To Efe

So am left with a few days to leave for Rio de Janeiro – a place filled with unbounded and unlimited passion so I’ve read. This time am not thinking of love, am already in love so am going to see more of the world and get work done.

The plan is this, Kelsy & Annie meet me at 9pm at Rio de Janiero airport we are renting a car and starting a long drive to Salvador which Kelsy believes is a two days drive, my gut tells me we shall be on that road for three days but whatever it is we shall be in Brazil!!!! The Angola of South America-whatever this means? This is the first country that I have done thorough reading about before I get there. One of my discoveries is that you can’t mention Brazil without recognizing the immense African influence, am looking forward to experiencing a place where several different people have come together and made home. As people jubilate over the formation of the state of South Sudan, am saddened that it could not be like Brazil; that people failed to make peace with one another and that separation became a solution, one of the happenings in this millennium I can’t blame on the President with only one vowel in his name - as Euginedes calls him. 

Am hoping to get plenty of perspective, the voice inside me says I will find myself in Brazil, as Voltaire once said that when we travel what we discover is always ourselves. 

The last several months in the US have been hectic, from being homeless, living with a schizophrenic pothead, finding a job, then an apartment, getting my first Credit Card in my life, losing my hair, living alone in a town with only one friend, then living on Skype to NOT doing Sister locks after planning for months to have them done, Everything strange to someone raised in Uganda. I just moved from my room to write in the loo, there is something about the loo that calms me. My father always reads and drinks his morning lemon in the loo, a kind of ritual that caught on me. Now I find myself reading and writing in the loo with no inhibitions. Needless to say the bowels agree with it too!

Since I have been working as if my life depends on it ( am sure it does to an extent) I will tell you a bit about  how I have met some of the most wonderful people at my workplace, people I would probably have never met anywhere else who give their lives to helping others. I have a weakness for the clients though, I know that am most often too compassionate that it works on my boundaries; however am learning, learning that it’s okay to feel and it’s okay to let go. So this client PR- he can be the craziest person in the world when his wires flip, yet he is my greatest delight at work. He smiles when he sees me and calls me beautiful every day. He smiles and tells me what he wants to do for the day, since I introduced him to the Library he can’t get over borrowing books, and movies. A few weeks ago we borrowed the Sound of Music; he said it was the greatest movie of all time. He watched the musical every day for 7days, sometimes three times a day, singing along and literary weeping. I must admit that it got boring after several hours. He loves to sing and do artwork; he has a set medley comprised of Ball game songs (he is an ardent fan of the Minnesota Twins), the American national anthem, Christmas carols and church hymns. PR has a fetish for signatures, whenever he meets anyone he wants to take their signature. 

I have just received a call from Guinea Bissau- who knew I would ever know people from way across the west of Africa; It’s in Cairo that I have met people from all backgrounds and states, Cairo being that place that you sometimes detest and yet can never quite let go of. It seems as if only the loveliest people go to Cairo, I have only met a few people who were just weird yet after a few months, they seemed normal like they needed that dose, the Egyptian dose that makes one live from the heart.  Some of the most amazing people in my life, I met in Cairo. People that taught me what it means to honestly love and care for others; I think of Edefe, next to my parents Edefe has inspired me to go out of my way to help those who need the help, to fight for what you believe in with everything you can and to never, never make money control you. Am sure God does know that He is supreme in my life, however there are days I find myself doing things inspired by Efe (hold it, Efe is on the phone I have to answer and tell her am writing about her)  So I did and all she said in the calmest and humblest tone that only Efe can pull off “oh Amoding am glad that you are helping people, it’s such a good thing”).I know for sure that God allowed me to meet her because then I have an earthly example of what someone who is just like me can do with the same resources I have. 

