It is rude to stare!

Jan 18, 2003

He stood with his back to the Crane Chambers car park near the special hire taxi rank opposite Radio One. His left hand gripped his crotch firmly and, judging by his movements, his hand was obviously playing with its contents.

By Timothy Bukumunhe

He stood with his back to the Crane Chambers car park near the special hire taxi rank opposite Radio One. His left hand gripped his crotch firmly and, judging by his movements, his hand was obviously playing with its contents.

His zombie eyes were wide open and intensely focused on the two women in front of him. With his mouth ajar, over a period of time it filled up with saliva until it began to ooze out of the corner of his mouth.

A stream of saliva with a ball at the end of it flowed out of his mouth and stretched to the ground. It sort of bounced back up the moment it hit his toes through his open sandals –– almost like a yo-yo. Only then did he regain his senses, his zombie eyes returning to normal before he continued with what he was doing.

Kampala City is a haven for people who stare. They do not just look at things as is done in other cities, but they meticulously stare, literally drilling their eyes into whatever it is that they have seen. People seemingly have enough time on their hands to spend the best part of the day sitting and gawking at whatever it is that passes them. What is amazing though, is men seemingly are unable to stare without playing with their crotches!

As I took my seat in a taxi recently, the man next to me looked up at me. I did not have any problem with that except that he started to stare me up and down, making no effort to hide what he was doing.

Once he was done with giving me the once over, he stared me straight in the face for a good 45 seconds, so much I got uncomfortable and started thinking about changing seats, except that there were none.

Throughout the journey from the Post Office to the New Vision stage on Jinja Road, every now and again he would callously whip his head round and have a good gawk at me like I had done something wrong.

It is hard to imagine that people today still find it amusing whenever Green Boat is called in to tow away a car. Men will find a place to perch, some of them squatting as they stare at the technicalities of having a car towed away. Once the offending car has been yanked up and is being towed away, they will still squat there, their eyes following the car into the distance.

Not until they are sure it is out of their sight, will they bother to pick themselves up and carry on with whatever (or not) it was that they were doing.

Last year, a freight company imported two yellow state-of-the-art Renault lorries. What resulted when they drove through Industrial Area at the junction of the American Embassy complex and the old Coffee Marketing Board (now housing the AGOA girls) was a frenzied display of staring.

Life at that junction came to a standstill. The boda boda riders suspended their haggling for customers to stare at the trucks as they drove down into the heart of Industrial Area. Work came to a halt outside all firms that have their offices down that road –– Phenix, Bata, Alam Group of Companies and Dairy Corporation. And long after the trucks had vanished, they still continued to stare down into the cloud of dust the trucks had whipped up.

At places like The Venue, even the educated stare. The moment people see you walk up to the entrance, they start on their staring stint. Women stare worse. Without trying to hide it, they stare at you right up until you cross paths. Once you have passed them, they crane their necks to look back and stare at you, all the way to your seat.

As soon as you have sat down, they start staring at the people you have met up with. And when you stare back at them giving them that quizzical ‘do we know each other look?’, they quickly look away and drum up kaboozi with their friends –– intent on finding everything negative about you as a person and the way you are dressed. All this is unashamedly done as they stare back at you!

In banks too, especially the one that has its head office on Spear House, it is no different. As you stand at the counter transacting your business, the likelihood of the person behind you rubbing up against you and staring over your shoulder to see what business it is that you are transacting is pretty high!

Towards the end of last year at Jinja Road round about near the rail crossing, what happened there did not warrant a crowd of 100 all wondering ‘what has happened?’

The back wheel to her maroon Mercedes Benz punctured, a lady driver mounted the pavement and sat there for a while, perhaps trying to figure out what to do next.

Little did she know she had inadvertently sent out ‘invitation cards’ to passers-by to come and stare at her. A crowd of 20 quickly formed and just stood there staring at her through the windows waiting to see what her next move would be!

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