In my last days in Kunming, I looked out the window and said, “no thank you.” It was cold and I was stressed, and all I could think about was Christmas. Kampala is dusty, poor, hectic, bustling, dry, and ragged, sure to induce vertigo in any new arrival. But the beauty of it is how much simpler everything is than it first seems. You can get into any car, whether it’s a taxi or not, pay a couple thousand shillings, and have them take you where you want to go. You can grab samosas from any street stand or sip yogurt out of a plastic bag from an Indian grocery store. Soon you realize it’s not so bad—a city that once seemed impenetrable is now perfectly straightforward, a bizarrely organized chaos. I have an easier time getting around here than I do in my hometown of 35,000. There is certainly more fresh fruit. I will miss it here.

a few thoughts I just needed to get out there before I left--

race here is funny. Because of my white skin, I am automatically assumed to be richer, smarter, and timelier everywhere I go. While my fellow American classmates scowl upon neocolonialism in development, I have been asked by Ugandans to come back, get a job, and “develop” them. My homestay sister tells me how she only likes to attend church services held by muzungus, because they “don’t waste people’s time.” My homestay brother tells me how he only wants to work for a muzungu company, because “unlike Ugandans, they actually pay you.”

What’s even more disconcerting is how white people are treated in comparison with Indians—it’s as if Ugandans feel more warmly about their colonizers than their fellow colonees. Britain unjustly ruled Uganda for the better part of the 20th century, and now they come back with aid, which either comes with too many strings or enables the horrifically corrupt government (or both) and perpetuates the gulf between Africa and the rest of the world, and they are loved for it. Indians bring business to Uganda, opening supermarkets and restaurants and electronic shops, and significantly influence the cuisine, yet they are despised. My host family didn’t even know that the tea they drink, the bread they eat, and the spices they use all came from India. One friend here even told me he wouldn’t eat the food of “that filthy people.” But all things muzungu are worshipped—when I had a stuffy nose, my sister asked me if that was the first time I had a cold because surely such things do not occur in American medicine. The fact that I shop at thrift stores and sometimes skimp on meals to save money was is completely alien to many Ugandans’ perception of me. There’s nothing like the rockstar treatment to add to my White Liberal Guilt.

I have very little respect left for my program. Compared to Lu Yuan and SIT China, Charlotte is a self-important amateur. From day one they treated us like high-schools in summer camp, unnecessarily prohibiting us from a range of ordinary activities and generally belittling our intellect. They would give such broad, idiotic suggestions as “avoid crossing roads” and order us to let them know whenever we planned to so much as go to an internet café. They told us to avoid using toilets because “one little splash” could lead to a UTI. They told horror stories of poisoned ice cream and gang-rapes at knife point and abductions in broad daylight. Yet when we actually needed their help, to ask advice about our research or find out what time a site visit was, they were inexcusably absent. When in Gulu we had trouble finding an affordable apartment, Kaitlyn called Charlotte, one of the ADs, to ask for advice and was told, “finding your own housing is part of growing up.” When we got sick, we were ordered to inform then, and they would systemically drop us off at the most expensive clinics and when a malaria test could clearly be obtained for half the price elsewhere. They told us to call them twice a week to “check in” during ISP, yet in the crucial few days before we left they turned off their cell phones and never showed up to the office. They gave us no practical instruction on how to write our papers, but then when it came to our presentations they would ask us condescending, inane, and downright rude questions about our methodology.

The most unforgivable part was when they took our passports. We were ordered to surrender them at the beginning of trip because “we might lose them,” but right before we left for Rwanda the support staff “temporarily misplaced” three of them. When we asked for them before our six-week ISP, they straight-out lied to us and said our passports were “being processed” when in fact they had been processed within the first few days of us being in Uganda and the ADs just didn’t want us to have them. When we persisted, they would sharply say, “what do you need it for? You’re not going anywhere,” unaware that as American students in Africa the one thing that has been engrained us is to always, always, always travel with your passport in case you get into any situation. When hotels asked to see proper documentation, we had nothing. If I had gotten into any sort of incident, it would only be my word that I was an American citizen with a student visa that allowed me to be in Uganda.

