My dear readers, I have been terribly remiss. I know I promised you all a final blog post, and it has been nearly a month since I made that promise. The delay is mostly due to finishing up my final paper and a fantastic three week vacation through Kenya, Tanzania, and Turkey with my family. The delay is also due to the fact that I wasn't really planning on getting around to this post; I figured no one was checking up on the ol blog anymore, and since this post is going to be a lot of me talking about my "feelings" and whatnot (spoiler alert!), and is largely self serving, I didn't feel too bad about neglecting Uganduh.
However, the wonderful Alex Rosenberg chastised my blog-break the other day, so I knew that at least one person would read my last post, so I decided to go ahead and write it.
It is hard to know where to start. As I have been catching up with friends at home, everyone always starts out with "Tell me about Uganda?!" This question always makes me laugh because it is just impossible to condense the depth and breath of four months in Uganda into a few sentence answer. My typical answer is to say it was incredible, and then tell people to read my blog. But believe me, once I get talking, I can't stop.
I feel Uganda withdrawal a lot, my poor family that had to suffer my moodiness in the first few post-Uganda days know it a little too well. This is not to say that America does not have it's charms: potable tap water, fountain soda, Chipotle, and a washing machine within my first few hours in the US served as a good welcome home.
In one of what became many conversations involving my habit of posing random questions to my friends and forcing all those in the conversation to answer (a habit that I realized on my trip I learned from my father... so, you know, blame him), Greg asked my what is my favorite place in the world. As is a rule of the game, I asked him to answer first while I tried to think of an answer. He, as is his nature, had a wonderful answer, yet despite proposing several different places, I couldn't think of a place that encapsulated the pure happiness that a favorite place should.
I tend to think I'm a fairly happy person, so I kept wracking my brain for the answer that I felt must exist, but was just eluding my grasp. It eventually dawned on my why I couldn't think of a satisfactory "favorite place": when I think about the moments in my life of pure happiness, I don't think of the place, the setting for the scene, but rather the cast of characters that fills it.
And as I think about what I miss in Uganda, I find myself dwelling less upon the place than upon the people that filled my time there.
I think about my homestay family,watching Tusker Project Fame with my mom, gossiping with my sisters in the bedroom while a family function is going on outside, and marathon dance sessions with Pinky.
I think about the warmth and kindness of relative strangers, the woman who showed me my taxi on my first day of school, Layla, the potato vendor who always ensured that Hannah and I didn't get ripped off in the market, Madam, who welcomed us into her living room and taught us to cook Ethiopian food, Rose, the owner of the Green Bar who would always give us free games of pool and cheer for me when I played against the boys, and the owners of the Indian restaurant I frequented, who never failed to ask "How's UNICEF?"
But mostly, I think about the 16 amazing kids who went through this experience with me: the first awkward days with our homestays, the dread of yet another mountain of Matoke, the feeling of victory when you don't let a conductor overcharge you, the discovery of the joys of rolex, Nile, dancing at clubs, and guacamole made with Ugandan avacados, the difficult realities of Ugandan life that confronted us, and the internal conflict of our role within this reality, the hiccups and joys of immersing ourselves in Uganda, and the eventual pain of leaving it.
Following the July terrorist attacks in Kampala, during that frenzied moment in which I considered transferring to a different program, one of the things that kept me from making what would have been a terrible mistake, was a feeling that I was going to like these kids, based, of course, on thorough facebook stalking. Now, looking back, my "feeling," though ill informed, could not have been more correct. I got so lucky with the other students on my program, and we all felt and expressed that luckiness to get to have this experience together.
The fact that I am heading back to Uganda in the summer dulls the feeling of longing. However, though I will return back to the place, I know I will never get back to that "favorite place," that moment of time populated with the most amazing cast of characters I could imagine, again. Though part of me is saddened by this, I mostly just feel so grateful that I got to have this experience, and so thankful to my parents for making it possible.
Speaking of things I'm grateful for! I just want to thank you all (however many of you that is at this point) for reading my blog. I have been very touched by the number of people, often people I never would have expected, who have told me that they read my blog. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my ramblings, I absolutely loved sharing this experience with you.
As they say in Uganda, we are together. A happy and healthy new year to one and all!
