America and other really strange things.

So I've tried multiple times upon returning to the States to write a conclusion post for my Uganda trip (how trite it seems to even call it a trip, but oh well), to bring some closure to myself and to you guys who were Born To Be Alive, to tie things up in a nice little bow and say goodbye. But as you can see by a lack-of-post I have failed miserably.

First I tried writing something reflective. That lasted all of five minutes before I realized that, yet again, I couldn't even coherently reflect in my own head, let alone in writing.

Then I tried writing a "what I will miss about Uganda" post like Brynna wrote about the Czech Republic. But that too proved wayyyy too complicated to sort out.

Then I tried recounting my first 48 hours worth of American meals. This seemed promising because the euphoria I felt about eating was the one emotion I could put my finger on and identify. But then writing this kitschy food porn also felt weird and frankly kind of detestable when it struck me that the variety and quality of foods I indulged in during those first days back was greater than what most Ugandans will taste in their entire lives.

Then I gave up on writing anything altogether.

Now it's been almost a month back. It's my night off from camp (where I'm a counselor this summer) and I'm in Denver with a belly smiling from my first drive through Taco Bell since last year. My friends went to bed and so should I, but I can't fall asleep and now I'm up late with my own flashes of recollection about Uganda. So I thought what the hell, I'll post on the blog.

It's hard to say I've even had time to be back in America, because I'm not in the "real world" -- I'm at camp, where I'm arguably just as cut off from the "real world" as I was in Uganda (only I get "time off" to venture into civilization for one day and one night each week). Time off is so weird because it's like being thrown into an urban world that is so familiar and so distant all at the same time. I drive on highways and shop at grocery stores and go to movies and eat at restaurants and drink at water fountains and poop in public toilets and lounge at bookstores and talk in English and it's all so very odd in the most unexplainable way. Every day since I've been back I can never quite shake the feeling that I'm living in a dream, or that Uganda was all a dream... basically it's like I can't comprehend that life in Uganda and life in America are both happening at this very moment on the same planet, like I can't make these two realities compatible in my mind, like I can't juxtapose them alongside one another, like I can't seem to reconcile the me in Uganda with the me in America. I'm sorry that none of this makes any sense. Well, I'm not sorry. But I acknowledge that it doesn't make any sense, and that's okay, and I hope you too can realize that that's okay.

You see, I can't really tell you what I learned in Uganda other than that life is cloudy and complicated and ambiguous and murky and that sometimes you just can't make sense of it. And sometimes you shouldn't try to make sense of it because the more you try to force life into a straight line the further away you bring it from the truth. I've learned that more often than not the most honest answer to a question is "I don't know" and that that's okay. I've become so much more comfortable with the "not knowing" that is so prevalent in our lives and so much more wary of people who claim to "know the facts." I almost feel silly going back to school to learn about the world because you can only learn about the world by learning in the world, not in a lecture hall at an American university. This is no offense to the professors that get paid to teach us about the world, but let me explain:

Last week I led a "Uganda discussion" with a group of 13-16 year olds and I felt so incredibly awkward with the entire set-up. It was like I was supposed to be their window into what Uganda is like... and the truth was I could never be that window, no one could ever be that window, because to know a place you have to experience it for yourself at an intimate level. You have to walk the streets, befriend the people, learn the language, get lost, get drunk, get smacked in the face by your own poorly-formed preconceptions of "how things are in ____," and finally get filled up with the unquantifiable, inexplicable sense of understanding that comes with calling a place your "home," if only for a short while. That's what you have to do.

Unfortunately this truth doesn't resonate all that well with upper-middle-class American teenagers whose schools have probably pounded into them that every question has an answer and every answer can be obtained via asking a responsible adult like a teacher or, say, a camp counselor, so I had to piece together answers that were prefaced with "Well, I don't know, but..."

I guess I would've been best off writing a post that went something like this:

Hmm, Uganda. I don't know, but it was wonderful.

One thing every person needs to do at least once in a lifetime: birthday suit bungee!

You know how there are certain moments that you can clearly identify as life-changing? Not life-changing in that ambiguous happy-fuzzy-rosy I-feel-so-alive way but that distinct, transformative, I-will-never-be-the-same way? Well I had one of those moments this past Sunday. In a complete reversal of everything I've ever done or dreamed of doing, I got up the nerve to go bungee jumping... naked.

