Anthem

Almost Everything

Also, while I sit at home reading book after book, bearing the Chicago humidity for the sake of a tan, Jacob sends me poignant reminders of those I love and miss in Uganda. A video of my "family", whom I've mentioned frequently and with adoration in past posts:

Family

In order of appearance: Uncle (Fr. Charles' uncle; no one calls him by any other name, it may be Bonafest...), Winnie (my counterpart/bane/sister from Chicago/best friend), Kakulu Mukulu (Peter, whose house is a pile of bricks but whose humor and compassion are fully-manifested), Fred (Fr. Charles' Uncle), Sanyu (my dearest friend), Rosie (Fr. Charles' housegirl and my neighbor; she secretly waters my plants, leaves me food and washes my clothes. She's either really kind or thinks I'm incompetent, I'd say both), Somaya (my pseudo-daughter and playmate who won't leave my side), Robert (my brother and biggest helper), Muhumuza (my second brother and stubborn little punk), and finally Uncle (again!). Missing: Kakulu Muto (my youngest brother and monkey that refuses to leave my back unless it's to hold my hand as we walk along) and Brenda (Sanyu's younger sister and my accomplice in ganging up on Sanyu when doing almost anything).

Thank you for meeting them.

16/06/2011

I don’t want to write. You’d think I would. You’d think the words would just be pouring out of me, ready for anyone to soak them up like the last bit of soup with the last bit of karo. In the middle of the night, when the vicodin has worn off, the nerves regenerating in my foot are sending intense pangs all the way up to my hip where I’m reminded of the fact that my skin graft donor site can’t go longer than two hours without a dousing of lotion before it feels like I’m ripping the skin off again should I shift positions, the bottle of Tums on my nightstand is empty after attempting to quell the damage done to my digestive tract from 4 weeks of IV pain-killers, 4 surgeries worth of anesthesia and 15 months of parasites, and sleep is the farthest thing from my mind, you’d think I’d haul my netbook up off the floor and onto my chest and just write. But what is there to say?

Should I talk about the fact that orthopedics tell me I’ll never run a marathon again? Or that the bones in my foot are hardly visible on the X-rays for all of the plates and screws shrouding them from view? I know! There’s the fact that all of my friends and family in the States are moving on with their lives: looking for jobs, cities, apartments and grad schools while I’m treated like a 13-year-old in my parents’ house; a burden that can’t even carry its own food. Nah. Maybe I could expand upon my feelings towards never being given the opportunity to say goodbye to anyone in Uganda, let alone the fact that I left a house, wonderful friends, a job and responsibilities for the future. And how I want, desperately, more than anything in the world, to get back there yet doctors tell me it could be anywhere from 4 months to a year before my foot is functioning anywhere near properly. Oh, but the surgeries? They’ll continue forever. I could write about how it feels being stuck, in so many ways, here in the States while my boyfriend is in my village (MY village!) in Uganda right now, working in a clinic and experiencing everything we were supposed to do together. Somehow that doesn’t pulse like a good writing topic, either.

So I think I’ll just go back to bed.