Outside my cottage three young men are chatting, laughing, and listening to a radio talkshow while they handwash sheets in a huge plastic bin and hang them in the sun to dry. I lie in bed with my laptop on my knees, the mosquito net brushed aside. From far in the distance comes the sound of hammering and a power saw, with the occasional call of a rooster. I am back in Kampala, have walked back into what seems so starkly to have been a dream.
The flight from London was an hour longer, as we skirted Libyan airspace and flew over Sudan. The excessively fertile greenery spread beneath us as the plane approached Entebbe and the equatorial sun rose. My new coworker Evan was by chance on my flight – the second time we’ve landed together in Entebbe – and we rode the hour to Kampala together with the company’s driver Paul. I’d been torn about my decision to return to Uganda, but the greenery, smiles, perfect temperatures, and waiting friends reminded me of why I’d felt wrenched away when I left in February.
My new job is with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which focuses on HIV and malaria treatment and prevention across the developing world. There are global and country-specific initiatives, and my work will focus on HIV in Uganda. I’ll be supporting the Ministry of Health on projects related to laboratories and pediatrics. The team is primary young westerners – 5 focused on HIV and a few others on malaria. The staff are determined, enthusiastic, intelligent, and fun - a close community.
My original interest in coming to Ugandan with AJWS included exploring work in medical technology and strategy in the developing world; I thought it an ideal first step to come to the developing world and learn about the people, culture, and situation. AJWS had no NGO’s focused in my area of interest, but in my free time I tried to meet people in and explore the health sector. My one and only American friend worked for CHAI and was returning to the US for an MBA, and so before I left the country I applied to be her successor.
Returning to the US was strange – I haven’t lived in the US since 2007, and I “returned” to my parents’ cold, cavernous rental house in San Diego. My Ugandan clothes weren’t warm enough for the San Diego “winter” and my only friend was, ironically, a Ugandan, who kept me up-to-date on the national elections. I’d heard nothing from CHAI after my interviews but struggled to begin contacting my friends and colleagues about jobs in San Francisco until I was sure I wasn’t returning to Uganda. I visited Illinois for a week to sort all my childhood possessions before my parents sell the house – reviewing the concrete details of my life, especially letters and essays I wrote about my career interests, was a very moving experience. I then went to San Francisco to look for a job in the US, having heard nothing from Uganda except the frequent emails of old friends wondering when I’d return.
There must be a ShiraLee-targetted hippy energy vortex beneath San Francisco, because I was happy the moment I stepped off the plane. Every old friend I’d contacted offered me a place to stay and their excitement and free time, even after three years away. Every day I met colleagues and friends to chat about our lives, and many helped me with my job search. I was so excited to be there, to build my life in a city I love, to stay in one place long enough to take advantage of opportunities, to invest in people and communities. Even the daily rain couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm; every interaction reminded me of why this life is the one I love. Then I heard from Uganda – an offer for the job I'd wanted most, with CHAI - but if I wanted it I had to leave San Francisco immediately. I was torn, but I had promised myself that my priority would be finding a job that was interesting, challenging, in which I learned new things every day. This I would find at CHAI. And so I left for Uganda with slightly less enthusiasm than had originally overwhelmed me, and a promise to myself to return to San Francisco after the 8 month contract.
I flew through both San Diego and Switzerland to collect my business clothes and other necessary belongings. Even after the emotional rollercoaster of closing my life in Illinois and revisiting my life in San Francisco, I was unprepared to walk back into my Swiss life and find it still intact. The apartment was there, full of the furniture I’d selected, the decorations I’d designed, even the food I’d collected. Little details flooded back – the soap I’d been using the month before I left that smelled good but lathered poorly...Again, I felt I’d left in a hurry – it seems one cannot leave a place gradually – and, though I’d known life had continued without me, it was unreal to walk back into that life and see it there, as I’d left it, only a little evolved – a few new things here and there, road construction, my belongings in boxes in the bedroom, tulips poking up in the garden box, and some junk mail for me in the post. I opened all my boxes, collected anything I could use in Uganda, and repacked the boxes – over 3 days. Each day I met one old friend, but it was a last minute, rushed trip and most of my old colleagues didn’t know I was there. I felt like a secret intruder into my own history, but strangely comfortable; I had missed riding my bike to town and sleeping on my mattress, and the weather, ironically, was gorgeous.
And now I am back in Kampala, though not back to my old life. I live in an upscale, quiet neighborhood full of westerners rather than the loud, crowded, downtown intersection I left. Paul drives me to work each morning, so I don’t walk the dusty, chaotic streets or crowd into a public taxi. I joined the country club across the street and swim or visit the gym almost daily. The most expensive grocery stands beside my office, full of imported western goodies; I miss the market that used to sit across the street, but life is more comfortable. I’ve been training 10-12 hours a day to transition knowledge and contacts for my new job; it’s intense, exhausting, and fascinating. I visited a remote northern health center with a team to collect data to analyze a pilot of point-of-care HIV testing equipment; in a few days test machines should arrive for a new government lab to perform HIV testing of infants born to HIV+ mothers; and I’m helping the team setting up the lab and the transport network to reliably move samples and results between patients across the nation to and from the lab. My second day at work was a conference to standardize national investments in laboratory equipment, and Monday I’ll get to edit the final report of all the decisions. I'm spending Saturday morning relaxing in bed and writing to you. Come visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment