A cacophony of silence

Last weekend, me and my fellow do-goody-gooding muzungu housemates went to the largest island in an archipelago known as “Ssesse”, although really it would have been better named “Zzzzzz” considering how sleepy it was. There was a grand total of nothing going on, except for the odd bit of not much now and again, and if we were really lucky, a rare show of sod all. Still, I shouldn’t be harsh – these are useful qualities for a place when the principle objective of the visit is to convalesce from the acute trauma of living in Kampala.

Friendometer

Determined to prove to myself that the island must be harbouring activity somewhere, I decided on Saturday afternoon to pitch out across a nearby hill Dr. Livingstone style, and see if I could actually find evidence that something was going on somewhere. After wandering for a fruitless hour and still finding nothing worthy of diarising save a rusty old British water pump (how proud we should be of those fine engineering minds!), I was suddenly perfunctorily summoned by a voice from a dense and thorny thicket to my left: “you, man! You! Stop there!” I didn’t stop, but instead gave a casual glance over my left shoulder that belied my fear that I may have finally found somewhere in Uganda where hairy pink visitors are unwelcome. However, the shouting bush didn’t desist, and seemed to be getting angrier. Suddenly recalling Abraham’s seminal encounter with talking greenery, I decided it was more prudent to stop and humble myself before this phenomenon, lest it be trying to communicate something of divine portent. I summoned my most English tone of voice and sheepishly solicited for a clue as to the reason for my arrest: “Oh! Dreadfully sorry! Have I intruded upon your privacy? Gosh, how mortifying!” At this stage I still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that I was witnessing the Second Coming, so I was somewhat surprised when a dishevelled teenage boy emerged forth from the thicket. I was almost disappointed to discover that he wasn’t angry at all, just anxious not to let the hairy pink being proceed without first ascertaining what it might be doing on his island. Of course, I had been asking myself the same question ever since stepping off the boat, so I wasn’t able to satiate his curiosity.

Working Hours

PEAS, the only charity in the world to double as one of your five-a-day, has undergone a transition. When it started, it was little more than a shared ambition that existed in the heads of a lanky Cambridge graduate and an upwardly mobile young Ugandan. By the time I entered the pod (see what I did there?), it had grown to become a flowery bouquet of amateur but thankfully fairly intelligent do-gooders, a mould into which I slotted neatly. Nine months on, you might almost mistake it for a professional organisation: some of my colleagues actually know what they’re doing, we have agendas for our meetings, and we have a flourishing system of office politics.

Since I am supposed to be the ‘Project Consultant’, I was proud of a recent moment of great consultative insight, which was that growing organisations need these other-worldly things that bigger and more important institutions (of the kind we aspire to be) call ‘Systems and Procedures’. I excitedly shared this epiphany with my colleagues, hoping that my consultative contribution would be adopted, delegated to a minion, and I could continue having more brilliant flashes of consultantism for other people to execute. I wasn’t expecting them to say “Lovely! I’ve been really craving a new procedure and I would love a system for lunch. When can we sit down and enjoy them?”

So I am now spending endless tiresome office hours in the company of Microsoft Word. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a fine piece of software – but if you must be in front of a computer screen, there are more fun things to do, and there’s even more excitement to be had if you dare to step out of the company of Turing’s invention altogether. In fact, I feel like I have clumsily discharged a firearm into the base of one of my lower limbs. I have gone to the extent of drawing up a rota of fonts, switching to a different one every 100 words or so to give myself some variety. I may patent the idea.

Interestingly, when I was a naïve and hopeful youngster (those halcyon days!), I said that the main reason I wanted to be a teacher was because I didn’t fancy spending my life slouched before a flickering computer screen. This may have been youthful anti-establishment vitriol (about as much as a good boy like me could muster), but it suddenly seems as if I might have been right. However, since teaching left my life quicker than it came, I have concluded that I don’t want to be anything, which is quite convenient since there are no jobs anyway.

Close Encounters of the African Kind

Another twilight safari to one of Kampala’s fine Nocturnal Imbibing Centres began like any other – it was proved for the thousandth time that not even the city’s impressive assortment of the world’s most beautiful ladies, even when they are dancing with the deadly seduction brought about by oscillating the world’s most curvaceous behinds through a series of impossible rhythms, can divert the attention of men away from the football. Of course, being the chaste and sober lad that I am, I was utterly indifferent to both these diversions, so I was delighted by the sight that greeted my eyes when I gave a casual glance over the first-floor balcony to the road below. A ‘Gentleman of the Street’ was enjoying the bar’s raucous musical offerings from between two parked cars. And this guy wasn’t just distractedly shuffling his feet – he was absolutely killing it. If he’d been wearing shoes I’d have had a genuine concern that he was going to tear a hole in the tarmac.

As you can imagine, there was something heart-warmingly delightful about seeing a homeless man having a right good time, but sadly this is another story with a bad ending. I left the bar (alone, of course) relatively early by Kampala standards, but read in the paper the very next day that someone had been killed later the very same night at the very same bar, by falling off the very balcony from which I had been spectating upon the partying tramp. Too much drink, supposedly – but nothing ever has such a simple explanation in Kampala.

The fable of the Chameleon and the Shoebill Stork, Chapter II

A few weeks after their disastrous encounter, the two adversaries unexpectedly stumbled upon each other in the bar once again. At the mere sight of the shoebill’s long and elegant pins, the chameleon felt himself changing from his neutral green to a hot red, and the more he tried to resist it the faster it seemed to happen. He watched as the shoebill stork left his bar stool (donated by the family of a deceased tortoise) and strolled to the bar. With each step, a foot would lift softly, advance a generous helping of inches, and linger seductively before being delicately placed in readiness for the recommencement of the cycle. And then there was that beak! So grand, so grossly, ostentatiously wonderful. By the time the shoebill stork reached the bar, the chameleon was fully red and turning blue. He was sure he saw the corner of the stork’s beak twitch with mirth.

The barman, with a tact and diplomacy typical of species who carry horns on their noses, greeted both in turn, and commented how delighted he was that the two creatures had appeared together, since the results of the vote were in. He lamented, however, how low voter turnout was, which instantly prompted the shoebill stork onto his soapbox. The bird, relishing the opportunity to enjoy listening to the penetrating tones of his own voice, started lecturing on how animals had no respect for democracy any more, but emphasised that he wouldn’t expect turnout greater than fifty percent, since women’s suffrage, though tolerable, was unimportant. The chameleon, a liberal chap, became highly agitated by such regressive ideas, and even though no personal affront had yet been made, he was now changing colour so fast he almost looked white. Desperately humiliated once again, and unable to retard the frantic display of technicolour brilliance, he began a slow and painful walk of shame towards the door. The rhino, pouring a cool beer for a meercat who had been watching the unfolding spectacle with increasing interest, felt sorry for the poor chameleon, but reflected that at least there was now time for a FEW MORE PEOPLE TO VOTE!