Last Night in Gulu

It’s 3:48 AM on Friday, February 8, 2008. In less than 12 hours, I’ll be a former resident of Gulu Town, Northern Uganda.

I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep because so many thoughts are racing through my mind. Oddly, one of them was that I wanted to be awake when the rooster next door starts crowing. It might be the last time in a long while that I’ll hear that sound, and I’ve really started to enjoy it.

Now, after all these months of whining about being exiled over here, I’m not going to be a hypocrite and start waxing poetic about life in Gulu. It is harsh, sometimes boring, and more often than not incredibly frustrating. Even so, I’m really gonna miss the cozy little cottage, and the impossibly still mornings on the compound at Plot 26, Samuel Doe Road. I’m gonna miss hanging out at the open air Bomah restaurant on a rainy night, listening to the pelting drops on the thatched roof and knocking back a few Tusker beers. I’m gonna miss rollin’ with my buddies Akiiki and The Intern, and I’m gonna miss hearing the journalists we work with describe how the Internews training transformed their lives and careers.

But mostly, I’m gonna miss having so little to distract me from what matters in this world. You know, minor things, like.........THE FATE OF MY FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS. Once jet lag subsides in a week or so, there’ll be so many options back home, so much access to stuff that can entertain or distract me. For example, there’ll be the soothing pablum of morning TV, which can’t get through an hour of programming without an update on Britney Spears. But just the other morning, on a BBC interview program called “Hard Talk.” I heard author Studs Terkel drop pearls of wisdom so riveting, I let my coffee get stone cold. His comments invigorated me more than caffeine ever could.

It’s been truly marvelous having access to so many international news sources, because for the first time in my life, really, I feel as much a global citizen as I am a U.S. citizen. It’s amazing how knowing the intricate details of the Serbian presidential election and the rioting in Kenya and the winter weather emergency in China can make you feel less foreign, less of a detached observer.

This experience has transformed my life, too. Without question, I am a different person than the woman who arrived in Gulu early last June. I’m tougher, smarter, and less afraid to be who I am. I’m a LOT less worried about what people think of me. I’m a lot more willing to forgive myself for mistakes, and to applaud myself when I’ve conquered a challenge.

I guess I just LIKE me a whole lot more than I did when I got here!

In a strange kind of way, Gulu also helped prepare me for my sister Julie’s passing. I used to be convinced I would never survive losing her. But after spending the four months prior to her death being constantly tested, pushed harder and harder to make sense of things, having to reach inside my gut to summon courage I didn’t even know I had, I finally understood what Julie faced every minute of every day of her life. If Julie could keep going, and vow daily to never give up, or give in, then I knew I must try and do the same.

I don’t know what tomorrow brings, other than a flight out of Entebbe airport, headed to Amsterdam, and then another flight to Washington Dulles. I gotta tell you, so often these past few months, it felt like this day would never come. On those nights when I cried myself to sleep, and then cried myself awake, my heart pierced by grief and loneliness, I didn’t think I could make it to this day sane and functional. The jury’s still out about the former, but there's no disputing the latter. I am a survivor.

"Through the fire, fine metal is made." "What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger." Maybe that’s what middle age is all about….realizing that those so-called “tired clichés” are all irrefutably true, and that no matter how much pain and struggle you’ve faced in the past, it made you EXACTLY who you are at this very moment, and if you can honor and respect that, you’ll be one step closer to real peace of mind.

That’s where I am right now. I’m up for whatever life throws my way, because I spent the past 8 months in Gulu. Reaching that understanding has been the most rewarding journey of my life.