oh uganda, land of beauty

what will i miss most? will it be the rooster in the morning? or the constant bird chatter, echoing and layered even right in the city.  or maybe the scent of burning leaves and diesel with someone cooking meat on the roadside. will it be being called 'madame!' or buying potatoes and passion fruits from Sara, only Sara in the parking lot outside of the market with a host of boys selling bananas greeting with grins and saying "yes docta!" or maybe  i will miss the way they push for me to buy the oranges which are too sour and i don't like, "but what of oranges?" as if someday i will change my mind, but some days i do. maybe i will long for those sour oranges, and pot holes, and broken air-conditioning in 26 year old cars, and traffic where no one follows rules. i think all of these things i will miss. 

i'm scared truth be told. scared of moving back. scared of the ease and the comforts and not being understood for missing broken things and ways of life that have become normal and comfortable for me and are my children's baseline. scared of easy purchases and new things and phone plans with years of commitment, and mortgages.  i don't want a new car or a new anything really. i want to buy used. i want to buy airtime when i need it. i want to pay with mobile money. i want it to be 80 degrees year round and hear the sound of sweeping rains at night and awake to the call of the dove and the monkey bird and always see green outside my screened windows.

i remember 10 years ago right as we were getting ready to leave, we were boarding a plane that night and needed one more suitcase and so i drove to target. i was in the luggage aisle and i had a mild panic attack. i was temporarily incapacitated by the choices but really i was incapacitated by the choice i was making- to get on an airplane in a few hours with zoe who was 10 and the boys who were 6 and 4 and move them to the heart of africa. i starred at those suitcases and thought, "what have we done?" a crate of our stuff was already on it's way, our supporters were already supporting us, we had our house on the market and an airport pick up plan on the other side. it was happening, and i was scared of the change.

mike and i have talked a lot about what we want to bring back with us, to carry with us in to this next season. what pieces of our life here can we hold and savor and reuse, replicate, share with our new england life and community. there are my large african drums and some baskets, but we are really taking about the things we have learned. priorities. slowing down. valuing people over productivity. relationships, even the little ones sprinkled through out the day, matter.  the boda driver delivering food and calling for directions, "good eve-a-ning madame. how are you? i myself am fine. now..... i am wondering....i am near...but  how can i find your place..? "   not. "where are you? i got your pizza" those things that used to drive me mad, now i cherish. 

so in 5 weeks i will fly away with the blue curtains i've looked out of for 10 years packed in my suitcase and my much bigger boys now 16 and 14 and my dogs and cat, red dirt on my shoes and know that hard as it is, it's time. and uganda with it's bird calls and smiles and warmth and time taking and traffic and potholes had grown me in ways i couldn't have imagined and taught me to slow down in ways i didn't know i needed to know. it has shown me our great need for community and given me a broader definition of what community can and should be. i have found friendship in the strangest of places and been welcomed in corners where i couldn't have dreamed of stepping. i have been blessed over and over again by the people of this place who have let me call their country home. 

oh uganda may God uphold thee, we lay our future in your hands