back to Uganda

After a 7 hour drive, a 4:30am wake up and a long day of plane rides, I arrived at the office suitcase in hand both physically and mentally exhausted. When I checked emails from the airport during a layover I saw that there was some talk of my going to Uganda to do some work for a proposal. However, there had been talk of my going to Uganda multiple different times during the year and it had always fallen through so I did not take it very seriously. An hour after arriving in the office I was working with the travel desk to buy a ticket. Can you go tomorrow? Yeah right! I can go on Wednesday… so a day and a half later I was on the plane to Uganda. Except this time, my third time, I was in business class and had a driver waiting for me at the airport.

The shock of the speed of my transition from home to DC to on a plane to Uganda did not hit me until I got into the car, rolled the windows down, and breathed in the smell of Uganda. Suddenly I found myself driving along Lake Victoria, passing by the exact location that I have gone to many times in my mind over this past year. I am back.

I am here to recruit local staff for a USAID proposal. I had a sense of what the assignment would require when I boarded the plane, I spent the entire flight learning more (note, the old man across the aisle introduced himself at the end of one flight and gave me his card saying that if I needed psychiatric help that he works in DC - so I must have looked stressed out)… and now, after two days of meetings that seemed to just fall into place and two interviews that were not nearly as uncomfortable/intimidating as I thought they would be, I have almost wrapped my head around the tasks at hand and feel relatively confident that I can do it

What is harder to wrap my head around is the hotel I am staying in. I used to walk by the Serena hotel and gawk, both in awe of its grandiosity, but also at the absurdity of it. How could one stay in such a nice hotel in such a poor country? Why would you want to?

“You do not have to live like an ascetic to do good development work” are the words that keep coming into my mind. “It is more about your how you handle yourself”, a good friend told me when I was grappling with the moral issue I have always had with traveling in this fashion. I think I am almost able to let go of the guilt associated with staying here (I have a raindrop therapy showerhead), but I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. I don’t think I want to get there. However, I agree that the most important thing is to never let it get to your head. How you handle this privilege in your mind is what determines how you behave and I, for one, never want to act like I am entitled to this luxury and, in a sense, status.

I have no conclusions.

What I do know is that I camped out in the lobby for two hours today waiting to see President Museveni walk in to a wedding reception being held in the hotel gardens. I sat there waiting for him to walk through the front doors for TWO HOURS! I was wondering why no one else seemed to have this idea…
….of course the president of Uganda would not use the main entrance. So no, after all of that, I did not see him, but I can see the group of people that he is among.

After I gave up on the President I wandered out of the oasis that is my hotel grounds and found myself a boda boda. First ride of the trip – as exhilarating as ever. How good it feels to hop onto a rusty motorcycle with a stranger and no helmet. Weaving in and out of traffic as though we are invincible with the smog filling my nose and dirtying my freshly washed hair and white t-shirt. Ah yes, the Uganda I know and love waiting for me beyond the gates of the hotel.

I am now going to bed feeling a combination of safety and fear with what seems like half of the Ugandan military wandering around outside…