Washignton, DC Part 1

I am finally sitting down and having some time to write on here for the first time since being back.  I have been back a total of 12 days.  In some ways it seems like I have been here a lot longer, in some ways, the time is very short, and I feel like I just arrived.  Either way, it is not that long, and musing over the actual perception to reality difference is a bit too meta to really be interesting.

I arrived on Tuesday the 17th on a 15 hour flight from Dubai.  It was rather unremarkable.  I slept a lot, I ate 4 times, and watched a number of movies.  When I arrived, customs and immigration was the quickest at Dulles that I have ever experienced.  It took less than 45 minutes to go through immigration, gather my luggage, and pass through customs.  It was refreshing.  Usually, because of the ineffective way Dulles shuttles people from the international terminal to the main airport terminal, there are bottlenecks that are frustrating and interminably irritating after traveling from far-off parts of the world.  Luckily, I was greeted on the other side by the smiling face of Winnie Auma, our Uganda country director and my good friend from Village Enterprise.  By brother picked us from the the airport, and we began a crazy day.

My brother treated us to lunch a local diner, and I was thrilled to eat a delicious club sandwich.  Winnie ate biscuits and gravy for the first time (yeah I know, like the fattest American food, but it is legit).  Then we went to his house where we prepared for a meeting by having a skype call with Ellen in Uganda.  Then we took an Uber black car into the city, all the while I was deliriously pointing out monuments to Winnie.  This whole time I was g-chatting with Lee who did not know I was in the US, and I was pretending I was in Kampala getting ready to come to the US.  Surprises.

The black car dropped us at FHI 360 where we had a preparatory meeting for a presentation we would be giving on that Thursday.  From there we went to a meeting with the funder of our randomized controlled trial (impact evaluation) that is running on our program in Uganda.  We met Konstantin in Dupont Ciricle (I was afraid Lee would catch a glimpse of me in the circle like one of those tabloid photos of bigfoot) so I was trying my best to cover my face.  Winnie, Konstantin, and I went to the meeting and then we walked down to Konstantin's office where my brother again met me for the grand surprise!

Evan, Rebecca, and I all went to Kapnos in the 14th Street area of NW where Lee was waiting, none the wiser that I was going to be showing up with Evan and Rebecca.  It was so nice to see Evan and Rebecca pull up in front of Konstantin's office.  It was surreal to be in DC, and I had only been there for 9 hours at this point, but I was excited to see Lee's face.  We agreed that we would all walk into the restaurant, and I would come in last, somewhat hidden by Evan (I am easily hidden because I am dainty).

Evan and Rebecca walked in first, and they both said hi to Lee and hugged her.  She was beautiful in a floral dress, sipping a glass of champagne and absently thumbing through her hair.  I was last in line to say hello and at first she simply said "hey!" and then it set in that I was there, and not supposed to be there, and surprising her, and that I was there, and for the next 10 minutes she laughed, while crying, and just saying "oh my god."  It was a pretty spectacular reaction.  We had a lovely dinner all four of us, and then we went back for my first sight of OUR APARTMENT!

The apartment is lovely.  It is just the right size, there are tons of windows that throw beautiful light on every space, and it is so nicely decorated.  Lee worked hard and did an amazing job of setting the place up.  It is compact, but spacious, and not cramped.  It feels like our place, and it is such a comfortable, welcoming space.  The building is lovely, and directly across the street from Meridian Hill Park.  We are a close walk to the 14th Street strip, U street, Shaw, and Columbia Heights.  It is ideal.  We unfortunately did not even have time to do nothing and enjoy each other because we both had to work a lot.

The next two days were filled with meetings, conferences, presentations, and courting potential funders, and current partners.  But finally, over the weekend we had time to just be together.  It was amazing to know that we could go to dinner, and not feel like we had to go all the restaurants we needed to.  We could go out, stay in, go for walks, and not feel  like there was pressure to try to do everything all at once.  We shopped for the apartment, went out for tacos with a dear friend who I hadn't seen since Christmas, went to the National Zoo, and generally enjoyed being together with no hurry for the first time in two years.  We cooked meals, made grocery lists, and planned dinners.  It was such a nice thing.

On a cultural note, the grocery stores here are insane.  After coming from Hoima where there are 11 things to choose from.  The grocery store here just makes me stop in my tracks.  In 3 or 4 grocery trips, I have generally ended up with at least 7 random things (mostly cheeses or cheese products), and spent much more than intended.  The tropical fruits in the store are stupid expensive and not ripe, there are more cereals than anyone could possibly eat, I can begin to describe how amazing it is to have whole grain and health food options.  It is all overwhelming.  And, no one tries to sell it to you!  You just go and casually pick what you want.  It is overwhelming.

On another cultural note, everyone looks like me here.  I know that seems obvious, but there are so many white 20 somethings who have facial hair and preppy clothes in this area.  At the grocery store, the park, the bars, anywhere, there are so many of me around.  I never confronted either my sameness, or that I could be so different based on the context.  It is pretty amazing.  The crowds of people, cars, options, and general transition have led to a few panic attacks, but those have been manageable, par for the course I suppose.  Even if I am not actually dying, I feel like I am, and I think about how I could just be buried under varieties of cheese and hot sauce and suffocate under the pile, and then the panic seems all at once more tangible, but less threatening.  Cheese is a double-edged sword.  More on that later I s'pose.  

