I arrived at Entebbe airport in Uganda and was met by Joseph Sekiku and his old friend Macarius. I was on the way to Joseph’s village in NW Tanzania as a representative of a link between his community and ours in Wales. I had been on a night flight, it was now early in the morning and Macarius took us to his home for breakfast. He was a long-serving police officer and as such he was given accommodation with the job. It turned out to be a two room metal hut in a compound of other huts with children and goats running around.
Breakfast consisted of sweetened sliced white bread, perhaps a special treat they had bought for me – I don’t know. Macarius’ partner, Sharon, had the difficult job of serving the menfolk their food (our food, I should say) while keeping her head below our eye-level. As far as I could make out that was the appropriate etiquette. She also kept a sort of glazed expression on her face that I saw Joseph’s wife adopt later; maybe it was a type of politeness used in formal situations. It all looked wrong to me and I felt uncomfortable. Then she and the other women in the room stood around while we ate. They took no interest in the conversation and I assumed they spoke no English.
When I returned three weeks later Sharon greeted me as a friend, in good African English. She asked me why I hadn’t got a suntan. It’s a different culture there. It would take quite a while to understand it.