It was like the Ugandan version of trick or treat. People just came up to us and asked for what they wanted. Only this particular holiday wasn't limited to one day a year. Here, every day was Halloween—or Christmas, as the case may be. And I was Santa Claus.
It's not just that I was perceived as wealthy. In Uganda, for the first time in my life, I actually was wealthy. I was wealthy because even the few possessions that I had brought with me to Arua were more than most of my neighbors would ever have in their lives. I was wealthy because I didn't have to live solely by what I could grow or catch; because I was educated and because I was American. I was wealthy because, in the end, I could go home.
And so I was usually happy to help; that's what we were here to do, weren't we? But by the beginning of our third year there, fixing peoples problems felt like my full-time occupation. Maybe I ought to hang out a shingle, I thought. One that said, “The Social/Miracle Worker/Philanthropist Is IN.” And preferably it would have a flip-over sign that read “OUT” so that at least I could control my own hours.
By then I was paying Richard's school fees and buying his school supplies, malaria pills, and toiletries. I had also paid for his sister's malaria treatment and bought the coffin for his father's funeral. I was also paying the school fees for one of Erneste's daughters and two other girls I hardly even knew, although twice a year they each came by to show me their grades. I had paid the hospital fees for another of Erneste's daughters when she gave birth. I gave Regina and Cissie anything they needed—which most often was new shoes, and for this we carried cardboard tracings of the feet of all of their family members whenever we traveled. John lent money to several of the askaris for various family emergencies and business enterprises. Sometimes it felt like we gave and gave and gave. But the asking never ended.
But it's not like Ugandans were the only ones doing the asking. My long, newsy letters home often included my own petitions. I asked friends and family to send what I could not get in Uganda but felt I couldn't live without. “Fancy” cooking gadgets like pot holders and potato peelers. Luxury items like cake mixes and sauce packets. Things that were impossible to find in Uganda like brushes and clips for Caucasian hair. And no one got more requests than my best friend, Susan. Years later I cringed (and apologized) when I reread all my letters to her and realized what a pain in the ass I'd been. I once asked her, early on, to send my bicycle. It seems like the asking never ended. Hmmm … where have I heard that before?
But Susan forgave me, and just as Sierra's first birthday was approaching, she and her husband, Brad, came for a visit. Of course, I was thrilled—and not just because I knew they'd come bearing all sorts of things that I'd asked for (“a birthday present for Sierra; Little Mermaid decorations so I can make her a birthday party; a new computer battery …”). Susan is—and always has been—one of the most astoundingly generous souls I have ever met. And as expected, she and Brad arrived bearing all kinds of goodies for all of us.
We had spared Grammie and Papa the drive to Arua, but assumed that Susan and Brad's kidneys could handle it. They would only be with us for ten days before heading off to climb Mount Kenya. So we took the long drive to Arua, stopping so we could show them as much of the country as possible. Susan quickly exhausted her stash of giveaway bubble gum and pencils and made friends with everyone as we straddled the equator, saw the source of the Nile, and had a hyena steal our shoes while camping at Murchison Falls.
On their first morning in Arua, Brad slept in, while Susan and I had coffee and played with the newly toddling Sierra on the verandah. Reginas husband, Steven, stopped by.
“Oh, your friend must buy some of my adungus to take back to America,” he said when I introduced them. Steven had a sparkle in his eye that he got whenever he met a prospective customer. He had exhausted the local expat market: We all had more of his lovely handmade instruments than we could ever use. “If you see any here that you like,” he said, pointing to the assortment of stringed instruments that took up an entire corner of my living room, lined the walls, and decorated the tables, “I can sell you those. I can always make another one for Eve.” Steven had been known to resell my adungus before. But I had more than I needed.
“Eve, Regina and I have a serious problem,” Steven continued.
“Really? She told me everything was fine this morning.” But I had already noticed that Regina was as calm and trouble-free as Steven was frantic and perpetually problemed.
“Well, we have to get married,” Steven said.
“I thought you two were married already,” I said.
“With three kids and a fourth on the way, right?” Susan had chatted with Regina that morning.
“And that's why we need to get married in the church this time. Years ago, my family gave Reginas family four goats—not a small price,” he added, puffing up his chest. “You will no doubt get many goats, too,” Steven said, tickling Sierra's cheek. “And we were married by local custom.” Pretty much everyone I knew in Arua was married that way. Some more than once.
“Ah, but now we need to get married. Married-in-the-church married,” he said, pointing to the ring finger of his left hand. “This is the only kind of wedding the church approves of. And that will cost a lot of money.” Apparently, Steven's Christian correspondence course frowned on all that out-of-wedlock procreating.
“Okay, so you have a church wedding. That'll be nice. So what's the problem?” I asked.
“Oh, the wedding! The wedding is the problem! It will have to be big and it will be expensive and we do not have the money for a big, expensive wedding!”
“Why don't you guys just elope?” Susan asked. “You know, just go off to church, the two of you, and get married nice and simple. That's what we do in the States if we can't afford a big wedding.” Steven stared at her, his eyes the size of cue balls. “Or can't you just make a very small wedding?”
