Far from Zion by Charles London

Author:Charles London [London, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061561085
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2010-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

six

Converts:

The Jewish Community of Uganda

Those who sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy!

—PSALMS 126:5

THE MUNICIPAL MARKET IN Mbale, Eastern Uganda, has all the usual hallmarks of a market in Africa: narrow rows of stalls selling dried fish and meat, cloth, trinkets, batteries, toys, CDs, home-brewed booze; and everywhere the smell of sweat. Between the stalls run rivulets of mysterious liquid. It could be runoff from the butchers; it could be battery acid. Better not to know and better yet not to step in it wearing flip-flops. I watched kids dash through it barefoot, weaving through the crowd toward the day’s entertainment.

A man in a dress was singing a love song in Luganda, one of the dozen local languages. He crooned that his heart was broken, but finding new love could repair it. He flirted with the men in the audience like an aggressive hooker, and an eager crowd laughed and clapped. I knew homosexuality to be utterly and completely taboo in Uganda, but public drag shows seemed to be family entertainment. The man didn’t make any concession to drag other than the dress, but he was a decent singer. The crowd noticed me, the mzungu—the white man—and insisted I pay a little to help the musician eat. Everyone cheered when I passed a few coins through to the front.

The aisle was narrow, and I jostled some people as I walked away, hot and needing to get out of the impossible smells assaulting my nasal passages. As I squeezed away from the musical act, one of the vendors called out to me, and I turned toward him. His embroidered cap and long white robe told me he was a Muslim. Islam had been the official state religion in Uganda for some time, and still competed with Christianity in terms of missionary zeal throughout the region. This vendor didn’t call out for me to buy his rice or the beans stacked in sacks around him, or to push bad copies of the latest pop music out of the Congo “at a very reasonable price.” He had a simple message, unexpected, but one that I learned was typical of this particular market and no others in all of Africa.

“Shabbat Shalom!” he called with a smile. “Shabbat Shalom!”

“Shabbat Shalom,” I repeated, stunned, and continued on my way toward fresh air. Samson, my guide and a member of Uganda’s small Jewish community, waved at the man and wished him a peaceful Sabbath as well. Samson was tall and thin, with a wide face and quick, searching eyes. He was a member of the Bugisu tribe, which meant that he spoke at least one other language in addition to Luganda and English. “I also study Hebrew,” he explained, slipping on his sunglasses and heading into the afternoon sun. I followed, squinting, because I’d forgotten my sunglasses. My friend Jon, whom I’d grown up with in Baltimore and who’d come along as a photographer, made his way out of the market behind us.

“Someone just whispered to me that you looked like a Jew,” he told me.

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