Today I had my first wake-up call that I was no longer in a safe country, like the ones Maranatha typically works in. Filming anything, and doing whatever I want might not be a smart idea. Walking threw a market of Arua, Uganda. I was filming the American missionaries that I was sent down to make a story about. The market was busy and most of the people had been asking me to take their photo. Every once and a while you will hear one or two get a little upset, but I have found that in every country I go to typically they are bluffing. I finished up my shot and was walking away when a man comes up to me, grabs my shoulder bag and pulls me to the center of the street, and started to ask what I was doing. I yelled back to the Americans I was with and they immediately saw the problem.
Maybe asking is a mild way of putting it. He was yelling and getting very violent. Kristine, who is a missionary to Uganda, quickly jumped in and stepped on the man’s foot trying to push him back. I had been told that these people can snap fast, and pick up a mob mentality. As fast as this all was happening a crowd had gathered that was so big that cars could not pass on the road. My biggest fear was that this crowd was going to decide to join the guys who grabbed me. They were demanding that I delete the video and they were going to call the police. I will admit, I was scared, a third world police station was sounding very good at this point.
There were two men involved I was later told: one that grabbed me and another man. As Kristine tried to push the first man back the second one kicked her twice in the shins so hard they started bleeding. The man was yelling, “I am going to slap you.” Kristine was yelling back “Slap me, slap me”. She later told me that she didn’t think they would slap her. While this was going on the first man still had his hand on my camera demanding I delete the video, and his other hand on my shoulder bag. With the bag around my neck I knew this was not good so I pulled it off with my left hand but still hung onto it. With me distracted trying to work the camera, someone had reached into the bag and taken one of the memory cards that was in the outside pocket. I remember Kristine’s daughter, Harmony, calling her father and saying “they are trying to take his camera, we need the police, and the truck fast.” After trying to bluff a few times, and fake that the video was deleted, I finally gave in and deleted it because he was not as stupid as I thought. The man finally let go of the camera and bag. Pushing through the crowd, I found a motorcycle taxi, jumped on and headed back to the Adventist compound.
To go from a sunny happy day, to a man getting so angry, and a crowd forming so fast was unreal. The whole thing lasted about five minutes but I shook for about 30 minutes after that. Later, I gave Kristine a bag of my beloved skittles for her trouble.
I am a little behind with my video now, so another day another dollar. I got to get back at it.