The Beginning

[an excerpt from my book I've been slowly working on for the last several years] 

BOOK 2: The Uganda Adventure

Adventure: 1: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks 
2: an exciting or remarkable experience 

I should preface this with the fact that since I was a little girl, I have been inspired by stories of missionaries. My personal favorite was Amy Carmicheal. The missionary’s amazing tales of valor and of great faith always awed me. But when it came to Amy Carmicheal she was just so very human. Like me she hated the color of her hair and eyes. The famous story is that she prayed that God would change them and then was disappointed with Him when she looked in the mirror the next morning and nothing had changed. She had a temper, and didn’t always do exactly what she should have done for God, but her passion spoke to my heart in a way that I still cannot fully explain even as I am writing this. Eventually though, she found out where and for what God had given her exactly what He had, and it was to be used by Him. I was completely mesmerized with her accounts of rescuing little girls in the heart of India from lives of prostitution in the Hindu temples.

For most of my life that I can remember I’ve had this soft spot in my heart for people that can’t defend themselves and a huge heart against unfair treatment. People now days call that social justice. To me it was just about being fair. I can’t count the times I railed against my parents for something that they did towards one of my siblings that I considered “unfair treatment” towards the rest of us. Sometimes this passion for justice gets me in trouble, but in this case, it inspired me to be involved in something bigger than myself.

When the opportunity presented itself, I felt nearly dizzy with the anticipation of what could happen! I was so nervous that I packed and repacked my suitcase at least 5 times. I was going to Uganda, Africa!

Of course the road to get there couldn’t be perfectly smooth. To completely understand this, you will need to understand a complicated back story about God and I…

God has this strange little thing going on with me. Whenever I say that I’ll be happy to do anything but this one thing, that one thing is exactly what He ends up having me do. I swear that I can even see His facial expression as soon as I say it too. Its like this arch of His eyebrows, and then this mischievous grin. He knows that I will understand and appreciate the irony at a later date. Sometimes I even think He secretly (or perhaps, not so secretly) delights in seeing how many of my own personal statements He can make me grossly contradict. Fortunately for me, I always end up loving it, but it’s a bit inconvenient to always be eating my words like that. I mean, seriously God? Sense of humor much? Although if I look at it in all honesty, that is probably just God’s way of asking me to trust Him more. Like God saying, “Why not Jo? Am I not big enough (strong enough/loving enough/powerful enough/faithful enough/etc…) to get you through that?” To which of course I have to answer, “Well, yes, God, but…” and then I realize that all my ‘buts’ are senseless. Of course I believe that He is more than enough for whatever situation. No “ifs”, “ands”, or “buts”.

When I was trying to decide what to do with my life at the end of high school I had always said I thought I could do about anything but the medical profession. I’m not really sure why I thought that I had a weak stomach, but I was living under that rather erroneous delusion. From that, I had duly surmised that a medical professional who was ready to puke on her patients would not really be very helpful to the success of the overall profession. God chuckled to Himself.

I became a nurse.

Through about a million little instances which I don’t even know if I could fully recount here, I just kept coming back to this idea that nursing was a really cool, really useful profession. Nursing incorporated everything that I wanted to do in a profession: knowledge, skills, helping others, personal interactions, etc.

He was also incessant. For over 6 months, it seemed like every time I turned around there was a story about another person who was a nurse, how someone needed a nurse, or something of the sort. Finally, I gave in and began studying out some first aid type things. To my very great surprise, I couldn’t get enough. The more I studied, the more I wanted to study.

Needless to say, God knew what He was doing. I could write a book about how much I love being a nurse. I love knowing ridiculous amounts of virtually useless information which you never need until you are in exactly this one scenario in which you need to know it and use it fast, and save lives. I love knowing what to do in situations. I love helping people. I am fairly good at remaining calm on the outside in pressure times (I fall apart later). I love interaction with my patients, young and old alike and making their days better physically and emotionally. The smiles and thanks from my patients or that smile that says they are comforted just by your presence, those are the things that I will remember at the end of the day.

When I was originally going into nursing I had wanted to work with pediatrics. I love kids, and I always have. Since it didn’t look like I would be having any myself right away the second best thing I could think of would be to work with them. But I didn’t really care, so long as it wasn’t in a nursing home, because I really wouldn’t be able to handle all the death, and the smells were frankly overwhelming to my overly sensitive schnoz. Once again God chuckled to Himself.

My second clinical rotation for nursing school was at the nursing home. I came home from the first day and cried for an hour to my mom that I just couldn’t do this. Now this fell right after my beloved Grandpa’s death from lung cancer, and I just didn’t think that I could deal with any more death.

