First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria

by Eve Brown-Waite

  “I know you're Adam. I'm Eve!” I was getting punchy. “It's a joke. From a television game show in America,” I explained.

  “Ah. Jeopardy!” Adam shouted.

  “You watch American television?” John asked.

  “No, of course not. And you will not be watching television—even African television—in Arua, either. But I read newspapers from all over. And I listen to the radio every day. You would be surprised by what you can learn listening to BBC and Voice of America.”

  Alex deposited the cats and our luggage at a hotel and took John and me to CARE headquarters, where we were introduced to the CARE country director, an American named Stan.

  “Welcome to the CARE family.” Stan had a slight drawl and a hearty handshake, especially for a man who had recently been shot. His laid-back manner as he introduced us around struck me as more cowboy than country director. But I suppose being in the Third World is a bit like being out on the range: Both will roughen you up around the edges if you stay long enough.

  The alarm bells in my internal clock were going off. I hadn't slept in two days, and what I wanted more than anything was to get horizontal. I was hoping it would be in a bed and soon. But it wasn't looking promising as we were whisked to some expat staff member's home nestled in one of Kampala's many hills. Inside the large, airy house were an impressive spread of food and an equally impressive assortment of alcohol. Outside on a lovely patio lit with mosquito coils and blue bug zappers, I was introduced to and promptly forgot about fifty people. CARE staff members and their families ate, drank, talked, and laughed. They were Ugandan, Kenyan, Filipino, Canadian, British, and American, all unfailingly kind and welcoming.

  “Do you know Elizabeth Marum?” I asked all the Americans, hoping someone could lead me to the USAID woman who, in my mind at least, was going to save me from unemployment. She was the HIV/AIDS connection, according to the folks I'd spoken to back in the States. And I held fast to the hope that she would find me a job on one of her AIDS projects.

  Several of John's fellow staff members extended dinner invitations to us. Each took great pains to explain which of Kampala's twenty hills he or she lived on, as if it meant anything at all to us. The spouses all volunteered to take me shopping. There was a lot I still had to learn about expat life, but clearly eating, drinking, and shopping were top priorities.

  Finally, someone must have noticed that our eyes were glazed over, and John and I were reunited with an antsy Beijing and Berlin in the hotel room. A sweet-smelling breeze and the chattering of strange birds wafted in through the open window as we collapsed into bed. I could swear I heard the screech of wild monkeys, which was hardly likely considering we were closer to the Sheraton than the jungle. I drifted off to sleep with visions of bridesmaids, prehistoric penguins on stilts, and plane carcasses dancing in my head. And I thought sleepily, What a lovely little corner of hell.

  Dear Mom,

  Here we are, safe, sound, and surprisingly comfortable in Kampala. One week down … only 103 more to go! Uganda so far is nothing like I expected. It's not awful at all. People have phones, flush toilets, and even toilet paper. And colonialism may be dead, but all the trappings of it are still here. So while most Ugandans are poor and live simply, anyone with any shillings to spare (and that includes us self-sacrificing development workers) lives in a fancy house with a housekeeper and has a fancy car with a driver. So, really, a Jewish American Princess might be able to live out her fantasy in Africa, after all, although I still haven't found the mall yet.

  John is already settling in at CARE. He's so adaptable, it's nauseating sometimes. But I'm moody and culture shocked enough for the two of us. My birthday was quiet, but not depressing. John sent a beautiful bouquet of roses and carnations (yes, Kampala has a florist that delivers!). The folks at CARE gave me a birthday card and I got a card in the mail from one of my former medical students (see, mail here works just fine). I did not get a card from the woman who birthed me, however. We had dinner and a birthday cake at the CARE assistant director's house.

  And quietly, my ovaries turned one year older …

  I'll keep you posted,

  Eve

  Home Sweet—or at Least

  No Cow Dung Here—Home

  “You are welcome,” a young man in a blue uniform said as he opened the gate. “Shoo, shoo,” he barked at the goats that grazed just outside the gate. They squealed and ambled a few feet away.

