Home is where you take your tea.

Chats about spending four months in East Africa prevailed in my last weeks pre-departure.

Commonly asked question: “Are you nervous about anything?”

Immediate answer: “I’ll do a two week homestay within the first month. And I’m terrified.”

The homestay seemed an abyss of awkward forced social interaction. I imagined myself committing every cultural foe passé; imagined breaking down while struggling to bath with a bucket of cold water in the dark, desperate for a conversation without endless exhausting miscommunication. I didn’t feel as nauseous as I did that June day my songadaysib took a buzzer to my curls, but similar emotional waves crashed. And just like I knew I needed to shave my head because I was scared to do so, I came down on a neutral anticipatory calm the morning homestays began, realizing this was something I also needed to do because I was afraid of it.

“Hello Fear, how are you?” [shaking hands]

Now I am on the other side of homestays, back in my dorm room with my roommate Aimee and my tall white mosquito net. Again this semester gives me an opportunity to reflect on a mere portion of its whole; attempt to make some sense of all the individual moments and whispers each day rises and sets in. But then, of course me and my western worldview would try to make sense of the individual moments. How do I strip myself down to a shade cleaner than my JIK bleached whites, and see the past two weeks in the African eyes of community and participation, rather than individuality?

Western thought is built on the basic notion “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes kicked community in the bum and said we exist because we rationalize. Existence is in individual belief, in figuring out what one believes. The Descartes of African thought may be found in the African Proverb “I am because we are.” I participate, therefore I am. I have been able to talk about the communal focus of this culture for a long time- I studied it, rationalized it, and believed it. Ish. It takes participation to understand, to experience the reprioritization inherent Western understanding must undergo here. Community is not just emphasized. Relationships actually are the priority.

Traditional African thought believes relationships to be the most important aspect of life. What would happen if we were to interact with what we believe? In The Teaching Behind the Teaching Palmer asserts that “the distinction between “out there” and “in here” would disappear; we would discover that we are in the world and the world is within us; that truth is not a statement about reality but a living relationship between ourselves and the world.” As Linda would say, “the reality is” we live what we believe, and no matter how I talk about the importance of community and relationship, I live in a culture of rational thought and deadlines. And I continue to be very pro-rational, analytical thought, but my thoughts mean nothing unless expressed in the experiential nature of relationships. I think, therefore I participate, and therefore I am. I am because we are.

Friday night, my last official homestay night, we took family “snaps” (photos). Mom lent me a traditional Buganda dress, called a gomez, for the occasion. The sleeves of gomezi have princess puffs that are at least 3 inches tall. They are worn with a (often metallic) 8-10 inch thick belt tied around the hips and draping to the floor. And there is so much fabric. It was fun(ny). Participatory. Perhaps in that community of moments I participated in the belief that I belonged in those family photos; I participate, therefore I am Nassali. And I will continue to participate. On Sunday I visited Flavia at her hostel. She introduced me to her friends as her sister. Logically, okay, I'm not Flavia's sister. But on Sunday I was.