At the evaluation, when Charlotte was once again giving her pitiful justification for holding our passports, I became physically angry. It was all I could do to stop myself from throwing a bottle at her. Her excuse was offensive—we couldn’t be trusted to take care of ourselves. And then, bafflingly, “If there were a coup in Kampala and you were in Gulu, you would need to come back and get your passport.” I’m sorry, that’s the reason I would want my passport with me in Gulu, so I could just safely cross into Kenya instead of walking into a violent coup d’etat. If I lose my passport, well, shit happens and I’m the one who should deal with it because it’s my life. Charlotte also idiotically added something about how her holding our passports would prevent us from getting raped, but at that point I was too enraged to keep up with her logic.

In short, while I will be sad to leave Uganda, it may be good to put a country between Charlotte in me in case I accidentally jump onto her back and start pulling out her hair.


I’m sorry, should I end on a happier note? I really have loved it here. I hope you can tell that from my blog posts along the way. But I had a good time in spite of the program, not because of it. The five weeks I spent in Gulu were incredible for my self-discovery and academic direction. I think we’re all impressed by how we pulled together our research projects completely on our own, and I now even know what I specifically want to do with my life. At this point I don’t even know if I’m excited about coming back to the US—the bagels had better be as good as I remember them.

sunday was our homestay farewell party. It felt a little like senior banquet in high school—we all met in the parking lot of our hotel in Kampala at five to get ready to go to the reception. Everyone wore nice outfits, invariably African dresses and suits that they’d had made at tailors here. We were all in denial that in only a week we’d be leaving Uganda.

I’d been spending the past week with my homestay family, but left on Saturday to check into the hotel with the group and finish writing my paper. These past few days have been wonderful—nice weather (in Uganda, May is much cooler than January, with a nice breeze and rain clouds permanently in the sky), being together again after our ISPs, and the combination of looking forward to home and enjoying doing my favorite things in Kampala one last time. I’ve been haunting 1000 Cups, the one coffee shop in town, with Barbara—every morning we get there, plug in our laptops, order the first round of coffees, then periodically get into conversation with the staff and other regulars, saying hello to our various other classmates who pop in throughout the day.

Even though I’d only been away from my family for a day, it was weird seeing them in a setting that felt like a graduation party. The reception was outdoors on the grounds of some museum, and my homestay mother showed up with three of my brothers and my two sisters.

I’ve never been one to surrender my personal space, but sharing a bed with my sister Rebecca this week has been surprisingly fun. We had pillow talk every night before we went to sleep, and I felt like we got a lot closer than we ever did in the two months where I had my own room. I was enjoying talking to her at the party, and then went with my brother to get beers for everyone in the family. We were all having a good time, and they begged me to break out my camera then spent about forty-five minutes taking turns taking family photos in every combination they could think of. I guess I never realized how much fun my host siblings were, or I’ve always just felt too weird about being so much more privileged than them to really let loose. Silver, William, Brian, Rebecca, and Lilian range from ages 16 to 25, but they all have so much in common that it felt like hanging out with a bunch of hilarious people my age. We spent the rest of the night dancing, which was about as much fun as I’ve ever had. Lilian, having recovered from a miscarriage and malaria at the age of 17, was particularly energetic and tried to train the muzungu out of me on the dance floor. When my family finally said goodbye to me and went home, I felt really strange and sad for a moment before I joined the SIT conga line.

The other day, I realized it’s been over a month and a half since I looked in a mirror.

