#violaandthedrugs

She rubs her arms vigorously in an attempt to stave off the uncomfortable shiver. Her mouth is dry, the corners of her lips have wounds, caked with blood. She keeps looking around her nervously, like she is scared of something.
She doesn't wear a bra, and her breasts hang low. Her purple blouse falls off her shoulder.
After watching her for about a minute, I walk over,
introduce myself and hold out my hand.
She doesn't take it but looks at me suspiciously, kind of like, “back off!” "You asked to see me. I'm here."
I sit down and she instinctively folds her left leg under her. Her toes are dusty but the soles of her feet look soft. Her brown African leather and beaded sandals are grubby.
When she starts to speak, the smell of smoke on her breath is unmistakable. The first thing she says, more like a whisper, “ I need a fix real quick, otherwise I will burst, nja kwabika.”
Viola is 23, a mother of one - a three-year old girl. She started taking drugs four years ago when she met her boyfriend who is currently in jail for house-breaking. Her first shot was cocaine.
She shows me the black burn-like mark on her inner left wrist. “That is where I inject the drug, okwekuba empiso.”
There many small scars all over her hands, and a badly-done tattoo with the initials V N. Her nails are dirty, bitten down to the quick.
She says she dashed out of the house like a madwoman and now her head hurts and her joints are on fire.

Viola is hooked on crack. From what I know, I conclude it must be that, because she talks about using “file”, which I take to mean “foil”.
She calls it kayinja, a stone. (I recount seeing a story on TV where a woman was arrested for drugs in Kisenyi, and she nearly passed out in the police cell where she was held for hours. The policeman, scared by what he had witnessed (her spasming and screaming uncontrollably) let her out, and she fumbled as she took out the paraphernalia that she had smuggled in her panties- matchbox, foil and all. And in full view of the cameras, proceeded to light, and snort the dose through a tooter.)
Until three days ago, Viola was employed as a maid in a clinic in Kisenyi, in downtown Kampala. She has come here to rat on her former employers who called her a thief.
“That clinic is a drug den, not a place where they treat sick people. It is one of the three major drug dens there. One that is frequented by all and sundry, rich and poor. It is run by a woman posing as a nurse during the day."
Viola knows where the drugs are hidden. In a hole in the floor in the back room, the one where they pretend they are doing tests and administering medicine from. They place a basin on top of the hole and then push a bed over it, so you cannot know.
She continues, “That woman pays me in drugs, not money and yet she handles millions of shillings every day. I told her I need money to help my mother who is looking after my toddler daughter. Do you know that that woman made me wipe dirty floors? And then she made me cook and refused me to give me food, except once, when she threw me some leftovers."
Now she is getting edgy, and I suspect it is the reason she is looking all around her like she is scared of something.
“The drugs are wearing off. I had injected earlier today, at about 6:30am. I lied to my mother that I was sick and I wanted to go to Naguru hospital. She gave me 3,000 shillings. I walked all the way to Kisenyi, where I got someone to share the 5,000 shillings cost for a shot. 2,500 shillings each.

