calculator together and get over it. It's not in your hands any longer."
"But I just hate feeling like there is someone out there who is upset with me. I hate being upset with someone out there to the point that it creeps up and annoys me every few days...it's like a splinter," I protested.
There was silence on the other end of the phone until I heard a loud WHAP.
"What the hell was that?" I asked Liz.
"I just killed a ladybug that was crawling on my wall in the hotel room, it was getting on my nerves," she said.
"Ladybugs are good luck, Liz, just like praying mantises, you're not supposed to kill them," I scolded.
"Oh well, I guess, according to your karmic rules, I will be coming back as a ladybug," she joked.
Since Liz clearly had no sympathy for my plight, I called Monique, my French friend.
"Yes, I asked 'why' too for about four months and then I decided to drink his entire expensive wine cellar and get a dog that attacks him every time he comes in the house," she said, upon hearing my tale.
"I don't want revenge, Monique, I just want to understand," I said.
"If I were you, I would just say, 'thank you,' and enjoy the rest of your time here," she said.
"Who am I thanking?" I asked.
"God, the Universe, whoever you pray to. I know you are spiritual so that's what I would do if I were you. It didn't work, you don't need to understand 'why' but you do need to thank God for making sure you didn't get involved in something that was going to take you off your path. This relationship was taking you off your path. So say 'thank you' and let it go," she advised.
"How did you get that information?" I asked.
"I don't know, I just felt compelled to say it to you. I don't know where it came from," she admitted.
"Now, come over and let's drink champagne all day and make bread. I just got a new bread machine from France and I am dying to test it out," she said.
"I hate champagne, Monique," I reminded her, "Plus I have a date tonight with Eric, I don't want to be drunk."
"Ah, right. I forgot. OK, then I am coming over to your house. Just tie that stupid goat of yours up. Last time she ate the hem off of my skirt!" Monique said.
"Tomorrow we can make bread and drink wine all day," I said, "Not today."
"Tomorrow the sky might fall down and the yeast will not rise...stop being so American, I am coming over now," she said.
I was about to ask "why?" but then shut my mouth.
04 December 2009
"You need a man!" A Story of Recovery
I flipped out on my driver, Robert, yesterday.
This is a highly unusual scenario as Robert is one of my best friends in the Universe and the fact that I am having any modicum of a normal life here in Uganda is due, in a large part, to him.
Robert and I also have a multi-layered relationship that allows for human fallacy. He knows I hate to be late so he is always on time, I know he hates to be out past 9pm so I make sure I end all of my meetings early. Sometimes I am late and sometimes he stays out all night with me, but there is a give-and-take going on at all times. It is very typical of Africa (and not just Uganda) and I am used to it by now. I know what upsets Robert and is unacceptable to him just as he knows what upsets me and is, ultimately, unacceptable. We work around each other but despite the fact that I am his boss and he is my employee, we don't have a typical relationship.
I have thought long and hard about this and I have recently read an excellent book on the toic ("Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles" by Richard Dowden) that seems to confirm my conclusions.
First, Americans are not and never have been "colonizers." It is just not in our blood. You can say a lot about Americans but being "colonial" just doesn't occur to us. We make some bad mistakes because we are an individualistic society where personal freedom and success is prized above intricate relationships but we are not, by nature, overlords.
Second, Ugandans have really never had a colonial experience. This was a British colony ruled indirectly and most Ugandans have no memory of being "a colony" of Britain. I have spent time in about 20 sub-Saharan African countries by now and I have never found a place quite like Uganda.
In Kenya, I wanted to die when a waitress bowed to me after I gave her a generous tip. In Congo, I cringed when I went to shake the hotel bellboy's hand and he quickly slipped on a white glove and kneeled. In Sierra Leone, I wanted to hide my face when the Lebanese bartender, in perfect ear shot of her African employees, scoffed, "Stupid dogs, the lot of them!"
It's not like that in Uganda. Unfortunately, many Asians who live here treat Ugandans badly but, by and large, Ugandans are not a colonized people. This is good, at least for me, because no one considers my skin color too much before considering my friendship. I don't get preferential treatment because I am white unless someone is actively looking for something.
In short, Ugandans don't expect to be treated badly because they are African and, as an American, that works very well with my American culture of treating people based on the individual, not any of the other stuff (OK, some may argue that Americans are prejudiced against Muslims right now but that is a topic for another time).
This is why Robert and I are friends and this is why he got so upset when I lost my mind this morning.
