The importance of being called.

My homestay family calls me ‘Nissali.’ My peers here call me ‘Kimberly.’ My phone vibrates to its “Liszt” ring tone and I hear ‘Kimi’ called to from a kitchen table in Bozrah, Connecticut. The story of Genesis accounts a God calling his very creation into being- inbreathing life and calling forth purpose. My homestay Mom asked to be called by her first name. It was her mother’s name. Perhaps in the breathing forth of “Deborah” I call into being her mother within her- pull out the strength and love Deborah desires to reflect of her namesake.

Is a different self called to being with each name that resounds in my direction? Am I more clever when called Nissali and more studious when called Kimberly? I find that I feel more serious in response to Kimberly, but I think that is more a reflection of what “Kimberly Dawn!” meant on the rare occasion I heard the tight tone of reprimand growing up. I find my innards growing warm and cozy at the incantation of Kimi, but because the voice that most often calls it forth is the woman that carried me forth into being, and the kitchen table from whence it come stands in the presence of tea cup memories. Years of confessions, consolations, and cohering resonate in that kitchen incantation.

Children on Kampala Road say “bye.” Somewhere in translation the general populous of children lost “hi” but caught “bye,” so they wave hello and say goodbye as I nod my head and walk forward. The even more personal of the impish beings skittering in their holy threads yell “mzungu” or “give us dollars.” What are they attempting to call out of me? I don’t think they really just want my American dollars or meager, though humorous, attempt at a Luganda “hello, how are you?”

“Oli otya nnyabo?”

I fell on the way home. Apparently the red dirt called me forth. If it hadn’t been for Sarah’s presence, I would have been cozily dropped into the cement crevice of the drainage ditch that runs between the road and the walking path. Instead I just wiped out on the uneven terrain, and Sarah and I laughed at our selves while I patted the red dirt off my right side before assessing the damage on my leg. Its relatively minor- no worries. Would Nassali, named for cleverness, misstep in such a way though? Would Kimi from Connecticut be walking along Kampala Road in Mukono, Uganda?

I contemplate the self that is being daily called into being. My self. I attempt to imagine how the simultaneous selves within me are merging into a gelatinous mass of unity in a place so far outside any self I have ever experienced before. Arriving in Entebbe over a month ago was surreal. The disconnect between me and here was that I was still following myself around. I came all the way to East Africa, and I’m still here. What pieces of me will I find here and how am I fragmented into places so far from the kitchen in Connecticut?