The Bittersweet Return

For those of you I'm not facebook friends with, I realize I may not have specified that I am safely home and happy! I went to the doctor on Monday and have the pleasure of saying I am disease-free! My first few days were a blur of jetlag and hugs, but now that things have calmed down I'm starting to process my return a little more. I have been having trouble reconciling my Ugandan world and my American world into one. It's difficult to remain conscious of the fact that the place I lived really exists in the same world as where I am now. But I think I'm realizing many more of the differences now that I'm back in my quotidian American life.

I have also been struggling to shake Ugandan habits off. I have caught myself forgetting that certain actions are only appropriate in Uganda and not in the states. Here are a couple embarrassing anecdotes of my re-integration troubles.

1. Littering
1. I threw a soda out the window of my car this morning. I didn't think twice about it and then the second it was out of my hands I felt so remorseful. In Uganda everyone litters all the time. There are very very few public trash cans and no recycling bins. I finally caved and started littering too last month because I got tired of carrying around soda bottles until I got home and could throw them away.
2. "Sorry!"
1. In Uganda, the people around you say sorry whenever you feel sympathetic for something bad that happens. You trip on the sidewalk? "sorry sorry sorry!" from all the passerby. A member of your family dies? "Oh sorry sorry!" from the person you are telling. The food you ordered is cold? "Sorry bambi!" from the waiter. All. The. Time. Unfortunately, I have picked up the habit and am probably confusing everyone I talk to by apologizing to them all the time. 
3. Normal Handshakes and Hugs
1. A Ugandan handshake is slightly different than an American one and I'm having trouble remembering to do the American version. 
1. here is a video of the handshake: https://vimeo.com/93711800
2. A hug is also slightly different. Ugandans like to hug to one side, then pull back and hug on the other side. I keep expecting it when I hug friends or family members who I haven't seen in a long time and then get more surprised when it doesn't occur.
4. Other Muzungus driving cars
1. Whenever I see a white person driving a car I get tempted to shout out "muzungu!" to my friends to alert them of the fellow expat. I think it's because everywhere else I understand that I'm in the states because the environment looks so different, but, in the car I still feel like I could be back in Uganda.
5. "Do you have change?
1. In Uganda, asking for change is asking for someone to break up a bigger bill for you. When you want to get change back for something you ask for balance, not change. 
1. I was visiting someone this morning and brought them a coffee. They asked if I had change for a $20 bill and I didn't so I said no. It was only after I'd already left that I remembered that change means something entirely different here. Instead she insisted on giving me the 20 and I gave her a 10 back, unclear what she wanted the 10 for. I think I was just confused by her wording because the whole exchange really makes no sense now. 

Brain Tree "One to One" Project (Recently renamed The Maddie Project by Shipley)

The Shipley School is now starting a project at The Brain Tree Primary School in Uganda that I envisioned after my visits to Brain Tree. The school has a small library donated by Shipley. Just having a library is quite rare in Uganda and places Brain Tree in a exclusive group of primary schools. But, because books are so rare, the librarian has to be careful to guard her library. Thus, the kids can only read in the hour they get each week allotted to library time. They are not allowed to take any of the books home to read, or curl up with them for a few hours and get truly engrossed in the book. We are starting a project to purchase waterproof bags for the library so that all 200 students can get their own bag to take books home in. To the left is a picture of the bags we are purchasing.

Another problem with the library is the amount of books they currently have. Imagine your favorite book. Or maybe your top 5. My current favorite is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Now scroll down to the image below of Brain Tree's library shelves.

How likely is it that you will be able to find your favorite book here?

The second part of the project that we will undertake is stocking of the library's shelves. There needs to be enough that each child can have their own favorite book.. Shipley is having a dress-down day to begin fundraising for the bags tomorrow and will begin book fundraising in the Spring. I am still looking into how I can engage the Emory community in this project, along with a few other philanthropic causes I have in mind throughout Uganda.  If you have any other fundraising ideas or would like to contact me to get involved you can email me at mhnorri@gmail.com.

