In my girlfriend’s apartment, I drink water from the tap and listen to the quiet mutterings of Boston. I am holding each moment in the palm of my hand and letting it trickle under my skin, washing the hard dust of Kampala from me. From somewhere in the dust, I have found my way home.

So far my list looks like this:

What I Want Out of Life

1. a deeper and constantly evolving ethical understanding (ah very vague. I’m not nearly intelligent enough to know what I really want- except that it’s something along this vein)

2. aesthetics (in books, in slam poetry, in a wine bottle holder from crate and barrel that will go rather nicely in my dorm room)

3. lovers and friends (maybe both together. maybe not.)

4. some decent beer, some decent wine, a bit of laughing, a good time (most definitely together and most definitely mixed with all of the above)

Right. Very practical. I’m already on my way to Adult Maturity.

I have no idea how I’m going to survive outside of Wellesley.

I am now very good at crossing the street. I am almost obscenely proud of this. As I weave through cars and patiently wait for the perfect opening, I want to high-five the pedestrians near me. (Did you see that? Did you see me? WOW GEEZ!)

I’ve learned how to chill out. I want to get to the other side of the road, but focusing on this destination leads only to blind rushing and anxious panic attacks. So I take a few steps forward, wait for a boda to pass, step to the side of a taxi, and find myself safe on the other side. Moving forward is more complicated than walking a straight line.

2.

I am also now better at cooking. Rather than skimping on ingredients and spices, pushing my dish towards some ultimate conclusion without regard to proper measurements, I’ve learned how to read recipes and fully cook vegetables. I’ve also taken an inane number of pictures of my cooking attempts. These will be posted soon. Be excited. Be very excited.

3.

I won’t be applying to PhD programs in the fall. I need to chill out. I need to pay attention to the details. I need to finish my thesis. I need to read more. I need to realize that no matter my qualifications now and my status in a few years, my post-grad status will vastly improve my chances of getting into (and getting funded by) a top rate program. I need to figure out what I need. I sincerely dislike going against plans, but I’d hate even more to go through with this entire process- investing time, money, and sanity- if I didn’t have the best possible chance of getting into a decent program.

I sincerely hope that I wasn’t a terribly obsessive twat about this last year. I mean, I understand that I’m frequently obsessive (as anyone who weathered my kite-flying infatuation, my roof climbing streak, my vodka infusions fling, or my tunneling trysts can attest to) but I really hope that my dithering wasn’t deeply annoying.

I’m prattling on again. Right then. Going now to work on my meditation and chill-out techniques (ha! lie! New obsession: spiced milk tea and cooking Indian food)

4.

Unrelated: I am no better at dealing with homesickness. I miss Wellesley terribly. I’ve been decorating my room in my head (and deeply regretting leaving my carpet in the Shakes basement….damn damn damn…it better still be there…) and planning another road trip to Montreal. I miss Shakes, TND, and wild awkward dancing. I miss the Hoop, burnt nachos, PBR, and 3am homework. I miss my parents and my brother’s wardrobe. I miss larger concepts like irony, hipsters, ugly-pretty, deconstructionism, pseudo-intellectual pretention, and post-modernism.

I miss eavesdropping on stranger’s conversations.

5.

However strange it sounds and feels at the moment, I know that I will soon miss Kampala. Papayas, traffic, bodas, people, students, and the dust. I will miss showering and watching layers of dust peel off my skin and swirl into the drain. It has been a wild, dusty, and confusing ten weeks.

(Note: rather old- apologies for the delay)

***

Passing through the Kenya border, we are stopped a number of times by police. At one point we are forced to get out, unraveling ourselves from the bus in a grumbling line of sleep, and flash our passports and confirm our visas. Waiting at the back of the line, my hours spent studying for Astro101 bang against the sky in search of something to recognize. I think that I can see Orion’s belt. I’m not sure if I’m blocked by ignorance or simply the fact that I’m in East Africa, but either way, the loss of the North Star makes me feel dreadfully alone.

***

The towns we see in Kenya make me keenly feel the echoes of war that have held back Uganda’s development. Paved road tap down the red dust. Buildings stack and stand strong, towering over my memories of Kampala’s odd selling and buying shanty towns. Hard industries- automotive- concrete- dot the landscape and promise growth.

