We Are Started to Leaving

Well folks, the day has come!

My African adventure is over...for the time being! As I am learning, you never know where life will take you. Or when. It was less than a year ago that I bid goodbye to Uganda thinking it would be years, perhaps decades before I saw it again. And then about 6 months later I was back in Gulu reuniting with old friends, meeting beautiful people and learning more about myself than I perhaps cared to.

I have been so blessed.

Anyway, I just want to apologize for the horrible lack of blogging these past few weeks. I could say that I was extremely busy, that many days were lived on the narrow precipice between hysterical laughter and tears, that the power was often out and that I was constantly exhausted. All of those things are true. But really there is no excuse for not capturing the beauty of this experience more than I did. And I'm sorry to anyone who felt left out of the loop (because, as I know...you are all obsessed with my life, right? RIGHT?).

Yeah.

Well, as I sit here in the Hotel Casa Miltu in the capital city of Kampala where my trip began its hard not to look back on everything. And its not so much where I have been that I am mulling over but who I was at each of those points. It's been a long journey...and, just like  last summer's trip to Uganda, I'm not totally sure where it has led.

Not to sound melodramatic, but I think that anyone who spends enough time in Africa-away from the touristy hotels and safaris- pretty much has a similar experience. That this continent  is 'awesome' in the historical sense of the word. It inspires awe. It is both great and terrible. As I said, my experience has included both laughter and tears.

But mostly laughter. And bemusement. Lots of bemusement. It may take a lifetime to untangle the lessons I have learned here.

It was hard saying farewell to Gulu on Monday. We  went around saying goodbye and taking  pictures with our favorite people. We threw a pizza party for the staff at Thrive. Best of all we visited an orphanage with our friend Steve for the second time. It is a very small grassroots orphanage located out in a village with about 30 children living in 3 small rooms with only 6 beds total. I will talk more about that later. But, oh the joy of those kids. They sang us songs and danced and played with us. As we were getting ready to leave, we all lined up in a long train. They usually escort us/Steve out of the village to the main road, however we just stood there for awhile with the three of us mzungus growing ever more confused since we weren't moving.

Finally Steve turned to Vincent, one of the older kids there to ask what was going on. "We are started to moving," Vincent replied in his basic english. "Ah" answered Steve as if that explained everything.

Finally we did leave down narrow dirt paths and I arrived at the road with a child on each hand and a growing regret that I had not spent more time with them.

Isn't that always the way of it when saying goodbye? If only there was more time.

I'm ready to go home though. I'm ready for this 32 hour excursion involving 22 (yes 22!) hours just of AIRTIME to be over. I will be in an airplane for 22 hours over the next couple days not counting the time in the airports. My flight path is Entebbe to Istanbul to Chicago to Salt Lake.

I'm a bit tired just thinking about it! And on that note, I'm going to wrap up and try to get to bed. I have a long stretch ahead of me. And though I was up all night cleaning my apartment in Gulu on Monday, and though it took 6 hours to get from Gulu to Kampala, there is so much ground left to cover.

Kristen and I are only just started to leaving.