“Nasser,” he hissed. “What's going on out there? Are you all right?”
“It is me, James, sir. Nasser has left the compound.” James spoke barely above a whisper. “He has climbed over the fence here,” he said, pointing to the seven-foot-high, razor-wire-topped fence. “He has gone to Mr. Terry Cross's house to get help. He has told me to watch over your family.”
“No, James, you go inside and watch over your family. We are fine.”
“I am sure Nasser will return soon with help,” James said.
Ten minutes later, we saw lights coming toward our house and heard the bouncing of a jeep over the deeply rutted dirt road. Terry's vehicle stopped in front of our gate.
A broad man in a uniform stepped out of the passenger's side. “Officer,” he barked. “You are relieved of this post. Come with me now.”
“But, sir, I have not yet finished my job here,” the policeman said as he got up from his seat on our front porch and walked quickly to the front gate.
“Officer, you are relieved of this post. Come now or I will have you removed.”
“Yes, sir.” The policeman walked quietly out of the compound and got into the back of the Land Rover.
“Sorry for the problem, Mr. Waite,” the police chief said to John. “This man is usually a fine officer. One of our best. But he is drunk. I will return him to the barracks and he will sleep it off.”
Jane and I looked at each other. He'll sleep it off, all right, I thought. He's got enough sleeping pills in him to sleep for a very long time. But not enough to kill him!
“He will not bother you any further.” The police chief got back into Terry's vehicle.
“A bit of excitement in there tonight?” Terry asked, popping his head out of the driver's window.
“Yeah, a bit of an unusual night, you might say,” John answered.
“Ah, another great tale to tell the folks back home. You gotta love this expat life!” Terry smiled as he drove off.
Giddy with relief, we poured a fresh round of beers and even a glass of Stefano's wine for me and decided to watch the end of the movie.
About a half an hour later we heard hollering and banging on the gate. “Let me back in! I have come to finish my job!”
“Shit! He's back,” said John and Stefano in tandem, staring out the front door.
“Let me in! Let me in! I have returned to assume my post,” yelled the policeman.
“Mzee.” It was James, speaking slowly through the gate. “I think you have completed your job well. This compound is secure. You should return to your barracks now.” I was struck by how incredibly brave this slight young man was. There was nothing between him and that guy but a chain-link fence.
James came around to the kitchen door after talking to the policeman at the fence for a few minutes. “He wants to be let in.”
“I thought the chief hauled him back to the barracks. I thought they would keep him there for the night!” I felt suddenly dizzy as if I had been plunged into an absurd episode of The Twilight Zone. “Shouldn't he be passed out by now?” I asked Jane.
“Gee,” she said. “Maybe we shouldn't have worried so much about killing him.”
“He has no shoes,” James said, explaining the security measure that was supposed to have kept him from returning.
“Did they take away his gun, at least?” John asked.
“No, sir. He still has his gun.”
“Well, don't go out there again, James. Stay out back. At least he's outside the fence this time. We'll be okay in here.” John didn't sound terribly reassuring.
“Nasser has gone over the fence again,” James said. “He will go get help.”
The policeman was still banging on the gate and howling to be let in when the Land Rover's lights shone down the road for the second time that night. But this time, the policeman fled into the woods when he saw the vehicle. The police chief and another officer jumped out of the jeep and ran after him. Terry kept his headlights shining into the woods.
“Hmmm … I guess it's not so funny now, is it?” Terry asked when we all joined him by his vehicle.
“Why the hell did they take away his shoes but not his gun?” John asked in amazement.
“The police chief thought he was drunk,” Terry shrugged. “Unfortunately that happens quite often. They usually just sleep it off.”
“Oh, that's just great! I feel better than ever about having an armed guard every night.” Terry was well aware of my concern about having a gun in my yard. “These guys are psychotic to boot!”
After a few minutes, the police chief came back and asked us for a torch. Flashlight in hand, he headed back into the woods.
“We have lost him,” the police chief announced when he returned ten minutes later.
“So what do we do now?” John asked.
“We will go back to the station. He will no doubt return tomorrow. We will discipline him then,” the chief said. “You and your family can go to bed. I am sure this man will not bother you again tonight.”
“Go to bed?” I asked. “How can we just go to bed? The man is obviously psychotic, and now he's in trouble and we're the ones who got him in trouble. And in case you forgot, he still has his gun!”
“This officer will stay here tonight,” the chief said, pointing to the officer who had come with him from the station. “He has a gun, too. You will be fine.”
“Oh, goodie,” I said. “Now we can look forward to a gun battle in our yard later tonight!”
“Maybe you should all spend the night at our house,” Terry offered. He didn't have to offer twice. Stefano went home and John, Jane, and I went to Terry and Pauline's house. I was half expecting to hear gunshots coming from my house all night. But the rest of the night was quiet, except for the annoying drone of mosquitoes, and our muttered curses as we slapped at them. In our haste to get out of our house, we'd forgotten to take our mosquito nets with us. We decided to risk getting malaria rather than go back to the house and chance a third run-in with the crazed police guard.
