Whine and Cheese?

I am writing this post from the patio of the Speke Hotel in Kampala. It’s one of the nicer establishments in town for business travelers. I’m here for five days meeting with my “bosses” at the U.S. Embassy….in between sitting in behemoth traffic jams.

I’m actually staying at the Mosa Court Hotel, which is about 5 blocks away from the Speke. But the Speke is a mite too expensive for Internews’s blood, so I just trot on down here every chance I get to eat the better food and steal Internet access through their wireless hotspot.

Bluntly put, It is a jumbo, super-sized relief to be away from Gulu. Don’t get me wrong….Kampala has its challenges, too. While I counted the seconds until I could board the Eagle Air flight down here, it felt kind of ironic that I was desperate for the city lights of Kampala. It’s still a loooooooong way from DC, or New York, or Ottumwa, Iowa, for that matter. But at least there’s hot water here, and fresh herbs.

Anyway, I’ve been sitting here for about almost 2 hours now, and most of that time has been spent trying to order garlic bread. Most of last month, I obsessed about the spaghetti carbonara I’d had during my first stay at the Speke in early June. So naturally I came here first to launch my long-awaited five-day gastronomic orgy. I mean, eating foods with complex, layered flavoring has become a spiritual rite for me. After a month in Gulu, if I see another fried whole tilapia looking up at me from a bed of bland rice, I’m gonna barf up one of my lungs. Some decadently rich Italian food from Pizzeria Mamma Mia was just the remedy I craved to help me get through another month up north.

So, I’m sitting on the patio of the Speke checking my e-mails, and after about 15 minutes, a young lady comes over to take my order. I’ve long since given up hope that restaurant servers in Uganda—even in Kampala—understand more than minimal English. But she DID understand my request for red wine…..and I had two choices. No, not between a sassy little chianti or an piquant merlot. Sweet or Dry would be my poison. I chose sweet.

20 minutes later, she came back to say there was no more sweet. So I ordered dry. 20 minutes later, she came back with the dry wine. It was filled to almost overflowing, so that definitely made up for the wait. But then, I started to wonder if I would ever see my carbonara with garlic toast. The spaghetti finally showed up, but no garlic toast. Thus began the series of interpretive dances required to get the young lady to understand what I had ordered. She finally nodded and hurried off.

She came back with two slices from what had to be the most big-assed loaf of bread ever baked, slightly grilled, with a dollop of butter in the center that would have instantly sent me into cardiac arrest if I’d tried to consume a fourth of it. More interpretive dancing, with some wild hand gestures thrown in, to get her to envision what garlic bread actually looks like. Off she went again.

20 minutes later, she came back with a round of lightly-toasted thin crust pizza, no tomato sauce, just chunks of garlic and some seasonings on top. I threw up my hands like the “Home Alone Kid,” and just started laughing my head off. She beamed, pleased that she had made me so happy. I didn’t have the heart, or the emotional energy, to send it back. And my carbonara is ice cold now, anyway.

Now, I know I sound like the typical spoiled American tourist here. After all, I spent last Saturday touring refugee camps, for God’s sake, and now I’m sitting at a nice restaurant moaning about not being able to get garlic bread. It has me wondering if maybe I’m really NOT the black Angelina Jolie after all. (Granted, all we have in common are big lips….oh, and nothing but lust for Brad Pitt.) I’ve spent the last decade declaring that my purpose in life is to write about poverty and children’s issues, to try and make a difference in this world. But it feels like all I’m doing these days is whining because there’s no cilantro for my makeshift guacamole back in Gulu.

And here’s another reason I’m starting to question myself. My best friend in the whole wide world, Faith, read my last post and thought I sounded rather “holier than thou” when I described the children in the refugee camp as “filthy.” Trust me, it’s an accurate description, because they were all covered from head to toe with the silt-like dirt that abound in the area. As I said in the post, their ragged clothing was literally falling off their bony little arms, weighed down by dirt and grime. I wanted to gather them all up, and lead them to a big tin washtub like the ones I used to bathe in when I was a kid, and use about 2,000 gallons of Johnson’s baby shampoo and Ivory soap on their precious little bodies. Then we’d all head to Target, and I’d buy them the coolest, hippest clothes ever….before we headed to Whole Foods for tandoori chicken wraps and cous cous…..

But I digress. My best friend Faith thought my use of the word “filthy” was condescending. (Never mind that I have known this woman since September of 1979, when I showed up at Northwestern University with 2 plastic suitcases and $69 in my pocket. She knows good and danged well I’m not an elitist snob….unless it’s about the merits of French wine versus Californian.) Faith suggested grimy, or grubby would have been more appropriate.

From my point of view as a writer, using the word filthy packed more of an emotional punch…..I thought it was more “in your face” than grubby. But maybe, just maybe, the snide American shrew in me was starting to affect the way I see people and places here in Uganda. Maybe my urgent craving for fast service, fresh herbs, hot water was turning me into an impatient, shallow, condescending Imperialist.

I don’t know. Feel free to weigh in on this. Tell me if the snark quotient in these postings is getting a bit redundant and overbearing. Or just tell me flat out that I shouldn’t have brought my “ig’nint” arse over here if I expected things to be exactly like what I voluntarily left behind. I can take it that kind of criticism, and maybe I NEED to take it.

I’m about to pack up and head on back to the Mosa Court. And here’s the thing….this time, my room there is about 100 percent better than the room I stayed in last month! There’s even a shower curtain! So what the heck am I complaining about, anyway? It just goes to show you what perimenopause can do to person’s perspective. I mean, I’m taking every opportunity I can get to be a total Crabby Appleton these days, and I gotta get a grip on myself. I gotta keep things in proper perspective.

Help me out, here, people.