Sister Sister

Two weeks ago, as I made my journey back to the village, I sat crammed in the taxi with my knees pressed into the center bar of the seat in front of me, unable to find a place for my arms, all the while worrying about bruising my bananas.  I attempted to ignore my uncomfortable and slightly painful situation by staring out the window of the dilapidated taxi letting the dust wash over me.  The dry season had come in my absence and was welcoming back me in all over its glory, leaving me parched and very dirty.  I could hardly believe that 48 hours previously, I had been in an Italian taxi driving at terrifying high speeds with a seat all to myself.  As I watched the banana trees and rice schemes slowly pass on by, I terrifying feeling creeped into my mind.  I am staying in Uganda for at least another year.  I just kept asking myself if that’s really true.  Am I really staying for another year?  Another year of cramped taxi rides, of power outages, of muzungu muzungu, of bland food, of skirts, of bucket baths, of mosquitoes, of Uganda. Really?

I arrived back to my site in a dark mood and hefted all my luggage awkwardly through my compound’s gate.  Upon seeing me struggling through the gate, Judy shrieked with delight and excitement.  CHELLSSEEEAAAAA!  Within 30 seconds, I was surrounded by the six girls of my neighbor’s family, all begging to carry my bags, asking me how the journey was and exclaiming how happy they were that I was back.  Although I had expected a warm welcome, I was overwhelmed with their enthusiasm and love.  Despite my exhaustion, I took a seat on the veranda and entertained my Ugandan family with stories from my trip.  Everyone filled me in on the village happenings, although not much had happened beyond feasting at Christmas time.  When I finally opened my house, fearful of dead rats and an invasion of cockroaches, I was surprised to find little damage.  Beyond the occasional dead bug here and there and the dusty floor, my house was just as I had left it.  And I was even more surprised to find that it still felt like home.

Thankfully, the last two weeks were still school holiday, so I’ve been able to slowly recover from my traveling and readjust back to my Ugandan life.  Recovery means sleeping until noon, reading lots of books and watching movies.  But, every day, I have spent time with the six girls of my Ugandan family.  They have unknowingly played a vital role in reassuring of the importance of my service and my life in Butaleja.

In my taxi depression, I was beginning to doubt the depth of my Ugandan relationships.  Keep in mind that I was delusional with sleep deprivation, but I wasn’t sure anyone really cared about me as person or if they were more excited just to be friends with an American.  All my time spent with the girls has reminded me that although my Ugandan family loved getting to know me as an American, I know now that they love me more for just being Chelsea.  I feel so blessed to be welcomed and accepted into such a wonderful family that is willing to take on the responsibility of another daughter, especially one that doesn’t like to clean.

In my Ugandan family, we have a lot of give and take- we take care of each other, although I mostly just keep them entertained.  On some evenings, I hear “Kodi Chelsea”- in my region, you don’t knock on doors.  You say “kodi” to signify that you’re at the door.  When I open my door, I usually find Irene standing in the dark with a covered bowl of her mother’s delicious beans.  Regardless of whether or not I have already eaten dinner, I can’t help but clean the plate.  Once the girls discovered I was attempting to clean my house, all seven of us crammed into my house, moving furniture as they swept and mopped without a single complaint.  The family is extremely protective of me, and helps me shoo away peeking children from my windows.  During the rainy season, they put out basins to harvest water if I’m not around.  Unfortunately, I’ve had mice problems recently.  My family has set traps for me all around my house, and I’ve been waiting expectantly in the dark for that happy “snap,” but we’ve been unsuccessful so far.  The girls helped me sort my food into “cockroach-free” and “cockroach-invested” piles.  By helped, I mean that I stood at least five feet away and directed from a distance.  The girls will escort me to shops when I’m not sure about the price of certain items.  Even the 10-year old girl has a fearful stare that convince the shopkeepers to give me a fair price.  I honestly don’t know what I would do without their help.