My Grandpa was a really amazing man, so strong and Godly. Watching him become weak with the double whammy of cancer in one lung and farmer’s lung in the other was hard for me as a twenty year old that had never yet had to deal with death at all. My grandpa and I were close. Not so close that we would call each other all the time or anything like that, but I had fostered a special relationship with both my Grandma and Grandpa on that side of the family. He was one of those people I just had an understanding with. When we were little he was the king of “under-dogs”*[1] on the giant swing set he had built in their front yard. When the weather was too cold for us to be outside swinging or “helping him” feed the cows, there were lively games of “horsey-back rides” in the living room with us mounted on my Grandpa’s back as he pranced and bucked around the room. When I got older it was so much fun to tromp through the timber with him and hear stories about him and his brothers shooting squirrels with slingshots, or quiz him on the different kinds of trees which he could identify from their leaves. He could build anything, from the jewelry boxes that he lovingly crafted for us girls to the house he built back in the timber for my grandma after he “retired” from farming. He was a plumber, electrician, and carpenter. The only thing he had to have done on his house was digging and pouring the basement, and the duct work for the central air (he could have done that too, but he told us it cost more to get certified, than it would to just hire it done.)  He got sick around the time that I started nursing school. I wanted so desperately to be able to take care of him, but I didn’t know enough yet. His cancer progressed quickly and, though he tried to fight it with treatment, he passed away half way through my first semester. The grief I felt was overwhelming. I remember spending hours out on the back deck at my parents’ house staring up into the trees behind our house willing myself to accept the fact that he was gone. Crying, remembering, sobbing for my Grandma and Mom, and trying to wrap my head around the fact that a loving God let people die of cancer. One particular refrain kept surfacing in my head:

“Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the sky of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.” [2]

In a shaky voice with trembling body I would warble this over and over until I sort of believed it. As strange as this probably seems, this was the only thing that brought me any comfort when I thought of him or my grandma’s and mother’s pain of losing him.

In the end, I can’t explain why God allows cancer or why he took my Grandpa away from my family. But I do know this: He never once stopped loving my Grandpa, or me, or any one of the rest of my family.

This made it slightly easier to bear, but I still had massive physical and psychological ramifications. I actually skipped my period that month because I was physically dealing with so much grief.

I just couldn’t go through all that again and the nursing home scared me with the possibility of facing death like that again. But my mom comforted me and patched up my sobbing emotions enough for me to drag myself back to my clinical the next day. There I got to meet the most amazing people. Funny, that though they were the ones that were uncomfortable, that made me feel comforted. It was just like having extra sets of grandparents. I got to make their days every day just by spending some extra time with them.

I remember that one of my first patients, in fact, maybe my very first, was this elderly lady that was bed ridden by contractures that made it extremely painful and probably nearly impossible to sit up. She would lie on her bed in her room, alone for long periods of monotony, broken only by variable sleep and by people coming to bring her food or reposition her. As a student, I had plenty of time to spend with her, and my instructor even got worried, because I would just disappear for long lengths of time. They would find me sitting by her bedside, holding her hand. She would have fallen asleep as we were talking and looking out the window, but her hand was wrapped so tightly around mine that I didn’t dare let her down by slipping my digits away.

By the time that I was done with nursing school there is only one place that I applied to work. You guessed it: the nursing home.

So when I had originally wanted to go to India and work with the cute little brown orphans and save them from lives of temple prostitution, I should have known… but no. Once again, I gave that ultimatum, it didn’t have to be India, but I would rather not go to Africa.

I mean everyone goes to Africa. They all have pictures of them holding little AIDS babies and smiling with their ridiculously conservative skirts and t-shirts and messy ponytails. (Seriously, why do they always wear skirts and t-shirts?) All those that went to Africa always came back and they talked about it so fondly, but never really did anything with their experience besides act like they were an expert on the subject of all things missions related and the suffering that they had seen. I didn’t want to be one of those people. God chuckled.

On the way back from picking up my little sister from summer camp where she was staffing, we randomly started talking about missions. I think we were both surprised to find that the other one of us really wanted to go on a short term mission trip. We made a pact in the car that we would pray all semester for an opportunity to present itself and we would meet every Tuesday and talk stuff over. Some weeks we had nothing, and some weeks we would hear about some trip, but every time we started talking about it nothing really felt right.

At that point in time, both my sister and I were going to a campus fellowship group called Icthus. One night at fellowship, they announced that the group would be organizing a trip to Uganda, Africa that summer. One of the girls who used to be in the group was living over there working with a church and they wanted to go visit and encourage her and do some missions work too. Me and my sister looked at each other and knew that the other had this burning sensation in their head. This was our trip!

Of course it was Africa, where I hadn’t originally wanted to go, but still… I couldn’t mask the rising excitement and emotion as I realized that this was really what we had been waiting for. We took our parents aside one afternoon at the local “Vista Burger” joint and told them what they were thinking of doing with our summer. I remember being shocked with their response. It wasn’t the immediately-supportive, actively-interested-in-having-their-daughters-be-involved-in-missions-work response that I had expected from two very obviously dedicated to the gospel parents. They were doubtful of our motives, our ambitions, and felt to me like they were less than supportive.