“Oh, NO! We cannot do that. For us to get married in the church, we must invite everyone. All of my clan. All of Reginas clan. All of our friends and neighbors. And, of course, all of the Christians.” I didn't know who all of the Christians were. But I feared there could be a lot of them.
“So how are you going to pay for this wedding?” I asked.
“Well, we will pray and we will form committees and we will ask God and our friends to help us.” And right then and there I knew that Steven's wedding was going to end up costing me.
“You could just pay for their whole wedding, couldn't you?” Susan asked me when Steven had gone. “If I lived here, I'd be handing over whatever I had to whoever needed it.” It was probably true, too. Susan was a lot like John in some ways. Aside from both of them being so tall that everyone here just assumed they were siblings, Susan also never seemed to get tired of giving. “I mean, it seems like we have so much and they have so little,” she said.
Of course, John knew better than to just give everything away. He lived by the development adage “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” He'd stopped handing out fish long ago, preferring instead to arm folks with their own fishing poles and lures, so to speak. But Susan might literally give someone the shirt off her back.
I took Susan to the market with me that day while I did my shopping. I made the mistake of wearing those obnoxious pink pants again (it's not like I had a lot of clothing options), and Zila asked again if she could have them.
“Aw, give her your pants, Eve,” Susan chided. “I'll send you a new pair.”
“Yeah. Give me your pants, Eve. Your friend will send you a new pair. Nicer ones from America.”
“Well, I can't very well give them to her right now,” I said.
“Do they sell kitenges here?” Susan looked around. We had gotten Susan some kitenges—and a lesson on how to wrap them like a skirt—on our road trip when she had figured out how difficult it is for a woman wearing pants to pee discreetly by the side of a barren road.
“Susan!” I kn
ew what she was thinking. “I am not going to take my pants off right here in the market and make a total mzungu spectacle of myself.” Okay, under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have taken off my pants in the market; I was already a mzungu spectacle enough as it was. But Susan has a way of making me do things that I might not otherwise do. And somehow, there I was, with a new kitenge wrapped around my waist as I very discreetly (well, as discreetly as possible) removed my pants from underneath as Susan and Zila laughed and high-fived each other in delight.
“Well, here are our pledge budgets,” Steven declared the next day, handing Susan and me pieces of paper that contained an inventory of what he and Regina would need for their wedding, along with the cost of each item. I was a little hesitant. I mean, Susan had already talked me out of my pants and she was still here reminding me that we had so much and they had so little. Who knew what she would talk me into giving away next? But this list included meat, fish, cabbages, tea leaves, a suit and a gown, handkerchiefs, socks, and soap. Why do people keep asking me to buy their toiletries? Underneath the inventory, “the two-hundred invitees” were broken down as follows: Wedding Team–24; W/Friends Team–10; Bride/Groom relatives–40; Invited Christians–55.
“I see,” I said, although the only thing I saw was that 24, 10, 40, and 55 did not equal 200.
“What's with the teams?” Susan asked. “Are there going to be relay races at the reception?”
“Relay races?” Steven stared at us blankly “No, the teams are in charge of raising money. You and John and Sierra are on the W slash Friends team. And, Susan, you may be on the W slash Friends team too.”
“Oh, Steven, that is so nice of you. But we won't be here for the wedding. We're heading to Kenya in a few more days and then we're going back home,” Susan said. “What is the W slash Friends team, anyway?”
“That is the white friends team!” he said.
A few weeks later, Steven announced that our team had pledged the most money of all the teams. And it was no wonder: The team included Coby and Bernard, Alison, Mark, the Italians for whom Steven's brother worked, their relatives who were visiting from Rome, the Dutch family that had just come from Rwanda and moved into the house where Steven's sister used to work, and any other mzungu that Steven came across.
“Woo-hoo! Go white team!” I said.
By the time Steven raised enough money for the wedding, Regina had given birth to a baby boy they named Job, just like Coby and Bernard's second son. This drove me crazy, but made life easy for Sierra, who now called every baby “Yob.” During the wedding ceremony, a female relative stood near the front of the church, jiggling Job. Several times during the ceremony, Regina nonchalantly opened the top of her frilly polyester wedding dress and popped Job onto her breast. Always the same breast, I noticed; thus finally solving the mystery of Reginas breast imbalance. I could hardly wait until after the wedding to tell her.
Dear Susan,
Has it really been three months since you were here? Where does the time go? And my how things change! Remember what a quiet, sleepy place this was? Well, here's the latest news from Arua: Three weeks ago, a land mine exploded on the road that you guys were on when John took you out to the village with him. It hit a big water truck and killed two people and wounded two others. A few days after that, an Italian development worker had his leg blown off by another land mine just outside of town, and now most of our Italian neighbors have been evacuated.
Shortly after that, our electricity started going off at 10:00 instead of 11:00. Then we got electricity only every other night. Of course, we have the solar power and the generator, so we're fine. But it is creepy having the power cut off and the military patrolling the streets at night. They haven't announced an official curfew, but they are arresting people who are out on the streets without documents after dark.