On the flip side, I’m sure the family would manage without my help, but they appreciate the little things I contribute.  Some days, I treat the family to jackfruit or soda.  At least every term holiday, we bake a cake together.  So far, pumpkin bread has been their favorite and apple pie was disgusting (the apple pie was amazing in my defense).  I taught the girls how to make tortillas, and further how to fry them into tortilla chips, which they believe are infinitely better.  I let the children read my old magazines, although I think they’re mostly interested in the pictures of America.  I’ve taught all the girls how to make friendship bracelets.  Most recently, we spent a whole afternoon coloring.  I only dug out my crayons and coloring books with hopes of entertaining the visiting younger cousins, but to my surprise, everyone wanted to color!  Even the 17-year-old girl, who shockingly had the most trouble with sharing the crayons.  We’re trying to work on saying “please,” which is not a word found in Lunyole.  Barbra, the oldest girl, asked me to help her set up an email and Facebook account.  I’m not sure she was prepared for my big sister talk about Facebook rules in order to keep scary men from finding her.  I always wanted to have a little sister.  Now, I’ve got six.  Don't worry Grant, I'll always your big sister.

School starts this week, which means that all but one of the children will be back in boarding school.  I’m so grateful that their laughter and love helped me get past my reentry slump.  Although I’ll miss everyone being around, my recovery period is over.  With schools back in session, I’ve got work to do!  I’m looking forward to what this term will bring and my next holiday cake.

Camp GLOW Through Photos

I know I wrote a long post about my Camp GLOW experience, but people are always asking for photos!

The Cheetahs!  These were my campers, along with my co-counselor and supervisor.  We're running in the photo because we're fast cheetah girls.

The counselors singing the camp song to welcome the girls.

The counselors

A photo of me teaching my lesson.  I realize I look like a dictator, but it was the best way for them to see me as they were taking a stand on myths and truths of HIV/AIDS

Friendship bracelets!

The dining hall

My cheetahs trying to undo our human knot

Writing nice things about each other to boost self-esteem

Yoga warm-up for our kickboxing session

Netball!

An obstacle course and race

Is This Real Life?

My world has been turned upside down multiple times in the last three weeks, and I'm trying to figure out if any of it actually happened...

For my avid blog followers, I'm sure you're wondering about my reunion with Nathan.  Romantic comedy worthy?  I should think so.  After traveling for nearly two days, I finally walked through the doors of London Heathrow arrivals, and immediately start searching the crowds for him.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a well dressed man, whom I assumed was a businessman, and just stare at me.  Creepy, but I continue looking at the rows upon rows of travelers.  As I walked closer, I realized that it wasn't a businessman.  It was Nathan!  "You're wearing a suit?!"  Yes, those were our first words spoken face to face in over ten months.  I should add that I have been corrected multiple times that he wasn’t wearing a suit- it was just slacks, a dress shirt and a jacket, but I don’t really see the difference.  Once we finally embraced, we both couldn't believe that each other were real and that it wasn't some cruel dream.  It actually took me at least a day to believe that Nathan wasn't just an apparition.

A few people have asked us if after all this time, do we still like each other?  YES!  I guess it's a fair question because not only had we been apart for over ten months, we both had huge life changes that could have changed us or our relationship.  Of course our relationship has changed in some ways, but instead of growing apart, we’ve ended up much closer.  Long distance only works with lots (lots!) of verbal communication, which is something our relationship was previously lacking.  Due to the long distance commitment, there’s more of a serious or mature tone to our relationship, but Nathan still makes me laugh more than anyone I know, although I'm never quite sure what we're laughing about.  Over the past three weeks, we developed a new closeness as well.  We never lived together, so it was a new experience to do laundry together, to find my cookies were gone because Nathan got up for a midnight snack, and to burp constantly in front of him because my body was rejecting rich food... He claims that he didn’t mind.

Nathan and I spent ten wonderful days in London, during which I adjusted to a very different environment.  Some things took getting used to:

1. No one called me madam, and I wasn't expected to call anyone sir or madam. At first, it just felt really rude to not address anyone formally.

2. At night, the house made normal house noises, of course right?  But, in my Ugandan house, I can always attribute noises to rats, cockroaches or noisy neighbors.  My first night, I felt unsafe.  Maybe it was because I didn't have my mosquito net.  Maybe it was because I'm not used to normal house noises.  Regardless, I made Nathan search the apartment to make sure we were safe and sound.

