Morgan and I woke up and walked to Miracle restaurant for more of the best tea in the world. I’ve discovered that one of the secrets is to use boiled milk (as opposed to water) to steep the tealeaves. I also know they use a lot of Indian tea masala spices – apart from that I can’t deduce their magical recipe. I can just enjoy it.
Morgan and I spent two hours at Miracle Grill sipping tea, eating chappati and debating over the social and economical quandries of Africa. Morgan is vehemently anti-capatalistic and I believe that while capitalism has been used in a negative light in many places in the world, its not inherently evil and is the most important tool for social change. Needless to say we get into some pretty robust conversations – but they’re always interesting. I told Morgan that capitalism would never change as the preeminent social governing mechanism because it appealed to the core of humanity – concern for the well being of yourself. Capitalism boils down to greed – it allows everyone to concern for their economic and social well-being and that’s is (fortunately or unfortunately) the basis for most human decisions.
To take a line from Wall Street when Gordon Gecko addressed the board of Anacot Steel, “Greed is good.”
Afterwards I went back to the room and read a bit.
At 12:00 Morgan and I went outside the Nsoma Hotel to wait for Solomon.
The proprietor of Nsoma Hotel came out.
“You boys want to come and pray at the mosque with me?”
“We’d love to.” Morgan said, “But we need to go teach at schools soon.”
“Ah, okay.” The man replied. “I will pray for you. I will pray for your health so you can continue coming back to the Nsoma Hotel and paying for rooms!”
The man drove off.
I looked at Morgan. “See? Told you so. The basis of almost all human decisions is selfishishnes. He’s only praying for us so we can give him more money.”
Morgan laughed. “Shut up Joe.”
I’m not really that cynical J
Meanwhile a half hour had passed and still no Solomon.
I got a text from Solomon. “Be there soon. Sorry I’m late.”
We continued to wait.
12:45
1:00
1:15
1:30
Finally I texted Solomon. “We’re hungry and going to the Miracle Restaurant. Meet us there.”
Solomon and JP finally showed up at 1:40. An hour and forty minutes late. Sigh.
We finished eating and all jumped on boda boda’s to Sir Tito Winyi which is 40 minutes away via boda boda. The route traverses through dirt roads with huge pot holes.
The drive was nice, albeit dusty. We saw a truck that had just crashed on the side of the road. People were still trying to hoist it out of a ditch. It was twisted like melted plastic – underneath the carriage I could see two broken axles.
When we finally got to Sir Tito Winyi we were all covered in dust. Solomon’s and Morgan’s hair was red (I had a helmet so my face and hair were spared but the rest of me was covered).
We sat down with only 5 kids – the rest were in exams.
At one point I looked down at one of the kids binders to see, to my shock, swastikas drawn all over the binder. He opened the binder and on the inside flap was a huge, ornate swastika. I nudged Morgan. He looked at it and then we looked at each other in disbelief.
“Charles, whats with all those swastikas?” I asked pensively.
“I like them.”
“I see.” I continued, “Do you know what they mean?”
“They are Hitler’s symbols. He used them in Germany.”
“Right, but do you understand what they represent?”
Charles shook his head.
“Do you know what genocide is?”
Charles nodded.
“Do you know about the Rwandan genocide?”
He nodded.
“If there was a symbol for that – would you write it all over your book?”
“No of course not. That was terrible.”
“Then why do you think its okay to write the swastika that represented a whole different kind of genocide?”
Charles shrugged.
“Do you know what a concentration camp is?”
Charles shook his head.
“Do you know what the arian race is?” Morgan asked.
“No.”
“Hitler killed everyone that didn’t fit a specific genre – people had to have blonde hair and blue eyes and look a certain way and worship a specific God.”
Morgan stopped short of the obvious, the lesson would have been to scary for Charles, but the question I think we both wanted to ask was, “Do you know Hitler would have killed you and now you are promoting his ideology 60 years later?”
We didn’t go there.
“Charles, in the United States of America you would get expelled from school for writing that symbol on your book. Its THAT bad.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” I continued. “When I get back in February I don’t want to see any more swastikas or I’ll take your binder.”
Charles nodded.
Weird. It was weird to see someone so obsessed with such a powerful symbol who wasn’t aware of its maliciousness. The folly of youth.
After class Charles told me his dream – to be a US Marine.
“Yes, but Marine’s come with a lot of power and you have to use that power wisely.”
Charles nodded. I hope I broke through in some capacity.
Afterward class we took a matatu home. We were fortunate to get one. Sometimes it takes two hours to get transport from Sir Tito since it’s in the sticks.
Morgan and I went to a local bar to have a beer and relax after a long day. Shortly after sitting down a fat man with with loose, drunken eyes walked over. He took one of the plastic chairs and put it on another one (he needed the support of two chairs) and sat down. The man reminded me of Forsest Whitakers depiction of Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland.” The man didn’t look altogether intelligent – he was, however, drunk. My spider senses started ringing.
