As James, my neighbor, and I absent-mindedly sucked at our 110 millimeters of cheap vodka from plastic sachets; we switched off the videos of the late Lucky Dube to view the film featuring what was said to have been Nigerian militants. Now don’t get me wrong, when I say, “what said to have been…” I am not complaining, but I just had to have an internal when I found myself watching Leonardo DiCaprio, playing a Rhodesian, struggle in a country distraught and stuck in war between government and rebel forces. Of course, I chose to say nothing. That first sachet was beginning to hit me now. Two shots of vodka nearly inhaled through that tiny hole torn off with my teeth. This was going to be a good evening. The bowls and plates numbered enough to serve a family of 20 at an American Thanksgiving (exaggerating…slightly), and being only two, this might seem a bit unnecessary to most, but to me this meant that I was in for a feast!
Being rather dark and partially blinded by the brutal catastrophes occurring on the screen across from me, I could barely see what foods and sauces were in front of me exactly. In this situation, I was provided with a bowl that had a heaping portion of posho (think a corn version of mashed potatoes with little flavor and very dense) and I was left to my disposable to add any meats, soups or vegetables that lay in front of me. I began to reach across the table to every meal complement to add to my now literally four pounds of edibles and using a few little fingers on my hand began to scoop and shovel food in to my mouth while chatting about the atrocities occurring on the TV. James meanwhile proceeded to bring around, this time, two sachets of coffee flavored alcohol and we were set off to round two of sucking up this harsh liquid. As I began to finish off most of the soup, meat and vegetables that were in my bowl but still remaining with posho, I began to glance at the table and was noticing that there was a plate that I had yet to try! Excitingly I began to extend my arm across the table in order to pick some of this mystery delicacy that I had missed the first time around. After helping myself to a large portion, I happily began to exhaust what would be the last food I should have probably eaten in days; but then my stomach began to drop. I took a swig of the coffee liquor. I blinked my eyes more times than I could remember. As a camera opening its aperture for an extended period of time, I widened my eyes looking to the right at James, and then suddenly down to his hands. My mouth dropped and I looked up to the TV without an ounce of comprehension about what was happening in the TV Sierra Leone Leonardo DiCaprio Rhodesian Man Rebels Diamonds Awfulness stuff going on. I…uhh. I spoke.
“James, I am so sorry. I was completely confused. I…I am so sorry.”
“My son!? No! No! No,” exclaimed James.
Astonished at my actions, I laughed shamefully. “But—no James, I completely did not even realize that I had been grabbing food from your plate! I thought that it was something that I had not tried! I am so sorry.”
Had I really snatched food off of my neighbor’s plate? Not just once. Not just twice. But many times over and over? Absolutely yes! I had, undoubtedly, just eaten food off of another person’s plate, in their house, without even asking; and they were letting me do it the whole time because why?! Because they just thought that maybe I was starving?! How could I live this down? Would I ever be invited to James’ house again for a meal? Would he look at me tomorrow and turn away? Would my other colleagues look at me as if I would eat directly from their plates? Steal their crops and sell it in the market and make some money? Start my own rival chapatti stand next to theirs and sell at a lower price, defeating the competition? Of course not. Instead, I was offered one more sachet of that luscious clear liquid as the film…wait. The power just went out. No more film. Now it is complete darkness.
Slllrrrrrpppp went the sucking of vodka. As the crickets calls began to be heard James and myself, over-filled (myself obviously more so) with sumptuous food and cheap vodka, discussed but what else, life in Uganda. Life in Kaliro. Life at the NTC. How life throws so many things at you—some fair, some just downright dirty—and we all have to take it and make of it what we can. Not all of us do this of course. In the previous moment I literally ate off of another individuals plate. A man, that no matter what personal and economic trivial matters his life has, welcomed me in to his house and didn’t even say a word when someone with more was taking what is rightly his from his very eyes. I didn’t know that I was taking it, but if I was, then in his eyes I obviously needed it more. What does that say about someone? Though when I think back to this evening I still feel pangs of embarrassment scaling through my nerves, but for James, I can only assume that he is saying to himself, “My son.”
