Nomad's Pub

Thoughts...

So... this might be my last blog post in a long time; I don't know. I don't know if I'll get back to the internet before heading off to Kenya, and I don't know if I'll have internet available to me once I arrive in Kenya. So I leave you with some thoughts, whether they will have to last a long span of time or whether I will be back on here again soon. The following was written yesterday (Saturday)...

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In barely over a week from today, I will mark 10 years on my calendar since first leaving home. By home I do not mean my family, but rather the island of my birth; my childhood. I still find it almost bitterly hard to look back and remember; to relive the experience of tearing away from everything I ever knew and loved. Sitting here now, I wonder how it is possible to remember so acutely the smells or the particular patterns and rhythms made by the rain or the route I took to get to school. To remember the faces and names of friends who once made up my world, and most of whom I have never since seen again.

Now far from the Caribbean, I find myself in Africa—quite away from my family and enjoying yet new friends. Today I sit on my bed in Uganda; in four days I will have moved over to Kenya for a month of work. What will I do exactly? I don’t know.

Now is the first time in weeks that I have had the opportunity to sit down and think about things; to consider and puzzle out and wonder over. The last three weeks since arriving back here again from Rwanda are weeks I would never choose to live again. To sit, to eat, to learn how to sleep again, to read quietly, and to enjoy the sunrise once more—even going out dancing—these are the pleasures which I suddenly find myself able to partake of and enjoy again at last.

In many ways I feel as though the bottom of my world fell through these last few weeks. My summer? Kaput. My rest? What’s that? My foot injured, a recurring sinus infection, upset stomach…my fingers raw and bleeding from some strange reaction, my academic plans changed, my housing plans unknown, my monetary situation unstable, friends out of touch, unreasonable professors, getting lost, and… I could make the list go on forever it seems.

There has been so much hurt and tears and fears; confusion, turmoil, helplessness…And no time to process or consider any of it. I don’t know and I don’t understand anything at all. My mind has had one recurring theme these last few weeks, playing over and again like a never ending refrain… let me run away, run far from here…I stop it only by wondering wherever would I run to?

And now it is done, over, finis. Last class, final exam, the end. No lectures again for the next five months; I can consider my school year completed. I have one year left in uni now. Praise God.

Now the time has come to pack once more. To choose which clothes to keep and which to leave; the suitcase does not have room for all; I must walk away with the same amount I came with. But I lived here, and living requires acquiring. And even if I can get my suitcase down to the same weight as when I first flew in; I myself will walk away—fly away—with so much more.

So very much more.

I have new sites and smells and patterns to remember; new noises to never forget. New faces and names to pull up some day and smile at from across the vast distances that will soon separate.

Looking out at the city below me now, I have only to close my eyes to know I will not forget.

When I close my eyes, suddenly I find myself down there in the city, wandering through its heart. I always know where I am going, but I seldom genuinely know how to get there. I set my way by marking buildings as landmarks and my position in relation to them. Street signs are relatively meaningless here.

The other day, walking through one of the city’s many markets. Here there is a market for everything, and every street is a high street it seems. I won’t forget—don’t want to forget—the markets. What it’s like to walk through their narrow, earthen pathways. You must always watch your feet for ruts or garbage; watch in front of you so not to walk into an overhang; watch beside you so not to be run down by man or motor; watch your back so not to be pick pocketed if you are a mzungo, and at the same time be pressed in on all sides by the masses of humanity down there with you, doing the same as you, and searching the shops and stands for what you may wish to buy.

Mzungo! You buy this—special price only 7000 shillings!

And you shake your head and move past, or if it captures your eye, perhaps you move over to barter him down. 7000? What! That is too much. Look, see how dirty? I will have to wash! I give you 2000. He looks at you askance. 2000? Do you see? Feel! Very nice feel! 2000—hah! I give it to you for 6000. Special for you since you have to wash. You look at him and examine the cloth, then shake your head and prepare to move away. No, 6000—still too much! You say. Make it for 5000 and I buy it. No more. You stare at each other and then you move to walk away again and he says Okay okay! 5000. And you move away victorious with your new purchase, delighting in your accomplishment.

You move through the shops, ducking under scarves and hanging clothes—the traditional styles and the skirts and shirts you might wear at night for clubbing. Chickens run at your feet and children wave shyly to you from behind their mothers’ skirts—their smiles lighting up their eyes and jumping to your own. In the tunnel of shops, the air feels cool and the smell of chapatti and the tempting displays of fried g-nuts make your stomach grumble and wonder at the time you lost track of long ago. Here, time is practically irrelevant; it is not minutes, but moments which define life.

Into the brilliant sunshine you suddenly emerge, blinking your eyes a little and standing in the middle of the taxi park—a lot filled to capacity and beyond with hundreds of vans that follow particular routes throughout the city. Everywhere you look—people and vans, people and vans, with the horizon of shops beyond, and the minaret of the mosque rising up beyond that. Children shouting, drivers calling out, engines starting—stopping. Vendors peering in the windows of the matatu’s, selling their wares stuck on cardboard boxes or inside hand woven baskets. You walk through the maze of moving traffic and parked vans—never entirely sure which are moving and which are not—and find the one you want; sit down and wait until it fills up then off you go. Hurry up and wait…

At night in the room, lying on your bed under the sheltering canopy of the mosquito net; you fall asleep to the rain falling pitter patter on the tin roof above, listening to the torrents of water washing past your door down the hill.

There are times I find myself wondering what it will be like, to go and rejoin the Western world; walk in Western cities once more. Will I miss the kissing noises made by the men in my direction, the constant measuring of how long that man’s stare lingered (10 second max rule!) and what it implied? Heeeeyyyy, my girlfriend, how are you? Or other times, Mzungo—where is your husband? Will I miss the smiles of the street vendors—the street vendors themselves, and how they come up to you and make you an offer and won’t always go away? Will I step out into a two or four lane street of moving traffic to make my way across in the middle of the road, forgetting that traffic lights are used and rules of the road rigidly applied and followed? Will I try to barter in the potraviny? Will I shove my money in my shoe, too?

I love the ownership I feel over this city now; not as someone who possess property; but as someone who has become intimately familiar with its streets and the people who walk them every day. To get where I want from any direction even when I have never gone that way before; to know the insides of houses in the city, or where to find the best deals and cheapest ice cream. I love knowing what makes a good price and how to get it if I want; love playing piano at the cathedral overlooking the city; love grabbing a drink at the canteen on campus; even being able to say that I am a Makerere University student. There is something about a feeling of belonging which increases the love in me.

And this belongingness; it is not limited to me alone, to me extending ownership. It is in being owned in return. Any time you face strangers and strange places, you can stand in confidence because you know that somewhere, someone loves you. Claims you. That you are not entirely adrift in the world regardless of all appearances. When people can tease you, take you out dancing with them to their favourite club, play tricks on you, pray for you, and pick you up and carry you around in celebration with you for things… these are the signs of belonging. These are the ties which bind you; which endear a place and people to you.

And these are the things which I find myself enjoying now, and wouldn’t trade for anything, and which I have only to think about leaving and already find myself missing.

posted by Lada @ 5:01 AM