Christmas dawned bright and clear on this little island in the middle of the Nile, reachable only by canoe. Considering that I was away from family and old friends and the familiarity of Christmas at home (including cold weather) – it was the best possible, breathtakingly gorgeous and spent with good people.
Surrounded on all sides by jungle and the fierce whitewater of this section of the Nile, it was magical. Just the previous morning, the island was shrouded in a dense fog, giving it an eerily mystical feeling.
Wonderful staff delivered French Press coffee every morning to this luxurious suite worthy of a James Bond movie, but perhps the best surprise was a perfect Gingerbread Man cookie left on my pillow on Christmas eve.
After so much comfort and pampering, including the claw-footed tub on a private deck overlooking the rapids, it was a rude, bumpy, dusty, hard re-entry back into my real life here in Gulu.
The dry season is upon us and that makes Gulu Town even more of a dust bin that usual. Arrived home hot, tired and filthy from just the ride home a good portion of it spent on a “short cut” on washboard roads.
As the car bounced along, cast clouds of dust billowed up from the floorboards of the van, not to mention the engulfing red clouds that threatened to consume the can when it encountered another car. Came in to at least discover that we had WATER, which I am told was “not there” for the entire time I was away. No electricity, but water (thank you God) and that is precisely what we all needed. Cold showers were had by all and spirits began to be restores. Who needs hot water!
There were myriad unpleasant surprises upon walking into the house, but most have been remedied. Had to hobble around town and replace a fan that had been used in my absence and was essentially “finished.” These things in the regular world are not issues, but in Uganda where everything is ten times harder to accomplish and it all has to be done “on foot,” if you’re a PCV, it sometimes seems insurmountable – especially on 1.5 feet.
Still – I am re-acclimating. After four nights of nothing but the sounds of Nile rapids, I am back to the all night thudding of an undefinable, but excruciatingly rhythmic bass beat coming from at least several directions. Ear plugs don’t cut the bass frequencies and it’s so pervasive I can’t even go cut the wires!I doubled up on a sleeping pill last night and managed to fall asleep after bouts of stomach-wars from some unknown food – or just TOO MUCH food, because I ate everything that wasn’t nailed down over Christmas. And it was all excellent!
I have friends here and we are easing back into the life that will be “normal” for a while. We eased re-entry by watching three episodes of The Closer last night and it was heaven. Have more to go tonight and then to conjure something to do for New Year’s Eve. Can I stay awake until Mid-night??? Do I even want to? But there’s something to be said about welcoming 2012 in the heart of Africa.
On another note, and I can’t remember if I mentioned this – the 50 foot tall retaining wall that marks the left side of the long, steep downwardly-sloping drive into PC HQ collapsed. Not all of it, but a good third of the portion beyond the guard house where all vehicles get the “bomb check.” It makes HQ inaccessible and has thrown everything into more of a CF than seems reasonable. So things like our Inservice Language Training (1 week) and the Inservice Training (another week) have been cancelled. All this was to happen in January, giving us all a chance to re-group, if not gripe about things.
Another two people have ET’d – gone home to comfort and such. It was not unexpected, just handled in a bizarre way. We are told than some of this will become mundane – and that may be so, but I hope I never lose my sense of awareness of this place, never stop looking at it with the wonder of what is beautiful and poignant, at the contradictions of filth and suffering juxtaposed with a generosity of spirit and sense of laughter that exists everywhere.
So on that note, I wish you a beautiful New Year filled with possibilities, discoveries and gratitude.