You know how when you start out to do something that you think is totally ordinary- of no significance, so you don't take your camera??? Then later on you wish you had it...
Team 2 has gone and we are waiting for Team3 so we have a day or two down time. After the bus incident and trips to the hospital, I was feeling some stress... but that was nothing compared to how sore Kaitlin is... still, I had heard about this place that had massages, for 15,000 shillings. Ok, so that sounds expensive but converted to dollars is about 9 dollars. OK, that sounds great....and it's definitely in my price range. I love massages, but I should've aimed a little higher this time.
So JJ and I set out to find this place. By the time we ate dinner, and find the hotel, it's about 9:30 PM. So we walk in and there's this Chinese guy and two Ugandan women in the common area. He is the owner. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: Hi, I hear that you give massages.
Chinese guy: Yes, we give massageees.... .
Me: Great! What kind of massages do you have?
Chinese guy: We have two kind of Chinese massageee. 15,000 and 30,000 (shillings)
Me: Ok, what's the difference? Is one longer, or is it more intense? Do you have hot stones?
Chinese guy: Stones?
Me: Stones.
Chinese guy: Stones?
Me: Hot stones.
Chinese guy: Stones? (He looks confused, so I don't even ask him about Chakra balancing or Reiki)
Chinese guy: Stones?
(I see this is going nowhere, so I start another line of questioning. Back to the "difference" )
Me: So why is the 30,000 massage better?
Chinese guy: It's size of bed. And there is shower in the room. Otherwise you shower outside the room.
Me: Size of the bed?
Chinese guy: Yes, 30,000 is for double bed. (Clue #1)
Me: Ok, well, we only need a single!!! So if there is no other difference, I guess we each want the 15,000 massage.
So JJ and I are taken back into little rooms off of the dining room of this hotel. I am led to a small and dim room, that well, smells weird. There is a single bulb, and I kid you not.. it is a RED lightbulb. That is Clue #2
JJ is led off... I hope I see her again.
There is a massage table, and Faith, the lady giving the massage puts a sheet over it. A sheet... singular...no top sheet to drape over me. I guess she isn't going to leave the room before I undress.. Oh well. So, it's Africa.. Roll with it. As I lay there in all my naked glory, I began to channel Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense... as I thought: "I smell stinky people." Still, nothing really odd happens. The massage starts, and it's ok.
JJ is next door, and the walls must be made of Kleenex, because we can totally hear what is going on in each other's rooms. Thump, slap, slap, pop.... you get the picture. It goes pretty normally at first.
Poor JJ, the woman she had tells her that she has medicine she can give her to make her breasts bigger. (Later, JJ told me that her woman peeks under JJ's underwear and GIGGLES audibly.)
By now, I am on my back, facing up. Still naked and now oily- like a greased pig at a county fair.
I feel the table shake a little... Did that woman just crawl on top of the table???.. YEP... I peek open my eyes and the woman is standing towering over me. She bends and reaches over me, behind my back, and in a quick movement, draws her hands forward to the front.
All JJ hears is SLAP, SLAP, SLAP from my room. She later tells me she is thinking: Is Michelle getting SPANKED in there?
I get the giggles. I keep thinking of the avocado I am supposed to bring home for Kaitlin. It's seems to be a place where anything goes here, maybe I can pick one up from the Chinese guy in the dining room after the massage. The avocado... I can't get it out of my head.
So much for pretending not to hear, I say "Hey JJ, how are you in there?" She said "Ok??..." but I heard it more as a question, not a response.
"Hey JJ, can you remind me to get an avocado before we go home."
(I can hear muffled movement behind the wall and cannot tell if JJ is trying not to laugh. I can tell she is doing her best to make her voice normal." "OK..."
I decide to probe Faith a little more about the difference in the massages, maybe she can explain it better. I already have a pretty good idea we are in a brothel, but it is confirmed when she says that the 30,000 massage is the "one that men like" and that the bed is not a whole night's lodging, but just to sleep in "for a while" after the massage.
I'm starting to feel pretty skeeved out now, and the massage doesn't really last the whole hour, but I don't care.
The massage ends, and Faith rubs a dingy grey towel over me to rub the excess oil (Johnson's baby oil and spearmint) off. I dress as quickly as I can, without touching anything else in the room that I possibly could avoid...
I thank Faith, and, as as I pay the man in the lobby, I ask him- "Hey, do you happen to have an avocado I could buy from you?"
The Chinese man looks at me and tilts his head. "Avocado?" he says, clearly perplexed.
Me: "Avocado."
Chinese man: "Avocado?"
Me: "Avocado"
Chinese man: "Avocado????"
Never mind...
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