7 Months

As of tomorrow, I will have been here in Uganda for seven months. That’s pretty hard for me to believe. In many ways, it feels like I’ve just gotten here, especially as I think of all the things that I haven’t done, and yet it feels like it was a different life in which I said goodbye to my family at JFK. I’ve had so many new experiences, so many thoughts, and so many opportunities that it’s almost dizzying to try to think back over the last seven months. And yet, I feel as though I could be doing so much more, making more of the opportunities that I have, experiencing more new things. It’s a difficult tension, and one that can make me feel alternately exciting, lame, courageous, and ashamed. So, I’m taking a more whimsical approach. Here are some little snapshots of my life:

I ride my bike precariously through jostling herds on longhorn cattle on the road. I pasteurize milk at home. I’ve killed probably a dozen rats by stomping on them. I’ve performed several ultrasounds (under Scott's watchful eye). I’ve stared highly endangered 400-pound mountain gorillas in the face. I have had, in sum, probably about 3 days of anything resembling peace and quiet. I am fully convinced that my neighbor Charity is the cutest kid in the entire world. Even after he shattered the truck window with a slingshot. Which he was aiming at his sister. I’ve learned to drive a motorcycle, on bumpy, rutted dirt roads. I regularly remove bats from houses – a somewhat exciting prospect in the land of Ebola and Marburg fever. I’ve watched children die, and I’ve seen them recover from the very brink of death. I tried to perform a lumbar puncture on an infant (sticking a needle into his spine). I almost fought a mob during a soccer game.

Things I like: Geckos on my walls. The smell of jasmine at night. Fresh, cheap avocados. Moonlight I can read by. Playing soccer with my young neighbors. Homemade, brick-oven pizza. Community. The stunning view of the mountains. Falling asleep to rain on my tin roof.

Things I don’t like: Cockroaches. Thieves. Women getting harassed everywhere they go, while I’m left alone. People I’ve never met asking me for money. Dust. Rotten eggs. The incessant calls of “Mujungu!” that follow me everywhere. Manchester United. 110-degree heat.