“It’s incredible.”
“The children here are extremely loveable,” I declared.
“Good one,” he said, smiling. “That they are.”
Four giggling girls walked by us arm in arm singing a traditional song, making my heart swell.
After breakfast, we grabbed the satellite phone and hopped in Ian’s truck. I took note of the rifle strapped behind the seats and my blood began to pump, adrenaline flooding my body.
“It’ll be all right,” Ian assured me.
“How do you know?” I asked when he revved the engine.
“I don’t,” he said, “but I’ll protect you.”
My heart began to slow and my breathing steadied...because I believed him.
The truck was too loud to hold any kind of conversation and that disappointed me. I was dying to talk about whatever that thing was that happened between us at the watering hole. I was determined to get to the bottom of it as the sat phone charged.
The two-and-a-half-hour drive was ridiculous to me considering all we really wanted it for was electricity. Jinja was surprisingly well developed since all I’d ever seen from Kampala to Masego was undeveloped land excluding a random petrol station here and there. Ian told me it was the second largest city in Uganda. I had to keep myself from laughing while looking on it knowing those statistics. The main roads were paved, which was a rare sight, but they were poorly maintained and buckled in many spots. The establishments were plentiful but mostly one story. The roads were filled to the brim with bicyclists. Our truck seemed to be the only one among a handful in the entire city.
“The source of the Nile is here,” Ian explained after parking in front of a promising-looking restaurant.
“Get out!” I exclaimed, genuinely surprised.
He opened the door for me and I stepped inside. We were the only ones. An Indian woman called us over.
“Excuse me,” Ian said, “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind if we trespassed on your kindness for a little while. My friend’s phone is almost out of battery and we need to charge it. What would it cost us to use your electricity for, say, eight hours?”
She held up her hands to stay us and went behind a door, emerging with a pen and piece of scrap paper. She wrote down a number and I bent over to examine what she’d written. It read “2 American dollar.” I nodded at the figure and handed her two dollars from the small stash I’d brought. We set the phone up to charge and sat at a nearby table.
Suddenly things became uncomfortable between us. We both knew it was the only privacy we’d be afforded for some time and neither of us was bold enough to speak our minds. This is so unlike me. I stared out the dirty window before me, watching the men in dress pants and button-ups cycle along the streets. The woman interrupted the awkward quiet by setting a pot of tea and two cups at our table.
Ian thanked her and poured the tea over a sifter to catch the leaves, handing me a cup. Our hands touched and a spark of literal electricity shocked our hands apart.
“Static,” I whispered. We stared at one another, our hands inches apart on the table. I brought my gaze down and inspected them. “Talk,” I ordered finally, taking in his eyes again.
“The lesson.” A breath whistled through his nose.
“I thought you hated me.”
He shook his head, his hair falling a little into his eyes. “I don’t hate you, Soph. I never did.”
“Then why treat me like a pariah?”
He sat back but kept his hands flat on the table, his eyes searched me deeply.
“You’re leaving.” I nodded in acknowledgement. “In a few short months, you’ll be gone, back to your life in America. I didn’t want to be your friend.”
I sighed loudly. “So that whole bit about knowing who I was, what kind of person I was. Was that bull?”
His eyes cast down. “No, I, uh, it wasn’t.” His eyes met mine again. “I’m just-I was quick to judge. I was wrong when I thought you couldn’t change. So few can do it.”
I brought my hands down and wedged them between my crossed legs.
“You think I’ve changed?”
“Sophie,” he offered as if in explanation, his brows pulled tightly across his forehead.