MY NYC TRIP. PART ONE.... HARLEM TOUR part 1

You know I visited NYC sometime back last year. During my time in NYC, I made a decision that I will check out Harlem. I had read about the street violence somewhere in the James Baldwin essays in 2015. I had also forgotten that he wasn't actually born in Harlem. One of my hosts asked me if I ever watched "a movie called “I am not your Negro".

When I replied no, she opened her MacBook, logged into Amazon and gave me a chance to watch it. I had always watched James Baldwin on YouTube. And I envied how critical and knowledgeable he was during the times where blacks were considered to be with low intellectualism. Now, here I am, in the city that many want to visit and believed to be his home. I prepared to hit Harlem from Brooklyn.I asked my host how to get to Harlem. I liked the way how she always handled my question. She always made me ask myself in silence if she was a teacher because, she could carefully open her phone or MacBook then picks a pen and paper to write me directions, softly assuring me that I will go through it. She is one of the rare Americans, so kind and full of grace. She made Clinton Washington Westside Metro station as my boarding point, picking on Train C. She always made sure that by the time she retires in her bed, I got every single information I needed the next morning. It took me like 40 minutes to be in Harlem.

I think I jumped off on 125 streets if I recall well. I had made a mistake when I left Clinton-Washington Station. The mistake was that, I didn't check restrooms. By the time I arrived at 125 street, I was in need of that. Natural duty was calling. There are no public rest rooms in this so called "center" of the World. Or I should say the rest rooms were not visible to me.Even on stations, it's harder to find one and when I did.it was locked with chains and padlocks. So as I walked around the streets, I was also looking for any sight of a public restroom.

When I arrived at Fredrick Douglas Boulevard, I noticed so many police vehicles. I thought maybe there's a crime scene, instead it looked more like a Harlem Central Police Station. My heart beat calmed down. I fear Police. Being a Muganda and a human rights defender, I have tested the brutality of police back home in British colony, most people call it Uganda. I have seen videos of how US Police behave, so I don't at any point want to come ever closer at them. If I have a chance of avoiding them, I would. I remember when I landed at the JFK airport on that lovely sunday morning, I got on train to go to W 4 Street where I was to meet my first host. I boarded the train from Howard Beach Station. Few Stations on, two huge Police men jumped on this train, in a cabin where the majority was blacks. Fear engulfed me instantly and almost washed me off the chair, my intestines started shaking inside me,I reached out to my neighbor and asked him if they were on train checking tickets. I had already placed mine in the travel bag, so I wanted to reach it before they arrived at my point. It took a lot of energy from my neighbor to convince me that actually they were also travelers like me. I put my trust in him and slowly my fear varnished.

Thus, on Fredrick Douglas Bld, I developed the same fear passing the police vans; I was already looking for restrooms when I spotted them. I started feeling like someone is pulling my heart out, only to get closer to these vans and noticed that, there were no cops inside any. My fear was real yet had no significance. I spotted a nice looking restaurant on that Fredrick Douglas Boulevard. I will protect it in this post. I entered inside to use the restrooms even when I didn't want to eat. As I walked towards the restrooms, I noticed that 80 percent of the people inside were African Americans. I quickly asked a cleaner where restrooms are, he pointed me to the direction. When I got to the door, I noticed a note on it that read. "Customers with receipts only allowed access".

I asked him where to get the key, he directed me to the counter. As I walked there, I noticed the cooked food in the stalls on both sides of the restaurant. The food in the stalls looked tasty and tempting but the urgency to access restrooms didn't allow me to recognise what type of food they had. I reached to the counter. I requested to have a key to the restrooms. The clerk quickly handed it to me without demanding a receipt. I was relieved to access these restrooms before my muscles give up on me. I want to think that it would have been so humiliating to pass out stool in a strange city.

On my way out of restrooms, I found a lady already waiting to have a key from me. I thought to myself, this is a good place. It's gender neutral. I walked through the food stalls. The various varieties that I saw in the stalls allured me to tasted it. It was very tasty looking but most importantly, this was African American food.

I have always wanted to support African American business from day one of my time in US. I always refereed to them as my brother and sisters. Even though I am not a restaurant dude, I was happy to spend at least 10 dollars in this place. The mere thought of this business being owned by an African American, employing blacks gave me more joy and happiness. Not that I hate other races, no but because I have ready a lot of negative sentiments on how we—black people –we cannot simply run anything other than getting involved in crime. So when I see a successful black person in any field, I do feel that, that’s our collective win as black people even if I don’t get anything from that particular success story.

I said to myself, the future of the black men is here. They have carefully chosen their employees, from all ages. There were employees ranging from twenties to almost 50 years. This was cool. Giving everyone an opportunity to work. They also had some three Mexican looking guys. Therefore, there was no better place to eat than this place, besides I have used their restrooms without them demanding a receipt.

I asked one of the employees how food is sold. He told me it’s sold in Pounds. “ You pick every item you need, then go to the counter, they weigh it and tell you how much you will pay according to the pounds you loaded”. He said

In most countries I have visited and indeed in Buganda Kingdom where I was born, we use kilograms to scale weight. Before the introduction of this system, we used lats I think. When modern measurements came in place, we shifted to that. Somehow, for no better explanation, USA uses pounds. How many countries use this system?

Back to my food stall, it was around lunchtime, so many people were flooding this restaurant to pick food and go back to their work places. Few people sit down to eat. Behind me, were two lovely ladies in their 20s. They had just arrived from Singapore. They stopped to eat here. I turned around and asked them, if they would compare for me how a one pound would look like. They said "Sorry, we are from Singapore, we also don't know but we hope that's not yet a pound". They responded.

I didn't want to go to the scale and then return to add or reduce food. I only wanted one pound of food because it even cost less than 10 dollars, on addition to me being not a foodie. Thankfully, a 50 year looking African American chef came to pour more food in the stalls. I walked to him and asked, if he could t compare for me how many pounds do I have so far. I had three items of food, a fish and two pieces of meat. He went silent. I asked again if he could help because I presumed he didn’t hear me.

He turned around and told me, "I don't know. Walk to that counter." He barked like a threatened dog. In between that, he was adding in more F words than I wanted to hear, he used the f word more than five times in just 30 second. I wished if he knew how I disliked that kind of profanity. I told him that, from my observation, you are a senior chef...seriously you would know a pound. He rose up to look at me. When he started with that F word, I rised my arm to calm him down. I walked to the counter very frustrated in silence. As soon as I got to the counter, this chef came following me.. shouting with that F word ....." What the F..ck have you done/said? he barked more" in heavy aggressive voice.

He tried intimidating me. "You better be careful man" he continued... I figured out that there was anger in him. I didn't respond. His boss, who is also African American, noticed my fear on my face. He tried to water down the threats I was receiving. It looked like a normal behavior. He assured me how everything was okay and normal yet I was seeing the opposite. He weighed my food that was less than a pound; I paid the 6 dollars by debit card. As I walked out of the restaurant, the boss asked me " Where do you come from brother....I kept quiet for a minute. But then got tempted to respond to him. I from Buganda Kingdom, most people call it Uganda....” he then said “Welcome brother”, I didn't see the brotherhood here since your employee was attacking me in your presence, you couldn’t tame him out or call him out--as I walked out.

To be continued.