After hitting up SEVEN stationary stores in the big city Mbarara on Tuesday before finding one that could print my 150 pages of color, and printing said pages JUST under the wire before the town’s power went kaput (score! …kind of), I really should have known how today would go in home-sweet-kind-of-smoky-smelling-recently Nyakasharu. I was just optimistic….you know? I only had 40 pages and gave up on the dream of colored ink pretty quickly. 40 pages. Black and White. Money in hand. Please, oh please, let me give it to someone in exchange for their goods and services! Blurg.
It seems all operating stationary store owners with functioning printer-like machines knew the same guy—possibly a famed stationer??—who died. We’ll save mid-morning, mid-week, village burials for another culturally-insightful post. Anyway, I found the ONE store both open AND operating, and after I skillfully deflected several wait-what?-i-gotta-do-work? eyerolls from the Nigerian film-engrossed staff members, I printed!
I printed.
I printed 41 pages….one page at a time….restarting the computer and reinstalling the printer after each….and every….single….page.
Then the lady did her math poorly and tried to overcharge me by 4,500 shillings, all while insisting that she is giving me a generous discount. Mmmmm, okay. After 1.5 hours in what now in retrospect seems to have been some sort of Printing Purgatory, I think I stayed remarkably calm. Sure, inside my blood was boiling. But I managed to keep a lively conversation going with the probably-bitter-toward-me-forever staff who may or may not have understood my urgency to print 41 pages of pictures of birds, mostly throwing around hilarious witticisms including but not limited to “this computer is in a very bad mood!” Good one, good one. I think it is a testament to my 2.5 years in Uganda that today did not land me on anti-depressants. I eked out a “thanks for the service, probably won’t be back but it’s been real, you know, in an absurd sort of way, enjoy your movie” type of lopsided smile on my way out. I reserved my straight, albeit significantly more crazed, smile for the lady at the binding store ten minutes later who—remarkably quickly!—ruined all 41 pages in her evil binding machine.
Some days are just like this—I think….I am so blessed to have had this experience. I am so blessed to go home in 2 months. Home has better liquor.
kevin Miller said,
February 11, 2012 @ 2:16 am
Maybe, Hayley, maybe – But you better bring your own banana gin, ’cause I’m not seeing a lot of that at Tipsy’s these days, and I’m pretty sure it tastes GREAT!