We Three Kings/Christmas in Kampala, or, Batshit Crazy with the Uganda Sexpat Society

Rough draft, to be edited.

Christmas Eve
This was the beginning of one those spans of several days that is absolutely legendary in the minds of those who were involved. From the outside it would seem madness, a throng of people bumping into each other in a mess of overflowing ashtrays and breakfast beers. From the inside, though, I think we managed to tap into something innately human – our ability to connect, to create, to share, to cry, and to laugh, laugh, laugh.

Christmas Eve began on the back of a 100cc motorcycle with a case of beer on my lap, limping up a hill to the house of two of Matt’s friends for Christmas Eve dinner, a group reading of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and a viewing of Love Actually. The house was gorgeous, expansive, the backyard sloping down in terraces, offering one of those peaceful nighttime views of Kampala from the top of one of the city’s seven major hills. These views allow for the big picture. On the street, Kampala can be a circus, twisting and turning in exhaust pipes, hawkers and peddlers, and broken pavement reverberating the heat of the hustle and bustle. From the top, however, especially at night, the view is beautiful, the city lights spelling words and drawing pictures you see once but then get lost when you try and find them a second time. I envy those who can come home at the end of the day and sit poolside and have the big picture presented to them, the noises of the everyday still audible but floating and faded, as if far, far away.

The film viewing, I think, hit the inside of a lot of our chests. Many of those present weren’t there because they wanted to be. Not because they didn’t want to be there, in that moment, with those people, but if they had had a choice they would be somewhere else, with family, in England, in Tennessee, in wherever home might be. Instead, because of work or finances or unexpected life happenings, they were stranded in Kampala.

Others had memories brought back of relationships past, relationships budding, and relationships ruined. This is the first Christmas, some realized, that they would be alone. For others, this was their first Christmas together. It was that classic nostalgia that holidays offer; painful, beautiful, longing for something that was and something that you’ve never had that you wish you could.

Subdued and melancholic turned into rowdiness as a group of us shifted out of the privacy of the home to the public arena of lionhearted celebration. Stumbling carols were sung spontaneously as tequila shots were passed around until the bar shut down.

Christmas, however, had but just finished its prologue.

The next chapter opens with We Three Kings – the name given to myself and my two exceedingly tall compatriots – sitting on the roof rack of Land Rover with a handful of US Marines. The air was refreshingly cold as Kampala whizzed by beneath us and for a second I wished it would snow, just a few flakes, for old time’s sake.

The night ended and dawn began at another house at which we would be spending Christmas Day. We Three Kings proceeded to continue the party on the patio, taking turns playing songs from our personal collections that meant something to us, explaining as we went where the song came from and the context behind it. As the sun came up we reached a several moments of truth, of sharing, and of friendship that would rival most.

It was one of those moments where through the haze everything seems connected somehow, when you’re talking about something so incredibly sad you can’t properly put it into words and then out of nowhere it starts raining, as if the sky itself is crying over your loss.

And you too begin to cry, because there’s nothing left to hold back.

Christmas Day
The night bled into the day, We Three Kings falling asleep long after the sun already came up to the sound of roosters crowing at our broken mending hearts. The rest of the day was a blur, trying desperately to get our bodies to recover, as we helped prepare the turkey that was slaughtered the day before. Mostly, though, coffee and Kahlua led to lazing about and watching movies as more and more people bled into the house to join us for the evening festivities.

For a few minutes, while half asleep on the couch, I saw dinosaurs a la Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, except they were wearing Santa hats.

The food was incredible and amply fed the thirty or so of us that were there. The community feeling and the meal brought out the illusion that Christmas was really happening, here, in East Africa, despite there being no snow and none my own family present. We created our own family for a day.

What happened next takes place over the span of forty-eight hours, much of which melts together like the wax of a candle that has been burning for hours. Many more were included in the fold of We Three Kings, feeding off our established delusion. Games of questions, truth or dare, would you rather, guessing the equations that make up the lives of the people who you have just met. Nothing was held back, secrets spilled, inadequacies confronted; embarrassing, invigorating, seducing. Things were said that made you squirm, made you think, made you realize that being human truly is an incredible experience, that a group of seemingly random individuals could find themselves together, far away from what any of us would call home, and bond together as such.

And between the incessant sex talk and increasingly nauseating Christopher Walken impressions, we found blinking moments of truth laid bare. These moments, I think, came at different times for each of us, but we all wanted them bottled so we could save them for harsher times.

Three nights later I finally found my way back to my own bed and slept soundly for the first time in almost a week. Christmas in Kampala has come and gone with 2010 bearing down upon us like a nuclear weapon stamped with a word of simple juxtaposition

LIFE