Nimerudi

I have returned. After 2 days of never ending flights and everlasting layovers, I step off the plane and am hit with the hot muggy mid-afternoon African air. To my right is the airport terminal, not be confused with a 3 door crumbling strip mall, and to my left the vast lake Victoria. I have returned. Jua Kali man. The sun is still so strong. I sleep walk my way through customs, crack a smile as I always do when I see my luggage on the belt (this simple joy comes after my first trip out here where I spent the first week without luggage) and wander my way to the arrivals gate where someone is to be holding a sign with my name on it. It almost felt like the corporate world where people in suits hold signs with the name of other people in suits. But then the non suit-wearing man holding the paper with my name on it gave me a big hug, and all felt right in the world.

Peace Corps was more cush than this. Emma, my greeter, and I immediately get on a matatu (minibus-public transit). The conductor decides to jam my two large bags in the back, where they of course do not fit, but maybe repeatedly slamming the door on them will work. At this moment, I am glad for my gut instinct that told me to keep the bag with the $700 camera in it with me. Apparently slamming the door on my bags eventually worked, because we are quickly speeding down the roads, through the hills that surround Lake Victoria. As we climb one hill, a matatu speeds past us honking and pointing to our rear. The back door had come open, and all of my worldly possessions threatened to spill out the back of the matatu. We stop to slam the door a few more times, and continue on.

Through the window I watch the women carrying water in their bright kangas, the mzee pushing his bike with bedroom furniture stacked over the back, the school kids drinking fanta outside shops and the street hawkers with their abundant collections of worthless shit stitch into the red African soil and the outstretched fingers of the great lake. Nimerudi.

The matatu stops. I am back at the old taxi park – Kampala’s chaotic, vibrant, potholed answer to NYC grand central. I help Emma into my backpack, grab my timbuk2 and duffel and we make our way to the final leg of my trip, another matatu, though this time, we opt to put the luggage on our laps.

We alight at a dirt road marked with an official Educate! sign. As I am led into my compound, my mouth drops. In front of me is a beautiful yard with mango, avocado and orange trees and a HUGE house with an external spiral stairway leading to the rooftop deck. The house itself is also the office. There are two large bedrooms, I share one with Maggie, a volunteer who arrived 2 months before me, and my boss, Angelica, has the other. There are two smaller rooms which serve as offices, a large common area which is the main office/meeting space and a large yet very ill-equipped kitchen. Out back there is a boys quarters with two rooms where Connie and Barbara our office staff/mentors and Joe, the Business Coordinator, stays along with whatever male visitor happens to be here at the moment.

I’m greeted by Maggie, who turned 24 this day. She has one of those kind faces and a voice that even when angry still carries joy. I drop my shit in our room and step into the hot shower. I let out a big sigh - in addition to the last 48 hours of airport grime, I wash away the incredibly difficult last year and a half of my life. Nimerudi…

Joe gives me a brief tour of our immediate world. We have electricity (most days), flushing toilets and a hot shower. As well as a man, Emma, who cleans, does dishes, and washes clothes. When I first heard this, I vowed to not have him wash my clothes. Then I realized that when I am lucky enough to find myself with a day off, I do not want to spend half of it scrubbing my clothes and wrists raw.
After living and working here for 3 weeks, the house seems much smaller than it first appeared.

The neighborhood is confused. There is a lot of building taking place. Big houses strewn about haphazardly intermixed with small wooden dukas (shacks that sell veggies and staple food items). When feeling ambitious enough, there is a big hill for me to run up with a breathtaking view of the lake. And gasping for breath I tend to be. Rolex’s are huge here! There are about three stands in 100 yards where a man occasionally sits with his jiko, and makes omelets rolled in chapatti (I ate two today). A few days a week, the morning hours are filled with the sound of weed-whackers. Yes. The people out here are rich enough to grow and maintain green lawns, but not rich enough to buy a proper lawn mower. So. The landscapers cut vast lawns with one tiny weed-whacker.

The power goes out. Maggie and Joe take me up to the rooftop to gaze at the dark sky, talk of African politics, enjoy some tusker malt and smoke. I decide not to start that last habit just yet…