March Forth!

Hey, y’all!

I’m back, I’m black, and I’m better than ever!

That’s just my way of saying I think my re-entry into American society is complete. I've spent the past 3 weeks playing hooky.....first a week in Brazil, and now in Atlanta, visiting my sister Marilyn and her husband John, and my Rio galpal Jamila. It almost feels like I’ve never been away….except for reminders like the scars from where I clawed at bug bites, and my fascination with light switches that actually illuminate every time you flip them. Every day is a marvel of paved roads, hot water on full blast, and dessert.

I can’t underestimate how glad I am to be back in the US of A. But at the same time, I’ve also made peace with the fact that my work with Internews over the past 5 years has been the closest thing to a “calling” I’ve ever experienced. As I predicted, I’ve been away from Gulu 3 weeks, but I miss working with the journalists. I miss their energy and enthusiasm, and I miss editing their scripts and pushing them to be more creative.

The good news is I’ll get to keep doing it during monthly commutes to Africa. Internews has decided that even though I'm virtually brain-dead as a manager, I'm quite useful as a trainer. So, I head to Nigeria March 11th and Ethiopia on April 11th. If I’m lucky, I’ll be doing once-a-month gigs for the near future…traveling around the African continent for Internews working with African print and broadcast journalists who cover urgent, complex issues.

Come to think of it, it was about last year this time I learned about the Gulu job. At the time, I was stagnating at work, licking my wounds from yet another disastrous Match.com interlude, and preparing for a visit from my sister Julie. She had received her colon cancer diagnosis in March of 2006, and on St. Paddy's Day that year, a surgeon pronounced her emergency surgery a complete success, and that they'd gotten all of the cancer cells. In March 2007, we were going to celebrate the one year anniversary of that joyous news. It was the perfect time for me to consider tackling the Gulu job. By that point, after all our family had been through, the prospect of living in a former war zone didn't seem so far-fetched.

A year later, I’ve quit my job, haven’t had a single date, spent 8 months living in Uganda and survived Julie's death.

And I’m still marching forth. I’m telling you people, I am so incredibly amazed, humbled and grateful for that. As I’ve told everybody who stands still long enough, I’m happy, and not because of a man or a windfall or the miraculous re-appearance of my rump. (Minutes after I arrived in Atlanta, my sister Marilyn commented on my weight loss by saying, “What happened to your butt?? It’s concave!”) For absolutely no reason at all, I’m gripped by an inexplicable, ongoing sense of contentment, a feeling that even though I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, I’ll be totally and completely all right.

Funny, but I can't shake the sneaking suspicion that this is the way I’m SUPPOSED to feel most of the time. Imagine that.