The good, the bad and the poultry

I’ve started getting off my motos at the taxi stand near my house (about .5km) as opposed to getting them to drive me to the door. It is partly a way to get a little exercise into my daily routine, admittedly not much, and partly cause it saves me some haggling on the price. The 5-10min walk, depending on how late I am, goes past a school populated by a bunch of generally evil little fuckers. Same attention, cat-calls and brattyness every day for three and a half years.

Absentmindedly I cross over the road and straight onto the path of some school girls walking in the opposite direction. Instantly I feel there’s going to be an incident, something in the way the move, like a pack. I consciously avoid looking at them or making eye contact. But one of them, to my left, says a word in Kinyarwanda, it’s the command form of a verb I don’t recognise but I do know it’s directed at me. She repeats it a couple more times shouting louder and louder, as she passes, practically in my ear. Angry, threatening. I briefly think about turning back and coldly slapping her on the face and telling her to have manners but they’ve already passed and its over. I heard her and her friends laughing up the road. Why am I the object of so much derision and aggression, when I just want mind my own business and walk home? I have started to dread being out on the street unless I have the cover of darkness.

Then when I get to the gate of my house there’s a guy and a kid nearby. They are both staring at me, as many people do, the guy particularly so. And I’m thinking, why do people have to bloody stare at me all the fucking time? First, that odious teenager, now this? All I’m trying to do is complete the short walk to my house in peace.

I’m not feeling charitable and start giving the guy the death stare. But he keeps staring right back at me. I put my bags down, all the while eyeballing him, and rummage in my coat pocket for the gate key. Then I give him my “so what the fuck to do want?” look and he mumbles a greeting in what might have been an attempt at French. Then he says something in Kinyarwanda about a chicken and, as far as I can see, points to Steve’s car parked in the driveway. Just when I start to wonder what all of this means, I see the beast and realise his chicken has run off into my garden and all he wants to go and reclaim it. And I feel like a prize asshole for having given him aggro.

Africa wins again…