I just wanted to shave. And I had found myself in the middle of a plumbing fiasco.
“Let me come back. One minute.”
“One minute?” I skeptically asked the plumber.
“Eh, I need to get this thing, it’s over there. The other side. Let me come back.”
“Where? Please come back with some caulk, we just have to seal the drain in the sink.” I took a stab at controlling the situation. “You know caulk? The white stuff that’s gooey. You know what I’m talking about? You squeeze it out then you lick your finger and press it.” I licked my finger and quickly spun it around the leaking sink drain that we were working on. “like this.”
“Bahahaha, don’t worry.” The resident plumber responded as he walked out the door of the dorm room I had just moved into.
Don’t worry are my two least favorite words in Uganda. They are usually followed 10 minutes later by a long winded version of “oops, we should have worried.”
The plumber had left the sink completely dismantled in our shower/toilet/sink part of the dorm room. I took a deep breath, and did exactly what he said: not worry. I sat down, pulled out my kindle, and read an article I’d saved about celebrity elephants in India. NOT WORRYING about the grime that had exploded onto the bathroom floor when he unnecessarily disassembled the entire under-sink piping.
It was a simple issue, really. I was trying to shave that morning and when I put the plug into the drain of sink, the water was still leaking through where the metal of the drain mates with the ceramic of the sink bowl. Refilling the sink as it was draining while I was shaving while boiling water in the electric kettle had been quite an exhausting experience.
Not that shaving is even necessary here; my white skin is a trump card that I should be taken seriously everywhere. Shaving is for me. I feel put together. I am in control of the hairs on my chinny chin chin. I’m mastering the art of shaving with a straight razor. It’s a ritual I’m growing to appreciate more and more.
Easy fix I thought, plop down some caulk, do the licky finger thing, and off he’d be. I would have done it myself but it might have taken me the whole afternoon to track down caulk, or maybe I would’ve found it in five minutes. You never know. Plus, my energy was waning that day; I had already shaved that morning and was busy not worrying about this plumber.
Earlier on in this process, the plumber had arrived with a completely new sink drain, which required dismantling the entire under-sink pipes and connections. He had spent an especially long time looking at one of those, non-leaking, pieces before he left. But I was not worrying. I was not thinking about it, I was reading about “the hard life of celebrity elephants.”
All in all, things were going well. The plumber had shown up that day, less than an hour after the dorm manager called him. I’m staying in one of the nicer dorms by Makerere University in downtown Kampala. It’s more expensive than most, but the most important item that my rent covers is organization, which should never be underrated. It’s my consolation after living 10 months in disorganization with almost no cultural insulation. Also, my downstairs neighbor is an exiled reporter from North Sudan and a great Arabic practice buddy.
The plumber returned (it was perfect timing. I was just finishing the article, reading about the biggest elephant pageant of the year. Fascinating.) He had a grin on his face and was showing me a long piece of twine that he had retrieved from “over there”. This twine was the solution to the problem which he wouldn’t share with me. When I curiously asked him to explain to me why he had to leave this last time, and what the twine will be used for he responded “you see?” and he just held the twine in front of my nose.
No, I didn’t.
I followed him back to the dismantled sink where he started wrapping the twine into a circle to match a rubber gasket that connected that non-leaking piece to the bottom of the ceramic of the sink. Not replace the gasket with twine, but to put the twine in between the rubber gasket and the piece that the rubber gasket was supposed to seal against. He explained to me how both the gasket and the twine were necessary to ensure that this part of the sink, that was not leaking in the first place, would continue to not leak.
The twine was too long and he was pulling it apart by hand to become the right length. It broke somewhere between his two fists and was still too long. I offered him scissors to cut the twine to the length he wanted. He did not acknowledge that scissors could be part of our lives.
“Where are you from?” He asked.
“America.”
“Ahhhh, one day. One day I will go to America. I will find an American wife.”
“Good luck.” I responded “You know the visa is very difficult, especially if you say that in your interview.”
“One day, I’ll go” he responded. “God will give me a visa.” He continued to tell me that he has a friend in America and then abruptly stopped. I was curious about this friend of his.
