how many times have i packed up and left here? how many times have i said 'goodbye'?
each time leaving a bit of myself behind. i wonder what the ratio is now? how much of me is where.
when i am in uganda, i feel like i make sense in a way that doesn't make sense, and yet after 1 week, it's time to go home.
all the reasons we left 2 and a half years ago are calling to us from across the ocean. my dad is in the hospital, zoe missing us, jude comes home for his winter break next week and bryn and rose need to get back to school. and on the list goes, but what a week it was.
we spent the first night in our old home in mukono on campus sleeping in our old rooms, waking to the sounds of the most familiar birdsongs.
the next two nights were a lakeside camping reunion with our group of close friends who shared life with us in kampala for years.
then mike when north to gulu for 3 nights of master planning work and the kids and i stayed in kampala. i taught a class at the medical school and met with my old colleagues. each night we shared dinner with a different family friend. we went downtown to the marketplace and bought fabric. we went to our old food market and saw the people we know and who know us in a way that we still don't have in the US. the kids went to school and spent time with their friends after school - reconnection is a blessing and a reminder of how hard life as a TCK is.
then yesterday we visited with roses birth parents. a beautiful emotional exhausting morning that i wouldn't trade for the world. then a hair cut at my favorite place, followed by dinner with friends at an ethiopian restaurant we love. a dusty walk home in the warm night on roads we've walked for years to sleep under nets with the sounds of loudly chirping frogs.
tonight we fly.
it's hot and green, dusty and familiar and i suppose it always will be. oh uganda how we love you.
