The Rock Bar, Speke Hotel, Uganda
As usual she had the most expensive cell phone in her hand when she touched me where I was sitting on a bar chair gazing at a useless soccer game on the TV in front of me – my right hand clutching an ice cold Bell Lager.
“Hallo Baby” – as if we knew one another for ages
“How are you?” – she continues
“What is your name?” – she insists
“Andrew” – my name is always Andrew in typical circumstances
“Where are you from?”
“Take a guess”
“From Spain?”
She is perfectly built and provocatively dressed – obviously, she is a “lady’s night” after all. (called “lady’s night” in Uganda after “lady of the night”).
She smells like a bottle of perfume broken on the floor, and stops touching me after politely asking her to do so. The bracelets around my right wrist fascinates attention and she recons I am “expensive”. Obviously meaning I must have lots of money, being a neatly dressed muzungu (white man) sitting at a bar – still fairly sober after all.
I decided to make it worthwhile this time around and started asking questions, after reluctantly offering her an expensive Camel Lite from South Africa.
“You must be dealing with plenty different cultures and races requiring your services…. Uganda is becoming a real international attraction for tourism and business, yes? ”
“O yes. My best customers are Indians”
“Why is that” I ask
“They don’t last long and pay well – the turnover is fast”
I take another sip of my Bell lager…….to let that one sink in a bit.
“Chinese men want to do ugly things”
“What do you mean?”
“In the ass” she says
I gulped down the remainder of the Bell Lager, and order another one. I ask her if I can get her something, suddenly feeling crazy sorry for this petite Ugandan whore next to me.
“Yes, a water please”
“Yes, and what about the others” – simply assuming she dealt with all races and cultures across the globe already.
“Black men are nasty and want to hurt us, also they hit us and don’t pay after finish”
I didn’t expect any different, and was now waiting for her experience with European men………nothing was forthcoming. I was courageous by now, gulping the second Bell down just as fast.
“…and European men, have you had European men before…”
“O white men talk too much, they talk about their problems and their wives, sometimes they even cry …”
And here I am talking just as much, at least not crying or complaining about my wife and problems. She is right – I guess, but I’m not done yet.
I nearly discharged the gulp of beer content in my mouth all over her after this comment, and decided to talk about something less confusing.
Her aim is to bank 5 – 6 Indians per night to pocket $800. Four productive Fridays and Saturdays gets her to a healthy $6000 tax free income per month. She also owns four hairdressing outlets in Kampala, which explains the expensive cell phone in her hand – now sticking to her palm, all sweaty after my interrogation session. Typical white man, talking too much.
“Are we doing it or what?” She asks impatiently.
“No, I’m leaving now, I don’t pay for sex, because I respect you as a woman” I said while walking away.
“Andrew….then you are a gentlemen”
I grasped for a moment … “Why, why would you say that?”
“Because a gentlemen is a man who shows respect to those who is of no possible value to him…”
Wolftrap Diaries 