16 March 2019
We have been in Uganda for 4 years following one year in Kenya (with a hazy year’s interlude in something they call New York). Now we are leaving, and I have been agonizing over this departure for a very long time, eager to return to creature comforts and good medical care, but sorrowful about leaving our Ugandan friends, especially the young ones.
There will be much I miss about Uganda. Yesterday we had lunch at Café Javas and watched a black-and-white Colobus monkey swing through the branches near us. I will miss sitting on the veranda overlooking our garden where a profusion of lush green washes the eye, and birds stage a flamboyant aerial show. I will miss the crashing thunderstorms, which soon dissolve into a sun-drenched blue sky. Oh, and the bad roads – I will not miss the muddy two- and three-bra roads, where ditches and hillocks have me clutching at my breasts to keep them from bursting into view.
These six years away from home have been the adventure of my life, and also the learning experience of it. The “struggle for survival” of the locals is no longer just a trite phrase for me. After Africa, I hope I will learn to be patient with people who live well and focus on trivial matters. And I hope I don’t succumb to this myself, or at least that I learn to temper it, allowing a mix of the sacred and the profane.
In a few days we leave for Valencia, Spain, where Judy will continue to work for the UN, and I, now aged 72, will begin to ponder life and its lessons. We hope some of you will visit us there and ponder together with us over sangria and paella.
So now it’s time to say: Goodbye Parker*, who took second place last Saturday in a 10K race and is now starting college on an athletics scholarship. Goodbye Jeanie, beginning her second degree in early childhood education, eager to better lives starting with the very young. Goodbye to all of you who are continuing your studies or looking for a job or already testing the waters of a brand-new career.
And goodbye especially to Hope, my first and best teacher about all things Ugandan. You may recall that I promised myself I would not become Hope’s white savior, rescuing her from poverty and a lack of schooling. It turned out that Hope rescued me – from isolation, rootlessness, and the ignorance of privilege. It was a good trade for us both, I think.
Finally, goodbye to the ants we leave behind in our kitchen, smirking as they watch us pack, knowing they have outlasted us. Live it up, my friends. Life is a brief miracle.
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*The names of the Ugandans have been changed to protect them from the law that obligates them to report homosexuals who are known to them. My spouse and I pretended to be sisters to protect both them and us.