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.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
One month to go...
So I woke up this morning after a way-too-short night of sleep (Cinco De Mayo and Man U v. Arsenal, y'all), sludged my way over to the office on my bike, and found myself bombarded with a calendar that prompted the thought "Today is May 6."
Today is May 6. My flight home is booked for June 6. One month left of Africa and then it's back to the States.
I've been getting the sinking feeling lately that my mental/physical/psychological/emotional transition back to American life is going to be way more difficult than I bargained for. [The food transition, however, will not!] As challenging as it is to live in Uganda, I'm starting to suspect that it may be more challenging to leave Uganda. It's strange, but I can't imagine leaving here and being plopped back into my "normal" life.
Soooo... Today is May 6. I have one month. Here's to making it all it can be :)
Today is May 6. My flight home is booked for June 6. One month left of Africa and then it's back to the States.
I've been getting the sinking feeling lately that my mental/physical/psychological/emotional transition back to American life is going to be way more difficult than I bargained for. [The food transition, however, will not!] As challenging as it is to live in Uganda, I'm starting to suspect that it may be more challenging to leave Uganda. It's strange, but I can't imagine leaving here and being plopped back into my "normal" life.
Soooo... Today is May 6. I have one month. Here's to making it all it can be :)
Monday, May 4, 2009
Part 1: Top 11, 12, and 13 Signs That You've Assimilated to Uganda; Part 2: Why I Can't Write a "Real" Blog Post
11. Your ATM card gets declined at Barclays. Yep, I got declined by a bank in Uganda... it doesn't get any more humiliating than that. Haha OOPS.
12. You see that ants have raided your box of cereal, and you don't even blink. Instead, you consider it a positive thing that you are probably consuming enough ants on a daily basis to count them as a significant source of protein. Ants as a health food? You betcha.
13. Your brain stem has finally, once-and-for-all detached from your cerebrum. This is made evident when you wake up to find that you have left a pot of water boiling on the gas stove ALL NIGHT and that both the gas and the water have run out. OOPS AGAIN. As my roommate Kate pointed out, we are very lucky that my lack of brain activity didn't cost us our lives via gas poisoning or fire!
So this weekend when I was up in Gulu in northern Uganda (more on that later! and more on all the other random trips I've taken and haven't even mentioned...), I was up late talking with Kate about the usual potpurri of topics, most of them revolving around that wild-and-crazy, impossible-to-understand knot of contradictions and complications we call "development." In the middle of the conversation, in which I was finally able to release many of the loopy, tangled bits and pieces of thoughts and feelings that have been bouncing around in my mind like Mexican jumping beans, I realized that the reason why I haven't been able to write a real blog post, one that delves below the surface and addresses some of those tricky, sticky questions about international affairs and development, is because I can't. Seriously.
It's one thing to have a totally unstructured and laughter-filled conversation with someone who has been living through the same experience as you and facing the same toxic mix of confusion and bewilderment, but a whooooooole other challenge to write down and express what is brewing inside you to an ambiguous audience of people who aren't here living and breathing it with you. After four months of getting really comfortable with living and working in Uganda -- and having a wonderful time doing it! -- it is still way easier for me to tell fragmented little stories or list out some of the superficial, humorous bits about life than to put into words what Uganda has really taught me. Hell, most of the time I don't even KNOW what Uganda has really taught me!
This gives me such a huge respect for authors and journalists whose job it is to travel to a foreign place, absorb all they can about a given topic there, and then barf it back up in the form of a book or blog post or article or news story. There are obviously people who are brilliant at taking something as full-out INSANE as development (or any one of the smaller sub-issues therewithin) and processing it into a form that the average American reader can understand and appreciate. Unfortunately, as you've probably noticed by now, I am not one of them. So here's hoping that with time I'll be able to sharpen up my conclusions about what works in development and what doesn't (in case you were wondering, as of yet I've got a much firmer grasp on what doesn't) and be able to share it with you via the written word. I'm nowhere close to being at that point, but when I get there, you'll be the first to know :)
12. You see that ants have raided your box of cereal, and you don't even blink. Instead, you consider it a positive thing that you are probably consuming enough ants on a daily basis to count them as a significant source of protein. Ants as a health food? You betcha.
13. Your brain stem has finally, once-and-for-all detached from your cerebrum. This is made evident when you wake up to find that you have left a pot of water boiling on the gas stove ALL NIGHT and that both the gas and the water have run out. OOPS AGAIN. As my roommate Kate pointed out, we are very lucky that my lack of brain activity didn't cost us our lives via gas poisoning or fire!
So this weekend when I was up in Gulu in northern Uganda (more on that later! and more on all the other random trips I've taken and haven't even mentioned...), I was up late talking with Kate about the usual potpurri of topics, most of them revolving around that wild-and-crazy, impossible-to-understand knot of contradictions and complications we call "development." In the middle of the conversation, in which I was finally able to release many of the loopy, tangled bits and pieces of thoughts and feelings that have been bouncing around in my mind like Mexican jumping beans, I realized that the reason why I haven't been able to write a real blog post, one that delves below the surface and addresses some of those tricky, sticky questions about international affairs and development, is because I can't. Seriously.
It's one thing to have a totally unstructured and laughter-filled conversation with someone who has been living through the same experience as you and facing the same toxic mix of confusion and bewilderment, but a whooooooole other challenge to write down and express what is brewing inside you to an ambiguous audience of people who aren't here living and breathing it with you. After four months of getting really comfortable with living and working in Uganda -- and having a wonderful time doing it! -- it is still way easier for me to tell fragmented little stories or list out some of the superficial, humorous bits about life than to put into words what Uganda has really taught me. Hell, most of the time I don't even KNOW what Uganda has really taught me!
This gives me such a huge respect for authors and journalists whose job it is to travel to a foreign place, absorb all they can about a given topic there, and then barf it back up in the form of a book or blog post or article or news story. There are obviously people who are brilliant at taking something as full-out INSANE as development (or any one of the smaller sub-issues therewithin) and processing it into a form that the average American reader can understand and appreciate. Unfortunately, as you've probably noticed by now, I am not one of them. So here's hoping that with time I'll be able to sharpen up my conclusions about what works in development and what doesn't (in case you were wondering, as of yet I've got a much firmer grasp on what doesn't) and be able to share it with you via the written word. I'm nowhere close to being at that point, but when I get there, you'll be the first to know :)
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