#12 – June 14th 2007

A birth, a renewal…

My feet rest on an old sun-drenched lawnchair, my head rests against a window’s ledge. My mountain-top view from Jjaajja Gewn’s Guesthouse, through two gigantic palm trees, is of Kampala’s suburban areas, of red-roofed houses and miles of luscious greenery. Flowers grow wildly everywhere, pink spikes, red bells, blue poppies, bursts of orange. I hear only the songs of the neighbors and chirp-chirping of hundreds of local birds, none of which I am familiar. Breathtaking, all of it. I sip a sweet red South African wine and watch the breeze rustle the banana-tree leaves, creating a sound quite similar to a light rainfall. I think about Africa. About Uganda. About all I have experienced thus far, and all that is to come. Tomorrow is a big day and I am in need of some reflection and some foresight. Tomorrow, twenty-four years ago, I was born. Twenty-four seems to hold an importance unlike other years, it seems to represent something pivotal, it represents growth and transformation. I feel that I am exactly where I need to be for these things to occur. I feel that I am ready. No longer a child, no longer a teenager, no longer a student; now what? Still a friend, still family, still learning, but as something new, as an adult in many ways independent, but in many ways still completely dependent. Where am I going from here?

Tomorrow, fittingly, I begin a ten-day journey across south-western Uganda, from Masaka to Kabale, Lake Bunyonyi to Kasese to Bwera, through Queen Elizabeth Park and back. It is a time for discovery both of Uganda and of myself. It is a time for the extreme solitude of Lake Bunyonyi, where I will stay in a hut on a deserted island for four days; a time for celebration as I hike up the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains to visit remote Ugandan villages; a time for awe as I am introduced for the first time to the famous five of the safari; elephant, giraffe, hippo, wildabeast, and the king, lion. In Masaka we will be visiting a school created by a doctor at Mengo hospital – and in a random coincidence fitting of Uganda, Peter’s good friend Lindsay and a friend are staying in the same town, so we will lodge with them for the evening, at ‘Zebra Hotel’. The five of us will continue on to Lake Bunyonyi, a lake speckled with twenty-four volcanically-created islands reachable only by dug-out canoe. Here, we will immerse ourselves in our thoughts, our novels, and the 25 degree waters surrounding our sanctuary. I miss the boys already and can imagine I will be thinking mostly of them as I lay in a half-enclosed grass hut staring at familiar constellations from the equator’s perspective. I expect I will have a lot to write about Bwera upon my return, many of the villages we will visit having never experienced an outsider. We must tread lightly and take our footprints will us as we leave. There is the potential for a safari in Queen Elizabeth, a possibility I am quite enthusiastic about. I pray that it happens.

Oh this magical place. Oh how it dances. I will leave Kampala twenty-three, wide-eyed, with a host of new friends wishing me well. How will I return? Yes, its only a short time I will spend away, but here in Uganda, for a visitor, ten days means a life-time worth of experiences.

Until I return,

~Nicole