We packed into 1 Land Cruiser, 10 adults, 1 baby, for a 9
hour trip to Kitgum, 1 long and bumpy dirt road, 0 air-conditioning. Upon arriving, my hotel had no hot water and
no electricity. It’s a cup water, soap
up, splash-water-on-self kind of shower and a no fan night. I lay in my bed without a sheet, covered only
by a blanket of buzzing mosquitoes. A
rooster wakes me at 5 am and there is no hot water to make coffee. I get to work at 8:30 and wait for the
training which doesn’t start until 2 hours after it is supposed to. Remind me again why I left New York?
When I got off the plane in Uganda, I felt different. It felt different. I breathed in the thick air and didn’t feel
at home. I have only been in the US for
a month, I’ve visited home for that long before, but I guess, a part of me has
closed the door on Uganda. I met up with
friends and danced and drank but it was in an ecstatic way, the kind you reserve
for vacations. Not the kind of prudent,
I better not really let go because that guy at the bar is kind of cute and I
have to do my laundry tomorrow, kind of way.
(Just kidding I never did my own laundry in Kampala.)
This is the first trip I’ve made after having moved back to New
York. My contract says I will travel 45%
of my time to Uganda, and soon, Ethiopia and Liberia. Part of me wants so much more. I still want to work at a refugee camp doing
research on outbreaks, or to do emergency research on epidemics. But part of me wants so much less. I missed my friend’s wedding and I started to
date a really cute man.
I took a walk after work through the village. The sun was setting and damn beautiful. Nothing particularly profound occurred to
me. No eureka moment. But in this moment I was happy. So I guess we’ll see.
