Watching birthing at the dinner table

“Vhat are you doing here in Uganda?”

Claire stops mid sentence and turns around.

“Vhat are you doing here in Uganda? Are you studying?” asks the middle aged European woman on the table next to ours.

“Uh, no we aren’t studying we’re just on holiday.” Claire says, twisting around to engage the woman in conversation. We are sat on the front terrace of the Duchess Hotel Restaurant in Fort Portal, waiting for our pizzas to be brought out. This woman just sat on the table next to us and lit a cigarette.

“I am working in a hospital,” she tells us.

“Ah, nice,” we reply, slightly taken aback at having our conversation interrupted mid flow.

“You look,” she says, handing her mobile phone to Claire. “swipe right, swipe right,” she says, encouraging Claire to look through the photos on her phone. I slump down low in my chair, trying to hide behind Claire slightly. Claire obliges and peruses her photos of newly born children. She shows one to me making the classic “aww” sound that you are required to make when looking at babies, though I can tell she is slightly disorientated by how quickly we have moved from our first interaction with this lady to suddenly being forced to browse her snaps.

“Are you a midwife?” I ask. She nods.

Claire looks shocked. She has just arrived at a vide on her phone of a naked woman on a bed, clearly about to give birth. “Not sure if I want to watch this one,” Claire says politely, handing the phone back to the woman. “Don’t think watching a live birth at the dinner table is the best idea,” she adds. My eyebrows raise as I look Claire in the eyes.

The woman takes her phone back, hits play on the video and shoves it back into Claire’s view. “You vatch, you vatch.”

I slide yet lower in my chair. Claire’s eyes widen as the video plays out. Luckily I am unable to witness the birthing scene that is unfolding. ‘Why is it just the three of us on the terrace?’ I think to myself as Claire watches the baby crowning. ‘Why is there not someone else for her to chat to?’

“Right, that’s enough,” says Claire as she hands the phone back to the lady. Claire then picks up our conversation from the point just before we were interrupted. She doesn’t get far.

“vhere are you two from?” asks the lady. Claire stops mid sentence again.

“England,” I say. Claire has her back to the lady and looks directly at me as I engage our new friend in more conversation. “Where are you from?” I ask, being polite.

“Norvay.” She answers. I realise that she is wearing a red jumper covered in Norway flags and acknowledge this.

Claire starts up again, but only manages two words.

“vhere about in England are you from?”

“Brighton, ” we reply in unison, as I add, “in the south east.”

“Ah, near Germany?” she adds.

I was instantly bemused at this question. I wasn’t sure if she misheard that we were English. But then I started to doubt my own bemusement. ‘maybe the south east of England is relatively close to Germany?’ I ask myself. “Uh, I guess.” I add.

The lady then starts to tell us the layout of Great Britain – “Yes, you have Scotland here, opposite Norvay, then Ireland, Vales, Denmark is here, and then England here.” Claire is staring at me with wide eyes as if to say ‘what shall we do?’

Our pizzas still haven’t arrived, but when they do, perhaps she will leave us to eat?

Claire and I then try and salvage our previous conversation at least five times, being interrupted throughout to find out that the Norwegian lady has two sons, one of which is 22, the other is 26. She also has a grandchild that is one. One of her sons recently had a skiing accident and broke his back and his ankle. And she is the chief of staff at a hospital. And she recently went to London.

“Yes I liked London. I vent to the theyare. Is that the right word?”

“Theatre?” I ask.

“Yes, yes. The theatre. I vent to see a musical. It vas about that singer. He was into drugs, vore lots of gold and I think he was a homosexual,” she informs us. “Do you know the singer?”

“Freddie Mercury?” I ask, grasping at straws. “Was the musical called We Will Rock You?”

“Yes, yes it vas. Ve Vill Rock You.”

It was at this point that she hands Claire her phone again. This time the screen is filled with a picture of her on some skis.

“Ah, you’re skiing,” says Claire, opting for this statement of the obvious due to a lack of any other ideas for things to say. Our pizzas arrive. We start eating.

