I've got the fire back in my belly; only now, it burns on charcoal from Uganda.

It has been exactly one month and three days since I left Uganda. That was the first time I can remember not being excited to get on an airplane; in fact, I was downright jealous of the fresh crowd of people who arrived at the airport just as I was about to leave. And though my take-off went smoothly, in many ways I feel like I crash-landed back into my homeland. I am just now beginning to feel like the discombobulation that possessed my life since I came back is gone. Here is a conversation my friend Jocelyn - who is studying abroad in Senegal right now - and I had that helps to illustrate what this transition has been like. She sent me a message on Facebook in response to my last post:

Heather, this is an absolutely beautiful that strikes a chord in me on so many levels. I hope you don't mind if I ask everybody reading my blog to please come and see this entry; it speaks volumes to what I hope to communicate little by little through my own entries.

How are you coming along in your project of learning to love America in all its imperfectness? What you say about breaking illusions as being the real process of learning is absolutely true.

Isn't it wonderful to know that we are all just like anybody else? And yet, so unique individually and culturally? The layers of difference and commonality are endless, enmeshed, and ever-shifting. Beauty incarnate.

Love,
Jocelyn

thank you so much for letting me know what you think, jocelyn! you are welcome to share this post with anyone...a huge part of why i write is to help communicate what i learn about the world to people who maybe haven't had the chance to learn the same thing. i'm glad you like it. :)

i have had a really tough time learning to be back here and love america. it's been a little over a month, and i'm just now feeling like i'm on my feet again. (it didn't help that i only gave myself a week before school started.) i think that being out of this culture and country for three months has made it nearly impossible to ignore all of the things i didn't like about america in the first place. where before, i could put up with aspects of this culture that annoyed me, now i feel like they are glaring and unavoidable. things that i thought used to satisfy me don't anymore.

although that all sounds super doom-and-gloom, it's like a painful but good pruning. from this i'm learning what can truly satisfy me and make my life as fulfilling as it was this summer. i can have a fulfilling life here; it just means seeking out truly edifying habits and places, rather than numbing out on what my culture tells me is fun.

yes, one of the most humbling lessons and joyful truths is how absolutely human everyone is. it shatters any ideas that superiority or greater wisdom lies in one culture or another. when i find myself wanting to look down my nose at people who seem to be absorbed in materialism, i remember that many ugandans are just as proud and anxious to have and acquire possessions. once my lens of judgment has cracked and fallen away, i can truly appreciate the individual and simultaneously universal beauty in each person i meet, and it humbles me.