3. It was cold!  Nathan brought me winter clothes, but I think I was cold most of the time.  As I pulled on a tank top, a long sleeve, a sweatshirt, a coat and a scarf, Nathan would just throw on a t-shirt and a sweater!  He's from Boulder, CO, but I still felt like a fool.

4. Uganda lies on the equator, which of course means it's a warm place, but it also means the sun sets and rises at the same time, everyday.  The sun's up by 7 am and down by 7 pm.  It was depressing in Europe that the sun wasn't up until 8:30 am and went down at 4:30 pm.  Especially because in Uganda, I'm in my house by sundown, I felt like I was losing most of my day.

5. The grocery stores and restaurants have so many options.  I would just stand in the aisle for a few minutes debating what type of cheese we should buy.  Usually, I’d give up and let Nathan choose.  I'd spend ten minutes pouring over the menus because I couldn't make a decision.  More than once, I convinced Nathan to split two entrees with me so I didn't have to decide!

6. As we walked past the cute shops and wandered through markets, I had to keep reminding myself that I still live in Uganda.  Despite the overwhelming urge to shop, I knew I didn't need scarves, boots, sweaters, etc.  It was just a little sad.

Within a few days, I fell back into the groove of Western living- although I was still cold!  I enjoyed so many things, but some of those things surprised me:

1. For the first week, I became a carnivore.  I couldn't eat enough meat.  We ate salami sandwiches, hamburgers, steak, and lots of bacon.  I was putting bacon on anything and everything.

2. Dessert!  I guess I never realized that I don't eat many sweet things in Uganda, so I completely indulged.

3. Ok, I realize that I'm mostly naming foods, so this will be my last.  Yogurt.  The yogurt in Italy was amazing, although Nathan disagreed.  In Uganda, I eat yogurt three times a week, but it comes in a sealed bag and tends to be pretty runny.  I enjoyed the thick yogurt with a real fruit.

4. When I went for runs, I didn't have to wave or say "Gambo" ("Hi" in Swahili) to anyone.  Furthermore, no one thought I was absolutely insane and children didn't chase after me.  I finally was able to run and process my thoughts alone.

5. Not worrying about water.  In Uganda, I always have to keep a mental check of how much water I have, how much I need, when I'll go fetch more, and if the borehole will be busy.  I could actually just drink out of the tap!  It was very relaxing.

After our ten days in London, Nathan and I traveled to Florence to meet up with my mom and Grant.  I can't express how happy I was to finally hug my mom again.  Even though we were in this random, tiny airport in Europe, it felt like coming home.  That's the magic of a mother's hug, I guess, huh?  You all would be very proud of Grant's mustache.  He's really rocking the look, although he admits that he's looking forward to the end of my service so he can finally shave.

I'm not going to detail my entire trip because that would be exhausting and probably not very interesting.  I can say for sure that during the whole trip, we did a lot of walking (much to Grant's dismay), eating (to my delight!), and catching up.  I'll just do highlights.

1. For Christmas, Nathan and I went on a lovely evening walk.  It was actually one of my favorite moments with him, until we realized that we were terribly lost without a phone, map or any cash.  The stroll ended up becoming a forced march as we studied bus map after bus map.  After two and half hours, we finally returned to the warmth of the apartment.  We looked at google maps, and we think we covered about ten miles

2. Nathan and I met up with one of my best friends, Suzanna, and her boyfriend Calvin.  They took us to a Middle Eastern restaurant that had awesome lamb (I really stuck to my all meat diet for a while).  It was nice to catch up with other people from home especially because Suzanna is one of those amazing friends that you can always just pick up where you left off, no matter how long it's been since the last time you talked.

 

3. Nathan and I watched the fireworks on New Year's Eve by the Thames.  Although I'm happy that Nathan and I went, I'll probably never do that again!  There were four million people.  It was absolutely crazy.  When we arrived at the tube station near the river, the platforms were so jammed that the escalator was backed up.  I actually have a fear of being eaten up by an escalator or something strange like that, so I was very thankful when Nathan braced the two of us against the crowds both behind and in front of us.  It was quite a heroic moment.  When the fireworks actually started, the wind was blowing the wrong direction, so they were all smoked out and we didn't see much after the first minute.  As we tried to go home, all the tube stations were jam packed, so police were shutting them down.  We had to walk six miles to finally find an open one.  When the train arrived, it was definitely past capacity, but I didn't really care.  Nathan and I pushed ourselves on anyway.  What I've learned in Uganda: there's always room for one more.  I did manage to scare a few people as I skipped around and rapped Baby Got Back on our walk home.  I was thoroughly entertained though.

