About a month ago I started a big email back home to the family detailing the events of how one of my basketball players conned me out of 410,000 shillings ($225) on his way to being kicked out of school. I didn’t finish the email because I had to go do something else. I planned to come back to the email and finish it and turn it into a blog thing too. Then I was going to write another blog thing about how we’re 99% sure the girl who cleans our house and washes our clothes (we’re not lazy--everyone in Uganda, African or not, who makes any kind of money, has a girl who cleans and washes) stole 500,000 shillings ($275) from us, so we fired her.
I was gonna write that stuff--big long sagas of deception, and the betrayal that you feel and the way it makes you second-guess yourself and your relationship with people you trust, because you have to trust someone.
Then I had a conversation with someone in Kampala, accusing someone I’ve gotten to know well and have come to trust as much as anyone in Uganda, of something terrible. No matter what the truth is, something terrible happened to someone and I have to chose either to forget about it, or pursue justice. I’m gonna pursue justice, but trying to navigate the correct pursuit of justice in another country with another another culture and another understanding of justice, is complicated. Every day it gets more complicated.
I watched Serpico yesterday afternoon while eating lunch. My first free Saturday in many Saturdays--no games--no meetings--Louise was in Kampala working. I watched Frank Serpico navigate his pursuit of justice in the 1960’s New York City Police Department. I learned a few things. I also thought about growing the beard back.
A great thing about being a 21st Century missionary is the ease with which you’re able to communicate whatever you want to communicate with whomever in the world you wish, wherever in the world they are. The downside of that ability is that you’re still living in a foreign world where foreign things happen to you and it’s tough to build a priority system where “update blog” is higher than at least two other things (“answer the phone,” “answer the door”) that can lead to events that fill up whatever categories are at the top of your priority system, sometimes for days. I was writing the stuff about justice and Serpico on a quiet Sunday night. Louise was spending the night in Kampala with the entire Fields of Life Staff doing a training seminar. I’d gotten as far as thinking about the beard, and my phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Coach, it’s 32. Robert was at the market and found the thief who stole Biggy’s jersey. The guy is now at the hostel and guys are beating him. I think you should come down.”
“I’m coming.”
The hostel where six of our basketball players live with 15 other volleyball and soccer players, is about a 15 minute walk from our house. Louise had our car in Kampala. It was 10:30 at night. It’s not wise for a mzungu, or anyone really, to walk alone at night. During the day, anyone can walk almost anywhere in around Kampala and the surrounding towns without fear of danger coming from another person. At night, it’s different. Kampala isn’t Lagos or Johannesburg or Nairobi--African capitol cities notorious for night and day violence--but Kampala is in Uganda and Uganda is a developing country.
You can research exact numbers, but the vast majority of Ugandans are living in what the developed world calls “poverty,” which means, virtually everyone you see walking around, needs something. They need more clothes, more food, better shelter, more money for school fees, more money to buy clean water to drink, more … -- it’s a theoretical list that can be practicalized and ersonalized and completed by every African who doesn’t drive a car--in Kampala, in Mukono, in any village near to or far from any paved or dirt road. Every individual alive in Africa knows that no matter how much everyone needs, there is someone who has more of something than that individual has. Often, that “more of something” is visible. You see a guy walking down the street--you can’t tell much about his nutrition or his house, but you can assess the quality of his clothes, trousers? jeans? bought from a store? bought at the market? practical? flashy? simple? with a 50 Cent logo? hat? necklace? any accessories? flip-flops? shoes? clean? shiny? mobile phone? in a pocket? on a chain around the neck? camera phone? flip phone? Right or wrong (if it’s a moral question at all), no one wants to look like a village person. Dressing like a city person is the first step toward becoming one, and most people, especially students, do their best to “look smart” at all times. By looking smart they’re also making themselves targets--establishing themselves as people who “have more” than the guy up the road walking toward them in a softball t-shirt, a pair of cut-off shorts, a dirty hat and ragged out sandals--an ensemble bought at the local market for about $2 for single purpose of keeping his body covered.
