What happened to Alex

I saw William, the property manager, Friday afternoon and asked him what happened to Alex. He didn’t know. “He didn’t even say he was leaving,” he said. So now it’s Robert who’s opening the gate and cleaning the apartment.

I found out that evening why Alex left. He’d stolen $500 from me. I lost my key a couple of weeks ago and he offered to make a copy of the spare from the guest house for me. I suspect he made an extra for himself.

For some reason, I thought to look in my money belt that I keep in my suitcase in my bedroom and it was completely cleaned out—-dollars, Euros, completely empty. I didn’t have any shillings left in it, which was in a way fortunate and in another way too bad because he stole all that money for nothing. These were $100 bills that were printed before 2000 and were useless here, as I found when I first tried to change them.

It would be one thing if he’d taken all that money and it made a huge difference in his life, but he took it for nothing. He now has no job, no housing, and no money. And for me, $500 is not an amount to sneeze at. It just makes me very sad; it seems quite tragic in a way. And there’s a part of me that’s hoping he’ll bring it back since it won’t do him any good anyway. I know that’s a ridiculous notion, but I’m hoping it anyway.

I told my landlady about this because I want the lock changed. When I told her what happened, she alternated between saying, "Oh, my God!" and "I'm so very sorry." When she came over this afternoon, her husband took my hand and said, "We'll track him down." I hope they don't. I would hate for Alex to be sent to prison for stealing what was worthless to him. I doubt the police will get involved or find him. But it’s just so distressing, it makes me want to cry.

Alex is missing!

Yesterday, just after I posted my blogs, I walked back to my apartment to find the gate locked. That usually means Alex is inside because someone needs to be inside to unlock the gate for people. I knocked. No answer. I called him. No answer. I knocked again. Nothing. I phoned. A voice said, "The number you have called is not available." I kept this up for 10 minutes, then finally gave up and went in search of lunch at a neighborhood restaurant (matooke, rice, maize, beans).

I came back a half-hour later. STILL no answer. I called my landlady and explained, and she sent another young fellow over from the associated guest house who clambered over the gate being very careful as he navigated the spearpoint bits at the top and let me in.

Alex was nowhere to be found. One of those locked room mysteries, although obviously it's not impossible to get over the wall.

This morning, still no Alex. I asked his replacement what happened to Alex. He said no one knows where he is. Very strange. I'll keep you posted.

Alex's title

Just found out Alex's official job title: he's "the houseboy." Isn't that squirm-inducing? I think I'll just keep calling him Alex, if that's OK with you.

The help

The only previous experience I have had with hired help is the gardener my roommate employed to work in the yard back when I lived on Eastshore Drive in Alameda, in 2003. She found him, hired him, told him what to do, and paid him. I just paid half the bill. So I was completely unprepared for how to deal with Alex, the doorman, cleaner, and general factotum who comes with the apartment here. I found myself more than once wishing I had been brought up where one observes one’s parents behavior and maybe even gets a lecture or two on “The Proper Way to Handle the Servants.”

As it is, this is another circumstance in which I’m sure my Western awkwardness sticks out like a sore thumb and I only hope Alex makes allowances for me, reminding himself that I’m an ignorant mazungu.

I don’t really have anyone to ask about this. Lord knows the rest of the people I’m working with don’t live in the splendor that my residence provides. The only people I know who do have these kinds of accommodations are people like me: Kiva volunteers, new to the country and its ways.

Every day, Alex mops the floors of my apartment using a towel soaked in soapy water, bending at the waist to wipe off the floors (usually when I am reading Morning Prayer, which adds to the cognitive dissonance of the circumstances). He makes my bed (I used to do that, but he would just re-do it better, so now I leave it rumpled), changing the sheets twice a week—ironing them before he puts them on the bed. He washes off the counters and stovetop and takes out the trash. He tidies my bedside table and toiletries and lines up my shoes. And he used to wash the dishes except that I found myself re-washing them, since he washed them in cold water.

He is here seven days a week because someone has to be here to unlock the heavy metal door in the even heavier metal gate. He lets me in when I come home, saying, “Hello, madame, well come back, how are you?” and carries my groceries or parcels if I have any.

And he cleans my shoes. This one blew my mind. For my heavier shoes that I tend to wear when it’s muddy, he unlaces them, cleans the sides, and picks all the mud and dirt out of the treads. For my other dressier work shoes, he cleans the dust off the uppers and the dirt off the soles. They look almost as good as when I arrived.

