January to January

It is the middle of January.  Exactly one year ago, I was in the throes of frustration, trying to pack for a trip to Uganda.  Today, I am in the throes of frustration, trying to pack to go back to America.  One entire year.  One way or another, Uganda has an entire year of my life.   There were a couple months there that weren't exactly in Uganda itself, when our match fell through the day we were supposed to leave, and we didn't leave yet.  But, the entire month of January I dedicated to Uganda, figuring out exactly what we would need, collecting portable toys and every kind of medicine.  At the end of the month I quit my job, closed up everything; closed that chapter of my life.  Even when we didn't get on the plane, the bags stayed packed, the job stayed quit, everything seemed foggy and temporary.  Now it is January, and I am packing again.

We have plane tickets for the 27th, which is next Monday.  Hold up your fingers: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday; a whole hand, five more days, as Emerson counted this morning.  So after months of uncertainty, I am suddenly busy making the actual plans to go home.  I'm contacting our Ugandan friends and the people who have helped us, to say goodbye.  I'm emailing people at home and confirming doctor's appointments and plane seating arrangements.  I'm going through a list of people who were in some state of "we'll do X when I get home," to let them know that I actually have a date to get home and to plan a time for X.  I'm hoping to answer questions and complete connections for other adoptive parents who can't be in Uganda yet.  I'm trying to wrap up all the details that might not wait another two weeks, once the real chaos begins.  I'm probably forgetting some important ones.  I'm trying to sort things into "Take Home" and "Maybe" and "Leave Here."

I'm trying to arrange the house.  I once wrote about how overwhelming it was for me to arrange packing for this trip to Uganda; now it's equally overwhelming to try and un-arrange it.  I have realized the problem is that I'm good at big-picture dreaming, and I'm a perfectionist about all the little details, but the medium-sized problems overwhelm me with where to start.  I can either make lists all day, or I can sit and sort out one thing perfectly, but deciding how to deconstruct an entire house -- and entire life -- makes me feel like I'm staring at a huge brick wall.

And it's an entire life.  The power is out right now, and the candle burned down until the candle holder lit on fire (because all the candle holders are unfinished wood), and I went to get a new candle. The new one was the second-to-last one in the box, and there was a whole new box of candles sitting underneath it, so we wouldn't run out.  There's extras of everything we use in the big cupboards, from powdered sugar (not so frequently) to oatmeal (we go through it fast).  My mother grew up in a small town in Vermont, and they only went shopping once or twice a month, so she knew how to keep a well-stocked pantry, and that's still the way I live today.  It's pretty frustrating to run out of candles during a power outage, or some irreplaceable food when you have three kids and no car, so I keep extras.  Because this is our house, and our pantry.  And our life.

It was never meant to be forever, but as the months went by, it turned into good enough.  This is our days, our food, our routine.  We wake up in the morning, can grab the toothbrushes on the sink by feel, get our clothes from our wardrobes where they are every day.  I make eggs or toast on school mornings with Buttercup on my back, and Emerson staggers around slowly and Hibiscus darts around randomly, but between the three of us we get their backpacks filled with snack, juice, and homework.  They go to school, and bring home stories about new teachers and favorite games and funny things.  Buttercup and I eat our breakfast after they leave, perhaps on the patio.  She plays around me while I work or socialize on the ipad, and meanwhile we sing little songs and name colors and have laughs and snuggles in between our independent work.  When we go out, we shop at the Cinderella market in Bbunga when we're on our way home, which we used to walk to, and I can always remember exactly what I will find on the shelves.  Or we get bread and cash and go to Uchimi supermarket in Kabalagala, which is in the same mall with the shoe store (children need a lot of shoes), and there's a bunch of used clothing shops nearby, as well as most other little things that we might need.  When we go into town, we get our groceries at Garden City mall, which starts with a koi pond that the kids always run over to, and one time had trombonists playing Christmas carols on plastic instruments in the entryway.  That's also where the big bookstore is, and the food-court overlooking the golf course, and the colorful playground on an upper story balcony, which by definition doesn't have any grass and way too much sun on hot days, but is the only free playground in our regular routine.  Now that we usually do our errands by car, we stop there fairly often.  And I can visualize the streets curving around that area, the side heading into the suburbs with some nice restaurants on grassy compounds, or heading out to Ntinda where we see the dancing, or becoming angular in the other direction as it heads into downtown Kampala.  I know all those streets too.