“Where’s your friend from?” I ask.
“Where are you from ex-act-i-ly?” he strategically didn’t answer my question.
“Jordan.” I say. Technically not a lie as my parents were born and raised in Amman…and I predicted where the conversation is going.
“Aha! From there! My friend is from Jordan, in America. You know him?”
“…do you want these scissors?” I tried to hand them to him and remove words from this offer.
He put up his hand like a traffic officer stopping a pedestrian to ask for a bribe. “Americans have everything. You Americans have so many resources. Here, we’re proud to do things without scissors. See my hands.” He wiggled his fingers at me. “I’m a strong African man.”
“So am I.” I made an effort to not take anything seriously. I grabbed some of the twine he had thrown at his feet and trimmed the end like someone snipping split ends off the end of their hair. “See how strong my fingers are!”
He loved it. We had a good laugh. “So how do you like Uganda?” He asked.
“It’s ok, the people are nice, but the sinks leak.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m working with refugees” I continued with the quick run-down of our programs and projects throughout western Uganda. I made sure to say that I’m supporting Congolese refugee leadership doing this work. It really is what makes the organization I’m working for different from all the others. It’s by Congolese for Congolese.
He was impressed. “Oh wow, that’s great. Thank you, thank you for your work. It’s great to see white people coming and working with us. Not working like white people do, in their fancy chairs with the swivel wheels.
I had won some good favor. He screwed the not-leaking under-sink pipes back together, twine and all.
“Where are you from” I asked. I’ve found this to be a valuable question. Most people I’ve met have interesting stories, Ugandan, Congolese, Sudanese, Kenyan, Somali, Rwandan, exiled from somewhere. Regional political instability creates an entire population of interesting people. My barber one time was the son of a Congolese politician. He confessed to me that he would join a rebel group if he went back to the Congo. His mother (who was raped by Congolese police in Kinshasa) didn’t want that, so they now live in Kampala. He cuts hair.
“For me, I’m a Ugandan. Ankole tribe. You know the Ankole?”
He placed the new piece he had bought, the metal sink drain, into the bottom of the sink bowl, threaded the screw through the middle and started screwing it all together, sans gasket. This is where the sink was leaking in the first place. A rubber gasket had come with the new sink drain he had bought, intended to be put between this new piece and the ceramic. The old rubber had rotted, which is why it was leaking in the first place. I held it up as he started placing the metal into the sink and raised my eyebrows as if to say wanna use this? he just frowned, closed his eyes and lightly shook his head. No no, not necessary.
I let that thought pass for a few moments. “Of course I know the Ankole” I responded. “You have the cows with the biggest horns”
“Aha!” he was very excited I knew one of his tribe’s defining attributes. (The other one I know is that their women all have sexy fat thighs. The men here tell me this, like men in Jordan tell me Jordanian women have fat butts cause they like hummus. This normally happens while we are all buying hummus.) “You! You’re a Ugandan now!” We high fived.
He continued screwing the drain together, very tightly. I asked if it was necessary to keep tightening it. He reminded me that he was a strong African man, and that we don’t want it to leak where it was leaking last time. Just a couple turns later this brand new metal piece buckled because of the tightening and partly lifted away from the sink bowl. Oops. I kept my poker face.
He looked at me, trying to judge if I was ok with this, if so, his job would have been over, and the sink would still be leaking. I can only imagine the look on my face was the one that my mother used to give me, equal parts scolding and encouraging. Don’t be lazy. You can do this.
Seamlessly, he undid the screw of the broken piece. Grabbed the old piece, put the rubber seal between it and the sink, screwed it all together, put the old rubber plug into old sink drain, turned on the sink, and voila. No leak.
We shook hands and said goodbye. I avoided a lingering conversation that could have turned to him sidestepping dignity and saying “mzungu, I’m hungry give me money” followed by an insincere smile. He wouldn’t have been the first staff in this dorm building to do so.
I couldn’t wait for my beard to grow back, so I could boil some water, and shave again day after tomorrow.
Yazan Fattaleh 