Look your fill.

I sat on the banks of the Nile; wrote Linda a letter and listened to SongaDaySibs under a thatch-awning. SongaDay haunts me every time I try to concentrate. I turn on the iPod shuffle, inherited from that melodic sib, and attempt to read “Mission to Kala” for literature class, or write a letter to the ‘rents and suddenly mio fratello is strumming and humming in my ears. I hit the halfway point like a brick, lonely at the idea of returning to a continent and a campus that has gone on without me. My dear roommate Aimee is from California. Sarah, who’s frequent “meow” still kicks up my feet at the idea of an actual cat at my heels, is a Chicago chick. Goodbyes seem far away, until I think of how quickly and richly this time has already passed. And those new friends will at least be in the states, n’er mind Mercy, Florence, Nyio… So I find myself pining for home, but only because it seems safer than continuing to invest in what is bound to be left behind. The honeymoon is over. Now I’m choosing to love this, fearful of what leaving love will feel like. Within fear though, there is faith. In that letter written to Mom: “I can’t help but reflect on the past two year’s intensity…In spite of the intimidatingly open future I am bound to faith by what has been incessantly made manifest. Faith that, though unknown, the future is worth waiting for. I’m sitting under a thatch roof, looking out at Lake Victoria and the Nile, joyfully fearful at what could possibly come next.”

My arms are sore from planting grass at St. Stephen’s Primary School on Tuesday. I arrived to start my service project, and was presented with a large metal hoe and pointed toward a grassless red dirt area about a ½ basketball court. Hard, cracked, and dry dirt, aching to be dug and planted so the rag-clothed children could play barefooted on green rather than perpetual red. For the next thirty minutes eight year old boys put my hoe-digging ability to shame. Each girl who kneeled down to hand me a chunk of grass roots incited guilt that I would be bowed down to, simply because of my skin color. Kneeling is a strong form in this culture- my homestay siblings always kneeled when giving our parents anything- representing respect for those older or of “higher” stature. The grass-kneelers reminded me of saying “I love you” to my Southern campers a few summers ago, and receiving “yes maam” in reply. So, I remind myself that guilt is general and conviction is specific- this guilt is a superficial knee-jerk, and I need to accept ‘the kneel’ as oddly, but sincerely, kind.

When we ran out of grass to be planted the project paused until next week. The teacher supervising retrieved four badminton rackets and a birdie, handed them to me, and suddenly the 50 or so boys were clamoring to be the first to play. Yes, at least a 50 students to 4 rackets ratio, with one non-Luganda-speaking mzungu to organize. Thirty minutes later I was laughing amidst them all though, watching this somehow work, and remembered once again that I am in Africa. I stood on a hillside, amidst so many dark faces, looking out at the Mukono dusk, and wondered again how it is that I got here.

“Every evening as the sun went down, the distinct features of the village and surrounding forest merged in dark anonymity, and night spread across the sky like a great velvet cloth, yet scarcely more somber than the tropical undergrowth which it obscured. And every evening, watching this metamorphosis, I thought: look your fill. A darkening picture, perhaps; but look closely, you cannot risk forgetting it. When you remember it in after time, think of your pleasure at recalling every minutest detail, even the infinite gradations of shading in the evening sky, or the bird in the distant forest, sadly celebrating the faithlessness of each fickle day, like a boy weeping for his mother’s death. Think of the grey, neutral banana-trees, their sharp outlines melting into the darkness till they take on the semblance of ghosts. Think, last, of the moon, rising in splendid self-annunciation behind the tangled trees, unlooked-for and incredible, slowly climbing till she rode clear at least, tranquil as a goddess, gleaming, radiant” (Mission to Kala, 51).

I cannot risk forgetting this. Thanks for helping me set it down for remembrance sake.