Mzungu Night Out

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Computer Thief - Part 2

The computer thief was finally caught. He was one of the guys who had been coming to the library a lot. The day when they computer had been stolen the internet hadn’t been working, and he had been in there with Innocent, one of Dan’s nephews. Julius called him, because everyone was suspicious, and he asked to get his phone number, but the guy was super suspicious. “Why do you want my phone number?” he asked. Julius and he had gone to school together many years before, so it wasn’t so suspicious, and the level of anxiety he had from Julius’s asking was a big hint that it was actually him.

“No reason,” Julius told him. He tried calling the guy’s phone number. It didn’t work, so as he was walking away Julius ran back up to him. “I think you gave me the wrong phone number,” he said and forced the guy to give him the new one. “Let me call you,” he said and tried the phone number. It worked this time.

“Why do you want my phone number?” the guy asked again.

“No reason,” said Julius. He was giving no hint of their suspicion. Later, when they talked about it they mentioned that they thought he was stupid to think that just because they never mentioned anything about it when he was in the library that they did not suspect him, when really he should have taken it as a sign that they did. After all, why else would they be so cautious as to not mention a word? It wasn’t as though they wouldn’t have noticed that the computer was missing after several days. 

A day later, on Friday, they managed to get him into the library. The police were there, and they interrogated him for information. Apparently he looked very nervous. He said that the computer that he had was one that he had bought from a store. He was trying to convince them that it was his. However, as they left on their way to check out his story he gave in and confessed. If he had not, he might have been tortured or thrown into prison.

Apparently he had taken the computer somewhere to get everything removed, so when we got it back, we had to reinstall everything. 

He should have been thrown into prison, really, but his family came and pleaded with Dan, telling him that he did not have much. Dan wanted him to at least pay the cost of the police investigation and the interrogation and all of that, because it ended up being very expensive, but I believe they begged him out of that, too. That man is very lucky to have his family. 

One unfortunate thing is that his family will likely suffer for his crime, if merely in shame. The man at least will not be allowed back to the library, which is the very least he should suffer.

Flora & English Lessons

Women’s group was cancelled that evening, so instead we taught Flora some English. She is in Primary 7 and facing the big exam this year. She needs to improve her English in order to transfer to a private boarding school, the same one where Dan’s girls go. It was fun, we read Girls to the Rescue with her and then did some exercises out of her workbook. 

Cafe Frikadellen

After the lesson, we made our way in the dark to Cafe Frikadellen in Masaka. It is a mzungu (Means ‘white one,’ is applied to anyone who is a foreigner, originates from a word that means traveller, nomadic person, which comes from a word that is for pastoralists, who used to move with their animals to good pastures) cafe which caters to foreigner. It has high speed internet, but more importantly things like meat and cake. On our way, I’m not going to lie, there was some squealing. Because the road was so dark we weren’t sure if Joseph, our boda boda driver, was taking us the right was.

There was a buffet that night but we arrived just a little too late. We were so desperate for food from home (for no reason other than because it was the food from our home - the food we get at Dan’s house is amazing and wonderful and there is nothing we could possibly complain about) that when we saw a piece of cake on the table we asked the waitress, “Can we just.. Take it?” She said yes, although she looked at us as though we were some crazy mzungus.

We each got the food we were craving. I got a steak and a banana chocolate milkshake. Heather got some deep-fried chicken and a fruit smoothie (I think??). Leila got a pizza and a coke and coffee. My steak was flavored with garlic. It was. So good. 

Ambiance

After Cafe Frikadellen we went to Ambiance. The cover charge was quite cheap, only 5,000 Shillings, although it might have been more expensive if we had not gone with Julius. Before we got in I went to Julius’s place, also in Masaka, to drop off all of our stuff because you cannot bring cameras into the club. 

The club was fun, although I didn’t really feel like dancing, and apparently Leila and Heather didn’t either because they were mostly just standing by the railing just above the dance floor. At first the club was entirely empty except for a huge group of mzungu aid workers from Holland or the Netherlands or something on their last night out before they go home, but eventually locals began to arrive. Apparently the big night out is Saturday, though, and this was on a Friday.

While there was some North American music, it was mostly Ugandan music. This was a bit weird for us because we weren’t really sure how to dance to it. What does Ugandan music sound like, you wonder? Well, just listen to some of the stuff on:

http://www.kerere.com 

It got the most exciting late at night when people began to really dance. There was one group of guys - because guys actually dance here, and don’t just bob to the music - who were dancing in a dance circle. They were even break dancing. One dance move that surprised me was where one of the guys would bend down so that his hands were on the floor but his legs were straight and shake his butt, while another guy would go behind him standing up and rub his back. We were shocked, because it basically looks like - well, you can guess. But it really shows the difference in intra-gender relations. Because people mostly don’t think that gay people exist in Uganda - I’ll talk about that again later - it doesn’t matter to guys if you do things like hold hands and that dance, because if you do it, it doesn’t mean you’re gay. Homophobia is pretty extreme here, but when guys show affection towards each other, it isn’t considered weird at all. That’s normal, which is good, because why shouldn’t guys be friends? Why shouldn’t guys be allowed to show each other affection without ridicule? It’s only natural. It’s only healthy, really. 

Another interesting thing was the behavior of the girls. While they dressed more inappropriately than they did during the day, in tight, short skirts and pants, low cut tops,  and even sometimes held liquor, they were still very conservative. For example, although they held the liquor, they did not drink much of it. They behaved themselves well, and did not dance too close or do anything inappropriate. There were some couples who danced, but they were older, and it was still quite tame. The only girl who behaved inappropriately was a mzungu aid worker girl. She was tall, and blonde, and was grinding with a Ugandan man while she held a bottle of vodka in her other hand. She was completely gone, but she was the only girl in the whole club who was. I was pretty surprised actually, because I would have thought that she would have caught on that this just was not appropriate club behavior for Ugandan girls. I suppose that she thought that it didn’t matter because she wasn’t Ugandan. It does, though, because any time a mzungu behaves like that she is giving the rest of us a bad name and makes it a bit more risky for everyone else.

We only got home at about 4 AM. Julius told us which bodas to take, we went to his place quickly to pick up our stuff, and we eventually got home. We drove behind the library so that we wouldn’t wake the family, and when we got home we just went to sleep immediately. 

I hadn’t stayed up past 10 since we got here.

(It gets dark here at 7 every night. Because we have no electricity or lights, we mostly just fall asleep right after dinner, which usually ends at around 8 or 9. Sometimes we may watch a movie or read, but even then we don’t stay up much later.)