Things are looking up, and so am I!

Funny how changing location makes me so ridiculously happy by default. Going to a new place and noticing positive, tangible change reminds me of how fortunate I am. I experience moments of being proud of how far I've come in my life--the things I have overcome and experienced thus far and will continue to experience... I don't just settle. And it's uncomfortable sometimes. Much of the time. Excrutiatingly so. But then I have these moments of really experiencing the calm awareness that anything I truly want to make happen, from deeply within myself, I will.
Really, anyone can materialize these things for themselves, if they choose to make it so.
My dream life and idea of progress entirely differs from many others, but I have discovered what doesn't make me happy... feeling stuck, stagnant, bored and uninspired. And when I am that frustrated and uncomfortable, and it's sticking, I know it's time for a change.

So, here I am, sitting in the airport, en route to Tanzania for a week. My favorite guide drove my coworker, Agnes, and me to Entebbe from the office. His name is Moses, surname Bahati, but here the order is typically reversed in introductions and really any written document, (not to mention the fact that there are four ‘Moses’es that work for Volcanoes,) so he generally goes by Bahati. I call him Bahottie. As you can imagine, he’s your “typical” beautiful African man—tall, silky smooth-looking dark skin, thin but muscular…man, oh man. The funny thing is he just started talking to me over the past couple weeks. Before that, I would sit, tormented in the office as he walked by, internally screaming, “Say hi to me! Smile in my direction!” And then, after about a month of this ridiculous internal strife, I finally gave up on the idea of flirting with the sexy guide. Now he talks to me every time he’s around the office. In fact, last week he did a double take walking past the sales team desk toward reception and almost ran into the wall.

It was amazing. Amazingly hilarious. I looked around, nervous for his sake, to see if anyone had captured the incident…unfortunately, (or fortunately) I was the only one who noticed.  

The eternal curse of irony.

Our drive to Entebbe involved navigating the typical cityscape through Kampala and its outskirts. I sat in front of the safari vehicle, sweating, since the passenger seat is directly above the gearbox or some other hot car mechanical-type-thing. We passed men on the street selling electronic bug swatters, multipacks of toilet paper, prepaid cell phone minute cards, waving giant instructional geography maps of Africa for children, or basic anatomy diagrams of labeled body parts. I looked around affectionately at the madness... I wish there was a way my eyes could better translate to my fingers to translate to you what one sees looking out a window in these countries. I'll feebly attempt a bit. 

Men in tattered, sun-faded t-shirts (the worn-out shades hipsters would die for in Portland) push clunky steel bicycles piled high with wood, or grass along the side of the road. One young guy stops rolling a tractor tire almost as large as him at a stoplight alongside a backlog of boda drivers.  Matatu taxis veer erratically on and off the road and into traffic, their enforced metal grills in front acting like battering rams should anyone try to get in their way. At one crossing, a fully grown cow stood on the cement divider between two lanes of traffic. How it got there is anyone's guess. The fact that no one cared is another. 

As you enter the slightly more rural outskirts of Kampala, the various duka shops, salons and garages have men sitting around in front, looking bored. Women carry water in jerry cans from some nearby source. Some people have wares laid out in front of them on the roadside on blankets: miscellaneous shoes, pots and pans, tomatoes and mangoes piled high into pyramids in colorful plastic bowls. There undoubtedly is someone selling chapatis, or samosas, friend triangular folds filled with meat or diced oily vegetables. Or maandazi in handmade wooden boxes fashioned onto the backs of bodas or 

Everyone seems to be moving, scurrying across the street, biking, boda-driving... it's hard to figure out where everyone is going, or coming from, and why. It's also tiring just watching some of these people, out in the hot sun on their cumbersome bicycles, dragging supplies to another area. Nothing is easy here... unless you can afford to make it so by having other people do all the hard stuff for you. But somehow, there are moments, where everything is beautiful and bright and hopeful--and you feel lucky to be alive and experiencing all that is around you.

I flew into Arusha on a small plane, seeing Kilimanjaro for the first time looming in the distance as we neared the runway. You could find me grinning maniacally at various intervals throughout this entire airport/flying/landing/airport/waiting/walking/sitting/driving day.  Just happy. Happy to be on the move. Seeing something new.  We took a private car to the Impala Hotel, which turns out to be this charming, vintage-luxury-type place. I thought we would be sharing rooms, in the same style as the fam trip finale. (still need to post the rest of those stories) but no, I get to lounge around in peace in my princess bed (thanks to the dramatic appeal of mosquito netting) and pirate free wireless and feel grateful and forunate to be in this place, in my body, with my life. Even though I'm not sure how it will all work out, when I will meet the man of my dreams, when this whole career thing will settle a bit and make sense... I have faith that it will. And sometimes that's enough.

Rainy days

“Your jacket is exceeding your arms.”

Cutest way I’ve been ever told my top is too big.

But, yes. The rainy season is upon us in Kampala, and long sleeves are part of the new occasion.

This week I biked to work and passed two other Ugandan men on bicycles, one of which had an alarmingly huge crate strapped to the back of his bicycle, the other was holding a live chicken by the upper crease of its wings.  Apparently it was some sort of blow to their African masculinity to be passed by a woman on a bicycle, because both made an demonstrated effort to peddle frantically in order to pass me back, which alone was amusing enough... only more so when Mr. Chicken used his right hand to gesture where he was turning to oncoming traffic (his right hand containing the chicken.)

“Only in Africa,” I thought to myself.

On the way to work, I look around and try to absorb the novelty of my surroundings, rather than travel the same daily route in a jaded, been-here-long-enough-so-stop-staring-at-me “over-it” mentality (as much as I do feel “over-it” when it comes to Africans shouting "Muzungu, how are you!?" at me) Ugandans, women predominantly, have the task of sweeping the roadways clear with handmade grass strand brooms, typically about 2.5 feet in length and bound with straw twine.  The women bend over sweeping in their long, colorful African-print skirts, and the ones paid whatever measly shillings the Ugandan government affords them for the road duty often wear safety vests. This same practice of sweeping trash, and dirt, takes place within housing compounds, on porches, walkways, sidewalks etc. It’s a bit perplexing that though everyone seems to want these areas cleared of debri, everyone then proceeds to discard of all their garbage willy nilly wherever they’re walking, not to mention the wind and dust and traffic that just pulls it all around back to the areas that were just cleared the day before. (And these small, hand-made brooms a half hour activity out of an area that a push broom could do damage to within a few minutes.) Along the same vein, you find men with small machetes chopping the reeds of grass from the areas along the roads in long, sweeping motions. The original lawn mowers.

Women walk along the streets with large clay bowls full of bananas or mangoes balanced on their heads. At least half of the time, small brown feet peep out of either side of their torso, connected to an immobilized baby strapped tightly to their backs by kitenges, or colorful African cloths tied tightly to keep mom hands-free to work in the field, balance things on her head, and cook--maybe all at once.

While on safari, I hung out of the Land Cruiser's window waving my camera around, occasionally managing to hold it steady enough to snap some photos. The landscape in the countryside is incredibly beautiful. I already am missing it back in the city...