In other words, this is normal.  This is just how we live.  

I never imagined that more than a year would pass between packing and the final unpacking, which is still ahead of me.  I never imagined eight entire months in Kampala.  I trusted that this was where God wanted me, and although I have often felt crazy, I have never felt any question that I was doing the right thing.  It just turned out to be a very large right thing!

Larger in terms of time and effort, but larger in terms of meaning in our lives, as well.  When we were talking about adoption, people warned us that it wouldn't be easy; when we mentioned older-child adoption, they said it really wouldn't be easy.  And I thought, the things that are easy aren't the ones that are most worthwhile. Not to mention, anyone making a choice to be a parent because they think it's going to be easy should think about their choices a little bit harder!  We went through all those thoughts about adoption itself, but I didn't know I would go through them with my children's country.  This year hasn't been easy -- it is probably the hardest thing I have ever done.  But in the end, we have gained so much from Uganda.

I have hated it here sometimes.  I have hated my situation, I have hated the culture, I have hated the entire country.  And I think that's fair; I think you don't truly make something yours when you idealize it or insist on focusing on the positive (or just the negative, for that matter).  But I have also found things that touch my heart and my mind.  I have made friendships that will change my life.  I have had conversations that never would have been possible if I weren't living this life.  I have seen beneath the surface and felt things in my heart.

But what is probably stronger than all that, is that I have hated it, and I have kept on.  I have come to define myself as living in Uganda.  My frustration has changed from something that is directed outward, towards an "other," to being at something that I know that I am part of.  Maybe I have a terrible day with some things that are so Ugandan going wrong -- miscommunication, being cheated, cars breaking down, coughing from the dusty roads.  But I go back in my own home, I make what I like for dinner, I gather my children around me in bed and smell their clean hair as I read bedtime stories, and we relax and think about the stories (and our Bedtime Reading Rules; we always need reminders about those), and our bodies melt into each other and I know that we love each other and that even though things are going wrong, I am filling their emotional cups with love and contentment.  And that's Uganda too.  We're not retreating from the Uganda-ness, we're going to our own special corner of it.

And we've become a Ugandan-American family.  My blond son says "even me" instead of "me too," and a hundred other phrases without thinking about them.  When he does think about it, he can slip entirely into African English, and asks me to "you pooot me he-ah" to refill his cup ("you put me here," like "put it here for me").  When he doesn't think at all, he can follow basic conversation in Luganda.  The girls speak English with an African accent, but Buttercup's is mild, and their vocabulary is filled with American words, and sometimes they forget the Luganda ones.  The phrases even slip off my tongue, and we all can say or understand "sorry for paining you" as easily as "I'm sorry I hurt you."  Everyone talks about whether we need to go sou-sou, and wanting the omunyo to sprinkle on our food.  We dress in clothes that are like what Africans wear, but what Americans would buy.  We eat mangoes and matoke, yogurt and honey, roasted maize and bananas, chocolate chip cookies and cheese.  The girls like nutritional yeast on their rice as much as "soup," and Emerson eats "food and soup" at school as long they cut the tomatoes into very small pieces.  I walk more slowly and my conversation has more pauses than it used to.  The kids are learning two sets of manners, which does not confuse them at all, although using any manners whatsoever can be difficult.  And most of all, we all share dozens and hundred of memories of our world.  Our mutual world, that we all know.  We describe this person that we talked to, or the store we mean is the one near where all the goats are, or the time when Cinderella market had a Santa Claus outside and Hibiscus thought it was real.  And the girls even remind us of American memories, like that Emerson rode a horse on Uncle Mike's farm, and tell again about the time that Mama thought Bubba was going to eat her food and she put it in her mouth all at once.  All of it is swirled up together in what is our own family story.  Our family, that is now and always will be both Ugandan and American.

