I Am Changing.....

I don't care what anybody says, Jennifer Holliday is the one and only REAL DEAL Effie.

Jennifer Hudson may have won an Oscar for her turn in Dreamgirls, but hell, my corns are older than she is. Girlfriend can wail, but Ms. Holliday hocks up her lungs everytime she sings. I'm talking straight from the guts, not just singing but "sangin'," like they do every Sunday at every black Baptist church in Mississippi.

That's why when I think of how the past few months have affected me, I think of Jennifer Holliday.

"Look at me. Look at meee-eeee-eeee-eee.......I....AM......CHAAAAYNNNNNGING."

I’ve changed. Here's how I know.

First, I’ve been in Kampala for the past four days, and at least twice a day, I’ve used a boda boda to get around town. For those of you who haven’t wasted an hour or so of your lives reading this entire blog, a boda boda is a rickety little motorcycle driven by cool, reckless young men wearing reflective shades and no helmets. They're equivalent to taxis in major American cities.

Needless to say, you are placing your future into the loving arms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ every time you climb onto the back of one of these rolling smudgepots. I call them smudgepots because your chances of winding up smeared across a Kampala roadway are EXTREMELY high each time you ride one. There was a time in my naïve youth, (or June, which seems like a lifetime ago these days) when I vowed I would never be so reckless. Watching these African kamikazes weave through impassable Kampala traffic convinced me there’s no place I needed to get to bad enough to risk an excruciatingly painful death.

But on Thursday afternoon, after I’d finished meeting with folks at the American Embassy, it was as a no-brainer to flag down a boda to get back to my hotel. First, it’s virtually impossible to get a taxi in Kampala unless you’re at a hotel, shopping center or other touristy location. Most taxis are private cars owned by guys trying to eke out a halfway decent living. You can’t tell which of the zillion cars zooming past you is a taxi even if you wanted to. Second, you can spend a significant portion of your life sitting in obscenely congested traffic, and I ain’t trying to exhale my last breath in a stifling convection oven on wheels.

What’s worse, Kampala is going to host the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting, or CHOGM, in a few days, which means traffic is already double what it used to be. Bodas may be deathtraps, but they can weave in and out of traffic, cutting your commute to a fourth of what it would be if you’re in a car.

It took me about 3 minutes to flag one down, and I climbed on. Usually I’m wearing pants or shorts on a boda, which means I can straddle those bad boys. But this time I was wearing a skirt, so I had my first sidesaddle experience. I just crossed my ankles, clutched my bags, and went with the flow. It was a great way to get reacquainted with Kampala, and there’s a lot that’s actually quite lovely about the city. So what if your driver has the hair-raising habit of squeezing between huge trucks, or darting boldy in front of cars to make turns? If you survive, a boda trip is actually incredibly exhilarating.

I’ve come so far from June, when I was paralyzed with fear during my first boda ride. I hope I’m not just completely engrossed in nihilism at this point. I mean, life IS too short, and we're all going to die eventually, but why risk making it infinitely shorter by doing something that will more likely than not end in bloody, mangled, mayhem?

But why not? At least you're choosing the time, place and method of your death.

Okay, here’s more proof that I’ve changed. In one of my more sane moments, I took a taxi to get back to the hotel. The driver was this friendly young Ugandan who wanted to know why in the world an American from Washington, DC would choose to live in Gulu. I told him I wanted contribute something to this world, make a difference. He thought I was nuts, but was gracious enough to thank me for trying to help his people.

It was one of the best taxi rides I’d had in Uganda......until we pulled into the hotel. Right in front of us, a woman in a minivan was trying to maneuver her way into a parking spot, and having a rough time of it. The taxi driver sputtered and tisked a few times while we waited for her to get it together. When we were finally able to pull up to the lobby, he said.

“I don’t know why they give women license to drive. They cannot drive cars. They are terrible drivers.”

Now, the Rachel of 6 months ago would have lit into him like a firecracker. I’d have sat in that taxi arguing with him, refusing to pay him until he repented his sexist ways and admitted that not ALL women were bad drivers, just as all men aren’t good drivers. I would have considered it my duty to combat this kind of patriarchal, demeaning stereotyping of women.

But in that moment, a switch flipped on in my brain, and I thought, “Who cares? This man was raised in a sexist, oppressive culture that considers women inferior on every level. This is not just one man’s opinion…it’s a societally-accepted norm. NOTHING I say will change his mind…even if he apologized, if only to get my crazy ass out of his car, he’d STILL believe what he’d said with every fiber of his being. Why waste my time?"

I thanked him and climbed out--even gave him a tip. I was shocked by how little I cared about his remarks. Besides, I was having a hot flash, and all I wanted to do was get up to my room, turn on some blessed air conditioning and take a nap.

After the past couple of months, I’m losing my obsessive grip on the pursuit of truth and justice in my every waking moment. I’m realizing there are some battles that must be fought, and others that are a mere waste of energy. These days, I’m zealously guarding my energy. I don’t have a drop to waste anymore. For 21 days recently, my sole focus in life was attending to my sister Julie’s every need. Getting the bed pan to her in time, keeping her perfectly pouty little lips moisturized, helping to change her sheets, or squirting liquid oxycontin down her throat. Now THAT was energy well spent.

My new credo? Fuck the dumb shit.

Here’s the last and possibly best indicator of the dramatic sea-change going on in my life. This morning, I went to the coolest, hippest coffee shop in Kampala for breakfast. The cappuccino at Café Pap is as good or better than any I’ve had in America, and the food isn't bad, either. I ordered my usual double cappuccino and read the papers while waiting for it.

They always do this lovely, creative thing with the foamed milk at Café Pap, and this morning, my cup was festooned with a sweet little heart. I smiled as I dumped a few spoonfuls of sugar into the center of the heart, but as I was stirring it, I noticed a little black lump. Obviously, I thought, it must be a piece of coffee bean that hadn’t been fully pulverized.

But then I noticed the lump had wings.

Now, the Rachel of a year ago would have gagged and immediately sent that shit back. But in 7 or 8 hours, I’ll be back in my cozy little cottage in Gulu, where I’ve made peace, even formed meaningful relationships, with all things winged, creepy and crawly. Now, unless that critter was a tse tse fly, or some form of poisonous pest, it had only managed a couple of back strokes before dying a painful, par-boiled death, milky death. Besides, I was headed to Nothern Uganda, a region so desperately poor that a fly landing on your plate could be considered an additional source of protein for your meager diet.

So I just scooped the sucker out of the cup, tapped it onto the saucer, took a swig of java and kept on reading my paper. Que sera, sera. However, if I start sprouting wings or something, please be kind enough to refrain from laughing your asses off.