Mrs.O's writing room.

I don’t quite know what it is yet but I seem to be attracting police like bees to a flower. So, last Tuesday I’m driving into town with Mich and this police lady signals for me to stop and park at the road side. Sure no problem I park and wait for her to come up. She looks into the car and comments about how Mich looks like me after which she waves me off. That left me a little confused, okay seems the police are getting a lot friendlier, they just stop you to have a chart and check out family members. I found that quite funny but you know continued on my way. Mich was buckled in at the back so maybe that was what she wanted to check. Then just yesterday, I’m driving into town for a lunch date when again a police man signals for me to slow down and park at the road side. I comply, park and wait for him to come round. He asked to see my driving permit (shoot!!! I didn’t have it with me, and even if I did it’s expired seeing as I have been away for two years and wasn’t exactly thinking o...

I took a trip to my elementary school for old time’s sake the other day and also to see who of my teachers were still there. My! Walking through the school was nostalgic; it brought tears to my eyes. The school is pretty much the same- memories of sitting in class, running and playing on the swings came rushing back to me like it was only yesterday. But for some reason everything seems to have shrunk, the school is so much smaller than it was back then, I guess I was looking at it from a different angle. Looking at the lower school waiting shed I smiled, I recalled the anxiety, the fun and laughter as we waited to be picked up by our parents. I passed by the class rooms, pupils talking at the top of their voices. Boy! Do I remember the many times we were asked to keep quiet, but it was extremely difficult. We had class prefects who were assigned the duty of jotting down names of talkative pupils.  Once I recall a teacher knocking my head against that of my friend because we had be...

So, Becca my Pastor/Pastor’s wife in Philly is in Uganda doing some research on Micro- Finance organizations. It’s a coincidence that her visit came together after Sam and I had come home, so we get to host her and take her around Kampala. I think she is having an interesting time, I wish her trip was planned a little later in the year because we have only been here a month and are still trying to make our way around. She’s probably wondering if we have any friends because she hasn’t met any of them. Some how getting to see friends gets more complicated after being away for a long time: one has got to make an appointment, or try tracing people. But really the big issue for me is quite another. I haven’t met my friends so setting a date to meet them with Becca before having our own catch-up time is weird. Anyway all that aside we have tried to take Becca around, to give her an idea of what Uganda and Ugandans are like. Last Saturday we went up to Jinja, to a place called Bujagali, on th...

Last sunday Sam and I took Becca to Ndere Center just to give her a taste of the Ugandan culture in dance.

I'm still feeling lost even after being home for a month, somehow I haven't found my footing yet. There just seems to be a lot going on everywhere that I somewhat feel disorganised. I miss the quietness in Philly (how ironic), but at least I was able to put my thoughts together and know where Mary was at. I was so in touch with myself. Well some one mentioned that maybe the fact that I'm not in my own home adds to the unease and may be I'm still in the reverse culture shock phase. It's still good to be home non the less. I haven't been able to meet many of my friends yet and I guess that's good because I get to meet them one by one. I have met a few so far and I was just sharing with Becca that I thought I went through quite a bit in Philly but sitting down to talk with my friends almost every single one of them has been close to tears because they too have had some rough patches. I like the fact that we are able to understand one another, even though the s...

"Hi Mary, it's good to see you .... when are you going back?" "How are the children? .... only one? I thought they were two... Mich needs someone to play with..." Without exaggeration this is how most conversations have begun since I got back. Then I wonder, "who says I am going back?", "even if I am, why don't you just enjoy the time I'm here for?, "who says I don't want other children?" "do you know whats been going on?". I concluded that people are very presumptuous. The only person who asked an open ended question was Pastor Doug, he said "Mary are you here for a visit?" I found that a lot warmer. Meanwhile some of the church folk are considering calling Sam and I in for counselling because we don't have other children. Sometimes these remarks can be very insensitive. I thank God that he healed me and helped me deal with giving back Nziiza and Kwizera other wise it would feel like they are touching...