Guilty as charged

My first real exposure to Africa came last January, when I spent two weeks in Uganda doing research. I flew into the capital, Kampala, and managed to find a comfortable $20/night hotel, a great coffee shop and good local food within a day. It felt safe to walk around, and the city center was green and peaceful. Even now, while I think Nairobi is a much better place to live, coming to Kampala feels like a mini-vacation, a break from Nairobi's crime and congestion.

 

On my current trip to Uganda, however, I'm starting to think that my love is unrequited. Being brown-skinned in Uganda, you take on a complicated history - Indians were expelled by the dictator Idi Amin in the 1970s, but they've returned with a vengeance and now control a greater share of the country's economy than they do in Kenya or Tanzania. Not everyone is happy about this.

 

On Sunday, to do some reporting, we attended an evangelical Christian church service in which the 25-year-old prayer minister railed for about 45 minutes against the "foreign" businessmen who had dedicated Ugandans to "elephant gods" and to "burning incense in grocery stores." This, he yelled over and over again, as young worshippers chanted and danced in agreement, was "sin, wickedness, abomination!" I could not have been more conspicuous in the third row of seats, standing up with my notepad out and my skin especially brown from spending the previous few days in the blazing sun of northern Uganda.

 

This continued a theme for the trip that had begun last Tuesday, when Evelyn and I landed in Uganda. We asked for the hotel car to take us into Kampala, but the hotel driver, a pleasant seeming Ugandan woman, said she would put us in a taxi instead, which was faster but would cost $20. Ever the good corporate citizen, I protested - we weren't in a rush, and would rather not pay if the hotel car was free. The driver said sorry, but the hotel car also charges $10 per person. New policy, she said - then added, "You know, Asian owners." By which she meant Indian.

 

Evelyn's face went white. She looked at me. Then the driver looked at me. I didn't say anything, but she felt the need to keep talking. "I'm not accusing you," she said, "but you know who you are." I had nothing to say to that, so I bust out laughing. Even now, a week later, if Evelyn and I are discussing something and she wants to shut me up, she only has to say, "You know who you are." And I do.