We went to the police station the next morning. The runaway officer, apparently refreshed after a night in the bush, reported to work as if nothing unusual had happened. Fearful of losing the lucrative business of providing private protection to the half-dozen international aid organizations in Arua, the police chief asked to be allowed to handle the matter internally. He assured us that the man in question would be immediately transferred to another district and we could forget all about this unfortunate incident.
Beh, I thought. I never forget anything!
Dear Susan,
It was delightful to get your package of goodies yesterday. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, the huge stack of videos is towering in our living room. But, nay, it is not left dusty and nigh onto toppling over in the corner! No! We have built a shrine around it in the center of the room next to the TV and the VCR. And it is here that we make a nightly pilgrimage, light candles, and pray to the great gods of industry that someday soon we, too, may put on our bouncy Air Jordans (bought for twice the per capita income of most Ugandans) and live within commuting distance (in our sporty new Mustang) of a McDonald's! Hell, it's not the sitcoms that we watch over and over. No, we fast-forward to the commercials: That's what reminds us of the world we left behind!
I'm finally beginning to feel a bit better. I've rediscovered my appetite. Unfortunately, there's nothing here I want to eat. I swear some nights I could kill for ice cream. Last night I woke John up at three in the morning whining about that episode of M*A*S*H where they got the ribs sent all the way from Chicago. “If they could get ribs in Korea during a war in the 1950s,” I said, “can't you find a way to get bagels and lox here in Uganda?”
We started thinking of baby names. But John says I am not supposed to tell you what they are. For now though, s/he is referred to as “Mowgli Hyphen” as suggested by John's brothers. “Mowgli” after the kid in The Jungle Book and “Hyphen” because John's family keeps wondering if the kid is going to b
e a Waite, a Brown, or a hyphen!
I'm also not supposed to tell you how we were recently held hostage in our own home. But I promise it'll make a great story someday!
I'll keep you posted,
Eve
My African Pregnancy
“Skim milk!” I yelled, thrusting the book at John. My girlfriend Patti, who'd recently given birth, had sent me a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. “I'm supposed to be drinking skim milk. Where the hell am I supposed to get skim milk around here?”
“Well, the cows around here are pretty skinny,” John said. I glared at him. “I think they just don't want you to gain too much weight. I don't think you need to worry about that, Eve.”
I had finally started to feel better in my fifth month. My appetite had improved. But except for what we could haul back from Kampala, it was difficult to find anything that I really wanted to eat. Whenever I craved anything other than the bananas or pineapples that I usually had on hand, I'd wander over to Pauline's house. She practically always had some wonderful leftovers, or a cake or bread that she'd just pulled out of the oven. But even with Pauline's treats, I was plagued by the fear that I was not eating enough and therefore damaging my unborn child. The book was only adding to my guilt.
“Oh my God. Look at this. It says here our child is going to be brain-damaged if I don't eat folic-acid-fortified bread. Where the hell am I supposed to get that?”
“Um, Eve,” John said, gently taking the book from my hands. “I don't think you should read this book anymore.”
“But every pregnant woman is supposed to read this book,” I said. “It's supposed to be very helpful.”
John took the book and slammed a mosquito against the wall with it. “Yup. It is a very helpful book.”
Regardless of what it said in the book, it did seem like my pregnancy was progressing just fine. David Morton had heard the baby's heartbeat with his stethoscope and I could now regularly feel the baby kicking. After a rocky start, my pregnancy, like my life in Uganda, was beginning to feel better. And like the weather around me, my work life had gone from desperate drought to near downpour.
“How would you like to be our computer teacher at the bank?” John had asked recently.
“Because I'm such a computer whiz myself?” I asked. It was early 1994, and while computers had made their way into most offices and plenty of homes in America, they were still a fairly new technology in Africa, and almost unheard of in Arua.
“You know how to cut and paste and save. So you're light-years ahead of pretty much everyone else. The three new computers we got are just sitting there. Everyone is afraid to touch them.”
“So what would I teach them?”
“Well, you could come and give them some lessons in the basics. Just get them started.”
“Well, I do know WordPerfect!” This is the program I had been using to write my short stories and letters home.
“And you could teach them Lotus 1-2-3.”
“I'd have to teach that to myself first.”
“Yeah, but you could. These guys are still afraid the computer will blow up if they touch the wrong button. Most of them are still petrified to turn the damn things on.”
So three afternoons a week, I'd go with John to the bank and teach basic computer skills to the assistant branch manager and some of the outreach workers and clerks. In addition to having never seen a computer, most of them had never even typed on a keyboard. So I made up little typing exercises; the kinds I remembered from junior high school. I was the Mavis Beacon of the jungle! It was hardly what I'd hoped to be doing, but it was something. And I was happy with my little job, for the most part. It was pleasant enough, except late in the week, when a particular bank staffer was especially rank. He was a very nice guy and always wore a neat suit (the same neat suit), but we strongly suspected he only bathed on weekends—and never washed that suit.
“Take the afternoon off,” John would occasionally warn me when he came home for lunch. “Even I could smell him today.” Which, coming from John, must have meant he was unbearable.
