Uganda Chapter 14: Out of Africa

Don't you dare roll your eyes! You totally knew that I would use that title at some point.

Firstly, some house cleaning. Should you want to pass my Africa revelations on to your friends, or bookmark them for your future reference so that you can read them over and over and over again (tears welling, no doubt, at the emotion they evoke), or whatnot, there is now an index. Here. Click here.

If you want a reference point for ALL the GAZILLION photos of Africa, you can click here.

And now, this is hard.

It's hard to write the Africa "wrap-up" entry, because in some ways, once I've transferred everything out of my written journal and into this online one, the trip ends a second time. The process of getting to transfer my journal and incorporate the photos, that was almost like reliving the trip and all of its amazing magical moments. And I'm finding that I'm having just as difficult a time with the "virtual" ending of my trip as I did with the actual, real-life ending of my trip. I cried and cried and cried on the plane ride from London to New York. I had a SUPER HARD bout of depression when I got home. Like, the type of depression that causes people who know me to seriously worry that we're on our way to someplace very bad. I know several people who have gone to Africa, and I'm told that the adjustment back, from the most soulful area of the world to probably the most soul-less area of the world (and, for certain, Las Vegas is the single most soul-les place on earth), is hard. I struggled. I'm still struggling in some moments. There are moments where I just can't help it. I imagine Africa, and I'm pained to be here. And I am not untraveled or inexperienced with adjusting back to normal life. After a long exploration-trip, I usually have some adjustment issues for about a week, but not the type of soul crushing, crying at night, listless type of loss I'm still trying to cope with a bit after Africa. I'm glad I took that trip when I did. It's the end of the year, and that means thinking about the changes you want to make in the next year, and I have a feeling that my next year, based largely on how this trip impacted me, will have bigger changes than any year previously.

I don't know though how to explain the difference in me. British Nick the Lawyer has referenced a couple of times in email that the trip probably changed me in ways I didn't think it would - and I keep wanting to tell him that he's right and explain how it did. But I can't find the words - and I'm good with words! That place is just closer to God in all ways. The people share their souls openly, the land is different, the sky is different, the energy that passes through it is different. Ashleigh - JenR, help me here. No, you two probably can't describe it either, because when you got back you were the same way. You could say that the feeling in Africa is different, but you couldn't explain how. I'm working on the words, but I think that Ashleigh said it best when she got back. She believes that anybody who's been to Africa carries a piece of Africa in their soul when they come back. And I would take it one step further. I would say that you carry a piece of Africa in your soul that is a little more vibrant than the rest of your soul, and you just want to find a way to make everything about you feel like that one part does.

This is probably making no sense, and it's making me cry to write it, so let's move on.

On the morning we leave, I am not in any way joking when I say that the animals come out to say goodbye to us. As we are driving out of Lake Mburo, herds of antelope, zebra, warthogs and even a group of black vervet monkeys run alongside the truck. And as we pull out, I look at Lisa and say, "This was a near perfect trip. It really was."

Uganda, Africa really, is a hard place. It is hard to see such a warm, loving population with so much less than you have in material ways so that everything is a struggle on basic levels, and it's hard to then have to face the fact that they have so much more than you do in spiritual ways, and that really gives them more. It is hard to think of the seemingly timeless tragedies that befall that continent: disease, natural disaster, the inability of a gentle population to truly defend themselves against aggressors like Idi Amin. It is hard to feel helpless there, knowing that even if you gave up everything you had and spent the rest of your life trying to improve the situation of Africa, you wouldn't even be able to scrape the surface. And, yes, Eric, to struggle with the idea that even if you did help, you'd be making them weaker and dependent. It is hard not to hate some of what British colonization meant to Africa, it is hard not to think that a little more British colonization wouldn't have been a good thing, too. It is hard to be around a people who will open up love to you within thirty seconds of meeting you and who smile more freely than any other people I have ever known and who honestly carry kindness in their hearts so evidently that it almost glows, and then to return to your home where everybody wears armor at all times.

