This entire Nsereko-exercise was meant to find out if he could play a role as a part of the dhow crew. May be the exercise was instructive, but the resulting answer clearly was no. How to have the dhow watched over when I'm off for shopping, for a day or two off, and even for my coming six weeks' stay in Europe?
Every over-middle class private house, every fuel station, every store here is guarded by a watchman, endowed with a highly questionable gun, in the uniform of one of the many commercial security companies. Many private houses and other establishments are guarded during the dark only, so at sunset you see trucks, one after the other, crammed with uniforms standing in the frame on the platform. They drive in all directions. In a 200 000 town like Jinja, at sunset such trucks drop at least 5, if not 10 000 uniforms. There is quite some hiring and firing in these circles. Tracking an individual's career in and out these security companies is difficult since the passport is not a paper Ugandans usually have, and frequently boys come from the bush with an identity statement from their village elders. Once caught for crime, you have to go to some village elders for a new identity. Ugandans frequently change their names, as you can hear when they are greeted by an old friend, or when they say, as you hear often: that was the time they called me... It hence is fair to say that security companies hire thugs to guard values against other thugs, and moreover, there is a lot of swapping between the two teams [some anecdotes]I decided to consult Kingfisher Safari lodge, the lodge at my beach, and propose to pay for them to hire an additional man, to be an integral part of their security team, and that the team would watch my boat. When I'm off in day time, an eye every now and then from the shore suffices, but as soon as it is dark a watchman should be on the dhow. There is no need for a gun, and he can even sleep, just being there is enough. The key problem is to find a man who is not going to steal or report to others what could be profitably stolen and when. This may look far fetched for the Westerner, but it is what the typical man applying for a security job intends to do. The art is not so much to find an "honest" man, but to find someone whose background provides a natural loyalty to his mission. If he has a good reason not to steal from me who cares he has no problems doing it elsewhere? Making this a Kingfisher job, letting Kingfisher security propose a candidate, is a first step in this direction. So, I did my proposal to Hans Martin, the owner, and Okello, the manager of Kingfisher. They agreed to the idea and told me to talk to security man X, who is acting head, because the real head Y is on leave. I had a conversation with X.
The next evening in the dark I got a mobile call from X. I went to the beach. There stood X, with Y himself! Y asked me if we could not do this deal between us, what I thought about that?
Well, well. Kingfisher security head Y had interrupted his leave (or "leave") to make a small attempt to go around Kingfisher, I suspect to cash in a bit as the "employer" of my guard. I told him that my man should be part of the Kingfisher team and be paid by Kingfisher, since I would cause problems if I would decide to pay either too little or too much. X and Y disappeared in the dark.
In daylight, not much happened a few days, except that I got a probably 18 year old on my boat with some official papers, had worked at a security company, one letter said (would that company really have hired this young fool? And why would they have fired him even before he could attain a less tender age?). Then it turned out he did not come from Y, but got the rumour of the vacancy from elsewhere (from where? Only Hans Martin, Okello, X and Y are supposed to know about it...). I kindly referred him to X and Y.
Then a few days later Okello told me he had rejected a candidate, and that the search went on. Of course, I appreciate any filtering of candidates before they reach me, especially if Okello does it, because my security requires that Okello feels comfortable with him as an employee. Again a few days later, Okello was offered another candidate, this time a man who had been kicked out of Kingfisher some time ago. I was not told more, neither did I feel any urge for that, because if someone gets kicked out it is not for just being superfluous, lazy or incompetent (that's what most of them are). That brought us 12 days before my departure, but Okello seemed not to panic. The problem, I was told by others, is that Kingfisher's wages are low. Anyway, I thought, Kingfisher has a security team, and in the worst case I could leave a deposit for a guard's wage and Kingfisher should assume the assignment to watch my dhow before they have an additional man.Meanwhile Nsereko regularly came back to tell me he was hungry, and to ask about a home and a school. For hunger I referred to all fish lines and hooks he got from me and to his canoe, still not sold - I was told because everybody says it is made of soft wood and not worth the 180000 shilling I paid but only 50000. For home and school I made some calls and arranged an interview. Meanwhile he told me that indeed, as I suspected, he had not lost 80% of the money he stole from me. His new story was that he gave it to his "girlfriend" who used it to make up her school fee arrears. He had feared to tell me, even after I had dismissed the loss of the money from his pocket as unlikely. Yes, I thought, paying your own and your friends' food and hairdresser is easy to confess, but school fees for your girlfriend...Then, he told me, in the night the three musketeers had "guarded" my boat, Desmond had stolen two CD's. From the picture on the disks they had inferred that they featured "blue movies" as Nsereko called it. I did not miss any CD's but it seemed too far fetched to assume that Desmond had taken CD's from elsewhere to start a hoax. Anyway, they had not found a CD player, Nsereko told me, but had been advised by "people on the beach" to go to police and tell the story that this muzungu has blue movies and had treated Nsereko as "his wife". He had refused and had demanded that Desmond, who he said was for the plan, would return the CD's to me. I drove with Nsereko along some houses where we might find Desmond, but we didn't. The next morning I would take Nsereko for his interview. I told him to bring Desmond and his CD's so we could deal with this matter before leaving.