I ask if she has considered rehab.
“I went there once, actually, in February. But I escaped after two weeks. I went there when I felt I had had enough but they committed me to the mental cases’ ward. Can you imagine?
Viola hesitates before going on, like she’s trying to recall something. Then her eyes tear as she recounts how a mental patient attacked her and pulled her blanket off the bed as she took an afternoon nap.
“That ‘takkey” (cold turkey) phase was without doubt, the worst experience of my life. I had no appetite, I had diarrhea for four days, a migraine and I there were things that attacked me all the time. And when I couldn't take it anymore, I just fled.”
She says someone told her mother about her spell in the mental institution. But she doesn’t know who.
“But she believes that I am now clean, and when I say I am sick, she thinks I have malaria.”
Then she goes quiet as she stares at the two women sitting opposite us.
“I once looked really good. Nga mbakuba! I will bring you my pictures. Ah!”
Her hand goes up to her shabby coils as she describes how long her dreadlocks were, about how healthy her body was, and how the skin on her face glowed with beauty. That is only a memory now.
She cannot stand her friends seeing her like this, the ones who knew her four years ago, before she hooked up with the addicts. She is ashamed of where life has taken her, she is embarrassed that the whole village calls her the druggie. So when she spots them, and she is good at seeing them first before they see her, she dives into the shortcuts. But of late, she has resorted to hiding under a veil, or walking in the night because then, she doesn't have to look at the ground as she walks, and no one will see her.
What about marijuana, I am curious to know.
Enjaga, she calls it, gives her thoughts about death. Like she starts seeing herself dead.
Suicidal thoughts? Yes, and it also makes her depressed, she hears voices and sees things chase her and she wants to die. Like when she was in rehab. “Terrible, terrible!”
Because her mother is so poor and cannot afford a bed for Viola, she sleeps on a bench in the tiny house. “Anyway, I cannot even lie down comfortably on a bed because it makes my body hurt and I fidget all night. On the nights when I have a good sleep, is when I have has taken a shot and four sleeping pills.”
There are instances when Viola will disappear from home for weeks on end and her mother has no idea where she is. She says a force takes over her mind and her body and leads her out. Like it is holding her hand and pulling her away to search for her next fix.
“So what do you tell your mother when you suddenly show up again?”
“Hmm… nothing. She doesn’t even ask.”
But now she wants to reform. She is tired, her body and mind are suffering.
She is scared of the pain of a body without a fix.
She is tired of worrying about where she will get money to buy more drugs, and wondering if she will continue selling her body or stealing.
“And if you do get the chance to reform, what next for you?”
“Njagala bizinensi y'okutunda a’manda. Selling charcoal. I plan to relocate to Munyonyo or … (she is thinking), I could go to the islands- ebizinga- and get away from it all. But I have a huge problem with water, I get a bad feeling like I am drowning.”
I get the opportunity to ask the one question I have been wanting to ask. Where did it all start?
She takes me past that- before she met the drug-pusher who misled her. She had left school when she was about 14. But she quickly learnt her mother’s trade. Her mother sold raw matooke and charcoal. Viola had struck out on her own when she was about 18, and went to live in Nansana. She had even taken out a loan to start business and pay rent. Her mind wanders off and she doesn't finish that story. And I don’t push for more information. I just let her talk and talk.

Her father died when she was young- she doesn’t remember what age- but she has older and younger siblings. Her older siblings, in her words,” do not want to know” about her situation. That they all have their own problems to deal with.
Something else she learned was to insert a cannula in her hand to administer an intravenous infusion- saline water - which gives her a lot of relief. She mastered the art when she worked at the clinic, sometimes attending to patients. She laughs, “It is even cheaper than the cocaine. Cannula, 500 shillings. Saline water, 1,500 shillings."
Viola is in a place where the mental ignores the physical, and then sometimes the physical ignores the mental and at other times they conspire against her. She is confused.
“Madam, do you know why there are so many petty thieves in town, the type that snatch phones and handbags? They have to feed their drug habit. They take your gadget worth 500,000 shillings and sell it for 10,000 shillings. That’s how much the needle has taken over their lives and become their demanding boss, and they, its slave.”

She is a slave under the yoke, knowing what harm her body and mind are being subjected to but she must get high.
Now she is peeing and pooing blood and she is scared. She doesn't like it but she doesn't know how to stop it, and again, her eyes well up. There’s so much anguish in her glazed eyes.
We have now talked for more than an hour and I say I have to get back to an assignment. I tell her that the road to recovery starts with her and if she’s ready to walk the journey, then I will help her.
She looks into the distance, I don’t know if it is that she’s not convinced, or she doesn't know where to start.
For her, life is not about five years in the future, it is about how soon she can get something into her bloodstream. 

Then she asks for fare to get her back home. I look straight in her eyes. She hesitates a bit, then laughs.
We both know what the money is for. As I walk through the corridor to my desk, I wrestle with my thoughts about feeding her habit. I think of her little girl, I think of her mother, I think about her body and her bony shoulders.
I put some money in an envelope and take it to her.
"Save some for your little girl."