#11 – June 8th 2007

Time and distance…

Although emotions run amuck, round in circles in my mind, time goes slowly here. My thoughts have ample space for development. I can think and ponder and question, what a luxury that is. Power may be intermittent, appointments always tardy, but I have realized that all this ‘wasted’ time goes towards something much more precious, time to think. Here in Uganda, people take their extra time to think; sometimes alone, as they walk quietly along the red trodden path, sometimes in large groups, sitting on ramshackle benches, chewing raw sugarcane as they mince words. While most cannot afford even the simplest luxuries most Westerners ‘couldn’t live without’ - laundry machines, hot running water, or a television set - they have a possession we covet but rarely obtain – a calmness of mind available only to those who refuse to rush. Ugandans do not rush, they do not click their tongues in traffic jams, they do not fret when someone is a half hour late, even an hour. Their gait is slow and relaxed. Food takes its time to arrive. Even the planes flying into Entebbe seem to run on ‘African’ time. I can hardly find the words to describe what happened to my concept of time from the moment I stepped off the plane into Uganda. It was as if my brain had been shaking like a rattle before I arrived, then shortly after I landed the contents inside began their inevitable dénouement and started circling the drain. Now they continue to circle but slowly, deliberately, with a purpose and intensity but not with speed. For the past two years at school I have had the overwhelming sense that I didn’t have my bearings; that I couldn’t grasp onto anything in a solid and complete way. It felt like a dream, where everything is rushing past too quickly for you to comprehend; a blur of events and you are standing still as they whip around your motionless, helpless figure. In Uganda I see what is happening. I experience it with all of my senses and I am an active participant in my own life. I feel connected to everything I am doing in a way that I was unable to in Canada.

What seems like decades ago now, I had just arrived in Uganda and proclaimed that although it seemed exciting and different, I would not want to live here. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to become acclimatized, or if I could possibly get along alone. Well, Natalie and Peter arrived back from Kasese yesterday and it was only after their return that I realized I’d been ‘alone’ for seven days and had not once actually felt alone. In Uganda, I believe it is impossible. People here are too friendly, too curious, too concerned to let you feel alone. A community is not something you may or may not live in, its something everyone actively participates in. I am so far away from ‘every-person-for-themselves’ I don’t know if I want to come back. The individualist culture is only rampant in the upper echelons of Ugandan society. Everyone else eats, drinks, prays and survives together. If your neighbor is hungry you make sure he has enough to eat, if your neighbor is out for a drink, you join. I see very strong examples of this every day. Last night while Natalie, Peter, and I were catching up over a Nile on the patio of a local pub, an older man passed whom we’d spoken to briefly before. He asked to join us and soon we were engaging in conversation with him about soil samples, selenium, and HIV/AIDS. He has been doing research in preventionary methods, which is, ironically, exactly what Natalie studied on her last trip to Uganda. What an experience to sit listening to them excitedly discuss the latest developments in the connection between levels of selenium in the soils around Uganda and immunity to HIV. I sat sipping my Nile, wondering if I was listening to a conversation about the future answer to Africa’s biggest threat. I’m not sure if it was the Nile or the topic, but something was stirred inside me. It is an everyday occurrence that people will stop and sit for a drink. The questions and topics always differ, but I always find myself walking away richer in knowledge and somehow awed and motivated by the spirit of these people. So many other countless examples of the sense of community here run through my mind, I have little room to share them all here. It will suffice to say that not a day goes by where I am not invited to a dinner, offered food from someone who has barely a bite for themselves, or stopped on the street by a stranger for some light conversation.

Now to move on to something a little more personal. I wished to make friends here. I wished to learn more about the culture, the language, the history and the people, to enhance what I learned at university. To discover the truth in relation to what I read in academic journals and novels. As the boys here say, I was coming for ‘researching’. While I am learning all of these things, making comparisons to what I thought I knew and learning many things I didn’t, something else is happening here. Something unexpected and bittersweet. I am forming a new life. I have a new family. Here, I have brothers and sisters and friends. At home, my beautiful sister is turning fourteen next week, here my new brother Robert is the same age. My brother Scott just celebrated the pivotal sweet sixteen, here Ronald, Eddy, Moses, and David are also in their sixteenth year. I spend every day with them. These boys have welcomed me into their home, into their lives, into their hearts, and I’ve formed bonds with them that will last a lifetime. Their leaders, Abbey, Junior, Tony, and Roscoe, are my peers, my advisers, my friends. Sandra, who’s grandmother owns the house the boys live in, is my new girlfriend, my confident, my sister. I feel so blessed to have met them and to have gotten the opportunity to know them on a deeper, more personal level. There is ample time to form trusting, lasting relationships, to get to know these people who live a world away so that even when we are again separated by oceans of distance we can remain close. As for the ‘bitter’ part of the equation, I will, once again, be oceans apart from this new family. It was difficult to leave my family in Canada, but to no great extent because I knew I would see them again in a year. Of course I plan to return to my home in Uganda once I have completed my Masters degree, but that could be a couple of years from now. How can I leave them? How can I leave not knowing when I will return? How can I come into these peoples’ lives for so long, get so close to them, to children, to teenagers, then disappear? I can’t even begin to think about it. A phone call will hardly be sufficient; their accents over the phone are extremely difficult to decipher and its simply not the same as personal contact. These boys don’t have parents, they don’t have someone to offer them that parental connection. No one to hold their hand, squeeze their shoulders, give them a goodnight hug or a kiss on the forehead. No one to help make sure their collars are folded down, that their school books are in order, no one to ask them about their day. No one to cry to, and although they are strong, these boys have much they could cry about. How can I leave knowing I’ll be taking my ability to offer them these things with me? My plane is scheduled to fly out of Entebbe in six months (then I’ll be living in Holland until the spring), and I cannot imagine how I will feel on the day of my departure. I’ve been here not yet one month and already the thought of ever having to leave fills me with anxiety.

I am accustomed to the climate, the traffic, the food, the stark contrast between rich and poor, to being called a Muzungu, to speaking Luganda, and I’ve come to love it all. Could it really be over in November?

Alas, once again this has turned into a small novel and I haven’t said half the things I wanted to say. It must wait until the next time…

Weelaba,

Nicole