It all started when two friends-of-friends who were visiting from Masaka, Kathleen and Michelle, decided to go bungee jumping into the Nile. This had definitely been on my to-do list, but as of late my rapidly depleting stores of money made the $65 price tag seem decidedly out of my reach. So I spent my Saturday watching DVDs on my laptop and eating ice cream. But then Kathleen and Michelle returned, visibly glowing and bubbling over with the remnants of the experience, and said: "Yeah we got there to check in and they asked us how we would like to pay: cash, credit, or the free option?" So what is this free option? You guessed it: you go nude, you go free. Michelle had taken them up on the offer, and judging by her complete and total state of satisfaction, I thought to myself "I can do that too." Save $65 by putting on my birthday suit? That's not really comparable to being a stripper, is it?

So the next morning my roommate Kate and I saw Kathleen and Michelle off and pondered the prospect of actually going through with this. We stumbled upon the phone number for Adrift and called, making a tentative reservation for 5 pm. Now Kate and I were accountability partners in this whole gig: it takes two people for them to open up the tower and we had made the reservation together and we were going, so neither one of us could back out now. That being said, we spent the afternoon chugging down Nile Specials (one of the local beers that's brewed just a hop, skip, and a jump away) because we figured that it's all fine-and-dandy to say you're going to bungee jump naked, but -- more for the naked part than the bungee jumping part -- it probably takes a litre of Niles to actually do it.

But at around 6:30 pm just as the sun was beginning to fall, we did it. Kate and I hiked up the tower, met the gorgeous Australian man and his Ugandan sidekick with whom we were entrusting our very lives, and after watching a few other brave souls take the plunge (clothed), we stepped right up, took a deep breath, and stripped. This is where the Big Life Change began.

The change was almost instantaneous: it was like for as long as I could remember I had this tumor of fear lodged in my stomach that would flare up and cripple me every time I thought about doing something "risky," like quitting my crappy job or standing up to my parents or calling a guy back, and the moment I stripped down in front of that sexy Australian bungee guy the tumor unlodged itself from my gut. Then, when I hopped over to the edge of the tower (they tie you in at your ankles... haha no harness or anything just your feet!), stood tall and proud in front of a crowd of squealing Ugandans and hollering muzungus, and 3...2...1... lept into the open sky with the Nile river waiting 44 metres below to break my fall, that knot of fear that had bound me all my life dissipated into nothing more than an unwelcome memory. As the air whooshed in my ears and the world enveloped my eyes, I was free. And when I reached the water and dunked into the Nile for just long enough to realize that I'd made it, I was flooded with ectasy.

The waves of joy and power and energy and liberation surged through my body as I bounced up and down above the water like a floppy fish. There was no was my smile could contain my joy nor could my body contain my energy -- I was seeping out the edges of my skin and into this beautiful world. The landscape spun around me as I tumbled through it freely, absorbing a stunning kaleidoscope of silver water, green mountains, and barely-broken sunset. Mind you I'm upside down this whole time, so the sights were so alien and disorienting and beautiful -- especially the sweeping upside-down sunset!

Once the bounces gradually became less and less high, out rowed the two guys who would raft me back to land. As they reached out to me with a paddle and cradled my naked body into the raft, little did they know that they were the first individuals on this earth to touch the new, fearless me. It was so adorable when they asked if it was "very much fun," to which I gave a resounding yes. Then one of them told me assuredly, as if to squash whatever anxiety a white woman might be experiencing when rowing naked in a raft with two strange Ugandan men, "We are all born naked easily."

We are all born naked easily. So what happens from that point forward, when trust and freedom become replaced by apprehension and shame? We spend an indefinite number of years losing sight of our innate perfection, learning to look-both-ways and be-a-good-girl/boy, walling ourselves off from our true nature and the true nature of our life on this planet: love. We are all born naked easily. And when I -- surprisingly easily -- reclaimed my nakedness, it was like something new was born inside of me. Something that, I hope, will guide me to a life of more joy and adventure and discovery and growth. The truth of the shift materialized when I stepped back on solid ground, my heart pumping hot blood and adrenalin: I knew that never again could fear limit what I might dare to attempt. That's a line from the Lady of the Bracelet definition that I'd always struggled to imagine for myself, but that very line is what spoke to me as I floated back towards the tower to retrieve my clothes.

Coming down from the tower, Kate and I gasped and giggled and stumbled around with big gestures and big remarks -- "Can you believe we just did that?!?!" "Ohmygod that was the greatest thing ever!" -- all because, in that moment, we were truly soaring on top of the world. When we reached the bar to order a pair of Nile Specials, never had the brand slogan seemed so fitting:

You've earned it.