The man didn’t ask if he he could sit down. He didn’t ask if he could join. He just pulled up his double chair and plopped down.
“My name is King David the Messiah.”
Wow, what an introduction.
“Hello King David.” I said. “What do you do?”
“I am a police officer in Hoima.” He babbled. “I’ve been a police officer for 30 years.”
“Nice to talk to you.” Morgan said.
“Yes, yes.” He smiled “but please please no talk about homo’s.”
My blood went cold. Morgan and I shot a glance at each other. Morgan has a lesbian sister and everyone reading this blog knows how I feel about LGBT rights.
We were both very cautious about our response. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs it’s a crime to be a homosexual in Uganda. You can get beaten to death or lynched for an open admission of homosexuality. Morgan and I are both straight but it dawned on us that this drunken police officer might have seen two mzungu’s (rare sight to see one, much less two) having a drink and decided to investigate. There is a common belief here that westerners and Europeans routinely to Uganda to “recruit homosexuals.”
I can’t be sure why David came over and said that to us, but I thought it was incongruous with a general “get to know someone” conversation.
Instantly I was furious at this attitude and use of a hateful epithet, but in Hoima with a drunken police officer was not the place to defend LGBT rights. It’s not like the United States – things can happen here. Morgan and I bit our tongue and didn’t say anything (but we do later and its wonderful, keep reading).
King David, the righteous fellow he is, goes on to tell us he has 14 children by 4 different wives. He admits he was young and foolish and a bit of a wanderlust in his youth. He has wives and children all over the country. I didn’t want to ask the venerable King David, “the messiah” how he supported 14 children on a police officers salary (they are paid very poorly) – but again, I didn’t want to incite anger with a drunken police officer.
King David kept ordering bottle after bottle of waregi – the local gin that has killed 20 people in the last month and made another 10 blind. He offered me some. I declined. It was a bad situation. We’d ordered food and couldn’t leave, but King David was going nowhere soon.
We talked about this and that.
He said Idi Amin was cruel and Milton Obote was an intellectual without the ability to control his retinue. He said General James Kazini was an incredible army commander and Uganda mourned his loss.
Finally we get back to why it’s bad to be a homosexual.
“David, we are both straight, we like women, but I want you to tell me why homosexuality is bad.” Morgan said. He’d had a few drinks and the liquid courage was rearings its head.
David dithered about. “I told you. I don’t want to talk about homos.”
That word again. I simmered.
“Well” Morgan continued, getting louder “I DO want to talk about it David. I want to hear why it’s wrong.”
“Because it says so in the bible!”
“Who inspired the bible?” Morgan asked.
“God.”
“But who wrote it?”
“People.”
“Is it possible that they got the message wrong? That they didn’t understand God?”
“No – it’s the word of God.”
“I see – BUT – will you admit the bible has changed over 2,000 years as more and more people have contributed to it?”
“Yes – it’s gotten better.”
“So what you’re saying is that man has improved upon God’s word? Is that possible?”
King David looked confused. He clearly hadn’t thought about this. He and I were diametrically unlike – I question everything and he committed the scripture to memory and then gave forth unrealized abstractions.
Morgan continued. “Well, I don’t think the bible is a good excuse. David. Yeah? I think it’s a tainted document. Yeah?”
He kept saying “yeah” and it was engaging and antagonistic. The mood had shifted from simple conversation to something harder.
“Men and women fit together. Men are hard and women are soft. God made us to fit together so we could have children.” King David said.
I interjected. “So if I marry a woman and we don’t have kids, or we can’t have kids are we also considered on the samel level as homosexuals?”
King David was flustered. Clearly he’d never had to back his beliefs to anyone before. He took a massive sip of warregi.
“Okay.” He continued, “Here is an analogy. When you are cooking eggs its good to have both eggs and oil. If you cook eggs with oil they come out nice and delicious. If you cook eggs with just eggs and salt they don’t taste good.”
Morgan lifted off.
“THAT’S HOW YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS. YOU LIKE THEM WITH EGG AND OIL. YEAH? BUT IF I LIKE MY EGGS WITH JUST SALT WHY DO YOU CARE? YEAH? WHY DO YOU CARE HOW MY EGGS TASTE?”
It was one of the most beautifully constructed responses I’ve ever witnessed. King David couldn’t argue on our level so he brought it to an analogy and again Morgan stopped him cold in his tracks.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” David retorted. “Lets eat chicken.”
He ordered a piece of street chicken and we ate it. I texted Morgan, “Good job tonight buddy.”
It was but a small victory, but for one night we’d made someone reassess their blind beliefs. I told Morgan it was time to go. We’d come dangerously close to disrespecting King David (Morgan was practically screaming and pointing his finger in David’s face during the egg analogy discussion). Upsetting a drunk police officer in Hoima probably wasn’t the most prudent course of action.
We walked away smiling.
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