"Back to life, back to reality..."

That was one line of a song in the 80's...no recollection of who sang it but it comes to mind in relation to my life today.

I've been back in Bundibugyo since Wednesday evening of last week. The latter part of last week was an ease back into life here. Today was the smack upside the head.

Spent the morning distrubuting food to inpatients and outpatient follow ups and motherless babies. Always a bit of a balancing act...how many stories and names and faces and charts and books can you keep straight and respond to and keep accurate records of all at one time. But, we were done by not long after 11am. Not bad at all. Made my way back to the ward to tie up loose ends and check and see where Jennifer was with rounds. She was just finishing...or so she thought...but just when you think you're done, people come crawling out of the woodwork (or the cement and mud as it may be here) with various requests and questions.

We biked home, I branched at mine and she went on up the hill to hers. I found Susanna finishing her work of making tortillas and sweeping the floor. I greeted her, thanked her for her work and tried to get a few emails written. Then Baguma picked me up for our trip over the river and through the woods. Riding on the back of a motorcycle with Baguma driving is a stark contrast to the weaving and speed of Kampala boda drivers. I actually told him at one point, "you can drive faster if you like, don't worry about me, I'm used to the driving of the boda drivers in Kampala." "But driving at that speed is risking life" he replied. Doh. I agreed and left the issue alone even though at times I wanted to shake his shoulders and say, "really, I could walk faster than this!"

When we came to the river, there wasn't anyone in the water, and there was a herd of men trying to get me to let them carry me across...I've always just insisted on walking across myself. So, my feet and the hem of my skirt get wet, who cares. But with all the rain we've had I wasn't sure of the depth of the water and the speed with which it might carry me downstream (remember the Nile experience?), so I decided to surrender my pride and agree.

How long has it been since you accepted a piggy back ride from a complete stranger of the opposite sex? That's what I thought. The last time I did this, the stranger kinda squatted and I hopped on, literally. Well, evidently that's not how it's done in Uganda or once one clears the age of 10 or something because that's exactly what I did this afternoon and everyone on both sides of the river got quite a laugh. Glad to be of some comic relief.

Well, I'm running out of time to post this so for your benefit this will be brief.

The program at Busunga was relatively painless, but then was followed by the staff and volunteers confronting me about their complaints and dissatisfactions with the program and specifically their "motivation." I was actually really glad for this but personnel management has never and will never be my strong suit. But we communicated well I think and are working on the situation.

After another piggy back ride across the river (this time I managed to climb on rather than hop on which seemed to be better received), we arrived back at mine at about 5:30pm or so.

The evening, as I stood with a cucumber in my hand I had intended to cut and use to prepare a dinner, was spent in confrontation with a neighbor and friend and local church leader about his reception of some communication he's received from the team recently.

Dinner was served at about 8:45. With tall Gin & Tonics :)

Welcome home, Ida.