When I get back to the US, I am going to experience air-conditioning again and buy a Wegman’s veggie sub an inch-thick in cheese, and get the Leornardo da Veggie sandwich at Bruegger’s, drink all the coffee I want, then have a bowl of penne alla vodka. I’m going to get fake hot dogs from Morningstar Farms and start making things with cabbage in them (Uganda has turned me onto this vegetable of my heritage) and soak oreos in mint chocolate chip ice cream. I’m going to be sad when I can no longer buy two pineapples for a dollar and mangoes for ten cents each. Jackfruit, rolexes, millet posho, and masala chips will no longer be there. It’s going to be a while before I can eat guacamole again, but I’ll enjoy reintegrating spicy things into my palate. Samosas and chapati will no longer be my go-to snack, and my mother is not going to boil a pot of chai every night. I will stop eating matooke and referring to potatoes as “irish,” and birthday cake will no longer resemble stale raisin bread. I will start taking menus in restaurants for granted, no longer having to preface my order with, “Are beans there? Is there rice? The vegetable curry, is it there?”

I’ll have to start walking places again instead of jumping on the back of someone’s boda. I’ll begin to wonder why guys who ask for my number don’t call, instead of hitting silent five times in a row to ignore creepy, persistent calls from security guards and hotel managers. People will stop laughing at me on public transportation. No one will be buzzing about what’s happening on the soap opera that’s on tv every night after airing in Mexico four years ago. Most importantly, people will stop asking me if I go to church, which is good because I’ve had it up to HERE with Jesus.

Rebecca, who is my age, plans to attend Makerere next fall, and I was helping her look over her requirements to apply. She sheepishly came up to me and told me there was a problem with her birth certificate. "My dad was in charge of it when I was in school," she said, "and he didn't know which year I was born." It turns out her official birth certificate read February 19th, 1976. I don't know what kind of father remembers the exact day of his daughter's birthday but doesn't even get the right decade, but there you go.

one of my last days in Gulu was spent violently throwing up from some bad guacamole. This, thankfully, did not set in until after trivia night on thursday, the brainchild of a 60-year-old mad chain-smoking bachelor brit who bafflingly opened a tiki bar in Gulu. Seeing as I am neither old nor british, my trivia score was appalling but I enjoyed the downpour on my walk home. The rainstorms in Gulu seem to get scarier and scarier, which I find a delight. Sometimes the dust whips about and blinds you, and when the power goes out everything is eerie and quite, and it feels like the set of a certain Helen Hun/Bill Paxton movie about tornadoes. In Africa.

I spent saturday wrapping things up, doing laundry, avoiding Christine, saying goodbye to our tailors and grocers and waitresses. At 3pm I met with Charles, my NAADS adviser, for our final interview in the bar of my hotel. It had seemed like a good place to meet at the time, as it was quiet and mostly vacant and the power was off. But no sooner do I reach the moment for my planned heartfelt speech of appreciation when the power comes on, the Akon music videos start blaring, and the bar fills with drunken buffoons. One of them actually started waving a stick. "What?" Charles kept saying over the sound of the 4th replay of "It Don't Matter." It felt kind of like taking someone home to be embarrassed by my crazy family.

Coming home to Kampala was nothing if not more of a continued saga of ridiculous family moments. I arrived at the gate of my homestay to find the house in utter ruins, with no roof or windows. William was nonchalantly milking the cows, and looked up only to say, "oh, you and Rebecca are in Silver's room." Apparently the family is renovating the main part of the house where I stay, and so everyone has cramped into the few rooms in the other wing of the house across the driveway. The family's precious television set has been purchased in the doorway of my homestay mother's room, and we all watched "Second Chance" sitting on stools in the driveway behind the rainwater silo. I woke up this morning to a combination of sobbing and a strange buzzing noise, and walked outside to find the entire family on the other side of my door, holding Timothy, the baby, on a stool as Silver was shaving his head.

I can tell my baby cow missed me. I had an absolutely wonderful five weeks in Gulu, but it's nice to see my family again. I go back to the US in two weeks. It will be nice to see my family there again too.