00:00Elvis, low, tired. Once I was tasked to research about prostitution. Not in Geneva, not in a book.
00:08In Kampala. In a small office in make-and-die where the fan doesn't work and the files are
00:14heavier than the desks. My name is Elvis O'Kello, 28, McCary Sociology Graduate.
00:20I thought I knew pain because I had read about it. Boss, dry, not looking up.
00:26Youth Health Survey. Co-wemp. Bars. Lodges. Don't get involved. Just numbers. He slides the file
00:38across. Cheap wood. Cheap ink. I take it like it's just paper. I didn't know it was a mirror.
00:47I write what they taught us to write. Consent. Barriers. Why distrust? Rumors.
00:56Fear of data. Past studies ignored us. I think I'm asking smart questions. I don't know that the
01:04real question is sitting across from me, waiting to ask me back. I leave Karambi Road at 5pm.
01:11Backpack. Green shirt. Notebook in pocket. Boda Boda's hooting. I feel like a researcher.
01:20I don't know I'm about to become a student. I ride a Boda through dusk.
01:26Kampala Blurs. Equity Bank. MTN, Chapati Smoke. My notebook clutched like a bible.
01:35I rehearse my line, can I give you 1 million to stay away from the roads? I think money is
01:40the
01:41answer because I've never had to survive the question. Then Co-wemp Road at 11pm.
01:46This is not a place you research. It researches you. Neon says bar open, closed, sorry.
01:55Rolex stalls breathing fire. Laughter that sounds like crying. Boda lights like fireflies that never
02:02sleep. Elvis, nervous wait for me, Muzawa. Boda man, laughs ha. Brother, no one waits here.
02:11Everyone is running. Everyone is running. I pay. My hands sweat. The lights are too bright for a place
02:18that hides so much. Satanga Lounge. Paint peeling. Music leaking. Men entering like they are entering a
02:27secret. I stand at the entrance. My research says enter. My heart says run. I enter. Inside,
02:37it's warm. Not what I expected. It's not sin. It's community. Motoki and peanut sauce. Rolex and
02:48samosa. Stony and laughter. People trying to be normal in a place the world calls abnormal.
02:55This is the community she survives. And then I see her. She sits alone at the far end,
03:02under a warm bulb. Yellow kitenge, blue pattern. Counting capital she made that night but can't
03:09leave the bars yet. Tired. Beautiful. Disowned, disorganized, disoriented, demotivated,
03:17yet here she is trying harder than life to only see them smile again. I melted to the ground.
03:23Couldn't understand a thing.
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