  “Hello, James,” Stan called out the window to the young man as he drove into the square compound. He pulled the vehicle up to a long, one-story cement building that was bright yellow and had matching verandahs on either end. The compound was tidy, its neatly trimmed grass punctuated with a few trees. The requisite bougainvillea grew up and flopped over the six-foot-high fence.

  “Look at that,” I said, nudging John and pointing to a long skinny sign hanging over the double garages that served as the seam between the two Siamese-twin houses. Blue letters on a white background spelled out “J. Waite & E. J. Brown” with an arrow pointing to the house on the left and “CARE Guesthouse,” with an arrow pointing to its mirror image on the right. “You think they knew we were coming?”

  “James, I'd like you to meet John Waite, our new Savings and Credit project manager, and his wife, Eve Brown,” Stan drawled.

  “Welcome,” James said, shaking each of our hands. “I am James. My family lives in the boys' quarters.” He pointed to a small house at the back of the compound. “Thank you for coming to Uganda. May I bring your things into the house?”

  “Please,” Stan said, and James began unloading the back of the vehicle.

  “Boys' quarters?” I said.

  “In colonial times, everyone had servants—or ‘boys.’ That's where they used to house them,” Stan explained.

  “Oh, too bad you're here already,” called a white woman in sturdy shoes and a no-nonsense dress from the porch on our side of the house. “I was hoping to have enough time to get another layer of cow dung onto your house before you arrived!”

  I stood there, staring. Where, exactly, does the cow dung go?

  “Oh, I'm just kidding. I'm Pauline, Terry's wife,” she said, shaking our hands.

  “I'm Terry. Welcome to Arua,” said a white-haired man standing next to her. We already knew from our orientation in Kampala that Terry was John's boss and head of the CARE Arua office. We'd heard that Terry's development days began back in the Queen's colonial service in Rhodesia. He looked every inch the part in his khaki shorts and kneesocks; a safari hat sat jauntily atop his frosty-bearded head. Based on how long they had been around the development world, I assumed they were close to our parents' age. But there was no mistaking these two for a pair of rocking-chair grandparents.

  “This is your house,” Pauline said. She opened the double door from the verandah and ushered us into an airy living room with a huge rattan mat that covered the painted cement floor.

  “Wow! Nice furniture,” John said. He ran his hands along the wood coffee table that sat between a simple but sturdy couch and two chairs. It had taken some effort on my part to convince him not to ship the coffee table that he'd made in the seventh grade and had been dragging around the world with him ever since.

  “Wow! Furniture” was all I could manage. It was all much nicer than I'd expected. Okay, anything with walls would have been nicer than I'd expected.

  “We've set you up with the basics,” Pauline said. “But if you find you need anything else, or want to switch out the furniture, you can take anything you need from the guesthouse next door. It's all pretty much the same, but help yourself.”

  “Oh, soft couch,” John said, testing the cushions that rested on the simple wood frame. This from the guy who'd once lived with a dead mouse under the couch cushions. I seemed to have been the only one who had noticed the smell—and the rigor mortis lump.

  “You have a nice big kitchen,” Pauline said, leading us through a doorway off the dining area that held a rectangular table s
urrounded by blocky wooden chairs. “Your refrigerator and stove run on propane. You'll want to be sure to let James or someone at the office know when you're running low. Here's your water filter.” She pointed to something that looked like a cross between a large thermos and a small drum sitting next to the sink. “You'll want to refill it with boiled water every night.”

  I wondered if I should be taking notes.

  “You've got a small hot water heater. You won't get a lot of hot water,” she said, nodding at a white enamel box that sat on the windowsill and had a small pipe running into the sink below. “But if you turn it on every night when the power comes on, you should have enough for your house girl to do the dishes in the morning.”

  Er, house girl? Now I knew I should be taking notes.

  “Here's your storage pantry,” Pauline said as she swept across the room and opened a door as if she were presenting the grand prize on The Price Is Right. I didn't dare ask what I might be storing in there.

