I said goodbye to my host brother, Eric, yesterday.  He left for Kampala to start his first year of university.  Today at breakfast, my host mom (I call her “Nyabo”) told me that her sister lost a child, and that she will not spend the night at home tonight.  Since I leave Jinja tomorrow morning at 10 am to spend my final days in Kampala, I won’t see her again!  I’m surprised at how often death happens here – it seems someone is always attending some burial – and how quickly my family broke apart.  Now it’s me, Joy, Diana, and a visiting sister, Angela, and her young son, Jerry.

I’ve been taking photos of the things I missed – my bucket bath arena, latrine, sewing machine – and getting a little sentimental.  I’m not great with goodbyes.

Here are some funny things I’ll miss:

strange breakfasts – today I had popcorn and eggs, yesterday I had French fries and pink bananas, the day before I had a few bites of fruit…

music – you walk by a store, and… wait… is that Dolly Parton??  Yep, she’s huge here.  Ugandans dig old country music, gospel, and their perky native beats.  One of the songs on the music DVD I’m bringing home – Kiwaani by Bobi Wine – is huge right now.  Kiwaani means “fake,” and (from my understanding) the video is about a guy who fakes his own death and then coughs in the coffin.  Yesterday one of my work associates called the gold band on my ring finger “kiwaani.”  She saw right through me.

Fooooood – blackened maize, homemade popcorn (cocoporn), cheap pineapple, jackfruit, ripe tomatoes, millet, sautéed cabbage, groundnut sauce, avocado

Bargaining – fixed prices are such a bore!  I’ll miss whipping out a few Lusoga words to slash prices in half… I’ll miss the hunt

Pirated everything – at the Internet café I usually frequent, the walls are covered with American films you can have copied here -- Ring Around the Rosie, Prison Break, Half Past Dead 2, Wild Hogs, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shanghai Knights, Mr. and Mrs. Smith...  You can also find hilarious compilation DVDs like Bruce Lee vs. Van Damme or Justin Timberlake vs. Akon. 

I’ll miss saying hello to the person next to me on the bus, and seeing women breastfeeding everywhere, children everywhere, men working sewing machines on the street, coming home to my family, tea time, being outdoors so much, motorcycle rides, living with goats chickens and cows, nice weather, and the calm Ugandan walking pace.

I will not miss being called muzungu, being proposed to, getting ripped off, taking loads of foreign medicines, worrying about buying fake water, worrying about having water at all, having no trashcan, intolerance of (lack of exposure to?) homosexuality, dangerous boda drivers, and the way many women are treated here.

--Liz