Home Leave. (Where is home, exactly?) Part 1. The US Section

I don't think I realized that I had left Uganda until I was coming back into the country.  I was waiting in line at immigration after 5 weeks away, explaining to some other tourists how to get a taxi and what to pay.  I recognized the immigration official (the airport is not big at Entebbe) and joked with him about how he was the one who gave me my exit visa, too.  I pushed through the crowds with a stack of luggage that had multiplied over my journey.  I left with 1 bag to check, and came back with three massive bags. A driver from our favorite Kampala hotel, Red Chilli, was there to pick me up.  The night was warm and damp, it had clearly begun raining in Kampala.  I was back on the left as a passenger, and on the left side of the road.  Suddenly it hit me that I had actually been away.  This realization, about 5 weeks too late, sent a dizzying flood of emotion into my small brain, and I promptly shut off and slept until arriving at Red Chilli 45 minutes later.

My trip started with a terrorist threat that was confirmed to be real and potentially very violent against Entebbe airport at the exact time I was supposed to fly out.  We had the veracity of this published threat confirmed by a colleague who is a Member of Parliament, and head of the defense committee in parliament here in Uganda.  He advised me, "fly out as soon as you can, or wait two days."  Well.  I wasn't going to wait two days, so I jumped in a taxi with a friend who was flying out that afternoon, rather than late at night.  We arrived to the airport, bought a one-way ticket on Qatar airways from Entebbe to Washington DC (I was supposed to go to Seattle) and thought, well, I can figure the rest out in Doha.  I just need to get clear of Entebbe.  We spent a tense few hours waiting in the airport for either our plane to arrive, or the apocalypse.  Fortunately the plane landed first.  We boarded and were soon in the air on the way to Doha.

We landed in Doha, and after some finagling at the transfers desk, I had a flight to Chicago in the morning, a hotel for the night, and meal vouchers.  So my friend and I proceeded down to immigration and passed the droves of officials in traditional Emirati clothes, jelaaba and head scarf.  We cleared immigration and set off into a 100 degree night at 1:00 am to our hotel.  We arrived at the hotel at 2:30, decided to take our meal right then (meals were still going on for Ramadhan, so people could eat before fasting at dawn).  We ate around 3:00, and at 4:00 we went outside to listen to the call to prayer echo around the canyons of dazzlingly elctrified sky scrapers.

I caught about two and a half hours of sleep before getting a wake up call to come down for our transfer back to the airport.  I took a quick cold shower, put my clothes back on and headed back to the glitzy, commercial chaos of Doha International airport.  There was a ferrari for purchase in the duty free shops.  I bought some chocolates and a coconut water (I was excited by these developed world choices) and then boarded my 14.5 hour flight to Chicago.

Upon landing in Chicago, I knew I would miss my flight.  The flight was already 35 minutes late, on top of a 1.5 hour layover to clear immigration, pick up my bags from customs, re-check them, and get to my gate.  No chance.  I still ran all through O'hare trying to do my best to make it, but I couldn't.  I ran to the wrong gate, then had to retrace my steps, and just sit with the knowledge that I wouldn't get to Seattle before 10:00 pm.  I Was sweating, tired, had been wearing the same clothes for 30 hours, and needed a shower, so I bought a clean shirt and undies at Brooks Brothers, and bought a day pass to the United Admiral's club.  I got a nice long shower, and clean clothes.  I had three beers in the club for free, then a bourbon, and then headed down for my flight to Seattle.


Seattle was wonderful.  It was so nice to spend time with my family.  We went boating, saw art, ate at the top of the Space Needle, went to Pike Place Market, went walking around Green Lake, went on several nice jogs, grilled delicious burgers, caught up with dear friends (@maurawatts) and just generally soaked up my family.  We even got to see the whole extended family and drive to the cascade mountains to our Cabin in the woods.  It is a hodge podge place, a little bit of family chaos in the woods, but it has so many great memories attached to it.

From there we drove down the West Coast to Merced.  I spent a very quick three nights in Merced.  This whole time I was sort of a zombie.  Up until midnight with work activities to stay connected to East Africa, and up early to check in before their work day ended.

From Merced I went to San Francisco where I stayed with Genny, one of my besties, for a week while working out of the US Office of Village Enterprise.  It was a wonderful opportunity to get in touch with the home base and refresh my perspective on Village Enterprise from that side of the operations.  It is so crucial, and all my meetings with the Staff there gave me a renewed appreciation for how our field work can inform our US work and vice versa.  In the evenings I went to lovely dinners, cooked with Genny and John, saw wonderful friends from Pitzer and AU, and was genuinely honored to be in the presence of such good people.

From San Francisco I flew down to LA and spent an amazing weekend with Harrison Weinfeld, another one of my best friends.  We ate amazing food, went to the beach, drank delicious scotch, stayed up far too late talking and catching up.  He took me on tours of his neighborhood, and I was so happy to see how established he was in LA.  It was such a pleasure.  I also got to see Geraldine and we all went out for a night, and I met Harris' writing partner Danny at a nice little gathering in Hollywood.  It was fun to be back in Los Angeles, and a good reminder of why I really wouldn't mind ending up there with Lee.  Thank you Harris for a wonderful time.  I spent an afternoon with my grandmother.  It was so good to see her, as I am not sure if I will again.  Then I had dinner with my aunt and uncle who shuttled me to the airport after great conversation and good food.

While in the car on the way to the airport, I got my last call before shutting off.  I was on the phone as I checked in for my flight to Panama City, and up to going through Security.  The phone call ended and I went straight through the security line to my gate.  I boarded an overnight flight to Panama City.

I woke up in Panama City, breezed groggily through the airport to the gate for my flight to Quito.  I barely had enough time to snag a water and a coffee before I got on my flight to Quito.  I slept again until we were landing in Quito.  The turbulence was such that we were dropping steeply, and sharply.  People were screaming.  Then we landed to a burst of applause and I had made it to Ecuador.