 I can vividly remember crying as I attempted to explain the answer to my mom’s question of why she had never heard of us wanting to go on a mission’s trip before, as if this was out of the blue.

The tears just couldn’t help themselves from running down my face as I could barely get out, “Because I was scared of how you would react. Why would I tell you something like that which was so near and dear to my heart if I thought there was a chance that you wouldn’t support that part of my heart?”

In the end they agreed to allow me to go, but not my sister. My sister told me later that she thought it was because they didn’t think that they could forbid me from going, so why fight it? (Did I mention that I can be stubborn at times?) I guess they thought that I would go anyway. As it turns out, God had a very different plan for my sister that summer and was using my parents to help direct her down that path. He was really working in her heart for other things. But that is someone else’s story so I won’t tell it here…

All this to say that eventually my parents gave in and let me plan and pack and save money, and freak out about living in Africa and get excited for the trip… all pretty much simultaneously!

I was signed up and already had started packing for this grand adventure when I got a message on my phone’s voicemail early one morning. My best friend had been in an accident. Her brother was slightly frantic on the phone telling me to come meet them at the hospital, and the way that he said it I thought that she had been in an accident the night before, however his phone died and I couldn’t call him back. I hurriedly rushed to the hospital, kicking myself for what an awful friend I was that I hadn’t followed her home in my car the night before as we headed home from class.

When I got the hospital they told me that it had happened that morning on the way to work. She was on the phone and adjusting her stereo. When she looked up she was drifting onto the shoulder of the road, so she quickly swung the steering wheel back, but this overcorrected sending her into a skid towards the other side of the road as she fought for traction on the loose gravel. Her car flew off the left side of the road, hit the ditch and rolled probably 3 times, throwing her out the sun roof, and rolling over the top of her before coming to as stop in the median. The medics had her on a body board by the time that her brother got there after her boyfriend, who had been on the phone with her at the time of the accident, called him. He had left me the message on the way to the hospital. 

God is so gracious, and He wasn’t done with Cossette’s life yet. She was alive, and despite some definite cracks to her spinal bones, intense back pain that wouldn’t subside for a long time, and a few bumps and bruises she was unaffected. She never would remember what exactly happened in the moments between when she said, “Oh, shit!” to her boyfriend on the phone and when she opened her eyes in the emergency room. Because of the breaks she would have to stay in the hospital for several days and was unable to sit up for even a short period of time, though laying down wasn’t any more comfortable. I spent the nights with her after all her family went home. I remember staying up late at night talking when she couldn’t sleep from all the pain medication. I vividly remember holding her hand as she cried with the pain and the worry. We didn’t know how her back would heal and if she’d ever be able to ride her beloved horse again or if she’d ever be able to carry a child. I told her I would do it. I would be her surrogate mother if she found out she couldn’t do it. I know that probably sounds like the craziest thing to offer at a time like that, but I seriously meant it. We both felt the implication of how much love there was in the friendship that prompted those words. We both cried, and because a hug would have been painful, squeezed each others fingers. From that moment forward there was hardly a day that I wasn’t at her side making sure she had everything that she needed and trying to keep her as comfortable as possible.

Her older brother hung around a lot during those days as well. We would joke, and for some reason we started getting in wrestling matches in the living room. I know, I know… that was completely un-lady-like! Oh, come on! Like you’ve never done anything that was slightly questionable! He used to wrestle in high school, but I used my experience with six brothers to my full advantage and most of them were pretty fair fights. Anyway, somehow those fun times and endless jokes became the best days of my life. Her boyfriend, Marius, came to stay with her and help out too, and then it was just one more for our little party of 4, getting into mischief. I confess that I skipped way too many classes during that time as we would sneak her out of the house on little excursions. She likes to tell about the time that I took her to the mall in her wheelchair, but because she was being particularly obnoxious and teasing me about everything, I started bopping her lightly upside the head from my position behind her pushing. Yes, I am just that evil! I beat poor broken girls in wheelchairs! Again… I was provoked! There was also the time that her boyfriend and his teasing got on my nerves and for some reason I chased him laughing through the house, and outside. As he went to jump in his truck to gun it out of there, I pulled open the other door and pulled him completely through the truck before making him superman dive on the ground on the other side! We still tell that story whenever he starts to get out of line. We all laugh.

Somewhere in between all of our shenanigans her brother started to like me. I mean like, LIKE me. I’ll still never understand what he saw in me except that I was always being crazy in an attempt to cheer Cossette up, and I did outlandish tom-boyish things with the guys too. I remember one day I walked into the house in a skirt that I wanted to show Cossette and his jaw nearly fell off it opened so wide. I felt a little like Violet in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, just tossing my hair, and being like, “Oh, this old thing? I only wear it when I don’t care how I look.”

