Africa, one month later

One month ago today, I left behind my life in Denver and came to Africa. Running on almost no sleep, I finished packing, bullshitted the last pages of a final paper for class, and drove to the airport. Although it has only been four weeks, the memory is already blurry--like the final moments of a fever dream before waking. It could have happened years ago, or not at all.

Since landing in Uganda, my brain has been completely overwhelmed with sights, sounds and smells--a plethora of new people, food, and adventures. All of this information has been almost too much for my mind to handle. At a very basic level, I crave routine, structure and order. Sometimes it calms me down just to count things--like chairs in a restaurant, or the passengers on my daily #32 bus ride. Anything I can do to establish some kind of order amidst the chaos brings me a great sense of peace.

Africa is where structure and order goes to die. Everything that should be easy suddenly becomes hard. One day, it hits you how damn convenient your life back home is--where you don't have to worry about your power cutting out in the middle of a shower, or getting caught in a three hour traffic jam, or finding something to eat that won't give you parasites. 

And drinking water out of the tap. Dear lord, how I miss having pure, delicious, free water at all hours of the day and night. 

Aside from feeling completely overwhelmed from time to time, my trip has been incredible. My class from the University of Colorado traveled from the capital city of Kampala, to the source of the Nile river at Jinja, to Lira (a town once dominated by the Lord's Resistance Army), to beautiful Lake Bunyonyi in southern Uganda, and finally ending in Rwanda. 

During the class, we spoke with a variety of Ugandans about their lives, experiences, and thoughts about the country--private business owners, directors of community organizations and NGOs, and public servants. We set up make-shift medical clinics, where we gave children vitamins and taught them how to brush their teeth. We visited dirt-floor school buildings, and learned about public education. And we saw so many beautiful things--white rhinos, Lake Victoria, and the forests of southern Uganda. 

In all of these places, I met children who were healthy and smiling, who grabbed my hands and looked at me with wide, curious eyes. I also saw children who were ravaged by malnutrition, parasites, and HIV. These experiences might take me months, years, or even an entire lifetime to fully process. 

The class has now ended, and I am back in Kampala. I will be interning with an NGO for the next few weeks--another post about that coming soon. 

There's a fine line between between excitement and fear--and I'm straddling it. Stay tuned, friends.