Owen Falls Dam Road intersection, Jinja, Uganda.
The Friday evening traffic crawled, not unexpected, was punctuated by honking horns and the constant roar of boda bodas dangerously weaving through the gridlock. The smell of exhausts mingled with the constant smoke from burning rubbish, fried street food and the faint, sour scent of overripe fruit discarded along the roadside.
Alex sat behind the wheel of his boss’s car. One hand gripped the steering wheel and the other holding his phone to check Google Maps even though he knew the way. He glanced repeatedly at the animated traffic cop directing vehicles through the chaos — close enough at one stage that he could smell him through the open window. The officer was everywhere at once: arms flailing, whistle shrieking, boots stomping the painted lines — a man performing a daily dance of authority and survival in this crazy, beautiful country that refused to let him go home.
He was heading away from a week that went from meetings about meetings with people who didn’t give a fuck about who they were meeting to time spent with people he cared for deeply and knew in these moments that friendships were being forged.
The Haven Eco Lodge — a place he had come to know intimately was no more than 3 or 4 hours away from Kampala, depending on traffic, depending if the roads were still accessible, or even still there – that made him chuckle lightly to himself. Maybe he’d be there in 30 mins, maybe not. TIA. A luxury retreat for Expats like himself – he despised that term Expats, and many of the Expats that embraced that term around the city – those wanting to escape the sensory overload of Kampala. The thought of the lodge — cool showers, clean linens, a buffet spread that could make any stomach rejoice, the beautiful rumble of the waterfall transporting him into a meditative state — should have brought him comfort. It didn’t.
Because he saw her.
A girl. Perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen. She walked along the side of the road, her frame emaciated, her chest bare except for a rag that did little to cover her midriff. Her tightly cropped hair, unwashed and dirty. Her skin was streaked with grime, her eyes hollow and distant, the weight of exhaustion etched into her every movement. She moved as though she had learned early that the world would ignore her — that she could only rely on herself. Yet the subtle tremor in her step betrayed a fragility that made Alex’s chest tighten.
Nobody else noticed her. Cars rolled past, boda bodas, swerved while people shouted at each other, vendors hawked their wares, but she was invisible to the rest of the world. Invisible — except to him.
He thought of the wad of cash in the door. Money meant for bribes, the small token that greased the cogs of everyday life there. A few notes would have made a difference to her, he knew it. Enough perhaps for a meal, a cup of water, a scrap of shelter for the night. But he didn’t move.
If he gave her the money, the traffic policeman — pristine in his crisp white uniform and gleaming black boots — would take it from her. The man had a job, a family, a life that depended on the order he maintained, and his hunger mirrored hers in ways Alex couldn’t reconcile. He wanted to help her, to offer the small chance of relief that sat in his hands, but he couldn’t. He could only sit there, feeling his helplessness press in from every direction.
She had probably been attacked before. He could see it in her posture — wary, defensive, fragile. Every inch of her screamed caution. And yet she persisted. She kept moving along the roadside, past the stalled buses, past the vendors waving at potential customers inside them, past people who wouldn’t remember ever seeing her.
Alex tried to imagine her life. A small village perhaps, where she had grown up running barefoot, scavenging for food, avoiding eyes that looked upon her with indifference or worse. Or maybe an orphaned existence, surviving by luck and instinct alone, HIV and hunger shadowing her every step.
He pictured what he might be doing in her place — the panic, the fear, the gnawing hunger — and then, just as quickly, he thought of The Haven. The thought made him feel ashamed. The luxury he was about to enjoy, the comfort of knowing a hot shower and a soft bed awaited him, seemed obscene against the reality of that girl walking the edge of the road.
His mind raced. What if she slipped into the trees lining the roadside? What if she made it back to some hidden refuge, some place where she could eat and drink, where she could rest for a moment without fear? He hoped it. He prayed it, in that silent, desperate way one does when there’s nothing else to offer.
The policeman’s whistle shrieked again, louder this time, as he waved impatiently at drivers to move forward. He unintentionally caught his eye and quickly diverted his gaze to the road ahead. “Fuuuck”, he said out loud to himself, don’t get caught up in a situation with him. Alex shifted in his seat, aware of the wad of cash that might have changed her night, maybe even her life. The policeman doesn’t deserve it, he’s not getting any money from him today. His heart pounded under the moral weight pressing on him — to act or not to act, each option fraught with unintended consequences.
He wondered if he would ever see her again, if she had a name, a family, a story he could ever know. Or if this fleeting intersection — one minute in his life, one brief glance — was all he would ever have. The thought stayed with him like a cold stone in his chest, heavy and unyielding. The air around him seemed to thicken. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the air conditioning struggling against the heat — he knew he needed to get refrigerant for the AC — he also knew that miserable bastard of a boss was leaving it to him to sort it out. Tight cunt, he thought.
Children shouted from the side of the road, vendors called across the street, and the world went on as if nothing had happened. And yet, for those few moments, everything had shifted. His purpose, his morality, his privilege — all laid bare in the presence of this girl in a torn, dirty rag.
He glanced back at her one last time before his lane opened and the car began to move. Her small frame receded into the distance, swallowed by the traffic and the landscape beyond. He prayed to the Universe she would be okay. That somehow, against the odds stacked against her, she would find food, water, safety. That she would survive another day in a world that seemed determined to ignore her.
He thought again of The Haven — of the comfort that awaited him — his $150 a night refuge. And he carried with him the weight of seeing something so raw, so human, that could not be undone or ignored. The memory of her, the girl in the rag, would not leave him. Not now, not ever. It became a silent promise — to remember, to honour, to bear witness, and perhaps, in some way, to give her a life she might never have.