I have said that I want to go back home, and I do, and now I actually have plans to do it.  I look around myself, and first of all I can't imagine that I'll be leaving this; my cozy living room and the rocky red dirt roads and the smell of fires.  I'll be glad to be getting back to my husband and my dogs and my normal life, but it's going to be hard to leave.  How hard, I don't even know yet; I think it usually hits about two weeks after it's gone!  But I think Uganda and I have turned a corner; have made peace with each other; have become something together.

As I wrote that it seemed self-indulgent to imply that in any way I have changed a country, but as I think about it, I have.  Miss B said that I was the most patient family she had ever worked with, in an admiring superlative.  I was introducing myself to some other adoptive parent the other day, and when I mentioned how long I've been here she replied, "oh, you're the one who's been here for eight months; you've become an urban legend around here!"  I'm sure in all my conversation and support and suggestions I have somehow influenced the course of my children's small school.  Some of the conversations I have sought to learn more about Uganda have probably given someone a different insight.  And then the tiny things: I've lived in an area where there aren't many white people, there aren't many transracial families, there aren't many women on their own.  All these hundred of people who have stared at me, or laughed at me, or bargained with me, or gotten to know what kind of fruit I like to buy, or complimented or scolded the way I wrap my child; all these people have changed their perspectives in some small way.

As for me, the transformation came in the last few weeks.  Around Christmas I was feeling worn down to the bone, and I didn't know if I could make it any farther.  But I did, and I kept going, and I found things to smile about.  And then finally, the children got on the school bus and waved and drove away.  Buttercup and I ate breakfast on the patio, and the sun was a nice gentle golden color and everything was green.  And life seemed so normal, and content, and manageable.  I realized in that instant that I didn't actually hate Uganda, I hated having to run errands with three bored children on an interminable break from school.  As soon as our routine was back in place, we all became ourselves again, and settled into our normal life.

And now it's time to pack the suitcases, give the pantry away.  Decide what we care about and what we leave behind.  Another January, another getting ready to fly away from another chapter in my life.

It hasn't been an easy year.  There has been suffering over administrative difficulties of adoption; there has been suffering over becoming a family through adoption; there has been suffering about doing all that as a solo parent.  There has also been struggling with Uganda itself, and I have gone through periods of excitement, and frustration, and appreciation, and anger, and acceptance, and weariness, and jadedness.  And not thinking about it, just living my life.

Because this is our life that we are leaving.  We haven't been on hold for the last year, we have been living.  And these three children and I, we have made a life, we have made a family here in the hills above Lake Victoria.

We have made ourselves a home here in Uganda.  We started out by leasing an apartment, and noticing all the smells, and being charmed by the outdoor markets, and struggling with understanding the accent.  But the months have gone by, and the tears and the anger and the friendships.  All those details have faded into something normal, something that is part of ourselves.

We have earned ourselves a home.

Pictures from Kenya

Our first day....

We spent a long time over breakfast, due to the presence of legos.  A new lego set will do that to a boy!  Then we went out walking, which was fine for a while, but Emerson wanted a more directed activity.  I offered up things to see downtown, eating lunch, or museums: the National Museum, Train Museum, or Snake Museum.  I thought the trains would be a shoe-in, but Emerson thought about it and set his heart on the National Museum.  "I don't want to just see a museum with one thing, like snakes or trains," he told me.  "Then what if I get tired of looking at snakes or trains?  I want to go to a museum with lots of different things, and then we can go and see different parts of the museum."  He even eschewed lunch in favor of heading over to see many new things.  So to the National Museum we went, and it lived up to his hopes.  It had many different galleries, including modern art, culture, animals, skulls, and outside areas including a circle garden, flowing (but not large) botanical gardens, and other small specific gardens.  We also had lunch.