4. Nathan and I drank a lot of coffee, and it was soooo good.  Huge lattes and cappuccinos.  Beats the socks of my instant coffee and instant milk combo I do every morning.

5. We were staying right next to the Duomo in Florence.  It is a beautiful and impressive cathedral.  We left my mom at a café after venturing inside, but Nathan, Grant and I went up to the top of the Duomo.  It's 463 steps to the top.  Well, the climb wasn't the problem.  At one point, you have to walk along a narrow pathway that looks down into the church.  I’m very bad at estimating heights, but we were definitely high up there.  Although there was a railing and plexiglass to keep you from tumbling to your death, Grant has a serious problem with heights.  He was unable to look anywhere else besides his feet, as I guided his hand along the rails until we were safely back in another stairway.  About halfway through this journey across the pathway, Nathan cries out, "Oh hey, look at that huge crack!"  I actually thought Grant was going to collapse.  Ends up the crack was in the dome of the church, not the walkway, but regardless, it did not help the situation.  Once we reached the top, there were amazing views in every direction.  It was breathtaking.  Upon reaching solid ground again, Grant couldn't have been happier.

6. We went to an "American" feeling bar, although all the wait staff appeared to be from Australia.  We watched the football (real American football, not soccer) game, ate cheesy fries and it felt good to be American.  We also made bets on the game, and it also felt good that I was only one that won!  Yes, I'm still gloating.

7. We traveled to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.  It's pretty amazing just how much it's leaning!  How does that thing stay up?  We again ventured upwards, only Grant didn't make it to the top.  One good look out the highest window was enough before he backed down.  I actually freaked out at the top because there was nothing above you, only a small, seemingly frail railing keeping you safe and the whole thing was leaning!  To make matters worse, the stairs to get back down were very slippery marble, steep, and without a railing for balance.  I swear that if you slipped, you could have just fallen right off the tower.  I wanted to take my boots off for better footing, but I think Nathan would have been too embarrassed.

8. I finally got a proper haircut, but I only got around to it in Italy.  The poor woman didn't understand any English!  I was trying to convey the importance of keeping the length of my hair because I still needed to put it back into a ponytail.  Once I mentioned Africa, suddenly she understood.  Go figure.  Finally, I've got some layers in my hair and it feels good to have a fresh cut.

9. We relaxed a lot, which I desperately needed.  I loved the moments we had when we were hanging out in the kitchen chatting, watching stupid youtube videos and just being together.

I know I'm missing things, but like I said, these are only the highlights.  I couldn't be more thankful or appreciative of my mother, who planned everything and worked so hard to make sure that we had a good trip.  I know sometimes I make fun of her in my posts, but she's really my biggest supporter and biggest cheerleader.  I don't know what I would do without her.  So, thanks mama!

I think you all can imagine how painful the re-goodbyes were.  For whatever reason, this goodbye was worse.  It felt more acute.  I was no longer saying goodbye to a hoard of people, to my way of life, to America, and hello to a mysterious future.  I was only saying goodbye to these three very important people (well and hot showers).  I knew what was waiting for me on the other side.  After three weeks of being surrounded by love, laughter and family, I felt very alone waiting for my flight in Florence and for the next 24 hours of traveling to return to Uganda.  Now that I've settled into one of my favorite cafes in Mbale, I don't feel quite as homesick, but I still don't feel quite whole again.  I feel like I'm missing part of my heart.  God, that sounds horribly dramatic, but oh well.  It's how I feel. 

I know it'll take me at least a few days to get over the shock of no longer being with them, of returning to my PCV life, but tonight?  I'm easing back into it.  I've got big plans of snuggling down with some jackfruit, yogurt, a movie and getting some sleep.  Tomorrow, I'll tackle the reentry to the village.