I saw a couple of familiar faces, and caught up with them.  While having one conversation, I remembered that, I had pending work, which was due the following week. However, my overenthusiastic younger self, wanted to hand in that work to the Partner by the following morning. I checked my phone and it was about 9:00 p.m.  I got anxious because it was getting late, and since I was using public transport, I needed to leave soon.  I could not order an Uber or private cab because of my strict budget. As a young lawyer starting out in Uganda, my budget surely, was not as flexible as often portrayed by lawyers on overly exaggerated American legal drama series. Knowing my unique situation, I said farewell to a couple of friends and strangers, after which I headed out.

Outside the museum, it was dark and had begun to drizzle. The headlamps from the vehicles on Kiira Road, blinkered on and off as the cars passed by. With my unusually large bag strapped around my oversized blazer, I crossed the road and strolled to the next taxi stage. I saw a taxi (minivan) approaching. As it came closer, I could hear it clunking. It sounded a lot like the taxi was hardly functional. Thank fully, it stopped right in front of me. The taxi looked half-empty and strangely dark on the inside. I faintly saw about three human-like figures seated in the back.  The conductor (turn boy) flung open the front door of the car and asked me, ‘Ssebo ogenda?” (‘Sir, are you going?’) It was now about 9:45 p.m., the raindrops on my coat had begun permeating through to my shirt and skin. I needed to get home as early as possible. I jumped into the co driver’s seat and closed the door. While in the car, I was thinking about completing the partner’s work.

As I had just sat, the taxi began moving at a relatively slow speed. Whenever the driver changed the gear, I literally felt the vehicle grinding, rather annoyingly. The conductor then screamed at me, shouting hastily, ‘Galawo olugyi.’ (‘Close the door.’) I wondered what was going on, because I had closed the door when I got in.  Either way, I listened to him. I held my bag with my right hand and then used my left to slam the door again, just to make sure it closed. After that, I checked my phone to see the time, and I still heard the conductor tell me, to close the door again. However, before I could do that, the driver told me to hold my phone properly as I was likely to drop it. How Kind of him! I thought to myself. I opened my blazer with my left hand and put the phone in the inner breast pocket of my blazer. I then turned to close the door while the taxi was moving.

This time, there was some silence after I closed the door. I figured that everything was okay. Three minutes later, the driver murmured to me that they had decided to change route because of a mechanical condition.  They needed to take the taxi to a garage. We were close to Kiira Road Police Station. They parked the taxi. I got my bag, which was next to me and jumped out.  It was getting late, so I decided to get on a boda boda (motor-cycle). Within fifteen minutes, I got home.

When I reached home, I was tired.  I freshened up and remembered that I needed to finish the partner’s work. After showering, I sat at my table in my room, dragged my bag from the floor and put it on the table. I opened my bag.  In place of my laptop, there was a HUGE STONE, with the charger wrapped beautifully around it! I wondered, whether like the great Patriarch Moses, I had been handed the ‘stone tablet’ with the Ten Commandments. I touched my head with both hands and walked out of the house, to the verandah, in critical contemplation.

I was traumatized. How did my laptop turn into a stone?  I sat on the terrace and looked up at the moon, wondering what had just happened.  There is that saying in Luganda that, ‘Kampala sibizimbe.’  When translated, it means, ‘Kampala isn’t the buildings.’  Although this does not make sense grammatically, metaphorically, it means that Kampala is more than just its buildings, one must be extremely careful when in Kampala, lest they will learn a lesson the hard way. I had become a scholar of ‘these’ streets. I graduated cum laude (with honors) that night.