We went on one date, after which I decided it would never work; we were just too different. But that didn’t stop him from jumping on his motorcycle one night after a long day of fun with the 4 of us and attempting to chase me down on the highway. It’s straight out of a movie really. I mean, who does that? Whipping down the road with the wind in one’s hair, screaming “Stop!” wanting to declare his violent love!? But unfortunately, that’s where the movie-like aspect broke down. Apparently he followed the wrong car down the wrong road. He was also speeding so fast to catch up with “me” that he got pulled over by the police. His generous sized ticket and cold hands by the time that he finally caught up with me were more pathetic than anything. I had already reached my house, before he called me on the phone.

I met him downtown and we sat talking for a long time. I loaned him my baby blue sweatshirt from my trunk to ward off the chill and he sobbed as I explained that I thought of him as a brother and not as one ought to think of a boyfriend. I hate watching boys cry. It’s especially bad when you are sitting there not feeling anything at all yourself except awkward. But I couldn’t just leave him there like that, so we sat and talked on the corner for probably easily three hours before we finally said goodnight around midnight. Everything wasn’t ironed out between us, but at least part of it was and he understood where I stood on the issue.

In the days before I got ready to leave for Africa though I found myself wondering what would happen if he suddenly made a move without asking me. Would I let him kiss me? This idea swam in my head one day as we were both in the kitchen getting lunch ready with everyone else in the other room. I didn’t dare make eye contact with him lest he could read my brain through my eyes. Come to find out, at that exact moment, he was debating in his head about doing that exact thing: just pinning me against the counter and kissing me long and hard. Thankfully (oh so thankfully!), he never did it. Maybe you’ve heard that song by Garth Brooks that says, “sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers…” This is one of those times. God definitely had different things planned for me.

A few days later as I said my goodbyes to the entire family before my flight he gave me a t-shirt to take with me. It had a witty saying about sarcasm which he said reminded him of me. Even though my bags were already packed for the trip, I stuffed it in.

I was off to Africa!

There is something about travelling to another country that makes one so fully dependent on something outside of one’s self. If you have never felt it, I hope that someday you find the courage to step far enough out of your comfort zone to let yourself feel it if even for a week. That alone will change your life! I left America unsure where I was going or what to expect. I knew little about Uganda aside from a viewing of the original Invisible Children film and enough internet research to understand that I was not in any significant physical danger travelling there at that time.

Hey, don’t judge! Africa is a volatile place, and someone is always fighting with someone else and wreaking havoc through massive genocides, so I had to do a little research for my mother’s (and my) peace of mind. Yes, I was ignorant… trust me, I know!

I packed only T-shirts and jeans and old skirts because I was unsure if I would be staying in a grass hut or an actual house. Yes, I actually was that ignorant… like most Americans, apparently. I am a planner and this not knowing really exactly how the time would go or what we would be doing killed me and shot my excited adrenaline through the roof at the very same time!

I remember the plane ride there. I was travelling with a group of students from our campus ministry group. We were a very eclectic group and most of us had a specific thing that we were looking to do in Africa. Some of the girls had already signed up to work with a orphanage part of the time, part of us were going to try and volunteer in the medical field and with a women’s shelter, and part of us were working on filming with some non-profits including working with Manute Bol (one of the tallest NBA players ever) from Sudan. Basically everyone had their own little facets of activities they were planning on doing. Part of the time we would do our own thing, and part of the time we would all go together to do ministries work.

I didn’t really know anyone I was travelling with very well except the leader. In retrospect that was a really good thing, but at the time, it was soooo intimidating! Imagine that you are a shy person with a big heart, and you are going to travel to a strange country where you are going to live God only knows where and with who, and you are doing this with a group of relative strangers! Let’s just say that situation would scare the poop out of you!

We got there at night. I remember straining my eyes out of the back of the van trying to see what was around. My first glimpses of African life were shadows dancing in the lights from shop doors, and the full moon skating across the slowly rippling waters of Lake Victoria, as we bounced our way from Entebbe to the capital city.

Finally sheltered away in a more than comfortable Guest House[3], I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I realized that they had hot showers and mattresses and even a beautiful little supper laid out for us when we arrived. The silliest thing of all is that I remember really clearly being blessed beyond belief that my room had built-ins and a green bed spread. (I love built in’s and green is my favorite color.) Such silly things, but they seemed familiar to me, and having those few things that I liked there to greet me on my first night in a strange country was like God wrapping His arms around me and saying, “Its gonna be okay child. I am here too. I know everything about you and what will bless you. Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of you.” I was ready to tackle whatever He threw at me.

Or so I thought…

The next few days were a blur as we met more people than I could possibly remember names for and tried to get our bearings around a strange city and strange culture.