Finally, I can't thank everyone enough for reading this blog throughout my time in Uganda. I started it as an archive, mostly for myself, to remember the experience. But the feedback I continue to get inspires me to keep sharing my experience from my time in East Africa. It really has been an incredible adventure and I am so grateful for everyone who has believed in me and helped me along the way. This trip has taught me so much, particularly that I am capable of so much more than I was set on believing before. To quote Winnie the Pooh, I am "braver than I believe, stronger than I seem, and smarter than I think." Thank you all for being there for me throughout this journey and inspiring me every day to keep pushing myself.

Webale nyo bamukano gwange, (thank you my friends).   

One Week Left in Uganda

It’s been a full month since my last post, and a lot has happened in that time:

• My laptop crashed and I had to borrow one of the ones I brought for Brain Tree because the only Apple store on the continent is 3,360 miles away in Cape Town.
•  Brain Tree and I collaborated to make an amazing gratitude video for The Shipley School, but it is stored on the crashed laptop. All my pictures and videos from this trip are also stored there as well. So here's me desperately hoping that the Apple store at home will be able to save them. 

Me and some of the stars of the Gratitude video

•  My Independent Study Project has sucked all the creative energy out of me. I’m 40 pages down and using the very last of my creative juices to write something other than typhoid findings.
• I interviewed 55 slum dwellers about their handwashing practices (pretesting included) and have entered and analyzed way more SPSS data than I would ever have imagined. I also learned that SPSS is incredible and statistics is actually pretty fun.  

A picture of my translator and I interviewing a woman in Kisenyi

• I have a two week extension on my paper because my academic director is incredibly kind. She decided on two weeks since I lost a week of work from not backing up my documents regularly enough and a week of work searching for a replacement laptop.
•  I’ve gotten quite homesick. My dreams have started to center around being back in the states. They range from eating a bowl of raisin bran in front of the TV; to seeing my family waiting for me at the airport; to jump-hugging my best friend when I get back to Atlanta. 
•  I’ve started making plans for when I’m going to return to Uganda. Currently planning on coming back the summer after I graduate as a gift to myself for finishing my med school apps.
• We went white water rafting on the Nile River. It was an incredible day and we ended it by drinking Uganda's Nile beers on a Nile beach (except I cheated and had a Club beer instead because Nile is too dark for me).

Some Reflections:

At first when I stepped into Kisenyi, the slum community in which I did my fieldwork, I was shocked and afraid of the poverty I found. I was afraid that I would never be able to live my life without debilitating western guilt after seeing what I saw. I was now aware of the lie that is the Western Liberal belief that “while they may be poor, they are happy.” While I applaud it for being a paradigm that helps people not look down on the culture of the poor, I find fault in its ability to make an excuse for people to escape the guilt of privilege. 

I have no intention of living a life like Paul Farmer, an American doctor who resides in Haiti for six months out of the year at the hospital he built there. He is the only American for miles and works from 5am to late in the evening treating the patients no one else will help. I wish I could live such a selfless life, but I simply wouldn’t be happy. So I was afraid that I would return to the states, guilty for the ignorantly privileged life I lead, and more guilty for my inability to rise from that guilt and become a Paul Farmer. 

My perspective has evolved over the four weeks I spent in the field and mulling over my data sets. I can't be sure what my return to the states will really be like, but I am less afraid of crippling guilt than I was at first. Will I find American wastefulness disgusting? Absolutely. Will I still be able to carry out conversations about The Bachelor and How I Met Your Mother? Definitely. Will I speak of people in Africa as an “other,” almost like they live in a separate reality from my own. Absolutely Not.  And will I allow myself to whine about the injustice of the world when my laptop crashes in the midst of the largest paper of my life? Not Anymore. I think the biggest challenge I will face in my life is learning to live with knowledge of the world, and give back in a way that works for me. I will never allow myself to intentionally forget anything I've gone through here and I think that simple act of mindfully remembering will be enough to make sure I live my life not thinking only of myself.