Stamp of Authenticity....

I am up to my ever-lovin’ eyeballs trying to get things ready for our very first Internews Journalism Training Workshop, which starts on Monday morning. However, I’m happy to announce that instead of feeling that tense, eye-popping pressure I usually endure when I’m in 11th hour crunch mode, I’m actually feeling really confident and relaxed. At the last minute, it seems like everything is falling neatly into place.

Sure, our laptops haven’t been installed yet, and probably won’t be until Sunday afternoon. My assistant Victoria is stuck in Kampala, trying to elude the extortion demand from the Uganda Revenue Authority, which wants us to pay 1,678,500 shillings before they’ll release the computer editing software we ordered from the US. (Okay, though that sounds like a lot, it’s only $1,022 USD. But heck, we paid $1,750 dollars for it; why should we pay 2/3rds of that in so-called “shipping taxes”??? Oh, I forgot…I’m dealing with Bureaucracy, African Style.)

Those are just a couple of the nail biters I’m juggling until Monday morning. But all of a sudden, I’m not feeling stressed out about anything. And it has nothing to do with my good friend Johnny Walker Blue’s influence, or the locally-made demon hooch called Waragyi (gin distilled from bananas…it’s so nutritious!). And I HOPE I’m not lapsing into a malaria-induced fugue. I’m calm because I’ve finally “adjusted to the new reality.” That’s what someone in Kampala advised me to do last week….instead of being constantly frustrated by the way things DON'T get accomplished in Uganda, he said I needed to accept that this is just LIFE in Uganda. To wit: If something you ordered arrives on time, great. But the reality is that it probably won’t. So don’t set yourself up for a stroke….just roll with the flow of events.

That goes totally against my inherent craving for instant gratification, but I’ve actually started adopting that attitude. Hey, if we have functioning laptops and software for the workshop Monday morning, FANTASTIC. If not, we’ll do something else. I have no idea what that might BE at this point in time, but I know we’ll do something. There may be no electricity or Internet access, either. No problemo.

Anyway, I wanted to take a few minutes to share something that happened today, something that makes every second of stress and frustration I’ve experienced in the past month and a half worthwhile. It happened when our housekeeper, Pamela, took me to a local tailor’s to put the finishing touches on some curtains I’d had made. Pamela has to be the most centered, competent person I’ve ever met. She just gets the job done, no matter what it is. Nobody has ever ironed my tee shirts before, and sister can throw down with some chicken, carrots, zucchini, green beans, tomatoes and spices. She hooked up a stew last week that would make a bulldog break his chain.

So we’re sitting across from this elderly gent named Olubo. He’s been tailoring in Gulu since 1959, with a sewing machine so old, it was probably first used by some colonialist with the Dutch East India Trading Company. Olubo’s wrinkled face was leathery and burnished mahogany by decades of sitting in the sun. Pamela explained to him what we wanted to have done in the local language, Luo. Then Olubo told us what HE was going to do. I just smiled and nodded, 'cause old bro’ looked like he would take me out with one blow if I’d dared to object.

After a while he looked directly at me and said, “You are welcome.” I thanked him. He asked where I was from, and I replied, “Washington, DC.” He said, “Ah, America.” Then he paused, and declared, “You are home now.”

My heart almost burst with pride and gratitude. After weeks of being gawked at like an alien, a wise Gulu elder had looked at me and proclaimed that I was home. I belonged to Africa. So it doesn’t matter if the workshop doesn’t come off without a hitch, or if the mosquitoes keep tormenting me, or if the goat chops I ordered at Bambu show up an hour late.

Today, I found out that I am “real-er than real deal Holyfield.” I am home.