say hello and wave goodbye

When I pick up new volunteers, it’s always interesting to hear their first impressions when they get off the plane, and then on the 3 hour drive home to Jinja from Entebbe. Sometimes they ask me a million questions on the way home, sometimes they are silent. I try and not overwhelm them with information unless they ask for it- because usually the first day everything I say is erased by jet lag and then repeated the next morning.

On Wednesday I picked up Brenda, a doctor, and her son Tanu (16) from Vancouver Island. We drove all the way back to Jinja almost in silence, but not uncomfortable silence. It was silence of them watching everything go by out the window, absorbing their first taste of Africa. When its times like these, I either get bored and start texting people telling them I’m on my way home, or I force myself to look outside and pretend it’s my first time in Africa again as well.

It’s the things now that I take for granted, or that I have become so accustomed to that I don’t notice that they are ‘different’ from ‘normal’ anymore. Things like the burning smell of garbage and plastic sizzling on the side of the road. Like the charcoal fires burning and cooking maize and cassava. Or that the bunches of green bananas aren’t really bananas, but matoke, which tastes light an odd version of mashed potato when cooked. Or that there are no traffic lights, or stop signs, just a few roundabouts in the capital city. I no longer think that women carrying everything including the kitchen sink on their head is fascinating (that is if they had kitchen sinks, or kitchens, for that matter). I no longer notice that the fields we cruise by are of sugarcane and tea and coffee, things that don’t exist in Canada. I have stopped wondering what air conditioning might feel like and what I would do if my back wasn’t constantly a pile of sweat. I no longer think in conversions of shillings to dollars or worry about getting run over by 6 million bicycles and motorcycles and cars and busses when I casually walk across the street.

When a coming volunteer asked me if there was anything I wanted them to bring me from Canada that I missed, I could not think of one single thing. (except people, of course)

When we got to Jinja I did the usual with the new people- settle them into the hotel, walk them into town, exchange money, point out good places to eat, go over jinja facts and street smarts..meet Damali for lunch, meet the other volunteers and staff, take them around the market and show them how to use their money…organize everyone I know/volunteers/friends/staff to meet at 2 Friends for their first meal out so they can meet a bunch of people..and make it start to feel more like home than a foreign country.

On Friday I did it all again- back to Entebbe, back to the airport with my GIVE international t shirt, a sign with the new volunteers names on it, and a big ‘Welcome to Uganda’ smile plastered on my face. Larry and Mike (father and son team) arrived in good spirits though they were (and still are) minus one bag…

The goodbyes come into play this weekend as well again. I have said goodbye to too many people to count so far this summer and I feel as though this weekend marks the last of the original “crew” I met and hung out with when I first arrived in June; as Mike left yesterday and India leaves Monday (Claire and Jem left last weekend- following Charlie, Mark, Alex….etc etc) . Of course this meant we had epic adventurous last nights on Friday and Saturday; and now I will have to remember that I’m actually quite an independent lady and will survive the next month without those I’ve been with everyday for the past two.

Maybe that means I’ll get more schoolwork and work work done before I return to Canada for the mass craziness of moving/starting classes/attending weddings/trying to deal with jetlag which will ensue within the first few days of touching down in Penticton on September 7th.

less than a MONTH! yikes...
vicks xxxx