So this friend MD I met in Cairo, he has just  been released from the Gambia where he was detained by Gambian officials on charges of spreading terrorist & revolutionary ideas based on the #25jan Egyptian revolution that ousted President Mubarak from power. Now this episode will make me go into details I would rather avoid, I can only tell you patient reader that My Human Rights activist instincts and training came out like a flood; it seemed as if the moment I heard he was arrested I started to look for the keys to his handcuffs. I am often wary of vouching for people without details, yet this case brimmed falsehood all over it and so with all the resources I could master I went head on to face the African Giants in the Gambia that could turn knobs that no one else could with so much help from another friend of mine. Growing up I experienced my parents help so many people as a result of Papa’s Senior Government position; He often had contacts in high places yet never had I grasped how important it was to have such contacts until this time. Am learning that the world is so political, it may peradventure be thought that there is never such a thing as being outside the political-no matter where and how anyone chooses to live life. 

There was a parcel at my door when I came in this afternoon, it’s my passport without a visa for Brazil, its only five days to leave and I have no visa, I have a ticket, I have an apartment in Salvador, I am packed – well almost, I have put in my notice to vacate the apartment and stop work on Wednesday. I panicked for the first ten minutes then I realized that I had nothing to do about it but wait till Monday when the post office will be open and I can send the express mail with whatever they want and I realize that God is much more in control than I am at this point.

Now I really do have to rent a car for Monday, it’s more expensive to rent during the week but alas it has to be done. So much for living on the edge and doing things last minute- actually I did not intend to do this, I just found the whole application process confusing. So  here I am writing against my wish, only doing it as my internet – not mine really I have been using some internet called “Mr. Superb James” since I moved in here, am officially a free loader and you should see me when it goes off, you would think that the internet bill reads my name all over it. So anyway I was watching a movie, again free online- and ‘my’ internet flipped so to avoid packing and saving it for the last moments- I am here writing. Maybe I should try to make myself start doing some paper sorting, why do I accumulate so much paper in such a short time? 

Am back, no packing or sorting done. By the time I signed off writing it was time to shower and get ready to return to work. Only reason am back here am sure you can guess, my internet is still off, and I am waiting for my cab ride to work. You have to applaud me for at least packing some stuff in my head, I have a plan for how am going to go about traveling with everything I possess in this world. Oh, I forgot to mention that this time am packing with the idea that I may not have a permanent stead for a while. Since I turned 12 I have constantly been in transition. From packing for boarding school every three months in a year for six years( I get that unsettling feeling in my belly when I think of those times. I will come back to this later on), to moving to University and then finding my own place then moving to England and now I can’t seem to stop country hopping. I can’t say I do not like it, it comes to me as though my nomadic ancestors are paving the course of my life; as though my blood will only sustain me if I move and as though my feet itch with direction on how to scratch. So this time the plan is to get rid of everything I often store up, and then packing one or two bags that have everything I own to wherever I am heading to. After Brazil, Cairo beckons; and as I told you it’s an irresistible call the kind that you experience at the point of no return and then boom it’s done. 

I have to tell you about boarding school, I was excited to go to boarding school only when I thought I was going to attend Buddo Kings college and then missed it by one point! Buddo was and still is one the best schools in Uganda. My elder brother was there when I wanted to attend it but then I had to go to Tororo Girl’s School which was my second choice. So packing for first day of school was a sad sick feeling, eight hours away from my family and then I was so young and spoiled that being a way from my Papa was the saddest thing ever. After the first term I knew I had to bear the trips and the whole prison experience. Being a large family we always had to make our own grub, my mother had this figured out way before we even left home, so we had to book turns to use the oven to bake our cookies, and the charcoal stove to roast ground nuts and the list of booking goes on to Ironing and washing clothes. How to get to school was often my dad’s duty to sort out, am glad we used up a lot of government fuel to get to school because I do not think my Papa was paid as much as he should have been paid- these are not my woes so I will leave them to my Papa. Back to that sick feeling, it started a week or three days before school begun, most times it was strongest when I said goodbye to all my friends on Sunday after church, and then it intensified when I would hug Ida-Marie, goodbye trust me I feel it, I still feel it when I say bye to her these days, I remember feeling it last in 2009 when we met in Uganda at Christmas time and she had to return to Zimbabwe and I Cairo. It just felt like I was being sent away to the Island of aloneness. However when I got to school and saw all my school friends, that sick feeling slowly faded and life was bliss.  Am not even sure how I diverted......oh, it had to do with the sick feeling and how I am avoiding to get packing done. Good thing is I only have the Machettas to hug goodbye and am sure I will see them again!