Home Isn't Home Anymore

Part 1 of 3: The Old Me

Sunrise over Murchison Falls, Uganda

Years back, very few things got me. I let things go. For instance, in my first year of boarding school, I maintained an exceedingly passive demeanor towards a school bully (one year ahead) who’d wrongly assumed I was her kind of victim. She got nowhere with me as I let her entertain the others with jabs that didn’t have an iota of effect on me - she wasn’t important to me. She looked increasingly stupid with each daily attempt and finally gave up. In high school, I ignored incendiary comments constantly thrown my way at assembly time by a pack of feral boys. They weren’t happy that despite being female, I still insisted on exercising my right to a front row seat during the televised premiership soccer matches. It incensed them to no end. At university, I maintained a hi-hi friendship with the strangest of guys. I’d dumped his ass because of a lack of effort on his side.
He asked for a second chance and I gave us another shot, but then, he dumped me a week later. What an ego. I was infinitely patient with those I regarded as friends. A girlfriend once convinced me to cancel my evening movie plans and go dancing with her instead. An hour into our pre-dance drinks, she dropped it - Would I mind if I went dancing on my own? What?! Why?! She had a date and he’d arrived to pick her up. I’d either been helping her not look out of place as she waited or dancing was plan B incase the date didn’t show. Whatever her reasons, I didn’t hold it against her and meant it when I said it was alright. I would still have helped her wait, albeit less made-up had she been honest. I took my dressed-to-the-nines self back home and went to sleep. “Idiot!” you say? Well, see, it’d drowned on a teenage me that getting easily pissed off took one nowhere. As soon as my boobies popped and my hips got a roundness to them, I attracted all manner of vile sexual comments from street hooligans who felt they had a right to every female’s body. They’d catcall, blow kisses, pinch my bum, call me ‘sweet-babe’ and if I didn’t smile back, label me a tired little whore. There was nothing I could do but allow myself a minute of searing white rage and imagine just how cool it’d be to have Karate skills….but then, I’d realize that one couldn’t singlehandedly beat up a group of 20 idol young men. Besides, most women in Uganda experience(ed) this harassment.

So, letting things go? Well, that isn’t happening anymore and it’s made visits back to Uganda a little… well, lets see…

Yearning for home started the same way as always…

For months through the winter freeze, imagined the sheer joy of waking up to a sunny morning and being confident that I would need neither sweater nor jacket once outside. I envisioned myself sitting cross-legged on a woven mat while polishing off a bottomless basket of all manner of fresh fruit. I ached for the friendliness and warmth of the people. My mind started playing tricks. The arduous trek that’s trudging through the masses in downtown Kampala seemed like a romantic walk. I chose to remember it differently. I started feeling that my happiness would greatly be enhanced once back home. I wanted to throw my head back and laugh out loud and know nobody would think me insane. I wanted to visit the pork-joints and have a large plate of the roast-ies and side dish in front of me and consume it with unladylike relish and not be judged for it. I wanted to haggle when shopping! So, I bought tickets to my paradise.

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Part 2 of 3: My Paradise...or not