Let’s just say, I really needed to trust God for this. My relationship with God soared as I sought Him every day for the wisdom and strength to get through that day. I delved even deeper as I prayed multiple times for the calm and grace to get through uncomfortable or crazy situations. Somehow it is like my eyes got opened and I saw Him everywhere: in the faces and lives of my new Ugandan friends, in the conversations with complete strangers, in the glorious thumping drums of worship. In the uplifted faces and palms of a hundred ladies worshiping on death row in the prison. In the everyday travels to and from home; in the dirty, dusty roads and the obnoxiously noisy traffic sounds. In the crazily vivid dreams that snuck up on me at night. In the way the kids would yell “mzungu, mzungu” the moment they saw my light skin. I fell in love with the culture and the people, but more than that, I think I was in love with how close to God I felt. All the time. It was the most amazing high ever.

In 1 and 1/2 months there I dropped 15+lbs; plus I had never been happier. It showed. I don’t know how many times people told me that I looked completely different than I had when I first came to Africa. Not to mention that I loved the life I was living and even the guys there began to notice. There is something so infectious about a girl or woman who doesn't really care what you think because she is assured of what God thinks. Someone who is happy with life, and who loves to live it to its fullest every day. We rarely notice the complete magnetism of these divine creatures because they are so few and far between on this planet we call earth, but when they exist... when we meet them... when we know them long enough to realize its not an act... we find ourselves transformed in their presence.

I probably got at least two proposals a week from Ugandans, much to my complete consternation! Now granted, most of them were in jest, and I knew that, but they still caught me off guard every time. Not to mention that my light skin and possible “sugar mama” status made me an apparently desirable mate. (All Americans are rich, right?)

Let’s just say, I am also not used to being in a culture where being round is a good thing. Ultimate culture shock: the signs on the street corner saying, “Gain Bums Quickly, Call *this number*”. I got a perfect formula for that one, folks: live in the U.S.! Over here though, apparently it’s not an ultimate diss to call a girl fat. This was a completely new lease on life for a girl that was used to being marginalized for her entire life because of her size.

This is also when I met a young gentleman that, for the sake of our story, we will call Darcy. (yes, I do have a fondness for classic literature, how could you tell?) I first met Mr. Darcy in the parking lot outside of the church where we were meeting other youth[4] we would work with during our time in Uganda. (Is that bad that I can still pick out the exact spot?) He was wearing a black baseball cap low over his eyes, tall, dark, and it seemed a little shy. I should add in here that I’ve always had this thing with guys in baseball caps; I just like the way they look and I really can’t explain why at all. We were introduced actually twice that day and in the rush of getting to know everyone, I promptly forgot his name both times. I’m really good with names in case you can’t tell!

At this point we were shifting from the Guest House to go and live with individual families that had volunteered to host us while we were there. Then from our host families homes we would go and meet up at the centrally located church with the rest of the Ugandan youth and go from there to do ministry together. We were waiting for our host families to come pick us up, and as mine were a little later[5] Darcy and I fell to talking. Something in us clicked. We talked and talked and talked and laughed and talked some more. Every time that our two student groups met we would naturally fall to talking and hanging out together. I tried not to show too much deference, but as he pushed[6] me home at night through the neighborhoods in the dark, he held my hand and watched for my footing and I fell a little bit for my nameless friend. However I completely lacked the courage to explain that I had forgotten his name, and as more time went on and we hung out more, it got downright embarrassing!
          About day three after we met I could stand it no longer and sheepishly admitted to one of my American friends that I had forgotten his name, to which they laughed at me and informed me that it was Darcy. How could I have forgotten? It was such a different name. In the course of the conversation they mentioned that they thought he was dating one of the girls from the fellowship, Diana. My heart sank. But I was determined that I would not act any differently; I would just make sure that I kept treating him with no deference. 

Meanwhile I was so busy meeting so many new, instantly dear friends. A majority of those friendships have stood the test of time and I love them all dearly. I count my Ugandan fellowship friends as every bit as much family as my biological or church family here in the States.

I met one of my dearest sisters one night as we were just hanging out and the America students decided to teach the Ugandan students how to play “Spoons”. Now, there has perhaps never been a more ridiculous card game invented in the history of bizarre card games. We were both uninterested in the spirited game going on beside us, so we were both sitting there laconically and fell to talking to one another. She confided in me later that I just seemed as out of place with all the Americans as she felt, and she felt sorry for me. Whatever emotion prompted our first interaction it was obviously a God thing.

When Peace had to go push someone to the taxi stage (bus stop), she just grabbed my hand, and said, “You’re coming with.” I was surprised and kinda stammered a polite reply, but I went with her. Darkness is a great equalizer, and in those dusky minutes in our walk to and from the bus stop to drop off her friend we were transported to this completely different dimension where we were no longer two different people, with different complexions, living in different corners of the world, with different cultures and different dreams… but truly soul sisters. Very few people in the world have ever so intuitively understood me the way that she did and still does.