"Madame Boss, what is wrong with you? You never yell or get angry...I am only ten minutes late...what is the problem??!!" he asked.
I used to have a bad temper. I used to explode a lot.
That left me almost completely when I came to Africa. Getting angry and having a tantrum here is counter-productive. It won't get you anywhere. Africans (maybe with the exception of Nigerians and Somalis) consider outward displays of anger to be the highest form of disrespect. If you get angry and express it loudly, you will be ignored.
Don't get me wrong, Ugandans are very blunt, but having a complete meltdown in public will do nothing to help you or your cause.
That's why Robert was so confused.
He looked at me solemnly and said, "Madame Boss, don't you think it is time for a man now? I think it is time..."
Of course, in America, this very conversation would be counter-productive but Robert is my friend and he knows me, intuitively, as well as most of my American friends who have known me for more than a decade.
"I don't know, Robert, that seems to be too quick. I don't think a man will help...I think I just need to be without a man for a few months," I said.
Robert whistled through his teeth and shook his head vigorously.
"No, you need a man. You have been in a bad humor since you came back from America last month. Only moving to our house (everything between me and Robert, from my house to his children, is "ours"), playing with the dogs, cooking, and gardening seem to make you happy. But that's it. So it is time for a new man. Now, Boss, now, now," he emphasized.
"Robert, I am not in the mood to go hang out at the country club for hours on weekends when I have so much to do here...where will I find this man?" I asked, joking.
"Well, what about Eric?" he asked.
It wasn't like I hadn't considered it before.
Eric is my internet service guy. He went to school and has a Master's degree in computer science. My internet service here is amazing, unlike most places in Uganda, because of Eric. I pay for a home subscription and get a corporate one because I refer business to Eric on the side. I have probably referred him, and his company, close to $6,000 in the past four months, but, then again, I am paying $120 a month for what should be a $300 per month service. My internet works when the President's doesn't. It's that good.
But it all works out in the end. This is Africa.
Eric is also ridiculously handsome and smart. He is Bugandan, the dominant tribe in Uganda, but he is almost six feet tall and smells so good that sometimes I schedule a service call just to see him and talk to him...and smell him.
Over the past six months we have become friends and we text message each other on a daily basis. Sometimes it is just silly stuff but we always keep in contact. Eric is a friend.
Which is why I was so nervous about Robert's suggestion that it should be anything more.
"Eric and I are friends, Robert. I don't think it is possible to date him," I tried.
"Madame Boss, if I may, you are being so ridiculous right now. In Uganda, men and women are not 'friends' unless there is something else going on. This may be common in America but it is not in Uganda. Eric has always liked you, I promise," he said.
I got even more nervous and went to my office manager, Hadijah, for her advice.
"Yes, I know Eric. He was married for one month to a lady who was the sister of my boss but he broke the marriage because he couldn't stand to be so constrained. He went to school in England, you know, and he was also one of Kagame's (President of Rwanda) soldiers in 1994, so he thinks a little differently," she said.
"We're friends," I told her.
She laughed.
"Yeah, OK, you're friends. I know you talk to him all the time but that doesn't mean 'friends' in Uganda, Patricia. I was waiting for you to wake up to this. No one wants to approach you because your last boyfriend was a Colonel. No one accepts that you are single. Eric is brave in that he has pursued it this long. But, like I said, he is different. You should give it a try, I will watch him carefully," Hadijah said.
This is another fine and upstanding African trait: everyone is connected so you are always protected.
"OK, Robert, do the matchmaking," I said in the car today as we were running errands, "I am sure it won't work..."
It took ten minutes and he ran into the store to find me.
"Eric is so happy right now, Madame Boss!" he said, "He has liked you for six months and he understands muzungus (whites/foreigners) but he is different...I think it was all that time in the Rwandan army and in England...but he likes you. AND there are no other girlfriends, I made sure!"
Robert was so happy that it was contagious. I felt myself starting to get a better attitude.
Then, suddenly, I was nervous.
I have dated a South African and a Nigerian before but I have never dated a Ugandan. I am ridiculously anal about culture so I was a mess.
"What do I do next?" I asked Robert.
"Invite him for dinner. He knows muzungu food so cook that one I love...lass-att-ee?" he advised.
Also known as lasagne.
"OK, I can do that. But when is dinner?" I asked.
"Tomorrow, 7pm, at our (your) house," Robert said.
I was a little stunned, I am not used to having someone make my dates for me...but, again, this is Uganda.
Eric called me immediately.
"Hey, I am a bit nervous and I figure you must be feeling the same...is tomorrow night OK?" he asked.
