Patriotism.. Ugandan flag, anyone?

This is the season of Public Holidays here in Uganda. One last Thursday, one tomorrow. So, last Wednesday I went out to celebrate. Which resulted in my enjoying the holiday in the Central Police Station cells. The account is basically the email I sent to people, as I don’t have time to write again. So if you’ve got it, don’t bother reading.

The story runs thus: Emily, Tom, Paddy and Charlie are having an evening of fun to celebrate Martyr’s Day. (Thursday. God bless those Martyrs. If they hadn’t been martyrs, then there would have been no flags up to celebrate them, and if there had been no flags then we wouldn’t be in this situation now, would we… but I’m getting ahead of myself.) We are merry, happy, leaving the Sheraton (the only place open at 4am on a Thursday night) to go and get a matatu home. The boys are being silly and I am laughing at them being silly. When someone has the bright idea of taking a couple of the flags hanging on the lamp-posts as souvenirs to remember our time here, and of course to honour those martyrs. We duly do this, and carry on down the road in possession of two pieces of cloth painted in the Ugandan colours. When along comes a policeman on a boda-boda, accuses us of stealing government property, and demands to see whats in the bag (the flags). He asks us for 50,000 shillings ‘to forget’ which we don’t have and so he arrests us. But we don’t want to be arrested, and march off ‘to our embassy’ (quite what we expected to do at our embassy at 4am I’m not so sure) while being followed by this policeman on the boda. When we reach the corner, we realize the bastard has called all his mates to come and help him. I fall in a hole. They ‘escort’ us to the police station after pointing a cocked AK at us and saying “you can come with us or we use force”. We are (giggling, still not taking this seriously despite the fact we have just been looking down the barrel of a cocked gun) told to wait in the entrance hall, behind a desk. Tom calls our representative, Laura: “Laura… we’ve been arrested…” and she came straight down to start trying to sort things out. By listening to their conversation, we find out that we are being detained under suspicion of treason – the punishment for treason, the death penalty. That quickly got changed to theft of government property, thank god. We waited for a couple of hours for a more senior policeman to arrive, whereupon we thought we would be released. Little did we know.

At about 6 the policeman arrived, and instead of letting us go, took all our belongings, and our shoes, and sent us down to the cells. Laura made the warden promise to put us all in a cell together, not to separate us. Which they said they would do. As soon as we got down they tried to take me away from the boys which caused a bit of a fight and ended up with me being dragged away crying and struggling and shoved into a cell while the boys were being restrained by other guards, or other prisoners, I’m not sure. The cell was, well, it was a dungeon. There were four other women in there, all of whom were nice to me – “ahh, don’t cry, why are you crying?” – why am I crying? Why am I crying? I am in a cell. A CELL. There was a long drop toilet behind a screen, and a mat on the concrete floor. Four walls, a metal door with a grille in it, and cockroaches. I was in there for hours. I had no idea what was going on, nobody told me anything, I couldn’t understand what people were saying, I didn’t know where the boys were and I was terrified. Not helped when they took one of the women, who wouldn’t tell them her surname, out of the cell I was in to one next door and beat it out of her. All of which I could hear.. her screams, them shouting..

After about four hours, I was taken up for the first time and saw the British High Commissioner, and things started moving. Two hours later and we were back together. Paddy was the first person I saw, and honestly, I have never been more pleased to see anyone in my whole life. I’ve also never cried on someone’s neck before (I thought they only did that in books) but I absolutely threw myself on him and burst into tears for the 99th time since we were arrested. We got released on bond, but had to report the next day. Then the farce of trying to get to court ensued with us reporting every day only to find out the file had been sent here, there and everywhere, and it was postponed. We eventually got in today, where we were given a 300,000 shilling fine (about 100 pounds) and let go. At last. I know it would have been more trouble than it’s worth for them to put us in prison, but you know, it’s hanging over you.. a possibility.. 10 years… and Ugandan prisons aren’t renowned for being cushy. 

The whole thing is so truly farcical – if it hadn’t been for some policeman wanting a bribe and us not having the money, if it hadn’t been a bank holiday and if we hadn’t been white, it would have been such a simple matter. The policeman that arrested us kept mumbling about what ‘the whites are doing in Iraq’ – as if this had anything to do with us – and so obviously the chance to show your power over these people and to make an example of us was too much to resist. I was so cross about it afterwards. Not helped by a taxi driver charging us double the fare and then driving off with the change laughing. I shouted at him and hit his taxi, then stood in the middle of Wandegeya and screamed “I hate this fucking country and everyone in it” which got rid of a little of my frustration.

I can’t think of any other people I would rather have been arrested with than Tom, Paddy and Charlie though. They were wonderful. They must have been just as scared as I, but they were so nice to me, looked after me, stood up for me, kept asking if I was ok. I would have been (even more of a) pathetic sobbing heap if they hadn’t been there. I thought I did quite well though, kept a cheerful face on (most of the time) and didn’t fall to pieces too much.

Right, my internet time is running out. I will update when I can.

Lots of love to everyone,

Em xx

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