It’s unfair to assume that every guy or girl dressed in such a way is looking to take something from someone who has more--but it’s realistic to assume that he or she would take something if they knew they wouldn’t get caught. It’s the getting caught that keeps people from taking things they don’t have from someone who has them. You might comment, “That’s the same in any society.” Sort of. But the fear of getting caught stealing in, say, America is different from the fear of getting caught stealing in, say, Uganda. In America, you’ll probably get yelled at and insulted by security and police officers and you might spend a humiliating and uncomfortable night in prison listening to Sportscenter without being able to see the screen. In Uganda, you WILL be beaten. You will be beaten until you confess. Then you will be beaten until you produce more things that you’ve stolen. Then you will be beaten until you die. The only way you will not be beaten until you die is if the police intervene. If the police can find where you are when you’re being beaten, they’ll come and watch people beat you a little longer, then they’ll pick you up and drag you to the police station, on foot, beating you if you slip and fall, or if you speak a single word. Beating is mostly with fists and sometimes with feet inside shoes and boots, and it’s mostly in the head--in the face, around the ears, and around the eyes.
As soon as I hung up with 32, I called Mark and he came down in his car. The wipers were still going, but the rain had stopped. We drove the half-mile along the paved road in front of the University--I had no idea what to prepare myself for. We turned onto the muddy road at the “trading center”--shops on either side of the mud selling convenience-store items, mobile phone air-time cards and snacks and beer. Mark’s headlights made the turn and spotlighted a group of about ten guys I recongnized, walking together with one shirtless kid shoved out in front of them with his hands tied behind his back.
I jumped out. I could feel the danger. There’s a curtain that hangs from somewhere and conceals a great deal of reality from those (mostly mzungus) who, according to some nameless person or idea who makes the rules, are not supposed to see a great deal of reality. Either because of the rain or because it was late at night or because it was off-campus or because of all of that put together, the curtain was down. There was a half-a-second when people saw me walking over when they all realized the curtain was down, but in the second half of the second, they realized they couldn’t do anything about it and the focus went back to the thief. Most of the time, I’m dying for an opportunity to be in the presence of all the reality with no curtain--to be somewhere and have no one regarding me as a mzungu--to be a pure participant or pure observer with no status or qualification. But at 10:30 on a muddy Sunday night in a swirl of deep threatening voices speaking hateful Luganda and Swahili, almost everyone breathing beer, I was more scared than comfortable. I was glad to see Biggy (6’ 7” intimidator from Mombassa, Kenya) and even more glad that he didn’t seem too involved with the handling of the thief. I found 32 and Robert, our captain, and asked them to explain things to me. They started talking. I knew I wouldn’t, but it was still nice to notice that I didn’t smell beer on either of them. They were relatively calm but told a disjointed story that I realized was unimportant anyway. I heard slapping sounds. I left them explaining and went over to where three guys had just finished sneaking serious blows to the thief’s face. I shouted, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and people spread out and looked at me, many of them grinning, determined to do what they were doing, but amused that I was there. I got a clear look at the thief. His shirt was torn off him and hanging around his waist. His eyes were swolen. There was no blood.
I recognized about ten of the guys around the thief. There was Biggy and Robert and 32 and Eliud (from Tanzania), then a few soccer guys and a few volleyball guys. These guys all know me and they’ve all seen and heard me yell at my guys in games and, when things get bad, at referees. They also know I’m the Sports Director and that I eat dinner with the Vice Chancellor and they have plenty of reasons to listen to me. But more people started gathering from out of the trading center shops, and I knew my authority wouldn’t be as secure with them.
One of the soccer players said, “Coach. You’re here. We’re not going to kill this guy. We just want to get our things back.”
I felt pretty good about the honesty and clarity of that statement. I went back to the car and told Mark things were under control, that I was gonna call a UCU security guy to come give advice, and that he could drive home. Mark left. I called the security guy and told him where we were and he told me he was coming.
Once again I’ve had to break from the rhythm of the story--this time the break’s been long enough to let Louise and I celebrate the birth of Jesus by eating over-priced Chinese food in London’s China Town, and then to fly over to Ireland. I’m now in Northern Ireland in Waringstown at Denise’s kitchen table with my feet up to a space heater. I wanna continue this story of thieving because it’ll tell me something more about my life in Uganda and it’ll tell others something more about my life in Uganda and it’ll maybe tell all of us something more about something we don’t yet know we need to know, or at least feel. But I’m realizing there are other things that need more practical and immediate attention. So, I’ve decided to write a book. In that book, I’ll complete this story--it might change some--but you’ll recognize enough of it to know you’re on the right track--you’ll recognize the Serpico reference at the beginning and then I’ll probably tell a little more about the player conning me out of money and the house-girl stealing from us--then there’ll be this super-meaningful episode of me killing a mouse in our house that’ll shed some kind of important light on the whole thing. It’ll be worth all of us waiting for it--the story and the book. If you want to publish the book, send me an email.