Maybe, what I'm realizing, is the fact that it is so hard there yet so much more beautiful in every way than my life (and my life is pretty beautiful) is what changes you. It opens you up to the awareness that there is a whole different way of feeling something and that that amazing, open, kind, warm beautiful way of feeling can exist in the hardest of conditions. And I have hard work to do to strip away all of the beliefs I've had about how "hard things" are what break the beauty of a soul down and stop using it as an excuse for not exuding all of those things all of the time. And the idea of doing that, here, is scary. Maybe that's it. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out.

This is getting way too depressing! Let's just record the annual end of trip survey and wrap this. I'll keep my crazy, post-Africa mind wanderings to myself. At least for a while.

Best Meal
Lisa: The very first meal we had at Par'aa. That was uniquely amazing.
Me: I love food. The best was definitely the roasted goat meat and cassava off the side of the road, but the avocado soup at Semiliki and the carrot salad at Mihingo were also amazing.



Best Shower (trust me, remember this note if you go to Uganda)
Lisa & Jocelyn: Semiliki



Best Room
Lisa: Semiliki
Jocelyn: Ndali


Semiliki

Ndali

Best Overall Food
Lisa & Jocelyn: Mihingo

Best View
Lisa: Mihingo
Jocelyn: Ndali and Semiliki


Mihingo

Ndali

Semiliki

Favorite Activities:
Lisa: Bwindi Gorilla Tracking, Semiliki Jungle Walk, Kibale Chimp Tracking
Jocelyn: Bwindi Gorilla Tracking, Murchison Falls Game Drive





Worst Meal
Lisa & Jocelyn: Hotel Africana before we left Kampala

Worst Shower
Lisa: Hotel Africana
Jocelyn: Mwea. Yuck. My water was yellow.

Worst Room
Lisa: Mwea (two nights and they still couldn't fix a door lock)
Jocelyn: Pa'raa (bats! walls so thin I could hear Lisa pee!)

Favorite Bird:
Lisa: Malachite Bee Eater
Jocelyn: African Fisher Eagle


Malachite Bee Eater

Most Moving Site
Lisa: Baby Zebra Birth
Jocelyn: The family moment with the gorillas



Favorite Person You Met
Lisa: James
Jocelyn: James & Julius, though Aubrey was the most "entertaining"



Favorite Trip Quotes!
"There is no hurry in Uganda."
"The fire starts here. When they are German tourists, the fire starts here."
"I HAVE NO TRAVEL INSURANCE."
"Uganda. I really had no idea."
"I am THE Andrew."
"But, it's paid for already..."
"Those who are late for lunch, eat bones."
"Are YOU ready for CHOGM?"

Favorite James Memorty
Lisa: The entire conversation about how I needed to have babies
Jocelyn: The moment where he explained that he loved Halle Berry movies



Lisa's Favorite Jocelyn Memories
Funny: Begrudgingly admitting that I was right about the Shoebill being amazing
Moving: The moment when she cried at the gorillas



Jocelyn's Favorite Lisa Memories
Funny: The passion with which she would bargain over the equivalent of seventy US cents
Moving: How proud I was of her when, sick as she was, she finished and tore through that ridiculously hard six hour jungle hike in Bwindi



Favorite Souvenir
Lisa: Ebony carved mask!
Jocelyn: It's actually a photo, the one that's my Angelina shot!



Thing You Will Miss the LEAST About Africa
Lisa: traffic, diesel, roads
Jocelyn: roads and the complete absence of any sense of time.

Thing You Will Miss the MOST About Africa
Lisa: avocados (seriously), the food, the ability to live so much outdoors
Jocelyn: the warmth of the people and the closeness of nature and God

Yes, it's true. I am counting the days until Mongolia. Everybody has an addiction. The aliveness of traveling and exploring is mine.






sigh.