Then we took another cab to a big mall.  I was hoping to get some of the shopping in for things that are difficult to find in Uganda.  Indeed, I found a new charger for the iPads in an actual Apple store, a soft measuring tape longer than 20 inches in an actual fabric store, and some new clothes.  That took a while, of course, but I hope I have something kind of wearable and respectable now.  I think our clothes are getting to be in as bad of shape as the locals, which I don't mind wearing to go buy bananas, but I'm beginning to feel a little silly going to the lawyer's office like that!

The specific stories are written on each photo:
Pictures in Kenya

To Kenya!

I am writing this fro the National Museum of Nairobi.  That's right, Nairobi.  We had to do something about the problem that, for those of us who are America, our Ugandan visas are running out.  So we left the girls with their teacher's family, and Mark got us tickets for Nairobi.  So I spent most of Christmas Day packing and making calls, and we took off on the morning of the 26th.  Because this is Uganda, nothing can go smoothly, and in this case Uganda Air lost or didn't notice our tickets until right before we were supposed to leave.  I tried to contact them all day on the 25th to no avail, and I had figured that they weren't working on Christmas (although you would think that the airport would have someone in it!).  Then, of all things, I got an email at MIDNIGHT apologizing for the inconvienance, and that they would have the ticket resolved by our flight in the morning.  When we went to check in at 10 they still didn't have our reservation, but with a little bit of searching they found it.  Whew!

So Emerson and I flew to Kenya, and here we are!  When I was a child traveling with my father in the summers, I kept a running tally and I had visited the same number of countries as I was years old, for quite a while.  Then I got behind in my late teens, but a year in Europe in college solved that.  This trip has gone on for a while but hasn't added many new countries, so I'm sure I'm behind now, but Emerson has turned 5 and entered his 5th country!

As we drove out of the airport, my little third-culture boy was silent for a while, watching the scenery pass by.  Finally he commented, with amazement, "this reminds me of driving to Portland!"    Now, what little American boy would drive past an acacia-filled savanna, then Massai with their huge herds of Brahman cattle in the median, then Asian-looking modern manufacturing building and bulk stores, and comment on how much it looked like Oregon?!  But I knew what he meant: it was because we were driving on this thing that was flat, and paved, and went on straight in both directions, with no cows or pushcarts in the middle of it, allowing the cars to use their accelerators without engaging the steering wheel in dramatic maneuvers.  We haven't seen a highway in a long time.

We got to our hotel, which is fairly nice in a middle-of-the-road kind of way.  I was looking forward to taking advantage of what was left of the afternoon to walk around and see a little bit of Nairobi from the street, but the girl at the desk told us flatly that it was not safe to walk out because it was a holiday and there were not many people on the street.  She conceeded that we could walk right in front of the hotel, on this street, very near here.  So we went out walking, and it seemed to be a little bit of a market area, with small shops open and vendors selling clothes and shoes on tarps and on tables under umbrellas on the sidewalk.  All of which is familiar to us, but the vendors are much more agressive here than what we are used to in Uganda, and they kept bothering us to come in and buy.  We took a longer walk than what the hotel lady probably advised, but I kept within the loose market-ish area, and made sure that there were plenty of people (including well-dressed ones) around us, even though there were still some pedestrians beyond the shops.  I was thinking, that if this is "no one is out," then Nairobi must be a very crowded city indeed!