The other day, a Sudanese warplane buzzed over Arua. We all watched it and then waited for something to happen. But nothing did. Nothing but more rumors anyway. Among them: Sudan has bombed Uganda; Idi Amin is coming back to save us; a new group of rebels are now targeting the West Nile; the Sudanese government is in cahoots with all the Ugandan rebel groups and they are all getting together to invade northern Uganda. Plus, Uganda is about to have its first presidential election in ten years and everyone says the instability is going to get worse as the election gets closer. The tension is killing me. At least if something—other than rumors—would happen already, maybe we'd have an excuse to leave early. I think I might be ready to leave.
I'll keep you posted,
Eve
The Beginning of the End
“Did you know about the bus they ambushed in the park yesterday?” Coby whispered. “They stole everything and then set fire to the bus with everyone still inside.” I shivered even though it was hot outside. Coby and I were sitting in the kiddie pool in her yard while our homemade avocado facial masks dried in the sun.
“Yeah. It's definitely getting worse.” I remembered how nervous I was the first time we drove through Murchison Falls National Park with the country director, Stan. But back then the worst danger was that a hungry baboon might reach into your car and steal your lunch. Now, two and a half years later, you risked your life driving through the rebel-held park. Anyone who could afford it flew between Kampala and Arua.
“Are you thinking about leaving?” Coby asked. Our eyes were covered with cucumber slices, but we could hear the squeals of Sierra, Job, and Simon as they chased chickens around the yard, with Cissie and Florence chasing them.
“Lately, I'm often thinking about leaving,” I admitted. “What about you?”
“How can I even think about leaving on a day like today?” Coby said.
“That's the frustrating thing about it,” I said. “When it's peaceful, it's just perfect here. But whenever something happens I just want to get the hell out of here. You know? What I don't know is how are we going to know when it's really time to leave?”
“Did you hear the gunfire last night?” Coby asked.
“Hear it? Coby, I could have sworn it was in my yard. We jumped out of bed and grabbed Sierra out of her crib and huddled for a half hour in the hallway. I kept thinking ‘Call 911. Call 911.’ And then, of course, I realized our phone doesn't even work.”
“What's 911?” Coby asked.
“Yeah, exactly.”
We took off our cucumbers to see our kids running, naked and tan, in the brilliant blue sunshine.
“But it's not all bad,” Coby said. “And you're even working now.”
“I'm going down to Entebbe to do another close of service conference for the Peace Corps next week,” I said.
“Will you take Sierra?”
“I'm thinking of leaving her home. I'm hoping four days without nursing might help her get the idea about weaning. I'm afraid she's planning to nurse until she goes to college.”
“If she really needs to nurse while you're away, I'll be here.” Months before, Coby and I had agreed to nurse each other's babies if one of us got sick and couldn't nurse. We had even given it a try to see if the babies would cooperate. Job turned his nose up at me, but Sierra happily latched onto Coby and nursed away.
“Oh, Regina and Cissie won't let her starve. They get her to eat whatever they're eating. It's just when she sees me, she insists on nursing.”
John took me to the airstrip a few days later. The plane from Entebbe was already four hours late, which was odd, even by Ugandan standards. Finally a helicopter gunship appeared out of the trees. We watched as it circled Arua for half an hour and then continued north toward the Sudanese border. Within minutes the town was buzzing with the news that “the West Nile Bank Front,” a new rebel group, had taken over a refugee camp in the area. If this was true, it meant the guerrilla war had now spread to our side of the Nile River. I was terrified.
“You and Sierra should come with me to Entebbe,” I pleaded with John. It was starting to seem like there might be something to the rumors after all.
Reluctantly, I went to Entebbe, leaving John and Sierra in Arua. Usually, I loved conducting COS conferences for the Peace Corps, thoroughly enjoying being the seasoned expat, helping to prepare the departing volunteers for life after the Peace Corps. And, not surprisingly, facilitating these conferences brought a measure of closure to my own Peace Corps experience. But this time everyone was talking about what was going on in Arua. Every day there was another disturbing headline in The New Vision. And every night I tried in vain to get through by telephone. And to top it off, my boobs were engorged and killing me!
“You're not really going back there, are you?” more than one person at the conference asked. In fact, none of the Peace Corps volunteers or staff had ever been to Arua. Even before the latest unrest, the American Embassy considered northern Uganda unsafe. Official Americans, like Peace Corps personnel and the Marum family, had always been prohibited from traveling north of Murchison Falls National Park. We used to laugh at that. But I wasn't laughing now.
I returned to Arua and found Sierra still wanting to nurse and the streets of Arua perfectly calm. Whatever rebels had crossed the Nile had been rounded up by people wielding spears, pangas, and bows and arrows and turned over to the authorities. But something awful had happened while I was away. Beijing began coughing right after I'd left. The next day she stopped eating and two days later, John found her dead.
“Beijing was coughing” was Sierra's latest sentence, which she repeated over and over, and each time she said it, I cried. John had buried Beijing beneath a mango tree in our compound.
First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria Page 27