C.S. Lewis described in his book “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” something that I’ve always longed to know in another. One day Lucy is looking down into the sea over the side of the ship and sees a mermaid shepherd girl and they immediately, and without a word exchanged between them, know that they are kindred spirits. Lewis said that should they have ever met again, they would have rushed to give one another a hug. That’s what Peace and I had. For that first brief moment in time, and for so many moments since then, we have known each other as kindred spirits, soul sisters.

I had no idea that first summer of how Peace and I’s friendship would grow and blossom over the years and that she would be one of the first people I would share this whole story with. One of the few people that I knew I could trust it with, knowing that she would love me every bit as much for having heard all the ugly places of my heart as she did before she knew them all.

There were so many God-filled moments that I could describe from that summer in Africa. I loved each and every moment of that summer that I spent in Africa, even when I was holding my nose in a pit latrine or ruing the lack of electricity. I loved explaining why I was “born again” to a friend at a baby shower for my host family’s one year old. I loved clapping and dancing to worship in other tongues on Sunday mornings. I loved sharing a biblestudy lesson with thirteen teen mothers, even though I was feeling so unworthy that they would listen to me; feeling like they had seen so much more of the bitterness of life than me. I loved walking in the torrential rain and jumping the massive potholes that they left in the concrete. I loved the motorcycle rides, the all night prayer vigils, the afternoon tea, the tree ripened fruit, the walking everywhere, the dust and diesel smoke along the roadsides mixed with the street vendors tasty smells. I loved waking up to roosters under my window at ungodly hours. I loved having to tuck a mosquito net in around me at night and still killing two or three juicy ones before morning. I loved making my way around the neighborhood and running into friends and neighbors that I loved. I loved that anytime I wanted to, I could climb the hill to the church and sit in the silence of its sacred halls and talk to Jesus. I loved making my thumbs sore texting everyone back “goodnight” every night on my candybar phone.

In fact, the more I think about it… there were hardly any moments that I didn’t love except the one where I had to walk into the airport and board a plane going back to the U.S. As much as I was excited to see my family again, I cried like a girl heartbroken.

Travelling is an amazing experience, which I highly recommend to most everyone. But it does something to people. It changes them in very real ways. There is something very mind opening about seeing first hand the amazing hugeness of this world that we share, and of experiencing a different lifestyle and culture. Maybe it’s just a more consciously broad view of the smallness of my own insignificance in the greater scheme of this whole teaming mass of humanity. Maybe it’s just a bigger realization that there are so many other people and cultures and diversities out there, but that you share so many dreams and loves and desires with them that you are like family. Whatever it is about travelling that severely alters a person’s brain, it happened to me. My travels made me more open and a bit crazier, but I struggled severely with this massive pit of culture shock upon returning to home. Nothing that happened in my usual world made very much sense to me. I went through a lot of days like a zombie. I wished I was still travelling.

People liked to hear about my travels at first, and then it tapered off. It was old news. No one could fully understand my excitement in talking about anything Africa. To the same extent, they couldn’t understand my boredom with my life after returning. Things a home seemed fruitless. Colors seemed dull. Things didn't taste as good. God became mundane.

My only real escape came when I would be able to talk to the people back in Africa. I’m sorry to say it, but I started to live for those days, those few minutes or hours of conversation. They were the only bright spots in my life that made any sense anymore and I became desperate to have those moments. I would see an e-mail in my inbox and immediately my eyes would light up as I would search frantically for the name and delve into my own little oasis of pleasure. Facebook posts caught me about the same way, and those days when I actually got to IM… oh my word, they were the best. My strange obsession with Africa grew even stranger as I looked to this communication to keep me from going completely insane back in the States.

My journal entries were endless reminiscent passages that looked like this:

“So here I am, it's 12:22 and now officially August 19 2008, and I can't sleep. Propped with my pillows and balancing my torch (flashlight) on the bed in front of me I am crouched over writing this. Somehow, it seems a little to familiar... My mind is so filled with visions of Africa and in the dark I am back there. I see the familiar faces and the "homey" smells. In my minds eye I am walking that dusty red dirt path through the flats. It's early morning and some of the smog hasn't yet lifted from over the city as I look out over it from my hill. Even the soft pad of my sneakered feet seems to echo as I pick my way across the blocks of pavement and the yawning chasms of potholes etched by rain and unfilled by the sands of time. From inside the flats I can smell breakfast wafting out reminding me that for want of sleep I opted to forgo mine this morning. I can hear the buzz of activity awakening from inside the flats and outside a matron sits in patient guard over her charcoal stove and millet porridge atop it. 'It shall be cooked right if I have anything to do with it," her look seems to say as she adjusts her squatted position to frown deeper into the pot and give it a swift swish with her paddle.

Oops, watch your step there! Someone has already been busy this morning with laundry, and wash water is creating a soapy film over the sidewalk here. Sidestep that piece of garbage and jump the drainage ditch... there, now your feet are safe again... for the time being.