***

Hours on the road. Years of my life on the road. My body feels of potholes, cramped seats, and limited movements. Sipping milk tea in the morning, I feel a slow glow spread from my throat, to stomach, to fingers. For a minute, I feel alive.

***

Delays, confusions, endless waiting. I am staring out the window and grinding my past with worn teeth and aching jaws. Since the future is too bitter with anticipation and the present cloys after thick hours of delays, I am left with the past to gnaw over- to stretch- to cringe- to lay out like some hard-tack tapestry and spread my hands wide against the ribcage of my sky. I am not good at remembering things.

***

I have perhaps eight million pictures of monkeys. Over half of these are monkeys with lollipops. Thanks to our student’s generosity, an entire tribe of chimps now has a keen taste for sour apple and bubble gum. I feel vaguely bad about disturbing the monkey’s natural diet, but they look so damn cute. I am a terrible person. However, I do not feel terrible about this fact.

***

The air in Nairobi feels like a New England fall. It feels like hours spent in the Science center, banging against a paper as lights dim and other students slip off to bed. It feels like playing The Mountain Goats too loudly and dancing when 4am hits to celebrate the changing hour. It feels like walking back with most of the essay written and the chill almost-morning air kissing your face.

***

My hold on the present and past slip and my teeth tear up against the future. I’m not sure that I’ll be applying to graduate school in the fall. I’m not sure that I’m not sure about this. I feel overwhelmed by my ignorance- by what I don’t know, but also by what I don’t know that I don’t know. I’m devouring books, journals, and articles. I have lists of scholars and schools and pieces. How do you know when you’re ready? I understand the pieces that I inhale and I can connect, process, challenge them. But each article brings with it hundreds more questions. Should I wait a few years until I have read enough to answer these questions? Will I ever be able to answer these questions? Am I holding myself to an unreasonable standard? The future curdles and I spit it out in anger.

***

I am awful at peeing in not-Western toilets. Urg.

***

I am terrible at keeping in touch and I honestly didn’t expect my blog to gather more than four regular visitors. I only regularly talk to one friend from high school and I’ve let go of nearly everyone from Ithaca. Where KC boasts of decent friendships with exs, I have a handful of sour partings and silences. Is it bad to let these things drift? Does this mean I’m immature, selfish, or incompetent? I remember one time a girl I was seeing hooked up with one of my friends in front of me and then challenged me to say something, to do something, to feel something. In my memory, she’s shaking me with wine-blurred hands and telling me to break. We parted soon after and my most vivid memories of her are of us grabbing things that weren’t there and demanding them to stay. In some way, these two ideas connect.

***

The trees here have grown used to too much sun and not enough water. They pull straws and take their bets- choosing either the ground or the sky for their water struggles. Next to each other, they are like an old joke wedding song, “Here comes the bride, all fat and wide/ Here comes the groom, skinny as a broom”

***

I am trying to take more pictures, but it is a difficult battle. I hate reducing these people, stores, communities, and towns into a two-dimensional tourist event. Every time I hold up my camera I feel that I am enforcing difference, drawing lines, and naming boundaries. You are on the other side- my camera says- you are now captured and flattered, saved to a disk and replayed for this Westerner’s family and friends. You are not your own anymore- you are a picture of yourself- you are not you. I snap pictures anyway. My mom would kill me if I came back with only stories and ethical qualms.

***

At a restaurant in Mombasa we see an older white man and a beautiful, scantily dressed Kenyan woman. I tell myself not to judge. Chanelle sees him hand her a sum of money and they trot off in the direction of the adjoined hotel. I feel sick. It’s not that I think all prostitution is ethically or morally wrong; I just hate how western money (euro, pound, dollar) sings such an irresistible song. With their valuable dollars, euros, and pounds, these Western men can purchase what would be illegal in their own countries. More than merely purchasing a night of consensual fun- this immense fiscal inequality purchases the woman’s choice.

***

Walking back to our hostel, a guard stops us and escorts us the rest of the way to the compound.

It’s dangerous here. He insists. Stay with me. I have a bow and arrow.

He holds out the arrow to us.

You can touch. Be careful. A witch doctor put cobra venom on it- I killed a thief with it last weekend.

