a strange day This morning we woke up to an absolute deluge of rain. If sounded as if a swimming pool was being dumped on the roof. We couldn't take a boda to work, and our taxi driver Jamil called at 6am to say he couldn't make it. This was a blessing in disguise: since the roads here are dirt and turn directly to mud at a moment's notice, when it rains in Kampala nobody without a car leaves the house. The office would be deserted. So my fellow interns and I rolled over and went back to sleep until about 10 when the rain let up. We woke to blinding sunshine, had a leisurely breakfast, and walked up to the top of the road (the water had already been absorbed into the amazing sponge-like earth, and it was as if the rains had never occured) to catch a taxi. We found one who agreed to take us to RLP for 7000 shillings (about 4 dollars). Everything was going fine until the driver suddenly pulled over to the side of the road in front of two police, or possibly millitary, men with huge guns. He pretended to ask for directions to our office, but when the police/soldiers asked him for his license and registration he didn't have them. One fat policeman, extremely relaxed and leaning on his enormous gun, stuck his face in the window and looked us over. He asked us for our names. Trying to be friendly and calm, we told him. "I'm Aliza." "I'm Balkees." "Hi, I'm Sarah" <> . We asked if their was a problem, and if we should get another taxi. He said maybe, but when we made to get out of the car he said, "No no, you stay in the car." It was said politely, but it was unmistakeably an order. We obeyed. The driver started saying "you pay money," and what was really going on became readily apparnet: we were being set up for a bribe. We passed him 5000 shilling, which he gave to the police officer for his "fine." Then we were on our way. We were pretty sure, considering he had driven us straignt to this police post, that the whole thing was planned in advance. Furious, we had no intention of paying him the full 7000 on arrival at the office. Balkees texted Moses, our boss, asking him to come down and meet us in front in case there was trouble. But he never got to the office: about 10 minutes later the driver ran into and overturned a boda boda. The woman sitting sidesaddle on the back of the boda fell to the road. Fortunately her legs were on the other side so they weren't crushed. She just landed hard on her butt and bounced. I saw her get up and shake herself, then start rubbing the dirt off the back of her skirt. The driver wasn't hurt either, he managed to break his fall with his feet. But the boda was in bad shape with cracked lights and mirrors, and the seat totally broken off. The driver leaped over his mangeled bike and started yelling at our driver. A nearby policeman came running over as well. We sat there stunned in the backseat thinking "now what?" We all had the same thought at the same time: get the hell out of this taxi. We leaped out and took off down the street. Then I realized: I had left my helmet in the back seat. I really did not want this unscrupulous driver getting ahold of my 40,000 shilling helmet. I ran back, opened the back door, grabbed the helmet, and thrust the 2000 shillings (the balance of what we owed him) into his hands. We left him stitting in his car, surrounded by stopped traffic and an angry crowd. Once we had gotten a few blocks away, we found some bodas to take us the rest of the way to work. We arrived slightly shaken, but with one heck of a story to tell our co-workers.

Work was great, and my English class went fabulously. We broke the group up into two levels, and I took the more advanced students and we sat around a table in the conference room. Genevive, the undergrad intern, took the beginner students. outside on the patio. She was so excited to be teaching on her own for the first time. I listened throught the window as she had them repeat names of fruits and vegetables. It sounded like she was doing a fabulous job, and she was buzzing when the class finished. I really enjoyed teaching the more advanced students because I wasn't hampered by my lack of French. I also liked the format of us sitting around a table and talking like adults. It was very different from the teaching style I used most often in Japan: me bopping around in the front of the room, clapping my hands and gesticulating, coaxing a chorus of English phrases from my students like an orchestra conductor.

After work, Genevive wanted to show Balkees and me a shopping center she had just discovered with a deli, a wine shop, and, the icing on the cake, a patisserie with chocolate croissants. It's in Kabalagala by the American embassy. We walked through town to get to the Matatu (taxi bus) stand. Every journey in Kampala is a bit of an adventure, there is no such thing as simply strolling down the street. The "street" itself is either heavily rutted dirt road shared by pedistrians, goats, cows, and bicycles, or a road made up of more potholes than pavement with sporadic areas along the edge that could be considered sidewalks except that they are used without a second thought by taxis and motorycles to bypass stopped traffic. Nevertheless, schoolkids and ladies in skirts with cheap plastic high heeled sandals walk along, calmly dodging the constant traffic and weaving around the crevives that frequently yawn along the side of the path. All of the sudden, down this type of road, came a young man running at full tilt, pursued by an angry mob. Someone grabbed the back of his white collared shirt, but he kept on going. He ran right out of the shirt, turning it inside out as he shed it like a second skin. "Oh damn," said Genevive "they're chasing a thief." Then the crowd was upon him, and he was corralled against a brick wall and hidden from sight by a mass of assailants. Genevive said "they'll either beat him unconscious, or kill him." Bakees and I stared at her, uncomprehending. She said, "the people know the police here won't do anything to stop crooks. So they take things into their own hands. What happens to him will probably depend on how much he stole." She told us that when they first arrived they were told in their study abroad program orientation that they needed to be very careful about accusing someone of theft on a crowded street. They could inadvertantly cause a young man to be beaten to death over a few hundred thousand shillings. We stared in the direction of the mob. I made a few uncertain steps towards the crowd (aiming to do what? To throw my body between the man and his assailants?). Then I looked back at my friends, who had already turned and were continuing on their way. I followed, filled with relief to be shown how to react. My thoughts and emotions were completely disordered. How should I feel after witnessing this? I searched the backs of my companions for clues, and found none. To be honest, though the unsaid words "we should help him" echoed in my head for hours, I hadn't even seriously considered resisting the flow. The whole thing had a surreal quality like something I was watching on TV: completely unconnected to me, and completely unsucceptible to being influenced by my actions. I know this wasn't actually true. I know that when I walked away I was making a choice. Still, I don't know what I realistically could have done. What would have happened if I had waded into that mob of kicking and punching vigilantes? It wasn't my country, it wasn't my place to intervene. I don't know what happened to the young man, and I don't know whether I fully believe Genevive's overly-dramatic prediction of his death. I think that it's possible the director of her program told his charges the worst-case-scenario in order to scare them. I've heard about mob justice in Uganda before, but I'd always heard that people were beaten only severely enough to teach them a lesson, or that their clothes were taken and they were forced to walk home naked: punishment by humiliation, not death. Then again, maybe that is just the cute anecdotal version provided by guidebooks to give the readers a taste of "local color." Maybe the reality is far harsher. Based in what I saw today, I really don't know.  ¶ 6:28 AM