Homecomings and goings

When I left Tampa and headed to New York last Monday night for the first leg of the 30+ hours it would take me to get back to Uganda, I was defeated. I was, actually, more than defeated. I was terrified.

Leaving the US for the first time was scary but I had somehow managed to adjust in the two months I had been in Kampala. I had been hesitant to go back home so soon but I missed my family and Scott so much that I decided that one short trip--only two weeks--back to the US would not do me any harm.

I was wrong. I managed to peel back a band-aid on a wound (so to speak) that was just healing and, by my last five days in the US, I was an absolute disaster.

Going back to Uganda frightened the hell out of me. I had no idea why.

I knew, for sure, I didn't want to stay in the US any longer (the depression and anxiety there started to wear on my nerves after a week) but I was suddenly ten times more terrified about going back to Uganda the second time as I ever was about arriving there the first.

By the end of Week Two, Scott and I were fighting incessantly, I was needy and panicked, I felt like I had left things with my family unsettled...and I was reduced to being all-consumed by fears that hadn't crept up in months. I was, literally, a complete fucking mess.

"It is time to go back to Africa," my mom told me the last night I was in FL. "If you don't go back now, you are never going to go back...so go back tomorrow. And stay there for a little while."

I should have been insulted but I wasn't.

I knew she was right. I needed to go back.

Upon leaving US airspace en route to London, I started to decompress. By the time I hit London I was just exhausted and beyond feeling a damn thing. I had an eleven hour layover so I checked into an airport hotel and slept for six hours. Upon waking, I felt about 50% better than I had when I had left the US. I missed everyone, for sure, but I was still so raw and unnerved that I had barely time to think about it.

When I arrived in Uganda, ten hours later, I was greeted by the same woman who always mans the immigration line in Entebbe. She is only there during on-peak hours and her sole purpose is to direct you to whatever immigration officer is going to give you a hard time about your paperwork and try to get some extra money out of you (mind you, Uganda is pretty transparent and laid back in its corruption as far as African countries go, but they still do try).

So this woman, Helen, and I greeted each other like old friends. She recognized me from the four times I have been in and out of Uganda in the past two months. She asked after me, my health, my family...and then directed me to the line where "foreigners with visas" go. I immediately moved to the line where "Africans without visas" get processed. Helen wagged her finger at me and winked while all of the white people in line behind me started howling that I was making some dreadful mistake...it's amazing how people feel the need to police others.

"You're in the wrong line!" the missionary chick yelled at me. "Hey, do you understand ENGLISH? You are not supposed to be in that line!"

Still, I went into the "African" line and, ten minutes later, my passport was stamped and I was through customs without a problem. The folks in the "people with visas" line were still twenty deep and still howling as the immigration officer slowly tapped his pen to his head and said, "Big problem with your visa, you need to pay some more money."

The last words heard from the missonary chick were, screamed at Helen, "Hey...that's not fair!!! How come SHE got to go through that line?? She is not an African...she is not BLACK!!"

(I am certain my South African and Zimbabwean friends would have loved this...along with all of the other white and Asian natives of Africa).

But that experience gave me some courage.

"At least I still remember how this works," I thought.

Then, upon exiting customs, I was swarmed by taxi drivers. One looked at me and declared, "Nevermind, she lives here," and then asked about how many foreigners were to be expected after me.

I had a ride waiting outside but I still hated selling anyone out. "No foreigners...or at least not a lot to them," I said.

My favorite taxi cab driver, the one who greets all foreigners in head-to-toe leather no matter how hot it is, implored, "C'mon Patricia...this is a British Airways flight! We know there are some foreigners and, please, it is the holidays...cut us a small break."

I was about to turn him down when I thought about the missionary chick and reconsidered.

"Well, there is this one woman..."

Back home, some survival skills still intact.