“Excuse me, if you take me to jail in Kampala can we stop for an ice cream cone?”

4.15.10

Today I got arrested. Maybe I should start this story from the beginning…

This morning I was at Sol Café baking birthday cakes and helping with the morning duties. Two Ugandan businesswomen came in and set down. I walked over and greeted them. They asked where I was from and a little about the food. After I answered they began questioning me about a work permit. I explained I was just a volunteer. They both stood up and told me they wanted to see my passport and that they were immigration officers from Kampala. I explained how my passport was at home. At this point I knew things were not okay. Another volunteer, Brittney, walked up at the wrong moment to greet them and she was also questioned about a work permit. I grabbed Pipih, the volunteer coordinator and close friend, and told him to call Andrea and Morris right away. We walked downstairs with the Immigration women and they told us we could ride in their car to our house to get our passports. When we walked up to the car it was filled with Indians. (There are a lot of Indians in Uganda that run most all of the hotels and supermarkets) The windows of the van had bars. It became very clear to me in that moment that we were not going home. A crowd was gathering around the van to see who was being taken. Pipih ran home to find our passports. A huge Ugandan man from immigration walked up to Brittney and I and told us that we were “paying the repercussions for our actions”. At this point, I couldn’t help but laugh. An Indian tried to get out of the car and they yelled at us and forced everyone to stay in the van. We were then driven to the police station. Most of the Indians were questions before Brittney and I. Many of them were on the verge of tears when they couldn’t present legal documentation for them to be in Uganda. Then it was our turn to fill out the paperwork and talk with the immigration officer. They keep asking us questions about what we are doing in Uganda. Clearly they were trying to catch us using words like “working”. Brittney let me do most of the talking. The Immigration man told me that we were going to be prosecuted charged and deported. It was like something out of a movie. We sat waiting for help from our friends and discussing things with the immigration man. He asked if I cried when Michael Jackson, the king of pop, died and told me I need to marry a Ugandan man and stay forever (which I found quite ironic considering he wanted to deport me). We picked up our paperwork and moved into the corner of the room. Thankfully we have friends in the government. After a few hours, our friend Elijah showed to and talked with the immigration boss. We got to leave the police station after that! Relieved, we headed back to the café to eat our now cold lunches. Morris rushed up and told us that they were coming back to get us and we need to get out. I felt like an outlaw, running from immigration. Unfortunately, we ran right into them on the stairs. They demanded we give them our passports. We refused and they said they would be back in an hour to get them or they will find us tomorrow. We were warned not to give them our passports or we would end up paying huge bribes. Hopefully they do not come back tomorrow for us. We are currently hiding in our house.

Never a dull moment in Uganda.

African Tea

4.5.10

I want to never let the beauty of a moment escape from me. The moments that seem so lackluster. That seem like just another passing second. Those are ones that will define my life. My time in Uganda is dwindling down. With every passing day the reality of living in the states again is looming over my thoughts. The other day I had a moment where I completely appreciated my surroundings. I was in the art at Musana with about ten kids. We were rolling beads and some of the kids were coloring. If you came to a Musana house party this winter, odds are, you heard us talk about Nico. Nico was living on the streets before he came to Musana. He would wash dishes at a restaurant and get scraps of food for it. Nico slept outside or on the floor of the kitchen. I have many memories of seeing this young boy walking about town dirty and malnourished but always beaming from ear to ear. Morris, one of Musana’s directors, decided that he wanted Nico to come to Musana. Taking in stret children can be risky because sometimes guardians will show up and demand for the child. We decided Nico was worth the risk of legal complications. When Nico got to Musana they gave him three baths and clean clothes. He didn’t know his age or where he came from. Even in all his adversity, Nico never stopped smiling. You can guarantee that Nico will be our first kid to run and give you a hug when you get to Musana. Nico has a capacity to love that I have never seen in another person. Even at somewhere around 12 years old, Nico has not lost his innocent childlike love. I greatly admire him for it. Nico and I were sitting on a bench in the art room listening to music and coloring pictures. Each song I would play, Nico would silently communicate whether he liked it or not by dancing and smiling. Our ability to communicate with each other was a profound moment for me. Due to Nico’s malnourishment, he had no teeth. Since he has been at Musana, Nico has had some teeth come in. Without teeth you can’t talk; Nico is just beginning to learn how to form words and sentences. Not only do we have a language barrier to wrestle with but also just one of us with the capability to speak. It might sound ridiculous that the encounter had any affect on me, but it did. Maybe it had more to do with Nico than anything else.

