Uganda

[newnick61]

The Nickster is taking a break from Africa and, frankly, is not fitting in all that well here in first world. I think after you have been in the village too long you miss the routine.
It's funny because in Uganda I was the white outsider - the "muzungu". That could have become my name -"Muzungu Nick" - except when I worked at the hospital, for some reason, when people are sick and desperate they just don't have time to mention the colour of your skin.
Unlike here, in East Africa HIV is just part of the landscape. When some kid tells you one or both of his parents have died you don't ask the cause. It's a favourite topic on the billboards and in the newspapers. It's in the woman sitting across from you. It is punchline in all those USAID grants that I wrote. Lives bound together by some goddamn retrovirus. There I am part of it. Here I am just a freak - a medical oddity like lobsterboy or the bearded lady.
In any event, maybe Nick is having that middle age existential crisis with a generous side helping of depression because I didn't buy a red sportscar; none of the flashy diversions of America thrill me anymore and I don't know why. America is about isolation - the space between each of us. I just miss community.
Ni sawa. Enough of my lament, my anguish is now only in my head and whatever in the future is meted out by the virus.
In conclusion to my ramblings, Nick has to confess that I really loathe my former employer, the corrupt government of Uganda, however most of the people are very decent. In many cases they have been dealt a shitty hand by fate but seem to persevere. For example, Amin's tribe, the Acholi, were terrorized for almost 20 years by the Lord's Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony, a man who could play a villain in any Batman movie. (I particularly liked Kony's raid about 6 years ago when he chopped off the heads of primary school teachers.) If you want to learn more about northern Uganda or help out the cause go to http://aidafrica.net/. I will confess that in my experience most money sent to charities in East Africa winds up buying Toyota Land Cruisers for men who sit in air conditioned offices in Kampala. AidAfrica actually does what they say on their website.

Kwa heri.
-Muzungu Nick

[Jody]

Hi Nick...Good to hear you are surviving life in the heart of Africa, with all its beauty and uncertainty.  Are you still with your young partner you wrote about the last time you posted.

Keep in touch.

Jody

[Robert]

nick..

so you're back from Africa?  Welcome home, I guess.  I can't imagine you staying put for very long.  Like you said, it's an awkard feeling.  Where to next?  How about the transiberian express?

robert

[minismom]

Nick, while in Uganda, did you have a chance to visit one of the Watoto Villages?  They have a very near and dear place in my heart.  Are you planning on going back to Africa any time soon?  For what it's worth, welcome home.

Mambo Sawa!
Mum