"Yes, it is OK. Do you like lasagne?" I asked.
"I think so but I will let you know for sure when I taste it," he joked.
"But first we should look at your hard drive, I am a little worried about it's health," he said.
In my mind the thought raced, "Yes, PLEASE, let's look at the hard drive first, preferably mine and not the computer's!" but I said nothing.
Then, two hours later, he called again.
"Hey, Trish (no one has ever called me this but no matter how many times I correct him, I am always 'Trish'), I am in the area. Do you mind if I stop over?"
This is a highly unusual scenario as Robert is one of my best friends in the Universe and the fact that I am having any modicum of a normal life here in Uganda is due, in a large part, to him.
Robert and I also have a multi-layered relationship that allows for human fallacy. He knows I hate to be late so he is always on time, I know he hates to be out past 9pm so I make sure I end all of my meetings early. Sometimes I am late and sometimes he stays out all night with me, but there is a give-and-take going on at all times. It is very typical of Africa (and not just Uganda) and I am used to it by now. I know what upsets Robert and is unacceptable to him just as he knows what upsets me and is, ultimately, unacceptable. We work around each other but despite the fact that I am his boss and he is my employee, we don't have a typical relationship.
I have thought long and hard about this and I have recently read an excellent book on the toic ("Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles" by Richard Dowden) that seems to confirm my conclusions.
First, Americans are not and never have been "colonizers." It is just not in our blood. You can say a lot about Americans but being "colonial" just doesn't occur to us. We make some bad mistakes because we are an individualistic society where personal freedom and success is prized above intricate relationships but we are not, by nature, overlords.
Second, Ugandans have really never had a colonial experience. This was a British colony ruled indirectly and most Ugandans have no memory of being "a colony" of Britain. I have spent time in about 20 sub-Saharan African countries by now and I have never found a place quite like Uganda.
In Kenya, I wanted to die when a waitress bowed to me after I gave her a generous tip. In Congo, I cringed when I went to shake the hotel bellboy's hand and he quickly slipped on a white glove and kneeled. In Sierra Leone, I wanted to hide my face when the Lebanese bartender, in perfect ear shot of her African employees, scoffed, "Stupid dogs, the lot of them!"
It's not like that in Uganda. Unfortunately, many Asians who live here treat Ugandans badly but, by and large, Ugandans are not a colonized people. This is good, at least for me, because no one considers my skin color too much before considering my friendship. I don't get preferential treatment because I am white unless someone is actively looking for something.
In short, Ugandans don't expect to be treated badly because they are African and, as an American, that works very well with my American culture of treating people based on the individual, not any of the other stuff (OK, some may argue that Americans are prejudiced against Muslims right now but that is a topic for another time).
This is why Robert and I are friends and this is why he got so upset when I lost my mind this morning.
"Madame Boss, what is wrong with you? You never yell or get angry...I am only ten minutes late...what is the problem??!!" he asked.
I used to have a bad temper. I used to explode a lot.
That left me almost completely when I came to Africa. Getting angry and having a tantrum here is counter-productive. It won't get you anywhere. Africans (maybe with the exception of Nigerians and Somalis) consider outward displays of anger to be the highest form of disrespect. If you get angry and express it loudly, you will be ignored.
Don't get me wrong, Ugandans are very blunt, but having a complete meltdown in public will do nothing to help you or your cause.
That's why Robert was so confused.
He looked at me solemnly and said, "Madame Boss, don't you think it is time for a man now? I think it is time..."
Of course, in America, this very conversation would be counter-productive but Robert is my friend and he knows me, intuitively, as well as most of my American friends who have known me for more than a decade.
"I don't know, Robert, that seems to be too quick. I don't think a man will help...I think I just need to be without a man for a few months," I said.
Robert whistled through his teeth and shook his head vigorously.
"No, you need a man. You have been in a bad humor since you came back from America last month. Only moving to our house (everything between me and Robert, from my house to his children, is "ours"), playing with the dogs, cooking, and gardening seem to make you happy. But that's it. So it is time for a new man. Now, Boss, now, now," he emphasized.
"Robert, I am not in the mood to go hang out at the country club for hours on weekends when I have so much to do here...where will I find this man?" I asked, joking.
"Well, what about Eric?" he asked.
It wasn't like I hadn't considered it before.
Eric is my internet service guy. He went to school and has a Master's degree in computer science. My internet service here is amazing, unlike most places in Uganda, because of Eric. I pay for a home subscription and get a corporate one because I refer business to Eric on the side. I have probably referred him, and his company, close to $6,000 in the past four months, but, then again, I am paying $120 a month for what should be a $300 per month service. My internet works when the President's doesn't. It's that good.
