The Return to the Pearl of Africa

Daniel's first sugar cane!

            Uganda, the second time around, was different from the first. Context is everything. In short, this February, Uganda seemed to us a bit like Paradise.

            Coming from the U.S. in 2008, when I would spend my spring semester of junior year (four months) at Uganda Christian University, I naively didn’t see Uganda as “the horn of plenty”—to quote Daniel, who too saw Uganda as Ethiopia’s world-wise, less awkward, and wealthier sibling. Coming to Uganda this time, from the other direction (just 2 hours south via plane), you can imagine, reaped very different results.

            From the plane: Look out the window—look how green! Oh my goodness, do you see those trees?

            From the market: (Awed silence, at the sight of passion fruit, jackfruit, Nile Perch, pork, eggplants, truck beds full of pineapples, and even those beautiful pink-white Italian beans that lose their jelly-bean color when you cook them.)

            From the car: This traffic is crazy! Does every single Ugandan own their own car? [nearly] And where are your horse carts, exactly?

            From the public taxi: 1, 2, 3…they only have 14 people in this 12-passenger van; and they’re strict about this number. Ethiopia has 22! And look, no one on each other’s laps.

            From the street, one week in: Not one person has asked us for money since we’ve been here, did you notice? (something that can, and usually does, happen by the hour when out and about in an Ethiopian town the size of Adwa)

            From the grocery store: Is this Meijer or Giant Eagle? Are those bagged, processed chickens? You mean you don’t have to kill them yourself? Flavored yogurt?! We’re not in the capital, so why is this store so huge? It’s bigger than our house—can you believe it?

            From everywhere else: (Jaw dangling from mild envy of Sharon, who lives here.) You just had a full conversation in English with that shopkeeper, and the random customer! In English. You talked about real things, and they understood you. They’re fluent. Absolutely fluent. Making friends must be so much easier. (Note: We can have fluent, deep, natural and theological conversations with my host sister—maybe even with that shopkeeper. Meanwhile in Ethiopia, I don’t have a single female friend my age, because their English is generally limited to: “Are you fine? I am fine. How do you find the weather condition of Adwa?” And they’re too shy to even say this, so instead, they cover their eyes.)

            More than once, I wondered what the Ugandans, who could not only eavesdrop but also understand our private quips (we’re not used to that, and had to be careful), were thinking of our exclamations. Look how beautiful this pit latrine is! It’s tiled! or DORITOS! Are you serious? Because the average American tourist, visiting for a week, would a). be disgusted by any sort of pit latrines, pristine or gross and b). care less about seeing Doritos. Doritos, shmitos. But we deprived travelers, used to a much less developed land, were nearly at the pearly gates. For the record: we had self-control enough to forego the Doritos, and buy more Ugandan treats.

            As proof of our integration into our Ethiopian lives: in both Germany and Uganda, we didn’t convert in our minds the Euro or Shillings to Dollars. We converted to Birr. Which, quite expensive by comparison, is probably the main reason I simply waved and winked at the Doritos, and didn’t put them in my basket. (Yes, the stores even had baskets.)

            And then there was our actual reason for the vacation: to visit family, my Mama Joyce Serukenya and sister Rebecca (Nanteza). Whether it was jumping off the bus at Kigunga stage, frantically trying to find Rebecca’s face, and walking then skipping to meet her when we spotted each other, or if it was walking into Mama’s compound, where she stood at the door adjusting the curtain, and hearing her before seeing her: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!—regardless, my face’s plumbing failed, and I was a consistent mess for a few days. Even upon seeing my old classrooms, or the most recognizable building on campus, or the podium in the lecture hall where I once delivered a sermon to the student body. Silly brick buildings, and I was a running faucet.

            I saw Vincent too, one of my dearest Ugandan friends: known to us students as V-Money, or Vincenzo. He used to drive the twelve of us who lived with host families, everywhere. We traveled the corners of the country together—him our conductor—almost every other weekend. He taught me Luganda words and phrases as I jotted them down in my notebook in the front seat, and I told him about Taco Bell. Months after I left that year, he emailed me to tell me they were naming their son after me; they couldn’t call him Danielle, so Daniel would have to do. When I saw Vincent, I nearly knocked him over—with my hysterics, and his own surprise at this crazy alumna running/crying towards him.

            And hence, my reunions were embarrassing ones, wet ones. But entirely good all the same.

Daniel and Mama Joyce wielding her machete

Rebecca teaching us how to prepare matooke, the staple food

On our way to Mom's house for the first time

            The second, deeper level of the reunion was introducing these beloved people to Daniel. They all knew about him in 2008; they saw, or heard, of the progression of our relationship, around the kitchen table every night, or via long sisterly talks between bunk bed panels. One of the last things Mama Joyce told me when we said goodbye in the yard while Vincent packed my suitcases in the van, was “When you come back, bring Daniel and your children.” Rebecca had been referring to him as Big D since she knew of him, and the nickname has stuck. This was how she first greeted him.

            So, last month, hearing Mama introduce Daniel at church as “her new son,” hearing the listener (who was a distant relation) inform Daniel, then, That you must give me a chicken, or watching Rebecca teach Daniel how to make matooke—even seeing the three of them in the same room, seeing Daniel in this context, period—was surreal. I found myself staring, dazed, trying to take it all in. It was lovely and beautiful and every good thing you could possibly call it.