In addition to my little gig at the bank, CARE had hired me to teach basic health classes for the askaris and drivers and their families. I was thrilled and created participatory lesson plans about basic first aid and preventing the spread of communicable diseases, including, of course, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. But the classes posed some interesting dilemmas.
“Madam,” one of the askaris said as he pulled me aside after I'd told the class to bring their wives to the next week's class on HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. “I have two wives. Which should I bring?”
Hmmm … that was not something I'd had to deal with back in New York.
“You can bring as many wives as you'd like, I guess.” When in Rome—or Africa—as they say …
“But, madam, I cannot bring them both at the same time.”
Silly me! “Um, don't they know about each other?”
“Yes! Of course they do. But if they are both here with me, who will be at home watching the children and preparing the matoke?”
Duh! So I started offering each class several times so that various wives could have a chance to come.
I was also hired to conduct a training class for the Rakai AIDS Information Network. And, thus, I finally got my chance to work in the epicenter of Uganda's AIDS epidemic. This group restored my faith in the outlook for HIV prevention in Uganda. But the highlight of the week was the eggs Benedict my hosts served me for brunch. Hey I was six months pregnant and ravenous. So now that I was finally feeling better, it was May and nearly time for me to fly back to the States for Jean's wedding. But John and I had one more safari planned before I went home to give birth.
Jane went to Kenya shortly after our hostage crisis, but we met up with her and her fiancé, Matt, a few weeks later for a safari through the southern part of Uganda. So that's how I found myself six months pregnant and trekking through the Virunga Mountains in search of the elusive mountain gorillas. I couldn't help but wonder what What to Expect When You're Expecting would have to say about that. But all we used that book for these days was swatting mosquitoes. We'd leave their little dead bodies plastered to the walls, like teeny tiny hunting trophies or warnings to other mosquitoes.
So there we were, after hours of following our guides as they slashed a path through the thick undergrowth, in literally a no-man's-land somewhere between Uganda, Zaire, and Rwanda. There was absolutely no way to tell which country we were in because it was jungle as far as the eye could see—which wasn't very far since it was really thick jungle. At one point I was quite convinced that we were no longer walking on the ground but were actually clawing our way forward on the thick ropy vines in the canopy of growth above it all. Our guides certainly seemed to know their way around the jungle—I only hoped they knew their way out as well.
After five hours of hellacious climbing, we reached the spot where the guides had last seen the gorillas. As soon as we got there, rain began pouring down in sheets. The gorillas knew enough to get out of the rain; they were nowhere to be seen. We humans stood there with no protection from the cold downpour.
“I can't take another step. I can't lift my legs. I have arthritis in my hips,” I whined.
“You don't have arthritis,” John said.
“I think I developed a spontaneous case of it about two hours ago. Can't we just go down?”
“We are not going back down until we see the gorillas!” Jane yelled. She was standing right next to me but had to yell in order to be heard over the waterfall of rain. “I've climbed for the last five hours and I am not leaving until I see them!”
“But they aren't coming out. I'm drenched. I'm exhausted. My hips don't work anymore.” I was being a big baby and I knew it. But this had been the most physically punishing thing I had ever done. I had been in excruciating pain as we'd climbed straight uphill for the last two hours.
“You guys live in Africa,” Jane insisted
. “You might get another chance. But this is my one shot. And I am not leaving until I see the gorillas!” I realized that this was my one shot, too, as I was not going to sign up for this torture again. So I whimpered quietly and huddled in the rain.
In case I haven't said it yet, Uganda is an incredibly beautiful country. Sure, I had whined, moaned, and been frightened an awful lot during the past ten months here. But I had also been awestruck by sights so picture-book perfect that it was hard to believe they were real: the pack of elephants that had nearly charged us when Matt had gotten too close; the school of baby giraffes that had loped along beside our Pajero; the hippos and crocodiles that sloshed in every available body of water; the rainbows of tiny, twittering birds that decorated nearly every tree and hillside. Whenever I witnessed such a scene, I felt incredibly lucky to be in Africa. Yes, it was hard at times. But perhaps this was the price we paid for the chance to witness such beauty.
As the rain slowed to a drizzle, a gorilla strutted out into the clearing not more than two or three yards away from us. We humans got very still, as if we were petrified; and truly we were as this silverback stood up to his full six feet and blew up his chest like a baritone about to perform for us. He stripped a handful of wet leaves off some nearby branches with his black, leathery—yet very familiar-looking—hands and stuffed them into his mouth. He stared straight at us, but we averted our eyes as our guides had taught us, so we wouldn't be perceived as a threat to this alpha male. My stomach growled and I remembered anxiously that I didn't have so much as a groundnut to tide me over, because the guides had made us leave our food back on the trail so that the gorillas wouldn't smell it. After a few minutes of staring, he walked off into the woods and soon an adult female with a baby clinging to her belly came into the clearing. They completely ignored us as they yanked leaves from the trees, stuffed them in their mouths, and groomed each other's fur. We sat silently for an hour, absolutely transfixed, and I knew that this was one of those amazing experiences that was worth every moment of discomfort I'd had to endure to get there.
First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria Page 22
