I got this email today from Dennis Ogoi:

Dear Ms. Gordon, my name is Dennis. I read about your ordeal on that fateful evening in Kabagala, in the 19-05-2007 issue of the Daily Monitor and I just want to say sorry. I kindly beg you not to take it out on all Ugandan men because a greater majority of us do respect the dignity and the right to privacy of all women regardless of their social backgrounds.Please accept my hamble apolgy on behalf of all the self respecting and peace loving gentlemen of this nation.

On a lighter note though, I truly confess that I enjoy reading your articles.

Enjoy your weekend and may God bless and protect you.

If you accept my apology please reply.

Warmest regards

Dennis

In response to this piece in the Monitor, here and below:

I was walking down the uneven sidewalks of busy Kabalagala the other night to buy some eggs and bread, maybe a pirated DVD. I couldn’t tell how dark it was because of the lights shining from the pork joints and bars.

Right after it happened, I checked my watch, because I wanted to know just how late I had been walking out by myself. The last time something bad had happened, I was robbed, it had been too late for my own good. And everyone judged accordingly.

This time, it was just past 7:30p.m. I was right before the stage, and it wasn’t particularly crowded on the sidewalk, but a man with a broad face and puffy cheeks was walking straight towards me. I lunged to the side, but he still sort of bumped into me.
And then his hand was between my legs before I could do anything about it.

It was also gone before I could do anything about it, but not before my space was violated, before I was pissed off, before I was embarrassed. “Hey!” I yelled. And here was the worst part. He looked back and smiled. Another man sitting on a low stool selling nuts, maize, cigarettes and candy had witnessed the whole split-second encounter.

He chuckled. It took me a minute to spit out a loud curse. The man who had grabbed me was already crossing the street, escaping into the twilight. Everyone around turned and looked at me, as if I had done something wrong. They hadn’t seen what happened, after all, they’d only seen me yelling.

Random acts of sexual abuse, big and small, are far rarer than those perpetrated by friends and relatives. The anonymity gives it all a sting of its own, though the sting of intimacy’s violence cannot be discounted.

There’s the sting of facelessness, the sting of the realisation that even if I saw another puffy-cheeked man walking around Kabalagala, I wouldn’t be sure if it were him.
And then there was the sting of tears gathering in my eyes. I reached behind the frames of my specs and wiped my eyes, as if I could wipe away his hand from where it shouldn’t have been.

I walked on into the darkening sky to get my groceries and when I had them, I held the bag protectively in front of me. As if a loaf of bread would save me, or six eggs wouldn’t crack under pressure, or a pirated DVD could turn into a ninja’s sword.

It’s strange because I almost never get responses to my writing, and this is the piece I get a response to.

Well, thank you Dennis, for apologizing on behalf on men of this nation. I’m not sure that it revives my trust in them (wait to you see my man bashing piece next week) but it certainly makes me reconsider doing these silly another-pay-check personal pieces. I do them because the editors want me to and they take me virtually no time, but they want me to do more and more “I’m a mzungu” pieces, and I just don’t know about putting my identity on display like this.

On the other hand, though I abandoned my black specs and the harsh ideology that went with them after college, I still do believe the personal is political. That’s why I wrote the first piece, and the piece for next week.

But having ACTUAL readers, like you, Dennis, read my things and respond, means my personal is political for other persons. Something to contemplate through my now-amber hued specs, lined with turquoise for kicks and giggles.