Normal
{ September 11th, 2008 }
Email This
|
Print This | 
Creative Commons | Sphere: Related Content
Our bed is here. The septic tank is repaired. Grass is beginning to grow in the back yard again. The volunteer tomato plants have taken root and are getting bigger. Our internet connection is slow, but more or less reliable when the power is on. Life is beginning to get normal.
Normal is really good. I went to Fort Portal the other day for a meeting. I called a friend who lives there. We were going to have dinner. But when I called, she and another friend were in the process of making cookies and were going to watch movies, and she invited me. When I got to her house, Trisha and Emerald announced that they had eaten most of the peanut butter cookie dough, but that they were going to bake some anyway. That was dinner. And it was great. We looked through Trisha’s collection of pirated movies with Asian subtitles and chose season 4 of Desperate Housewives. So it was cookies and trash TV. After an episode or two Trisha made tea. It was mint tea with honey. I’ve only found black tea, and so to have mint tea with honey was really comforting, too. It was a great night.
In addition to the activity feeling really familiar, it was really nice to be with people that I didn’t need to explain myself to. Jon and I have been very conscious to not only hang out with Americans. In fact, we haven’t really even met so many Americans in Kampala. However, the other night, it was nice to be with Americans—not because they were Americans, per se, but because we share a common background, a common way of talking, and a common way of relaxing. I didn’t have to explain what I was doing in Uganda. Emerald and I did the normal, what do you do, oh, what do you do, and that was it. No one was trying to network. No one was trying to create partnership or work together or compete. It was just friends. Easy friends.
After a few episodes of watching Bree Van de Camp and crew do mean things to one another, after a couple cups of tea, and after enough cookies for several weeks, it was time to go back to my little hotel room. I got on the bus back to Kampala early the next day, and came home to Jon.
It rained a little later, and Jon and I listened to Jason Mraz while watching the rain and writing various emails. Again, normal.
Mom asked me the other day if being here feels real yet. If it’s a real life. And I think that it’s getting to be. It’s nice to know that we’ll be going home in December and we’ll be able to see friends and family for the holidays. But being in Kampala, with Jon, and our house, and some friends is really beginning to feel like a place that we live, not a place that we’re visiting. It’s nice. It’s getting to be normal.