Above me on the road I can hear the buzz of bodabodas (motorcycles for hire) and the occasional beep as they warn pedestrians of the holy terrors that they intend on being today. Its a long walk up that hill and I almost give the driver "the eyebrow" (that says I want a ride), but remember that I have no shillings in my pocket but that 20,000 bill and my fare for the taxi ride, so I will have to foot it. And anyway, its not that far to town and the exercise is good for me (what I tried to convince myself every day that I walked this hill). And of course by town, I really mean the Middle East (no, not what you are thinking of... but it is "middle-eastern" of somewhere, I suppose Kampala). There it looms, just beyond the red gates and brick walls of my favorite building in Bugos. I live in the flats, but that dear church is my "home". Rarely can I venture within its courtyards and not meet family in residence. And even when no one appears to be around and I can curl up with my knees and thoughts with my back to the cold concrete walls... I still feel surrounded. (But that is by God's love. Why does He feel so close? I don't know, but I love it!) Basking in His peace on that front stoop is perhaps one of the most glorious feelings ever! But today I am busy, so I trot on by the church smiling at the passersby and walking unbelievably fast for a Ugandan; but what my skin does not bely, my gait is only too happy to prove; my transformation is not yet complete!

I start to round the corner and already I can tell a difference in pace. The shops are starting to come alive. Bodabodas and taxis are moving everywhere vying for business and offering a trip to town. "Will it be old park or new park today?" (sounds more like olpok and nnpok) -"New park to city square." I get out after I finally understand their jingle - thats my taxi. I crawl in and climb to the near back seat. In front of me I flip up the seat for the next embarkee. It will take a while for the taxi to fill up, so I settle back and look out the window, (after finagling it open of course!) The Middle East is indeed picking up the pace and the shops along its fuchsia colored facade are being opened as we speak. Above the shops I see the open windows of the cafe that I have come to love. Oh, not a food cafe - internet! That reminds me that I need to e-mail the folks tonight when I get back. 2000 shillings should buy me an hour of pleasure, or if I drag a friend along: 30 min and a pleasant walk home!

"With a chug and a tug, and a merry little toot..." (not to mention a slight grinding of gears!)... the taxi van is off to town. To get to downtown, (which is where I am headed in case you have no clue), from Bugos, one has to drive through a bit of the industrial area. The roads are pretty good here (in fact one of them just got repaired, which is incredible!) and the taxi careens along at speeds which really ought not be legal! Smells of smoke, hot metal, and I-know-not-what from the slaughter house and other factories smack me in the face through the open window. But I dare not close it and be subjected to the stale taxi benches and B.O. which permeate the inside of the taxi. Saying a quick thank you prayer that rain is not necessitating that experience by forcing the glass closed, for today anyway. Anyway the smells change quickly enough because of the speed at which we are traveling!

Now we have reached the roundabout (did I forget to point out my living room set in the window of the furniture factory as we passed?) Yep, there are the Mirinda Jeeps keeping guard over the crazy car merry-go-round. Only have to hit one side of the roundabout on this round, so we squeeze through easy enough, and its on down the road for us. Now through the stoplight (or traffic cop if power is out) and past the Nissan dealership on the corner. Now the buildings start to heighten and pretty soon they start to rise a good 3 stories on either side of the street. Flashing past them I read and laugh (inwardly) at the signs. This one has a ridiculous catch phrase and that one advertises some obviously ripped-off name from the U.S. On my left I see the park moving into view (well, I call it a park, but really its only a green). There is the peddler with his his little push cart filled with hot "pandora" (think filled doughnuts, and I fully realize that's not really what they are called. I had one once, and I was sick all the rest of the day.) My stop is coming up soon. Here it is - "Masou" "Stage" warns the conductor that I want off. (Unless of course I want to haul off and hit him in the head, which is always an option! Saw it happen, kid you not!) I quickly pay - 700 shillings into town, and jump out of my seat, displacing those in front of me as I do so. Disembarked and once again alone I carefully stow my bag in an optimally protected position and start off down the street! Today I am not in too much of a hurry so I take time to smile and wave (beauty queen style) at several "mzungu" commenters. (Oh, yes, I enjoy being the "moviestar" some days!) All the way down the street I hold my head high and portray a false confidence (to make me look and feel less vulnerable). Its kinda fun actually!

Dart between bodabodas and taxis and make it to the other side of the street. Now I am in front of Nando's which is a cool place (and they have a really good Philly steak sandwich!) but not the destination for today's venture. On up the hill I climb to the side street. Usually dodge in and out of a jumble of crazily parked cars and there it is - Cafe Pap. I can already see my party waiting under the outdoor canopy shaded by spreading leaves.