You can take the girl out of Kansas, but you can't take Kansas out of the only bar in town that carries March Madness AND lets me hog the TV for hours

***DISCLAIMER*** This post may have zero relevance to your life and may stimulate little-to-no interest in anyone not familiar with the absolute and perpetual glory that is Jayhawk basketball. Continue reading at your own risk.

So once upon a time (i.e. last Friday), it struck me that never since I've been a conscious, thinking human being have I ever missed my beloved Kansas Jayhawks play in the NCAA tournament. I have seriously spent a good portion of every Spring Break I've ever had curled up on my couch watching and analyzing every game with every team, deconstructing how we the Jayhawks could positively crush them (even on occasions after we the Jayhawks had, in fact, already been crushed). March Madness is that special time of year where one can leave the Real World behind and, between the actual games and the seemingly ceaseless bracket analysis and commentary on ESPN, actually live 24-7 in College Basketball World. And when you're a Kansas Jayhawk, there's no better place to live than College Basketball World.

Now, there are a lot of things I'm willing to give up to be in Uganda (stable electricity, flushing toilets, and Ben & Jerry's to name a few), but March Madness is not one of them. I spent all day Friday (well, I did some real work, I guess) trying to come up with ingenious ways to force the internet to conjure up a live video stream, or at least a live audio stream, of the tournament, but to no avail. Then I began the agonizing process of trying to let myself down easy and eliminate any faint hopes I had of getting to experience even the tiniest taste of March Madness this year.

Just when I had finally arrived at a little spot of zen and acceptance that my life would indeed go on if I were to miss KU playing -- and that my heart would even continue beating if we lost to the NDSU Bison as with the Bucknell Bison -- my friend David called me and said, "Why don't you try to go find some mzungu place with satellite TV and see if anywhere is broadcasting the tournament? Chances are slim, but it's at least worth a shot if you really want to see the game..." And that's when it struck me that I really did want to see the game. Some little parts of me, most especially the parts of me that pump crimson and blue through my veins, just don't let go of wild hopefulness that easy. So I hopped on my bike and sped off to this one bar at a place called Safari Inn where my friend Sacha and I had watched a really dreadful Nigerian movie on DStv a few weeks back and I walked up to the bar and said "Can we check if there is American basketball on the TV?" and then they scanned through all the channels and found ESPN but it was poker and I was like "NOOOOOO..." but they told me to come back later. Boo.

Nearly defeated, I headed over to Flavours (a.k.a. magic coffee shop with wi-fi and the best brownies on the planet) to sulk and eat a giant plate of pasta. But while I was there, trying fruitlessly to get MMOD (mmod.ncaa.com) to load on my sad little computer, I decided to take a stab at it and see if there was a DStv schedule posted online. To my ultimate shock, coming up on ESPN in 15 minutes was the FIRST ROUND OF THE 2009 NCAA TOURNAMENT!!!! I nearly flipped out and promptly hopped back on my bike and sped back across town to Safari Inn, where the staff turned on ESPN for me and miraculously there appeared the image of CBS's March Madness coverage. I cannot even explain the ecstasy that overwhelmed me in that moment. I jumped up and down squealing and gave the bartender a HUGE hug and spent the next 5 hours (yep, 5 hours...) in complete awe at the complete serendipity of this situation. Despite the minor frustration of having to watch more of Oklahoma State vs. Tennessee than Kansas vs. NDSU (apparently defending national champions are NOT worthy of equal coverage... hmmpf), I was in pure bliss. Sometimes life just surprises you in the best way possible, like when you sit back and realize that you are sitting in a random bar in the middle of Uganda watching the Kansas Jayhawks playing live half a world away while a bunch of Ugandans are behind you drinking merrilly to the sounds of Michael Jackson and Madonna circa like 1985.

I am still in awe of this whole thing. In a land where I can hardly get my e-mail to load most days, I can watch Jayhawk basketball live on CBS being simulcast on ESPN International on some TV in some bar. It's beyond wonderful. This is thereby one of the rare occasions when I can honestly say with no hesitation: praise be to globalization.

So every time a KU game is on between now and April 6, I know where I'll be! How about you? For all you Sun Devils out there, I propose you hop on the KU bandwagon for no other reason than that we're in U of A's bracket and if we end up crossing paths you can be sure we'll avenge our regular season loss and demolish them on your behalf. Just a suggestion.