i'm an adventurer, that's how i roll

I’m back. Back in the States, back home. Or at least on my way. The return journey has been fraught with moments of frustration, luck (both good and bad), camaraderie, exhaustion, and a zen-like approach to situations outside of my control. I left Nairobi at 11pm on Wednesday night. It’s now 4pm on Friday, and I’m still working on getting back to Atlanta. If I don’t miss my flight in Miami (the flight from New York left over half an hour late—the pilot predicts we’ll land 5 minutes after the gate closes for my final flight to Atlanta) I’ll land round abouts 7pm, a full 51 hours (remember the time change) after I left Nairobi. During that time, I had brunch in London and spent a night in NYC. My internal clock thinks its 11:15pm, and I’m fighting sleep. The complementary Coke didn’t help. (It’s easy to forget how much I dislike soft drinks until I polish off a 12 ounce can.)

Those are facts, what I’m actually feeling is much more difficult to wrap my mind around and express.

I met up with a friend from Uganda last night. It’s amazing how much we both missed it. I may have only just gotten back to the States, but I feel like it has been ages since I said goodbye to Kampala. Mostly, I imagine that in the brief 5 waking hours I spent with my (non-Ugandan) friend last night I managed to mention Uganda roughly 5 bajillion times.

Which brings me to another point. Getting home means it is my turn to answer questions. More specifically, the question: “How was Uganda?”

I have to wonder, do you really want me to answer this? It would take hours. And since I don’t have hours on end, the answer becomes succinct to the point that it is no longer an answer:

“Amazing!”

“I can’t imagine not going back!”

“Life changing!”

“I loved it!”

etc.

Sometimes, I’d like to answer. I’d like to sit down and spend a good two hours talking about the past half year and everything I saw and thought, but sometimes I don’t. I also have to remember, if someone asks me simply, “How was Uganda?” they maybe probably are only looking for an answer as detailed as the ones we expect in response to “How are you?” (Oli Otiya?). One liners are easy and pretty standard.

So. Let’s make a deal. My answer will reflect your question. The more specific the question, the more rich details in the answer. Ask about the street food or my host family or a day when I looked around and thought ‘Is this really my life?’ I promise I’ll give you the best answer I’ve got.

I wrote the above part of the post nearly a week ago, now, I’ve been home. Old news. Kinda. Oh, and I did miss my flight in Miami. I still don’t quite know how I’m feeling. Am I allowed to have mixed feelings the rest of my life? Can that be a thing?

I’m patiently waiting for reverse culture shock. My parents received a letter from Kenyon saying to listen to your child, help them as they make a difficult adjustment to American life. American life is pretty much how I remember it. Instant Netflix changed their interface slightly, but I’m managing. The important thing seems to be staying busy, which I’m not, as implied by my comment about instant Netflix. But I’ll be very busy very soon since I’m about to leave for the beach!

I have a lot more to say about Uganda and East Africa generally. We’ll see if I’m suddenly to busy (read lazy) to write about it.

Arusha felt so touristy. I’m a tourist though, so I can’t complain, I guess. Men constantly walked up to you, saying Jambo or Hi. My natural inclination was to say hi back, that’s what you do in Kampala. Most of the time that is all people ask of you. In TZ, if you say hi, if you make eye contact, suddenly tourist oriented painting are unfurlled in your face, “Please, my wife and I paint these. We need to live.” Safari business cards are forced upon you, “I have very good rate on Safari leaving tomorrow.” I make up lies and excuses, vowing to not say hi to the next person. One guy, Gary, was able to find me the next day after I told him I was too busy to look at his paintings then. These guys were hard to shake.

Arusha felt so clean. Everywhere (except India) is cleaner than Kampala.

Arusha had a mountain. You can see Mt. Meru from the town, Tanzania’s second highest peak. It rises from practically nothing.

Arusha had Masai. I meet a Masai named Lakisho at my hostel the first night. He was a pretty cool guy and I played pool with him and his friends. I almost got my cartiledge pierced with him the next day. Masai wear sich cool jewlery. He also traced on my arm where traditional burns would be.

So that is Arusha.

I spent two nights in there and am now in Moshi heading to Dar es Saalam (hopefully will make the last ferry to Zanzibar) tomorrow and, since leaving Kampala have not slept in the same bed twice.

Okay, let me qualify this post with the fact that I spent all of 24 hours in Nairobi.

Anyway… I had two major impressions of the place.

1. This city was built in the 60s. You know 60s architecture? Well, if you don’t, go to Nairobi. Maybe not so aesthetically pleasing.
2. People are walking quickly. In comparison to Uganda (where a national motto may as well be mpola pola, meaning slowly slowly, Nairobi is bustling. According to the Kenyan showing me around, people just like to look busy, but often are hurrying to nowhere. Sounds like a US kinda place. It was refreshing to walk with a local and not feel like I was going at a snail’s pace (while they felt like they were sprinting). It gave the city a NY kinda feel—though I’ve never been to New York—here I go, making generalizations again.

I’m at an internet cafe and therefore on the clock, so that’s all I got. In Arusha now.

Saying goodbye sucks. It isn’t fun. Saying goodbye to families is the worst. WORST. I was surprised, way back in January, by how difficult I found it to leave the US. Sitting against the wall in the Atlanta airport, charging my computer and furiously calling my parents and friends, I didn’t want to leave. I was tempted to throw up my hands and plead to stay after months of mental (and a week of physical) preparation for living in Uganda. I was. Me. The kid who incites in her parents a fear that she’ll never return to the US. I didn’t really want to leave. I kinda wanted to cry.

That’s a little how I’ve been feeling these past few days about leaving Uganda, and now it’s done. I ripped that Band-Aid. I’m sitting in Nairobi.

