unbecoming muzungu dinner

It was 10pm. We were all hungry. We sloped down the street to grab some cheap pork, but it was late, and pork was finished. They had the usual stuff, but because it was a popular pork joint, it was at the usual jacked-up prices. We walked a bit further and found a small unbecoming restaurant & takeaway, presuming unbecoming meant the food would be cheap. It wasn't, or at least, they were attempting to bank on their proximity to the pork joint, which we should have known. But it was late, and Alex and Gerald easily bargained down my plate of "chips chicken" (a plate of chicken, fries, and in this case, rice) from 8,000/= to 5,000/=. Then they got quiet. They weren't ordering. They weren't eating. I asked them what food they were getting, no answer. I asked them then why are we here, no answer. After a short pause, Gerald said, because you need to eat.

I said I could eat anything, we could go anywhere. When we left the pork joint with no pork, I said let's go somewhere else, somewhere that's cheap. I squinted to conceal my anger in silence for a few moments before speaking. I told them they should know that I'm not OK with getting food, if they're also hungry but can't get food. I told them they were treating me like some muzungu they had only known for a few days, and not a friend they had known for 7 months. The latter felt worse.

They only had 2,000/= to share between the two of them. They said they wanted to buy chapati off the street, but it was late, and chapati was finished. I asked them, why didn't you just tell me, why don't we just do that, no answer. After a shorter pause this time, Gerald said, because you need to eat, because a muzungu taking chapati for dinner was an ironically "muzungu" concept to them, even after I'd spent the past 7 months eating everything they'd been eating, and with abandon, or maybe the chapati was a lie and with only 2,000/=, they already knew they'd have to go without taking dinner. Which is why I was surprised when Gerald, out of some unfounded feeling of obligation, ordered 2 sodas, 1,000/= a piece, with Alex rolling his eyes in disgust at Gerald wasting their money. My plate of chips and chicken followed the sodas. I told them what's worse than getting food, if they're also hungry but can't get food, is having to eat it alone in front of them. They mustered two blank stares, but with a flicker of mild amusement concealing what I really knew to be hunger.

I had almost no appetite, but I poured the chicken broth onto the heaping plate of chips and rice, and forced myself to eat half of what was on the plate, attempting to convince myself that I was hungry, that it was my dinner, that I was paying for it, that it was respectively, their choice, my choice, that they were OK with it, and that I was making it worse by not just also being OK with it. And while some part of me wanted to believe all that, I didn't, because it was based on the idea that we could both afford "choice" that night, or that this food was "mine," and the fact that this food "wasn't mine" was not entirely untrue.

By then it was 11pm. I felt like an idiot. I know Alex and Gerald have gone many uneventful nights without taking dinner, but without any hesitation or reluctance, they walked with me for over half an hour to the pork joint with no pork. They continued walking with me, after discovering there was no pork, looking for a restaurant where we could eat. Then they bargained down the price of what I wanted to eat, speaking for me to the waiter in Luganda, and shaving 3,000/= off the cost of the plate. So the price now being 5,000/=, was it not true that 3/8 of the meal they had technically paid for, or at least, 3/8 of the meal that I wasn't having to pay for? And the sodas, shared, was another 2,000/= I wasn't having to pay for, making for a bill which would have originally totaled 10,000 shillings: 5,000/= of which I paid for, 2,000/= of which they paid for, and 3,000/= for which they bargained and none of us had to pay for. Did I mention that I felt like an idiot? I slid the plate across the table, and I told them, gwada (have), because you need to eat.