Since in Africa, police usually is well aware of the probable and near advent of a lot of money when you jail a muzungu, this "beach people"-set up (police would be glad to share the booty with them) would be the typical way Africans fight poverty. Though I do not think it would have stood a serious chance had Nsereko cooperated, it surely saves me some preemptive measures that he didn't. Good boy, good boy.
Now we are doing a password protected page anyway, let me report that I applied for a Ugandan driving license a few months ago. Nowadays they are chip cards. I had a Uganda motor cycle driving license and wished to add the car to the document. A Ugandan license is much cheaper and easier to get than an extension of my Dutch license. Moreover, Google reported down to Uganda that the Dutch license issue office in Veendam has been put in ward! I want a solid, reliable document, of course not from such a questionable agency, but from something more decent like the Uganda Ministry of Works. My Dutch car license, to be converted to a Ugandan, had just expired, but at intake this expiry date was missed (would have cost me a bribe). After that, the procedure starts with applying for the chip card. Then if and when granted, you go to have your picture scanned. Then you get a temporary license and wait for the card to be made and handed over to you. I could have known it: not even the scanning process seems close in my procedure and I will have to go to Europe with a temporary Ugandan and and expired Dutch permit. So, to add to the weight of my paper work I decided to photoshop the copy of my old expired Ugandan motor cycle license with a stamp for cars and a brand new expiry year. Any European policeman who stops me should now resign at seeing a Ugandan number plate, a Ugandan car-owner identity paper, a Ugandan temporary driving license, a Ugandan driving license sporting an elegant car stamp, and last but not least a totally genuine Dutch passport issued in Kampala, Uganda. In case he decides to go and search for a verification he will a) not find a Ugandan embassy in the Netherlands, b) discover that no Ugandan official is making whatever move without a bribe, and c) meanwhile I have reached and bribed them to give the solidest ever of verifications of every single paper submitted.
Would you refuse this man your car?
The morning after the hunt for Desmond and his "blue movies" I would take Nsereko to town for an interview with social workers. Nsereko appeared in a canoe next to my dhow and handed over two CD's. Unfortunately, Desmond was on urgent duty at an unknown place somewhere very far. Now Nsereko confessed he had been the one taking the CD's after Desmond had revealed pressing interest. They indeed were mine, the label of one of them sporting a lady's knees. Now, in Africa you can walk around in your bare tits but do not show your knees! This could have cost me a lot of money if the police card would indeed have been played. Knees! They had not found a player yet but if I listen to Nsereko, the knees-label has been shown from hut to hut in the entire stretch of land surrounding our bay. So the reputation of the muzungu floating in the middle now is irreparably damaged (this is locally called "bad manners"). Not that of the thieves. Everybody understands that the muzungu did not give this out to amuse the local lake shore community, and that the heralds had stolen it. But stealing does not affect your reputation, it is completely normal. Everybody does it.
Nsereko's interview took away the office's hopes to find any relatives and so they were willing to directly apply for a place for him in an orphanage ("stealing is no problem there, these boys monitor each other very well").