            I don’t have the discipline to be a journal-er (which is why I try to keep detailed blogs of our 800 days spent in Abyssinia). But in Uganda, like in Germany, I kept detailed journals—knowing I couldn’t possibly process all the beauty and emotions that week, but would have to return to it later. And not wanting to miss a single detail.

         

         If Germany was a sight-seeing, place-oriented, historical sort of trip, Uganda was a people-and-culture-based trip. We mainly stayed in the same area—around my Mukono town (which is far larger than I remember or ever gave it credit)—to soak up our time with loved ones. For me, it was less of experiencing new things, and more like coming home. More like hunting down the familiar to make sure Daniel saw or tasted it. More like Wow! They’ve paved this road; it looks so different!, and Watch! I can still find the post office! and Here’s where we’d sit to watch Spanish soap operas every week, and Try this fruit! It’s the first thing I researched when we were placed in Ethiopia: Dear Google, does Ethiopia have jackfruit?! (sadly, it doesn't), and Here’s where I sat when I read that particular letter of yours, and here’s where I ran and hid to think it over.

Jackfruit on the tree

Jackfruit (fene) cut up

Jackfruit ready to be eaten

The Rolex--scrambled eggs on chipati--another new food for Daniel

            It was moving to see all that had changed, and all that had not. I kept marveling over the short distance from Ethiopia to one of my favorite homes; two hours, and suddenly there we were, with them, after six years.

            Several times throughout the trip Mom would say, “I can’t believe we’re sitting here, having lunch with Danielle and Daniel. Who will believe us?” She made me promise I’d send pictures, so they’d have proof it really happened.

            It felt like time travel. All of it felt important, because it was.

Our first meal at Mom's; Daniel's first time eating matooke

So many memories in this house! This time, with Daniel

Back at church with Mom

            And then there was the stepping over the threshold into Sharon and Michael’s life. I still remember where we stood on our Indiana college campus when I first asked Sharon (whom I had fatefully met when I found out there was a girl in my dorm selling her Super Nintendo system for 30 dollars) if she wanted to study abroad with me in Uganda.

            Fast-forward three years to the actual semester abroad, and a few months in, when she was falling in love with a charming Ugandan. The last time Daniel and I saw Michael was at their wedding in Michigan five years ago. We’ve seen Sharon one other time since then, when she was visiting her family in America.

            But to enter their home of five years, where they’re now a family of four, with their son Emmanuel (Emma) and daughter Michelle, was also surreal, and yet so natural. There she was, living the dream she held onto in college—living overseas, doing good work for God—and they were happy. It was a mantra in my mind that week: five years, five years. I think of our two in Ethiopia, and imagine all that Sharon has given up, and yet with a content heart, for half a decade.

            To see their home, their road, their town, the shops they frequent, their church, their close friends, Sharon’s in-laws—to get a glimpse of their Ugandan lives, was beautiful. Sharon is becoming more a part of that culture every day; she even speaks to their son in the endearing Ugandan-English sing-song tones. She loves Uganda, and Uganda loves her; this much is evident.

The lovely Mbabazis!

Michelle was such a source of joy for us the entire trip. Never has a baby smiled so often or so fully!

            One of our favorite days was driving to Jinja with Sharon and her family, along with Michael’s sister Judith, to spend the day at Michael’s grandmother’s home. We got to meet the in-laws! What lovely, gracious people, and what a marvelous meal they prepared for us.

In Jinja with Michael's mom and grandma

Danielle sporting traditional Ugandan dress

            It’s official: we two Luttrulls have now been to both sources of the Nile River. The famed river that runs northward has two mouths: one (the Blue Nile) in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and one (the White Nile) in Jinja, Uganda.

Blue Nile Falls in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

White Nile in Jinja, Uganda (with Emma)

            Another noteworthy fact: Uganda is HOT. We were reminded of summers at home in the Midwest, where Humidity is King. In Adwa, we have a more comfortable dry heat, similar to our years in Texas (in other words, thank God). But in Uganda we were so sticky and sweaty and uncomfortably hot, that we often took two cold bucket baths a day to stay cool and refreshed.

            Somehow Ethiopia never left us. Check out this guy selling posters. This poster of an Ethiopian woman preparing the coffee ceremony is all over Ethiopia (we recognized her); but we never would’ve thought Uganda had her too! We rushed on this guy with bubbly excitement, rapidly telling him we were from Ethiopia. Daniel proceeded to read for him all the Amharic script on the paper. All the while the man looked at us like we were crazy (which, well, made us feel at home). I wonder if this is how we’ll forever greet anyone who looks like, or is dressed like, an Ethiopian when we return to the states. This poor guy probably didn’t even know the poster was Ethiopian.

            In short, we had a fulfilling, rich time. A spiritual time, enjoying once again the miracle of Ugandan hospitality and refreshing conversation. A much-needed and much-looked-forward-to visit with my African family. (And the English! Oh, the English! They even had newspapers and radio shows in English.)

            When we first tore open our Peace Corps Invitation packet (after dancing and shouting in our yard, while the neighbor’s dog barked at our screams), and read Ethiopia, one of the first things we did (after jumping in our car to speed to Daniel’s parents’ house) was check the map: How near to Uganda?

            Our week in Mukono, Uganda certainly helped make my 2-year service in Ethiopia more worthwhile. Perhaps our Serukenya reunion was the perfect trade-off for what could have instead been—and was almost—two years of gaining fluency in Spanish in South America. Thanks, Ethiopia.