It has now been, formally, one year and three weeks since I moved to Uganda in October of 2008. I felt compelled, for a few weeks, to write some sort of anniversary blog that tried to capture all that I have learned and experienced in the past, almost, thirteen months. I kept trying to answer: What is Africa? What is Uganda? And, of course I failed. I was far too consumed with myself and not with what Africa or, specifically, Uganda, had taught me over the past year. I was WAY too consumed with myself, the ending of a different year-long relationship of a personal sorts. In short, I was, well, self-consumed...completely.
Until Africa, and Uganda, taught me in a very succinct lesson about what I wanted to write.
It happened on Friday morning after a couple of months of tumultuous personal agony that I had, of course, convinced myself I was so OVER back about three years ago and was NEVER going to experience again. Well, long story short... not so much. But after feeling pretty damn sorry for myself for a few weeks, and getting into a minor scrape-up on a motorcycle late at night, I got tired of feeling sorry for myself.
My beloved friend and driver, Robert, shook me out of it on Friday morning.
As I piled into our Land Rover in my normal state of bleakness, he said:
"Madame Boss, when do you think you will be better?"
I looked at him tiredly...
"I am fine, Robert," I said, "I promise."
"No...you are NOT!!! You are sad all the time now and you don't laugh and make the jokes anymore. You hurt your leg and we now have this beautiful house and you don't even visit it anymore. Can't you go there tomorrow? I can bring the dogs...and Kate and Godfrey are there...we need to buy furniture...the dogs need to see you...you have gardens to attend to...please, we have so much to do!!" he insisted.
Oddly, his words got to me. As I might have mentioned before, Robert is my very best friend in Uganda. He was the first person I really got to know here and he didn't really speak English when I met him. We had a difficult four months or so but we have become very close friends and he worries over me as much as my own brother does. But he is also respectful and conservative so when he speaks, I tend to listen.
So as down as I felt last night when I got home, I took some time to talk myself out of it. I also took some time to figure out why I haven't been able to write what one year in Africa has done to or for me. Because it is nearly impossible to write.
What Africa, Uganda specifically, has done for me in a year has made me trust people in the place that you would least expect to trust anyone...at least for a Westerner. It has made me much more of a patient and tolerant person. It has also made me savvy. It has also made me love more deeply than I could have ever imagined and value relationships with people more than I ever have in my life because to know anyone here you have to get beyond superficiality and really take time to trust someone. It has made me more calm and less frivolous. Anyone who knew me before would never associate the words "calm" or "patient" with any description of me....trust me.
Anyway, yes, those are pretty words but they are true.
I hated Africa when I first got here because I am, at my deepest level, a private person. I like to socialize but hate feeling "invaded" and disliked that Ugandans felt bad about leaving me alone. But, thirteen months later, if Robert hadn't marched up to my apartment and reminded me in the car about "our" house, our dogs, our shared responsibilities to others, and the things I loved...who knows where I would be right now.
So today found me at my new house, on an acre of beautiful property in a newly developed section of Kampala that is still being carved out from fruit trees and wild flowers overlooking Lake Victoria, pruning my fifteen rose bushes. Robert showed up with the two puppies I had rescued from his village six weeks ago and rehabilitated. They are going to be big dogs so, a month ago, I had to let them go to Robert as I could not keep them in my apartment any longer but I missed them so much it ached.
They came bounding up to me, all big feet and drooping tongues and tackled me on my perch on the front porch. It hurt, my leg is still a mess, but the greeting was welcome.
"They remember me!!" I exclaimed to Robert.
"Yes, of course they do. You saved their lives. They would have died in that village if you hadn't intervened. You are good with animals, Madame Boss, of course they remember you!!" he reported.
That felt better. I AM good with animals.
Next step was a present from Robert's sister and cousin who I have hired to work on my way-too-huge-property-for-me: a pheasant.
It is not called a pheasant in Luganda but that's what it is in American English. A gorgeous, fat, grey and white speckled bird with big feet, a red crest, and a short beak. They are prized in Uganda and cost about $25- $50. In short, a lot of money.
This was an extremely generous gift, considering.
So we set the pheasant free on the property and let the dogs run after it (the dogs, of course, had already been trained by Robert not to attack fowl so they got within a foot and then trotted back to me or Robert).
Later, we climbed up to the top of the defunct chicken coop and repaired it. I got myself up onto the roof of the garage with Robert's help and did my part nailing in the metal sheeting onto the roof of the coop while everyone else fixed the wire caging. We then poured concrete and by Monday we should be ready for our first load of hens, ordered by Robert from the best farms in Uganda for their egg-laying. (No roosters--or cocks---though, I do still like to get up at 8am rather than 5am).
Afterwards, I taught Kate, Robert's sister and my new housekeeper and cook, to make lasagna which she screwed up masterfully and we ended up eating on newspapers with forks because we had forgotten to get the plates from my old apartment. It was delicious...if deconstructed.
My other new addition to my family is called Godfrey. He is Robert's best friend from the village and his family emigrated here during the genocide in Rwanda. He speaks French and Luganda fluently and is extremely handsome. He has agreed to come on as my guard and gardener as his father was a master gardener for the French government before he was killed in the genocide in 1994. I am to pay him the equivalent of $100 a month and he will tend to the acre of gardens, the guarding duties (which aren't really necessary, this is a very safe neighborhood), and all the care of the animals...my dogs, pheasant and chickens. In exchange I will spend one hour an evening with him teaching him English. He speaks it rather well but is not able to write or read so that will keep me busy from 7-8PM five nights a week.
So in two short weeks I will move to this new life. I am enjoying preparing for it.
Oh, and what is Uganda? Read above.
Uganda is, above all, the most healing place I have ever been.
I am here for another fourteen months, and I cannot be happier about the arrangement.
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