Coming next to the dhow to hear the news, Nsereko said "I am hungry."
"Do you still have your fish line?"
"Yes but the chairman is holding the canoe for security. Yesterday people from the village down tried to go away with it, we had to go after them with another canoe."
"Where is the chairman now?"
Nsereko puts his flat hand over his eyes to look far. "He is fishing with it." [another anecdote about the chairman]
I waited for the chairman to return and walk home. Then I took the canoe back to the dhow.
Not much later Desmond came to report an offer of 70 000 for the canoe. I told him my last price was 100 000, or I would keep it myself. I refrained totally from raising Nsereko's version of the blue movie incident story. Again a few hours later a fisherman paid 100 000. With the 80 000 lost on that canoe and 70 000 stolen my blood loss to the village vampires resulting from the Nsereko experiment can be said to be limited to what some may remember in other occasions I called "involuntary development aid".The chairman was apparently not pleased with this movement of the canoe to my ship and from there to other hands: the next day Nsereko glided next to my dhow in another fisherman's canoe to tell a complicated story in which the chairman had come up with a lock for the canoe, Nsereko had dropped it in the water and lost it. The story of me using Nsereko as my "wife" and of the "blue movies" somehow passed by again and finally he showed me a swelling at the back of his head where the chairman had hit him with God knows what, while totally drunk and drugged. Nsereko told me he was not sleeping in any of the familiar places, for fear of the chairman. I decided not even to try to understand this chaotic story.
That afternoon I got a phone call from the interviewers of Nsereko. Orphanage Mugagga at Rubaga Hill, an outskirt North of Jinja had decided to take him. So I had saved myself of a talkative boy who knows too much of my dhow, and the boy of a violent drunken and drugged village chairman.
6 days before my flight to Europe there was still no news from Kingfisher after Okello rejected two candidates for guarding my dhow. I met Okello.
Okello to me: "Hello! Did you find your guard?"
"I find my guard? I am waiting for you!"
"O, no, Peter is supposed to help you to find you guard but he will be under your jurisdiction, otherwise I get problems with my boss".
"But I thought we agreed you would find and hire a guard"
"No, that is not what we said, and my English is very good".
"Mine is not too bad either" I avoided asking him how his good English could explain his own recruiting activities in the past weeks until this moment, very late for me to suddenly come in action myself. Anyway, neither Okello nor his boss Hans Martin deserve any scorn or criticism, they always have been very hospitable (they have 46 rooms and my dhow is called "room 47") and helpful, I am using their guarded parking lot for years and nobody ever charged me.
The next day I spread the news that me myself and I had a vacancy. Inyani was the first to come up with a candidate, Robert, known to the Kingfisher security team, able to swim, son of a officer of the prison nearby. He agreed to the Kingfisher guards' wage of 80 000 shilling (40 dollars) a month, for two months, the first month receiving now, the second after I returned from Europe. He will naturally fit there because he knows most of them. I hired him. I will keep all valuables off the dhow during my stay in Europe. Robert will be on the dhow during dark.
On his first evening duty he beeped me. I called "Yes Robert!"
"I am here"
"OK I come", I peddle to the shore, no Robert.
I call him again "Hello Robert where are you"
"Home"
I promising candidate.A new feature arose from my help to Nsereko and His Musketeers: fishermen around my boat start talking to me, saying they have money problems and need my help. One of them even came from the shore with a letter from a less maritime villager applying for funds. Would these be the same ones as those who suggested Nsereko and Desmond report me to police for "bad manners"? Africa's fight against poverty continues relentlessly. Clearly, after my return from Europe I should give everybody a rest to cool down by leaving this mooring site for a while.
Off to Europe. Robert had orders to receive an ant destruction squad that two hours later would spray the dhow. On the main road I could not immediately branch to the airport because I had to go to Jinja for some final business. Just when I passed that same junction again after two hours to head for Entebbe airport I was called by the squad. Robert was not there and his cell phone was switched off. I went back to the dhow to do the spraying with them. Then Robert turned up. He thought he would just have time to go to the village to charge his phone. He had decided to switch off during charging... Do I have security now? Even someone like me, created by God to be an unbeliever, learns, in Africa, to pray.
