Televisions and Mobile Phones

The church was quite empty for the Mass at 10am.  But, still, all those arriving after us came to sit in our pew.  Children on my lap, hands in my hands, big eyes staring up at me.

Amid the dust and the poverty, and the joy and the love here in Uganda, I have noticed two powerful elements which seem to play an integral part of life over here for those with a little money.  The television and the mobile phone.  One is always on and the other is constantly ringing or at the very least close at hand.  Calls are taken without any hesitation in the middle of Mass, meals, lessons, conversations.

On the television, over-melodramatic soaps from Spain (dubbed appallingly in English) spill out their misery and emotion... series after series.  I am just back from a Birthday Party with about 16 guests.  I was really looking forward to the gathering and having some fun with new people.  But the television with a pile-of-pants of a soap was on throughout.  Nobody talked, as they were all swept up in this episode.  Some of the guests wept.  Others howled.  From what I could gather, the storyline was moderately ambitious in its coverage: there was a birth, a death of the mother, a suicide of the father, a murder, another suicide, a marriage, an assault resulting in the groom becoming blind, and an imprisonment... all packed into one hour.

I asked the young man sitting next to me about the appeal of watching such a programme when everybody was here to celebrate a birthday.  He felt that it mirrored the best and the worst of what life throws at Ugandans and that is why it appeals.  People can tap into it.  And people get trapped by it.  Maybe it is a bit of escapism?  A result of boredom?  I think it is quite sad.

I am so happy to have my books in which to lose myself.  I am loving 'Of Bees and Mist' at the moment.  And I have currently got my Bose headphones on with Rusalka's 'Song to the Moon' filling my heart.  I cannot even hear the traffic.  The joy I feel right now is indescribable.