For humanity it comes so natural to pick out the things that frustrates us and focus our attention on them. We neglect to mention the things we love about the very thing that frustrates us. Many times I catch myself complaining about parts of being in Uganda that are hard. And, seldom do I vocalize the things that I love about this country, the things that have captivated me to stay here. Yesterday was another one of those moments when I didn’t allow the beauty of a moment to escape me. We were playing soccer and running around with the kids yesterday evening. Dark storm clouds, or nimbus clouds as one of my favorite smart-aleck children named Moses corrected me, were coming right at us. Andrea and I scrambled to get the volunteers together to escape the storm. We had seen these same clouds before. Many times when it rains here it doesn’t simply start to sprinkle and increase over time. Instead, the wind picks up and it just begins to downpour suddenly. After yelling for everyone to leave, we begin running up this hill to get bike bodas (bicycle taxis). As we were running up the hill, the storm was moving toward us. By the time we reached the top of the hill, the wind was throwing dust into the air and any second the rain would begin. Andrea and Haril were already on Bodas and in the distance. I yelled for the last boda to come to me and he peddled over quickly. The other volunteers were trying to get on the boda I had called but the boda man refused and yelled at them in Lusoga. He kept saying he wanted to take the mzungu who speaks lusoga and not the mzungu boys. It was chaos; we were all running around like chickens with out heads cut off. After they realized the boda was mine they kept running down the road in search of other bodas. I hopped on the bike and we went speeding towards town and away from the storm. I have never gone so fast on a bike. The storm seemed to be chasing us. The dark clouds were right behind us. It was raining in the 20 feet behind us for most of the ride until the clouds were right over us. Thankfully the downpour was over us right when we got to Sol Café (A self sustainability project of Musana Children’s Home). I gave the bodaman 500 Ugandan Shillings a few hundred more than the ride should cost and told him in Lusoga that I was happy he hurried. The boys I had left behind were on a motorcycle boda turning the corner. The rain was coming down hard now. Their boda man had to stop across the street because the rain was too heavy. The boys ran across the street to the safety of the café. It was a moment where I should have stopped and told someone around me, it was the things I love about Uganda. I love how rainstorms roll in, and I love how hard it rains.

I feel like I should explain more about Sol Café. The money was raised by an 18 year old from Boulder, Colorado, named Morgan. She raised around 16,000 dollars total. Some of the money went to pay for her expenses but the rest covered start up costs for the café. We rented the restaurant space in the second floor of a large hotel in Iganga called Suki. There is a balcony that over looks the main road in Iganga. It is one of my favorite places to sit at the café. We serve American, Indian and Ugandan food as well as coffee and tea. Our food is excellent. Unfortunately I have been eating to many brownies, cheeseburgers and pizzas. Before the café we went months without western food. It has been really nice to get other types of food into our routine. We each have shifts at the café each day. Most of the time it is really busy at the café. In Uganda there is a large population of Indians. They come and start Hotels and super markets. The racism between Ugandans and Indians is unreal. They cannot stand each other. Indians have nothing positive to say about Ugandans and Ugandans have nothing good to say about Indians either. The café has turned into a melting pot of cultures. There is no other place in Iganga where Indians, Ugandans and mzungus all congregate. Seeing the intertwining of such different cultures has been really interesting. We are all really proud of the café and the success it has been.