And when I didn’t get around to ironing my clothing one night, he did that, too, the next morning.

All of this was quite marvelous, and then there was a new wrinkle. A couple of weeks ago as I was getting ready to leave with my driver (another phenomenon I don’t know how to interpret), Alex leaned in the window of the car and said, “Oh, Mami! I am so thirsty! Give me some money so I can get something to drink!” I gave him 500/=. The driver asked if he had done some extra task for me; that was right after he had done my ironing. James seemed to think that was reasonable, but I am at a point where I am completely unsure of my interpretation of these cultural interactions.

A few days later, Alex again said, “Oh, Mami! I am a very poor man! I need money for lunch today!” That time I gave him 1500/=, which is still less than $1, mind you, but enough for some food.

I must admit, I felt uncomfortable having Alex ask me for money. It seemed a little degrading for everyone concerned. I have no doubt he earns very little and goodness knows Alex makes my life much easier. But when he asks for money, I have no idea what is appropriate. Today I decided to offer extra payment in advance of him asking me for it. Before he left, I gave him 5000/= (about $3). He accepted it, it seemed to me, with an air of being slightly overwhelmed—but again, I am more aware than ever that what I see may not actually be what’s going on. “Oh, Mami! Thank you!” he said, tucking the bill into his pocket. I told him the place looked wonderful, which it did, and that I was very grateful for his work, which I am.

So who knows. I may be doing things completely wrong. I may be offering too much or too little. I may be offering money at the wrong time, or perhaps I shouldn’t offer it at all. I really couldn’t say. I’ll see in the coming days what the reaction is—if I can tell—and make adjustments accordingly.

Good Friday in Kampala

It finally occurred to me yesterday that I am in Uganda. I know that sounds a little stupid, but it’s true. All of a sudden, I looked around and realized that I am in Uganda and that it is very far away from California and that it will be a while before I come home. I think it finally hit me yesterday because it was the first day this year that I didn’t have a huge to-do list hanging over my head. I wasn’t finishing up a job, or packing up at apartment, or getting ready to leave, or moving to my new apartment here, or settling in to the job and getting into new patterns. In fact, what has already become my new pattern (putting water on the cooker to boil for tea while I read Morning Prayer) got disrupted because of the new tank of gas.

My cooking space consists of a stovetop with three burners attached by a rubber hose and a connector to a large tank of propane. I turn on the propane at the connector and turn on the burners I want to light, then take matches and light the burners that burst on with a whoosh! I have finally gotten to the point where I don’t throw the match at the burner to light it.

But I needed to buy a full tank for 60,000 shillings (about $35). On Thursday, I went to the Forex (foreign exchange) Bureau to change a $100 bill (they don’t take smaller, and they don’t take bills printed before 2000, and so I have $500 that is worthless here). When I got back on Thursday night, I gave Alex, the caretaker, the 60,000 and he brought me a new tank and tried to set it up. The connector refused to connect. He struggled with it for 20 minutes until I finally said, “Why don’t you try again in the morning.” He said OK.

And so on Friday morning, Alex continued to fight with the tank for a while, trying to attach it. Then he got a different tank. Then he got the tank I had had before I bought the new tank. Then he brought in the bodaboda driver to help. Then there was a procession of men trooping in and out—I don’t know who they were--, all trying to help and none succeeding. Then a man with a shirt that said “K-Gas” came and looked at the tank with Alex, who finally turned to me and said, “There’s a spring missing from the attachment and we’ll have to get another one.” Eventually I left, tealess, and went to the office a little after 9. I returned a little before 1 for lunch and found the gas in order, at long last making my tea and reading the daily office.

The word that leapt out at me from the gospel was “rooster,” as in “before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” The roosters impress me the way they throw themselves into it, as if they were rabid fans yelling “Go, let’s go, let’s GOOO!” I have never heard a rooster crow moderately. I start hearing them a little after 6 in the morning, and they keep it up all day long. I still notice it, though I imagine after a while it will fade into the background, the way I no longer notice the airplanes flying overhead in Alameda, as noisy as they are.

I’m sure Peter didn’t notice them usually either until what had happened and what he had done had hit him—really hit him, not just as a theory, but as reality. I think, too, about the disciples who had heard Jesus say many, many times that he would be killed, saying, “Yeah, yeah,” until it finally happens and they finally get it. Dead, as in dead.