Monday night found me waving goodbye to the two new AppLab interns as they dropped me and Sue at Sue’s apartment.

Tuesday I was thrown into the middle of the post-practice huddle after ultimate training to give a speech. I muttered something and went in circles, saying that the team had became something of a family to me while I was here, how my closest friends are from the team, about how much I’ll miss them. I almost cried. By the end of saying goodbye, I felt like I had been to the optometrist my eyes were so dilated from camera flashes. Afonde handed me a water bottle, to collect your tears, he said. I told him I wouldn’t be able to bring it on the plane, that it’d be more than three ounces.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to my host family and Sue, who had spent the night with us. I held their hands and we gave each other long hugs. I told them I hoped to be back and that I couldn’t have gotten a better family.

All day Larry, my two year old nephew, kept asking, “Ogenda wa, Morika?” (he can’t quite pronounce the first A) meaning, where are you going, Marika? “Ngenda Kenya.” I’m going to Kenya. He’d look at me a proceed to ramble in Luganda, the only word I recognized being ogenda, but my brother, Joseph, told me it he was saying that I didn’t have to leave. “Nnina okugenda,” which literally means, ‘I have’ and ‘to go,’ but I have no idea if those two words can be put together in the same way as in English. Betty, my cousin, had to hold him as he squirmed in her arms and screamed as I boarded the taxi to town.

Today, after riding an overnight bus to Nairobi with my other host brother, Chris, and having some amazing and genuine conversations, we said an uneventful and rushed goodbye as he went to meet his business partners and I met up with a friend’s cousin whose family I’m staying with for the night.

Goodbyes. Bleh. I said goodbye to everyone and everything. I was using my host family’s new flush squat toilet and thinking, this will be the last time I’ll ever squat over this toilet and dodge splashes from the powerful surge of water. THE LAST TIME.

One thing about these goodbyes: it really hammered home the connections I’ve made with people here. Since the end of my program back in May, the ultimate team has become my primary social scene. There are many people I became close with and some I realized a little too late that I could have been best friends with.

But really, it’s my host family. That first week, way back in January, I remember thinking that I’d never make it through the measly four weeks I was scheduled to stay with them. Getting home and sitting in silence, sometimes with a book to occupy me, as my family chatted around me in Luganda was hard, depressing even. It made me miss my own family, but at some point, it tipped and changed.

During practicum, our independent study time, we were discouraged from staying with our family, though I considered it, and once SIT ended, I was deciding where to stay, and my family seemed a natural decision.

And that first night I returned was great. I was tired, had spent the entire day playing ultimate at a clinic run by an ex-pat couple who had played in Worlds and the previous night in Jinja celebrating a friend’s birthday and doing things besides sleeping, but I rolled on the floor with Larry, throwing him in the air until I learned the Luganda word for ‘I’m tired’ (it’s nkoye [in-co-yay] if you ever need it). We laughed; I ate some good matooke and went to sleep in my bed, in my room.

Part of my comfort with my family, I’m guessing, arose from the ways of communicating we found outside of actual language. Here are my suggestions:

• Dance. If I try an Ugandan dance, be it the latest club dance or a traditional Baganda dance, my family laughs, claps, and cheers me on.

• Kids. Tickling exists in a realm above words. As does throwing kids in the air, playing with a nearly unrecognizable tennis ball for two hours, holding kids upside-down, and telling them you’re going to eat them—ngenda okulidde… Larry!

• Climbing mango trees. What!? Muzungus can climb trees and pick mangoes too?! Crazy!

If you are no good at any of these things, prepare yourself to sit in a corner quietly while soaps dubbed over in English and then re-dubbed in Luganda play constantly on the TV. Or find your own ways, I’m sure they’re out there.

I’m feeling slightly delirious because it’s hard to sleep on overnight buses through East Africa. Really hard. So, where was I? Ah yes, goodbyes. (I know that was a poor transition; I just can’t think of anything better right now.) I think I’m ready for these goodbyes, though, as I was ready for the ones that propelled me from the States. Kampala had started to feel routine. Not in a bad way, but I just found myself repeating the same (good) days over and over again, which wasn’t what I wanted from this summer. So I’m on the road now. I’m a real live tourist. A backpacker. One of those who I’ve spent the last four and a half months feeling slightly superior to. It feels right. It should be fun. I’ll try not to scare my mom too much.

I’m not bringing my netbook with me while touring the next three weeks, so if I post, it won’t be these long, precomposed posts, just short updates. I’ll be back in Atlanta in three weeks. Crazy.

(This itinerary has yet to meet parent approval and therefore is subject to change)

Wednesday, June 22—Leave Kampala, Uganda for Nairobi, Kenya. Stay with a friend’s friend, a friend’s aunt, or a friend. Leave my big bag in a closet to pick up before my flight out.

Friday, June 24—Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania. Stay with friends of a friend from my program. Weekend adventures.

Monday, June 27 or Tuesday, June 28th—Arusha to Zanzibar, Tanzania. Stay in Kendra Rocks hostel.

Sunday, July 3 (or around then)—Zanzibar to Mombasa, Kenya via spice boat (hopefully).

Wednesday, July 6th-ish—Mombasa to Lamu, Kenya. No cars, only donkeys here. Stay at the hostel my friend recommended to me.

Tuesday, July 12th—Lamu back to Nairobi.

Wednesday, July 13th, 11-something pm—Board flight.

Thursday, July 14th

5am—Land in London, meet a friend for brunch.

Mid-afternoon—board flight.

7pm—Land in Atlanta.

8pm—Take the best shower ever.

9pm—Eat the best meal ever. Nap.

12am—SEVENTH HARRY POTTER. Lots of caffeine. (Harry Potter > Jet lag)