It is a lazy and grey morning in Uganda, the wind blowing wet against the thin windows, and cold enough that my long-sleeved t-shirt has made its rare appearance and now accompanies my skirt and flip-flops. This is the last relaxed morning we will have for a while. Moses and Christine conclude their pastors' conference in Kampala today and with them will return the pace of a new school term. I find the rain comforting - not that I feel in need of comfort, but something in it nourishes me all the same. Maybe it reminds me of home, perhaps it nudges my thoughts ahead to next fall, or maybe it simply brings a slowness to the day that matches the pace of my mind and heart as they trudge along into the year. I'm not quite sure, but I welcome it regardless.
I feel at peace. Somehow, all of the chaos that has invaded my thoughts to wage war on my heart during this past week has finally settled. I awoke early this morning to the sound of the rain and something in me just let go, as if I had been fighting for survival, persevering unnoticed, with clenched fists. All the tension and anxiety released and I felt at rest for the first time in many days. No words or specific thoughts came to mind. I just lay there, listening to the rain falling through the dark and coming to rest on the banana leaves, the drops running together to form rivulets that splashed in the mud, leaving small red dimples below.
After some time, I got up to do the dishes from dinner last night (we finished eating at 11:30 p.m.), and as my hands kept themselves busy, my mind was free to wander in and out of thought and prayer. Eventually, the others got up and found their way out for breakfast. I heard their bare footsteps on the cement as they stumbled to the kitchen to greet me, dark eyes sleepy, sweaters pulled partially on (though rendered almost ineffective due to their gaping holes). For some reason, my disdain for the mundane routine of the morning surrendered to the beauty of the simple tasks and tedium of life. I realized again how much we miss when we forget to pause, when we forget to give thanks for the invisible and the unlikely. And for some reason, right now I find contentment in the fact that it is almost noon and Olivia is lying across from me, having returned to bed, completely buried in her blanket, still in her pajamas -- not even sleeping, simply lying there because she can. Even the occasional visit from the medium-sized rat that moved into our room yesterday no longer seems an intrusion but rather part of what makes this place home. 
I am beginning to realize that it will be these unique blessings that I will miss when I return to the U.S. to find myself a stranger there. It will be the hours I spent driving all over rural Jinja looking for a working maize mill to grind the last of our maize to make posho, stopping at each one that I know only to find that it's broken, trying to decipher directions to another mill offered in a combination of hand motions and the local dialect of Lusoga. It will be the time spent standing alone in the farm-supply store trying to remember which chicken vaccination to buy for the newborn chicks that ate all the dry rice I had saved for dinner that night. It will be the afternoons I spent shivering in the single, small, almost-clean swimming pool in Jinja, teaching Olivia and Vanessa how to swim. The discussions with Timon will linger forever, discussions about where we can find water this late at night when the town water system is shut off without warning, our rainwater supply gone, and whether or not to risk going to the lake even with the crocodiles and hippos. It will be the evenings spent singing in Luganda, Lusoga, and Swahili with the girls while we cook. The stubborn red callouses of my feet will testify to the hours spent teaching the neighborhood kids to play Frisbee and the afternoons spent climbing mango trees with Vanessa, trying to make her forget that we don't know where her mother is. My thoughts will return to the mornings I spent teaching her how to play my flute, and reminding her to bathe. I will remember drumming for her while she shows me the traditional dances of her tribe by bouncing her tiny seven-year-old hips, then placing the upturned palms of our hands next to each other to reveal that our skin isn't so different after all.
These are the threads that weave together the fleeting emotions and moments that will combine to form the patchwork testimony of a year in Africa -- a year that saw the internal, yet visible, growth of a barefoot and tangle-haired girl with sharp wings for shoulder blades; a girl never to be found in a dress, who lived in pants with holes revealing her bony knees; a girl whose love for animals far outweighed her love for people; a girl who could be found more often in trees than on the ground; a girl who learned to read while sitting on her dad's lap, stumbling through stories of this continent in National Geographic; a girl who now sits in a skirt, still barefoot, sifting through the stories she now lives, the stories of the lives of these people who have become her family, the stories of this continent that now has become her home.
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DARIEN PALPANT, a 2001 Krista Colleague, originally wrote this reflection in an email to friends and family while in Uganda where she taught in rural village secondary schools. She lived with a generous Ugandan pastor's family who opened their home to many children orphaned by AIDS and helped in providing their care. A religion major, she used her Krista Colleague $1000 grant to complete a hospital chaplaincy internship in Kenya. Darien and her husband, Nathan, now live in Spokane, WA.