This morning the holiday is over, but the desk clerk still did not approve of us going out.  I asked for directions on how to walk to the city center, which I knew we were near, thinking that we could walk around and see what it was like when we were there.  She said where would we like to go, and she could call a taxi.  I said we wanted to walk around, and which direction to start out.  She laughed and said I could not walk with the baby, we could take a taxi.  I said the baby could walk just fine, and took out the map in my guidebook to show her some landmarks that we could aim for.  She called another bellboy over to give me directions to a cinema, and I said I didn't want to go to a cinema, and he offered to call a taxi so I could get to the cinema.  I didn't want to go to the cinema.  By then he was looking at my map, and pointed out a cinema on it, which I STILL didn't want to go to.  (Maybe they teach map-reading in Kenyan schools; most Ugandans don't even know what they are.)  I said I wanted to walk, and he said I couldn't walk with the baby, and we should take a taxi.  I asked which direction was downtown, and they told me not to walk, they would call a taxi.  I said that we were just plain going to go out of the building and start walking if they didn't tell me which direction to go in, and finally yet another bellhop came over and took me to a window, and pointed which direction to go.  It took all of ten minutes to walk downtown, even at five-year-old pace!



When I go on a trip I usually bring teabags, but this time when I was packing I glanced at them and remembered that on all the previous trips so far, there has been no way to get hot water or mugs, so they don't do me any good.  So I didn't bring them.  And there is an electric kettle an accessories right in our hotel room!  We had a similarly effective conversation with that bellhop, who was pointing out the amenities, including the kettle.
"...and you can have your coffee," he concluded, indicating instant coffee packets.
"Do you have tea?" I asked.
"Yes, it is right there," he answered, pointing to the coffee.
"But are there also tea bags?" I asked.
"You want coffee?  Very nice, it is coffee right here," he replied.
"No, I don't want coffee, I want tea."
"Yes, we have very nice coffee, any time you want, it is right here."
"But I don't want coffee!"
"Yes, is okay, you like coffee, is here."
"No, I don't like coffee, I like tea."
"Whenever you want, here it is, you can drink."
"Tea bags!!!  Do you have tea bags!!!  I do NOT WANT COFFEE, I am asking if you have tea!"
"Oh, for tea you call the restaurant, number 256, they bring you right away nice tea."  (For a price, of course.)
I think this is an excellent example of the African representation of Yes Is Better Than No.  It doesn't matter so much if you answer the actual question, it is important that you are very agreeable.  I think the Asian variant is to just say "yes" whether or not you have any intention of following up; the one around here seems to keep answering a slightly different question.  Some solution to the not-saying-no problem seems to be in existence in many places around the world, but however you find it, it tends to be highly unpopular with Americans.



I am used to looking like I stand out, but being able to act like I fit in, but now in Kenya I look out of place and I actually am.  I don't mind needing to ask questions to get around, or taking pictures of tourist-y things, but I don't need to be treated like an idiot.  Or a baby.  Or like I just got off the plane from the civilized West.

For instance, I know how to bargain and not pay twice as much for a taxi ride.  Although the expression of deep and abiding grief (upon arriving at a fair price) was a charming touch.

I would prefer not being told about how to walk down the street.  I know to keep my hand on my purse, and how to avoid getting run over by random vehicles not following traffic rules.

I really have very little interest in charming outdoor markets with the tomatoes piled in cute towers.  You can tell me where the nice, shiny Western-style establishments are.

I don't need to "take my little boy to see animals, very good price."

We know what chapatis are.  Oh, do we ever know what chapatis are!!

And the absolute clincher: today we were walking around the museum and I was taking some pictures of Emerson, as most people were doing with their children.  At one point he was looking at an exhibit with a couple of little Kenyan children.  As I came closer, their father said something about a picture, which I didn't quite catch, but I apologized for taking a picture of his children, and explained that I had just meant to photo my son.  But that wasn't what he meant.  He lined the kids up and offered them to my camera again, so I could take a picture of Emerson together with his children.

What, so I can have a photo of my little boy along with some black children?  For local flavor?  Um, thanks; I think we have that one covered!!!