But it all works out in the end. This is Africa.
Eric is also ridiculously handsome and smart. He is Bugandan, the dominant tribe in Uganda, but he is almost six feet tall and smells so good that sometimes I schedule a service call just to see him and talk to him...and smell him.
Over the past six months we have become friends and we text message each other on a daily basis. Sometimes it is just silly stuff but we always keep in contact. Eric is a friend.
Which is why I was so nervous about Robert's suggestion that it should be anything more.
"Eric and I are friends, Robert. I don't think it is possible to date him," I tried.
"Madame Boss, if I may, you are being so ridiculous right now. In Uganda, men and women are not 'friends' unless there is something else going on. This may be common in America but it is not in Uganda. Eric has always liked you, I promise," he said.
I got even more nervous and went to my office manager, Hadijah, for her advice.
"Yes, I know Eric. He was married for one month to a lady who was the sister of my boss but he broke the marriage because he couldn't stand to be so constrained. He went to school in England, you know, and he was also one of Kagame's (President of Rwanda) soldiers in 1994, so he thinks a little differently," she said.
"We're friends," I told her.
She laughed.
"Yeah, OK, you're friends. I know you talk to him all the time but that doesn't mean 'friends' in Uganda, Patricia. I was waiting for you to wake up to this. No one wants to approach you because your last boyfriend was a Colonel. No one accepts that you are single. Eric is brave in that he has pursued it this long. But, like I said, he is different. You should give it a try, I will watch him carefully," Hadijah said.
This is another fine and upstanding African trait: everyone is connected so you are always protected.
"OK, Robert, do the matchmaking," I said in the car today as we were running errands, "I am sure it won't work..."
It took ten minutes and he ran into the store to find me.
"Eric is so happy right now, Madame Boss!" he said, "He has liked you for six months and he understands muzungus (whites/foreigners) but he is different...I think it was all that time in the Rwandan army and in England...but he likes you. AND there are no other girlfriends, I made sure!"
Robert was so happy that it was contagious. I felt myself starting to get a better attitude.
Then, suddenly, I was nervous.
I have dated a South African and a Nigerian before but I have never dated a Ugandan. I am ridiculously anal about culture so I was a mess.
"What do I do next?" I asked Robert.
"Invite him for dinner. He knows muzungu food so cook that one I love...lass-att-ee?" he advised.
Also known as lasagne.
"OK, I can do that. But when is dinner?" I asked.
"Tomorrow, 7pm, at our (your) house," Robert said.
I was a little stunned, I am not used to having someone make my dates for me...but, again, this is Uganda.
Eric called me immediately.
"Hey, I am a bit nervous and I figure you must be feeling the same...is tomorrow night OK?" he asked.
"Yes, it is OK. Do you like lasagne?" I asked.
"I think so but I will let you know for sure when I taste it," he joked.
"But first we should look at your hard drive, I am a little worried about it's health," he said.
In my mind the thought raced, "Yes, PLEASE, let's look at the hard drive first, preferably mine and not the computer's!" but I said nothing.
Then, two hours later, he called again.
"Hey, Trish (no one has ever called me this but no matter how many times I correct him, I am always 'Trish'), I am in the area. Do you mind if I stop over?"
I had a momentary panic attack as my housekeeper, Kate, and I were peeling potatoes and figuring out how to use our new grill but then thought, "What the hell, he has seen me in worse states so why not now with potato peels in my hair?"
So I said "OK," and Eric arrived ten minutes later.
He walked in, took one look at me, and laughed.
"You are covered in flour and potatoes, what are you making?!!" he asked.
I tried to explain as he grabbed my hand and dragged me out to the balcony with the bottle of wine he had brought.
"Let's not be nervous, it is no different than before," he said.
"It is. Now you know I like you and now I know you like me," I said, feeling like I was ten.
"I've always liked you. In Uganda, men and women are not friends unless there is something else going on," he related.
(Thanks, I got that one by now)
After our second glass of wine, we relaxed and he put his foot over mine on the outdoor table.
"Better, right?" he asked.
Yes, much better indeed.
Eric left an hour later without so much as a kiss passing between us. He is still coming for dinner tomorrow night but I am no longer nervous.
I called Robert a few minutes ago and said, "Eric came over, he is really a nice guy. Thank you for setting this up."
"No problem" was all Robert said.
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