  “Now I'll show you the private quarters.” Pauline led us out of the kitchen and through a doorway on the opposite side of the dining area. “Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom,” she said, motioning to three open doorways off the long hallway.

  “Wow, three bedrooms!” John exclaimed.

  “Wow, beds!” I exclaimed.

  “You'll want to be sure to sleep under your mosquito nets every night. Lots of malaria around here,” Terry said. “There are two kinds of malaria, you know. The kind that can kill you, but once it's treated it's gone. And then there's the kind that won't kill you, but it lives forever in your blood. Lucky us. In Arua we have both!”

  “We've already started taking our Paludrine,” I said, proud that I was already on top of my prophylaxis.

  “And we got shots for yellow fever and cholera, and took two of the three doses of our typhoid pills,” John reported. “We accidentally left the third in our friend's refrigerator. Should we worry about that?”

  “I wouldn't,” Stan said. “Why'd you take all those in the first place?” he asked.

  “Well, that's what it said in the packet you sent us,” John said.

  “Oh?” he said.

  Hadn't he read the packet? “You mean they don't have all those diseases here?” I asked.

  “No, they got 'em, all right. I guess I just don't worry about that too much. The medical care here is really quite good. I didn't even have to be medevaced when I got shot. They patched me right up in Kampala.” And, silly me, I was busy worrying about piddly little diseases like cholera and typhoid. Maybe CARE should have updated the welcome packet. Instead of vaccinations, perhaps we should have been told to get bulletproof vests.

  “Well, here is the bathroom.” Pauline pointed to a room with a sink and a tub with a shower.

  “Um, where's the toilet?”

  “Oh … outside,” Terry said, smiling.

  Call me prissy, but I had been hoping for indoor plumbing.

  “Terry, you'll scare her off!” Pauline slapped him lightly on the arm. “There actually is one outside, but that's for the askaris, the guards that work around the yard. You'll have them in and out of your compound, working in your yard and in the guesthouse next door. Your toilet is right here.” She led us to a small room right next to the bathroom. I felt infinitely better. The whole house looked very civilized. No cow dung anywhere.

  “Well, we'll leave you two to get settled. Stan, I've got the guesthouse all set up for you. We'll expect you all for dinner tonight at our house,” Pauline said.

  “Gin-tonics at sundown?” Stan asked.

  “Of course. It's medicinal, y'know!” Terry said. “The quinine in the tonic water helps prevent malaria.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Well, I wouldn't count on it. But it's a good excuse to drink.”

  “Oh, bring along your tennies,” Pauline said. “We've got a badminton court.”

  “Tennies?” John asked.

  “That's sneakers for us Americans,” Stan said.

  “Well, it's certainly very kind of you to have us to dinner so soon,” John said.

  “That's what we do around here,” Terry said.

  “It all comes around. You'll feed us when we've been on the road,” Pauline added. “You'll see.”

  An hour later, Stan walked us down a dirt road and across a field to Terry and Pauline's house. A tall, skinny man, wearing the same blue uniform as James, stopped hacking at the grass with a machete and opened the gate.

  “Good evening, sir. Welcome.”

  “Good evening, Solomon. I'd like you to meet our new arrivals. This is John Waite and his wife, Eve.”

  “Ah, welcome,” he said. I tried not to stare at the row of perfectly straight scars that decorated his forehead from the bottom of his hairline to the tops of his eyebrows.

  “All the CARE compounds have askaris” Stan said as we followed the long, palm-tree-lined driveway into a lush, green yard. “You'll have James during the day and Nasser at night. And occasionally Solomon, here, or Busiya—he's usually next door at Hatchard's house—or one of the other guys from the office will fill in on days off. You'll like these guys. James over at your house is young, but he's great.”

  “Just in time for a game,” Terry said, coming down from the verandah as we reached the makeshift badminton court laid out behind the house.

  “Just in time to watch,” Stan said. “But maybe these two want to join you for doubles.”