***

I wake up in the morning with something small and sharp in my mouth. Spitting, I realize that I’ve seriously chipped one of my front teeth. I’m horrified. My jaw aches and I suspect that I’ve been grinding my teeth more than I realized. The relation is almost unbearable- as I’ve been mentally gnawing at the corners of my mind, my teeth have decided to bite in their share through my dreams.

***

On the bus back from Mombasa, I realize with a cruel lurch that I’ve forgotten to bring William’s writing with me to Uganda. It’s not something that I consciously consider anymore, but I’ve been carrying a large package of his work with me for the last two and half years. Every so often I remember I have it and I pace through the pages of large scrawl and quick type. In some ways, he doesn’t seem real if I don’t have his writing with me. I’ve spoken with his mother more than I ever talked with his friends. We were midnight companions- he’d text me that our Shakespeare class was canceled and we’d escape to town for thick grilled cheese sandwiches and heaps of slightly burnt pancakes. When he disappeared, I was surprised that anyone even knew that I knew him- even cared enough to text me and give his mother my number. Sorting through my old .doc files, I’m glad that my packrat saving has paid off. I spend hours curled around my computer and a cup of tea.

***

I am unfolding myself and I can’t remember how my stories end. It is exactly two weeks until I board a plane to return. My jaws hurt.

]]> http://gdanskin.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/a-series-of-journeys-a-impressions-of-a-fragmented-journal/feed/ 1 gdanskin http://gdanskin.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/an-apology/ http://gdanskin.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/an-apology/#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:54:50 +0000 Exquisitely http://gdanskin.wordpress.com/?p=346 ]]> Long story short:

Power surge busted charger. New Mac charger costs approx 200USD here. Depressed without access to computer and internet. Decided to read. Spent a week reading far too much Austen and Flaubert. Tried plugging in charger on whim today- SUCCESS (how? why? will this last? I don’t care. It works at the moment) Parades. Excitement. INTERNET.

More posts soon….wheeeee!!!!

Sunday: Wake early to continue journey. Stop by National Park near Naivasha. Drive through the Rift Valley

Monday: Spend day in Nairobi seeing animal rehabilitation clinic, Nairobi National Museum, and (accidentally) the airport.

Tuesday: Depart early for Mombasa. Reach Mombasa by early evening.

Wednesday: Tour Halar Park (sea animal center), Fort Jesus, and the beach. Dance in the Indian Ocean.

Thursday: Wake early to begin journey back to Kampala. Reach Naivasha.

Friday: Wake early and continue back to Kampala. Arrive back to flat late. Collapse.

I’ll be gone seven days and since it would be exceedingly foolish to bring my computer, I’ll be away from this blog for a terribly long amount of time.  I must sheepishly confess that I’ve grown to love the hours spent quietly clicking out my thoughts into some digital ether. It’s aided greatly in organizing my experiences and making sense of this entirely fragmented summer.

Thanks for reading these ramblings and I’ll catch you on the other side of next week.

The paucity of opportunities for pathetic fallacies. A vaguely cloudy day doesn’t carry the same nihilistic charm as a grumbling New England wintery mix.

People are nicer (though this might just be Uganda). I’ve only been criticized three times this entire summer. It’s absolutely infuriating.

Light beer- sometimes imbibed while warm (shudder)

Everyone thinks it’s fantastic. There’s no dissatisfaction or movement between summer homes and winter cottages. Unlike America where everyone either wants to leave Florida or retire there, Ugandans are perfectly happy with the constant balmy seventy degree weather. It’s almost unbearably smug of them. I’m almost unbearably jealous.

Much of this change has come from realizing Kampala in motion rather than as a static montage of bodas, beggars, and businessmen. Twenty years ago this city was a small, war-torn town. Five years ago skyscrapers started being built. Forty-six percent of the population is under 18. Fifty thousand boda drivers cross the streets each day. The city is growing, stretching, breaking, reaching and moving.

It’s not perfect, but neither am I. So just as I’m stumbling my way through graduate school research and thesis work, feeling that all I’m learning is how much I desperately don’t know, so is this city really only in its early twenties- full of wild breaking and violent pathos and a terrifyingly vivid desire to grow.