Stephen

On Friday I had an upper wisdom tooth pulled. Luckily it had mostly descended anyway and the dentist assured me it was a simple extraction. And he was right. Despite images of goats and chickens traipsing the waiting room, I found a very modern office with x-rays beamed directly to the computer next to my chair and a delightful expert dentist.

The anticipation of the tooth extraction on the other hand was not delightful. My trepidation grew exponentially to the point at which I was in silent hysterics by the time the pliers came into view. To try and keep from leaping up out of the chair, I relied on two things a.) the tooth hurt so bad I had no choice b.) distraction techniques. I had xanax with me, but feared it might clash with whatever drugs he would give me and that was too much of an anxiety sandwich to stomach. So I started blogging in my head and decided that I needed to tell Stephen’s story.

Stephen is another beneficiary from the bead sales. With the money I collected, I bought him a bike. A bike in northern Uganda is like a car. It is a critical people and stuff mover that a household is lucky to have, because few own them. Stephen is one of my “employees” at the café. To capture the unique experience that is Stephen, I usually introduce him as the future President of Uganda. He’s cute as a button, charming and very very ambitious. With only his grandmother and little brother as family, Stephen is the head of the house at age 16, which sadly is not that uncommon in Gulu. Stephen handles this tough deal of the deck with hard work that is sometimes above board and sometimes not.

Stephen looks like he’s about 12 and it’s funny to watch people come into the café and gawk in stifled horror at the child laborer I’ve employed. For those who actually verbalize their concern, we assure them that he’s 16 (although in desperate need of a growth spurt) and only comes to the café after work for two hours and half days on the weekend. In fact we had to argue with Stephen about this. He was turning up all the time and I did fear he might be ditching school to hang out at the café. I quickly explained to him that the future President had to graduate from secondary school and would do so under the café’s watchful eyes. And by eyes, I mean that all seven of us at Café Larem watch out for Stephen. I told him that he had seven mothers. He tried to look pleased with this, but couldn’t mask his fear. Exactly like I like it!

I was introduced to Stephen by Hayden who has a history of picking up random people who need work and pawning them off on me. Recently he tried to get his ex-landlord’s son a job with me. I explained that with two gardeners, a housekeeper and several extraneous café workers there was simply no other job I could dream up at this stage. Hayden met Stephen while working alongside the US Military’s Veterinarian contingent. (An aside: yes, apparently there is a Vet wing of the US Military that works on the hearts and minds of farm animals.) Stephen had embedded with them as their errand boy and when they left after a few months, he let Hayden inherit him, who naturally turned him over to me. I hired him as the café’s busboy. It’s the perfect job for him. He gets a steady income moving some dishes around and generally picking up for the other staff. The other staff love it, because they give him all the jobs they hate.

When you meet Stephen it’s hard not to squeeze his cheeks and cuddle him immediately. In fact, a few minutes into meeting him you are not even paying attention to him, because you’re going through adoption strategies in your head. He’s extremely well spoken and perfectly fluent in English. His eyes and his feet are way too big for his body. And he’s usually wearing his favorite t-shirt “too cool for school.” Indeed.

The downside of Stephen’s cute ambition is that he’s always working multiple angles for stuff. Small stuff mostly, but it adds up when you factor in all the other non-essential employees on the payroll. “Can you buy me an extra pair of shoes, a bell for my bike, a chicken for my grandmother?” But then he reached too far and asked me, Hayden, Mollie and Apolo separately for school fees, school fees already paid for by Watoto Church. In addition to busting him, I told him that I provided him with a regular salary, that he better stop asking me for extras and that I was in communication with the others so he better not try to pull a fast one like that again. It’s especially exasperating, because it’s difficult to resist his fleecing when he casts those doe eyes in your direction. "Just one chicken for grandma" "No!" You see how difficult!

So the way I broke my own rule about helping Stephen too much was by bringing in the bead money. I thought that it would be very important for him to understand that this was not my money, and because it was from good people donating to a good cause he was not to take it lightly. I also made him match the gift with his own money. We agreed that the cost of the bike would be split 50-50 between the bead money and his café salary. He agreed to have half of his salary deducted each month in order to meet the match. After two months, I forgave him the remaining debt, so the split is more like 80-20, but I felt that was a reasonable cost share.

He is in love with his bike. And he’s still hard at work for us at the café. It has given him wonderful freedom of movement that will last long after I leave, which makes me relieved and happy. Thanks everyone for your help with a boy who’s going places (on a bike!)