Africa

Sitting on the heated floor of my silent apartment, my fingers are curled around the steaming mug of my day's third cup of coffee, I stare somewhat blankly at a somewhat blank screen. One week ago, I was in Africa; now, I am back at my quasi-home in Korea. Sigh. Perhaps this third cup, or a fourth, will resurrect my tired mind. Perhaps the warmth of the floor will imbue in me my weakened ability to articulate thoughts. Or perhaps the blank screen will start to write itself. Perhaps.

Really, I'm trying to remember not being here in Korea. A week out from vacation and it feels as though I never left. Did I go to Africa? Or did I just dream it? The winter's cold has seeped through my skin into my bones, into my memories, and has altered the warmth and beauty of Africa. I'm back in Korea and my mind has tuned back to a single, monotonous note. Please pardon me for a moment as I grab the fourth cup of coffee awaiting me.

There. Such a simple solution. How can one not remember the glint of the sun, the soft singing of the birds, and the slight relief of a gentle breeze when looking into her eyes?

Back in Uganda, the hut of our host is small and dark, a great relief from the scorching rays of the sun outside that burn white skin even under the impotent protection of the shade. Balanced on my lap is a plate heaped with food that took this small family the length of this tortuously hot day to prepare. Brown rice, chicken, freshly killed for the two guests who now bless this small home, a salty broth with thin slices of a small carrot and onion, and finally an overly generous portion of matoke, the staple of Ugandan cuisine. While the plantains, in the banana family, yet hang unripe from the tops of the tree, they are cut down by nimble hands of a man who has been using his machete since the age of six or so, then steamed and mashed by the woman. Its taste is that of mildly bitter, unsalted and unbuttered mashed potatoes. It is found on nearly every Ugandan's plate at meal time.

I take a bit of the matoke, mixed with some rice and dipped in the sauce. "It's so wonderful!" I exclaim, attempting my best to demonstrate my appreciation and gratefulness for the generosity of this family, having so little, but sharing everything with her guests. Did I mention that they killed one of their chickens to feed us? This having been a last-minute visit, as we ran into and were invited by Maria when Chad took me to show me his work place, we had brought no gifts to offer. She, however, knowing and esteeming Chad, felt blessed to have him and his visiting cousin at her home in one of Mbale's outlying villages. While Chad and I sat in the shade, Maria disappeared without announcement. With my querrying glance, Chad said, "She's going off to prepare lunch. That's just how they do it here." Two hours later, when Maria had not returned, I started to question Chad. "Should we thank her for inviting us and leave?" Again, he replied simply, "It's just how they do it here." Yet another hour later, we cut to the scene of us being served before her, of her bringing us water as we sat to wash our hands, of her heaping seconds onto our already full plates, worrying aloud that we were not eating enough, before taking any for herself. Her husband and daughter did not join us for the meal; I do not know if they ate.

Maria's family is quite small by Ugandan standards. In a country where more children equal more help working in the fields and at home, families tend to balloon. Their neighbor across the street has twenty-seven children, born to him by three wives. Maria and her husband have only one son and two daughters; the unmarried daughter is living at home while the other two are married and living elsewhere. She had another daughter who died at age twelve. The girl is buried in the front yard, under the shade of a banana tree next to Maria's grandson, who died last year. That, Chad tells me, was the last time he was at her home.

Their house is a somewhat impressive home in Uganda, for, though yet unfinished, as building in Africa is done stage by stage as money comes in, it has cement floors and several rooms; most village houses are a single room with well-swept dirt floors, walls constructed of dried cow dung and roofs of either tin or bundled straw. One should also note that Ugandan adults, regardless of the state of their wealth or poverty, take exceptional care to remain clean. Clothes, torn sometimes beyond recognition and often unwittingly displaying the parts of the body that westerners take such care to conceal, are nonetheless spotless in a country that, during the dry season, has dust hanging in a semi-permanent, light curtain.

I have two days left in Uganda. Before coming, I tried not to create any expectations, as I always find that the most fulfilling traveling experiences come when you have no expectations. Chad, my cousin, has been working in Mbale, a modest town in Eastern Uganda approximately 25 miles from the Kenyan border, for one and a half years with the Peace Corps. We decided long ago that, both of us being unable (financially, for him) or unwilling to travel home (it's freaking COLD in Michigan now; give me summers at home instead!) for Christmas, I would come to visit so we could celebrate together. And, being busy during the day with my job and rather lazy at night, I did little research on what to expect in Uganda before coming. Which is perhaps why I was surprised by the sheer beauty of it.

Though Chad kept insisting that, since it is the dry season, everything was now very brown, it did nothing to dissuade me from walking around in a mild trance, awed by the presence of grass, trees and flowers. It was everywhere you looked. People even warned me about where I walked since, "That's an avocado tree and one might just fall and hit you on the head." An avocado hitting me on the head? I pay nearly five dollars for a single avocado in Korea. If one fell on me, I'd probably weep with pleasure. Yards are littered with flowering trees and bushes. The sky is a pure azure, punctured by billowy white cumulus clouds that explode into color around 6:15 for the sunset.

Winston Churchill (perhaps you've heard of him...), in his book "My African Journey," spoke of Uganda, saying, "For magnificence, for variety of form and color, for profusion of brilliant life -- bird, insect, reptile, beast -- for vast scale -- Uganda is truly the pearl of Africa. " Who am I to disagree?
So it is with my fifth cup of coffee in hand and the sun having sunk into the haze that settles in the Korean sky that I raise tribute to such a place of beauty and human warmth, another small corner of this world that I'm so grateful to have seen. I have more to write of the trip and the blind optimism that I will overcome my laziness to actually write it. Yet dinner plans, and the possibility of a sixth cup of coffee, now call me away. Perhaps, for my own memory's sake, I'll post again by next week about Africa.

Again, perhaps.