‘DC!’ I spin around and come face-to-face with Desmond Dube, his wife and son trailing along behind. ‘Ah hah,’ says I. ‘Told you.’ I’ve known Desmond now all of three and a half months—the amount of time it took to shoot the film Hotel Rwanda in South Africa and Rwanda—but we’ve made fast friends. When we first met, I had the earphones of my iPod jammed into my ears, eyes closed, listening to Babatunde Olatunji and stressing about my character, Paul Rusesabagina. Des tapped me on the shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ ‘An iPod.’ ‘I-what?’ The iPod was a rarity in Johannesburg at that time, and Desmond had never seen one before. I gave him a brief tutorial and let him hold on to it for a minute while I rehearsed. By the time my scene was through, Desmond was asking me how and where he could get an iPod—immediately. I checked around and found that there were indeed a small number available in town but at almost twice the price as in the US.