The lady’s phone rings. She answers. I whisper to Claire “quick, start a conversation. Anything!”

‘If we can get deep into a conversation then perhaps she will stop butting in,’ I think to myself. I sit there, waiting. Relying on Claire, to think of something genius to talk about. Something we can get deep into whilst she is on the phone, meaning when she hangs up, we will be so deep in conversation, that she will notice this and leave us be for a few minutes. Claire looks at me not sure what to say, slightly frightened that the lady’s phone call may end soon. She looks at my four cheese pizza.

“What cheeses are on your pizza?” She asks with a shrug. My heart sinks. I love her for trying, I really do and it’s better than I could do under that kind of pressure, but we both know it’s not enough.

I look at my pizza exasperated. “I am not sure,” I reply, knowing that I am not helping Claire out at all. Suddenly I have forgotten the name of ALL the cheeses. “There is a blue cheese on there. See,” I say, pointing. The woman’s phone call is over.

“How is my English?” she asks, starting up our three way conversation again at her own accord. Claire looks at me. ‘I wish I was sat where Claire is sat’ I think to myself. In these awkward conversations with an over-familiar individual, the person with their back to them is always in the dream seat.

“Your English is very good,” I say. She proceeds to tell us that in Norway they like to learn English. “I don’t know any Norweigan,” I add with a smile.

“No?” she asks, giving us the impression that she genuinely was expecting us to know some Norweigan. As if it was French, German on Spanish.

“No,” I add. “We learn French and German at school, but Norweigan is pretty far down the list.”

“Ah ok,” she adds. “So English is your first language?” She asks with an upward infection. Claire looks at me and smiles. I stifle a giggle.

“Being from England, yes, English is our first language,” I add, in a friendly tone trying to break a bit of the tension with a little joke. She doesn’t notice.

“Yes, in our country, English is our second language,” she informs us. I raise my eyebrows and nod. Even after 15 minutes of this conversation, I am still unsure how we have gotten this far. We were sat on a nice table having a drink waiting for our dinner. We’d finally said goodbye to the children at the orphanage and also had a lovely day swimming in the crater lake nearby and were enjoying the build up to a romantic meal for two. However, within five minutes of placing our order we were now in the middle of a three way conversation with a slightly mad Norwegian woman. It is at this point that I don’t want people reading this to think that I am being mean. We love interacting with people. We often chat to strangers here and have had some nice interesting conversations. However, this woman walked over, plonked herself down, lit a cigarette and literally interrupted us mid sentence, in the midst of quite a nice conversation, with a loud question, trying to induce a conversation. Initially, we gave her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she was lonely. But when she forced Claire to watch a panting, screaming Ugandan lady, legs splayed, forcing a baby out of her vagina, AT THE DINNER TABLE, we knew we were in the company of an oddball.

After 15 more minutes of stop-start conversation, Claire and I gave up trying to have a chat of our own. She proceeded to fill us in on more of her life story, whilst we nodded along.

I began eating faster. Claire did too. Our defence mechanisms were kicking in. Unbeknownst to us, our respective subconscious were working hard. They were trying to get us to eat our food as quick as possible and get out of there. Fight or flight were our options and we were opting to fly. And fast. I finished mine in record time giving myself heartburn. Claire didn’t even finish hers. She beckoned to the waiter. “Would I be able to take the rest of this home?” she asks.

“Of course,” replies the waiter. I then down my beer and we pay. All the while, having a back and forth conversation with our interlocutor as she offers us more insight into the life of a chief of staff at a hospital in Norway who has now taken time out to work in a Ugandan birthing unit.

“Lovely to meet you,” we both say to our new friend as we rise from our seats praying that we won’t have to witness any more childbirth.

“And you, enjoy the rest of your time here,” she says.

“And you!”

We were out of there. As we walked up the road we began to giggle. I don’t think either of us had ever had a conversation thrust upon us in such a way before. We jumped on the back of a boda boda and laughed all the way back to the lodge where we were staying, unsure as to what had just happened. It genuinely felt like a dream.

“Why did she show you the birthing video?” I ask Claire.

“I am not sure,” she replies chuckling.