Today, I think, will be a good day... maybe only one proposal and 6 comments on the African braids. I think I'll take the bodaboda home so I'll have time to go visit some of my very best friends in the flats. Who knows, maybe I'll even catch some of the "football" match and cheer on my team!

         

          I can’t even really begin to completely describe what all was circling in my head as I vainly attempted to process everything that I was thinking and feeling in those months following my return from Africa. A large part of me simply didn’t want to be in the United States. I hated the trivialness of the things that we worried about here. I hated that I couldn’t buy a rolex on the corner or walk to go visit my friends in the flats. I hated the clothes that we paid too much for and the senseless amount I had to spend on mediocre Chai. Somehow Uganda had taken its beauty and likeableness and wrapped its fingers around my heart in a way that I was at a loss to untangle.

I should also like to go on record and say that I officially hate taking the anti-malarial Malarone. That toxic combination of proguanil and some other med starting with “a” that I don’t remember and can’t pronounce… made me nearly go batty! I guess that I should have known what effects it would have when there was a big warning label on it that said “don’t drive until you are familiar with the effects of this med”. I did however fail to realize that one of the side effects was hallucinatory dreams! Yes, that is right, dreams. Actually while I was still in America before setting sail for remote reaches of Africa (or what I thought was remote), I was already experiencing the lovely effects of this drug. Now, to fully understand these effects you must also understand that I am one of those people that has dreams and knows that they are just dreaming. There is a fancy psychological term for it that I learned about in my Psychology class and then promptly forgot, something like conscious dreaming. That is the way that pretty much all of my dreams are. And yes, I use it to my advantage, because if I know that it is just a dream, I know that I can get away with anything, and I can change the dream if I don’t like the way that it’s going… after all, it is all in MY head. So I have not had trouble with those awful nightmares for many years now, because I just change them if I don’t like them. Enter Malarone… now, not only did I not realize that I am dreaming, but I found the most disturbing combination of everything that had happened to me that day or the past week and combine it into the LONGEST nightmare ever! Case and point: a dream while still in Africa about coming home 2 weeks early. All the facts were right, my Grandma picked me up at the airport, I knew the exact date and the date that I should have flown in, even some of the weird sequences at the airport were exactly like real life. The main problem being that I (in my dream) didn’t want to come home 2 weeks early, and I had arrived at the airport but couldn’t remember any of the almost 20hr flight that I would have had to have been on to get to the airport! I actually woke up fussing from that one, because I was so frustrated. So much of it made sense, but too much of it was just hanging… Anyway, fast forward after I came back. I had to keep taking the Malarone for a week after I came back. I literally had a dream that I was in Mulago hospital (Uganda) and being chased/attacked by zombie children patients! Yeah, don’t even ask! I would have to say that this is probably one of the most disturbing dreams that I have had in a long time. Of course I did realize that it was a dream, because seriously… zombies?!? But it still was little funny, especially when I am trying to explain to the doctor at the hospital that all these kids are infected and she is like, “no, they are just scared, that’s why they are acting this way”. Anyway, I don’t know who would want to actually read my dream, so I’ll stop here and just say that I kind of wonder if this is how they come up with some of the movies that they make… seriously just pop a couple Malarone, sit back and take a nap, then wake up and write a script! Sounds a little too easy and you get the added advantage of being immune to malaria while writing your script! Bonus points!

In the midst of the fog that my mind and dreams played on me after returning to the States, I found solace in spending large amounts of time sitting in the coffee shop on my computer. Some days I would get to chat with people and some days I would just read and journal, or post on my blog. I had started writing a blog at the urging of my Uncle Gary. This request was born after my Dad had forwarded my e-mail updates from my time in Uganda to him and he liked the way I wrote and wanted to encourage me in it. Somehow writing seemed to calm me and help me process a lot of things at the same time.  

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[1]  “under-dogs” are where you push the swinger higher and higher until you can do a running push and actually run under the swing during the height of its arch. My Grandpa was the king of these!

[2] This poem which furnished the 3^rd verse for the hymn I sang was written by a patient of an insane asylum on the wall of his cell in an apparently lucid moment. It appears to be an adaptation from an acrostic poem by a Jewish writer written in 11^th century Germany, but the passion with which the words were melded by the sanitarium patient speak to the depth of pain and conflict in my own heart and make me as desperate to know that depth of the Love of which even a mentally troubled person, not so different from myself, might sing.

[3] A Guest House isn’t a house out back of a great mansion, but is actually the African version of a Bed and Breakfast. Ours was more than beautiful, interconnected by a beautiful little open air portico where we ate.

[4] They call university students “youth” in Uganda; they really weren’t in high school.

[5] African time isn’t really ever on time but more like at least 30min to an hour late.

[6] “Pushing” is what they call escorting someone to their destination. As in, “I will push you home.” 

[and so, you have, in one fell sweep, come to understand the beginnings of my obsession with Africa, and the beginnings of how this blog came into being]