  “I had Solomon rechalk the lines today. So we can play a proper game, if you guys know how,” Pauline said, joining Terry on the court.

  Boys' quarters, house girls, badminton … Who knew that post-colonial Africa was so much like, er, colonial Africa?

  “Well, I'm certainly game for anything,” John said.

  “I guess I am too,” I said with a shrug. What's next, I wondered, Robert Redford buzzing overhead in his open cockpit plane?

  Stan sunk into a cushioned seat on the shaded verandah and watched as Terry and Pauline proceeded to whip our butts in a rousing game.

  “Geez, what do they put in the Geritol here?” I whispered to John as we limped over to the verandah.

  “Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it,” Terry said. He handed out drinks after the game. “We play every evening.”

  We sat on the verandah, drinking as the sun sank quickly behind the green hills in the distance.

  “I'll go check on supper.” Pauline popped out of her chair.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  “It's all done, really. I had Beatrice set up before she left. But come on in and I'll give you the tour, if you'd like. Terry's the senior staff member in Arua, so we have the big house.” She led me through the beautiful wood-and-glass doors. “It certainly isn't fancy by Kampala standards,” she said. “But we like it.” I followed her through the living room and dining room, both with parquet floors and huge louvered windows. Her house was definitely grander than mine by any standards. “Your kitchen is bigger,” she said, showing me the small, well-equipped kitchen. “But we've got what we need.” I noticed her pantry was very well stocked. Very.

  “Does someone sleep in there?” I asked, pointing to the sleeping bag curled up on the pantry floor.

  “No! That's for making yogurt,” she said, as if every Jewish girl from Brooklyn knows it takes a sleeping bag to make yogurt. “Once you figure out where you're going to get your milk, I'll give you some starter so you can make your own.”

  Okay, so I had no idea what she was talking about. But something about the way she said it told me I was not going to be getting my milk—or my yogurt—from a corner bodega.

  “Here are our private quarters.” She opened a door to a hallway across from the dining room. “Three bedrooms, like yours, but I use the little one as an office. And go ahead, look into our bedroom,” she said, pointing me to the large room at the end of the hall.

  “Wow,” I said. “Nice built-in dressers. That's neat.”

  “No, look behind you, through th
at door.”

  “Oh, wow! A master bathroom!”

  “Yes, an en suite bath. In Africa!”

  Yup, it was definitely nicer than our house … or our apartment in Brooklyn for that matter.

  “Here,” she said, continuing the tour down another hallway, “Terry has his shop.” I poked my head into a room loaded with hand tools, wood, and projects in various stages of completion. “And there are Solomon's quarters,” she said, pointing further down the long hallway.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I said breathlessly.

  “Oh, the washing machine?” Pauline shrugged.

  “You have a washing machine?” I stared at the most gorgeous thing I'd seen in a week.

  “Well, we have one. But we certainly don't use it.”

  Can I use it? I wanted to ask. The fact that I was coveting my neighbor's modern appliance after only one week in Africa was probably not a great sign.

  “Why don't you use it?” I asked, and Pauline looked at me as if I didn't know a thing about living in the bush. Which was fair, since, let's face it, I didn't.

  “Well, we'd have to fill it by hand, for one thing. There certainly are no water hookups in this house. And it would take more water than we could spare. And then we'd have to either run it when we get power at night or turn on the generator.”

  I still didn't see the problem.

  “Anyway, Beatrice does all the washing by hand.”

  “Who is this Beatrice? She sounds handy.”

  “Beatrice. Our house girl.”

  “Is she really a girl?” I asked. “Shouldn't she be in school?”

  “Oh, Beatrice is a perfectly grown-up woman with children of her own. It's what they call housekeepers around here. I didn't make it up. Beatrice has been helping me get your place set up. I can send her over to work with you until you get your own house girl.”

  Okay, I thought. I am going to have to get this lady straightened out. I might have been incompetent. I might have been undomestic. But I didn't need to hire people to do my household chores. Besides, the whole servant thing was kind of creeping me out.