Unless He Watches…

I took a walk today evening and I was reminded. Reminded of some dreadful events in my life whose dread didn’t fully play out. I sat at a cafe and just stared at nothing for so long but yet my mind was ransacking through time.

My tear glands fired up their engines. I remembered July 2018. In April my mom had just bought a laptop for me! I met a man on the streets. He seemed friendly, but my innocent mind hadn’t really had a taste of Kampala city yet.

He saw my phone had a cracked screen. I was desperate as well to have a new one. He said he’d buy it, then I’d top up to get a new phone. He won my trust. We kept in touch for many days, and then this fateful day, when we met, he took a 100 grand from me, my old phone and the laptop!

I can’t explain it. It was BROAD-DAYLIGHT in the middle of a plaza building. When he vanished, my senses returned! ‘OH NO!’ My brain screamed, ‘That son of a —! Doggone Thief!— Conman!’ The atmosphere was filled with drama & trauma

I was DEAD! I couldn’t breathe. People around thought we we’re friends. I had been conned! Speaking in tongues didn’t help me at all. If I recall though, my heart had sensed something fishy that day. Everything was spinning! I asked the ground to swallow me. I had never been robbed like this before.

I couldn’t face my mom. Heck no! What was I to say? That I handed over the items to the thief?—Over my dead body! I told many friends about it and they too had been robbed before. One told me 5 laptops were stolen from him, and none of them were his. That was just suicidal!

Another told me a knife was held to her belly. ‘Scream and we’ll cut you!’ The thugs said.

Her phone went like that, along with her IDs. I started feeling relief. I had had some extra money on me to buy me a 280k phone. The time to face mom came. The weekend ended with me returning home to L’O.

She immediately noticed I wasn’t my happy self.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Thee—laptuh—wa—sto’n.” I ate the words!

“What?”

I swallowed a lot of saliva and then slowly, I repeated, “The laptop was stolen!”

Her bag dropped! She clapped her hands as though I’d told her someone had died!

“Ewoooo. (In a nigerian sob) There goes our 1.3million. How did this happen?”

I first asked God to forgive me, then I acted a whole movie for her. This was its summary… “Mummy, it was broad daylight first of all. I got into a panya, and as I moved, a man jumped out of nowhere and blew white stuff into my face. I fell. I couldn’t see anymore. Men around came to help. I could nolonger hear. They asked for my hanky. I told them to check my pockets. Many people were touching me. Hands were allover me…

Everything went black (My mom’s eye brows drowned upwards into her weave. Her lower jaw had dropped in horror…) Mommy I lost consciousness!!!”

“Caliform???”

“Yes mummy! They used chloroform! (Correcting her mispronunciation made feel like I could get off the hook) — When I opened my eyes, my phone was missing from my pocket, my bag zipper was wide open! Everything was gone!”

“Thank God you are safe!” She trembled in speech.

In my mind she hugged me. She was truly glad no harm had come to me. And the rest of the night was filled with conversations of how she’s been robbed throughout the years, though she kept mourning the 1.3 million periodically.

Now that I got a new laptop last year, I could freely tell the truth. But today, that scenario returned. And, I came to terms with the truth that it’d have gone worse. I could have been hit on the head with a brick by the thief, or knifed, and he’d have run with the bag. But someone was watching…

My mind traveled fast forward to 30th June 2019. I was at Cafe Javas Lugogo, and a white man with bright blue eyes was leaving when he noticed me sitting next to the parking. His English wasn’t flowing as thorough, so it was hard to think him British or American.

He acquainted me and randomly began by asking, whether I worked at Isuzu as my shirt was Isuzu branded.

When the man suddenly sat down across, my heart began to race. He talked of how he was going to Kenya, blah blah… Then he said he could connect me to bigger architects, since I’d mentioned I was one.

Stuff went south when he told me he’d like to give me a ride home! I objected. He insisted. My heart was those ends. The waiters were far. He asked if he’d clear my bill! I refused. He left. Oh no! I’d given him my contact. I thought of giving him a wrong number, but he’d have beeped to confirm, since all my two phones were on the table. He actually did beep. I told him a relative was coming to pick me up.

It’s like the laptop scenario hadn’t taught me a lesson!

Minutes passed. My phone rang. ” I see your relative hasn’t come yet! I promise I can take you to Mukono since I’m going the same direction…”

“What the—”

This mister man was stocking! I panicked. He was in the parking but I couldn’t tell what car he was in. I stood up and paid quick as I mumbled over the phone. I cut through the waiters, scrolled down the upper bar of my phone, pressed airplane mode and ran—fled—flew—skidaddled!

Everyone looked like a potential threat. The robbery scenario replayed in my mind. There was a car following me! Oh God! Should I scream?—But was I sure that car had the white guy!

“Taxi!!!!”… I dived through the window and sat! Panting—while praying in tongues again. Maybe they helped this time. But I kept looking around…hoping this taxi wasn’t owned by the white man with blue eyes.

I had trauma for the next few weeks, though I had got home safe. Learning never ends…and not everyone is friendly on these streets. But it could have been worse; my conscience told me this was a human trafficker! Tears filled my eyes when I wondered where I’d have ended up; a suitcase through cargo? An Arab country? Sodomised? I don’t know!!! You all could probably be passing around missing-person posters of me.

I had to pull my brain out of its sojourning. I wiped my tears and sincerely and deeply thanked God, meaning it with every letter. Look, dear reader; Your strength can’t save you. The world has become more cruel! I imagined this foreigner drugging me and telling the waiters he had come with me! They’d have helped him kidnap me by helping him to carry my body to his car. I hadn’t told my family where I’d gone. Where would they have started my search from?

The CCTV cameras and electrical fences can’t save you either! What if the ones where you are kidnapped from are not operational! We’ve seen it movies, people are so smart nowadays. The watch men can’t do a superb job. The house helps could be showering when the gas has leaked and your children are playing with a match box!

The thieves no longer come only in the night! The abductors are no longer afraid to do it in broad daylight! The robbers are brave enough to steal from you at the noon traffic lights!

Who will protect you? Who will watch over you or your children when you’re not around?

My mom doesn’t know about the second incident. But I know she always prayed for me…

As I walked back home, this scripture had never made so much sense;

“Unless the LORD watches over the city (you), the guards stand watch in vain.” (Psalms 127:1b)

All of us in life need someone to watch us in the real world! I’m so so so grateful that God was watching, keeping all evil away from me! How I pray, He watches you too!

(Sigh)

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Disclaimer: Cafe Javas is not to blame for what COULD have happened. The transparency of this is to let the reader know that it’d have been Acacia mall or Garden City or Kingdom Kampala, or any place named ‘public’ in the city. Wicked men could masquerade anywhere.