Transitions

It really hit me how different the tourist route is in Africa to living there. It is like a completely different continent. I got my first taste of tourist Africa in Tanzania. It was a harder transition than you would imagine. It was difficult to leave behind Kenya. I feel very close to the situation and there was something wrong going on a safari when I was worried about pople i have met running away from machete-wielding gangsters. My phone was stolen on my last day in Nairobbery so nobody could reach me and I had no numbers. It makes it feel like a definitive ending to that stage of my life; definitive albeit abrupt.

It is strange to travel on the tourist track where the only locals you meet are the ones there to serve you. At the same time I noticed how closed-off I have become. My mom was open and receptive to people and I was far more suspicious as a girl traveling alone in a part of the world where many people you encounter just want a visa to your country and seem to think you have some influence in getting one for them. Too many marriage proposals and inappropriate touching have left me wary and with a steely exterior (or so I would like to imagine) that I never thought someone as sentimental, nostalgic, naive and who falls in love as easily as I do would ever attain.

It was hard for me to relax inot this luxury that most people in Africa will never experience. But as hard as that was, it was also difficult to transition back to the dorms and nasty hotels that seem to give you crabs just by looking at the sheets once my mom left.

I had my first real breakdown when my mom came. I adapted so quickly as I always tend to do (coming home is always more difficult). Things that would make most westerners stop and stare quickly fade into a real of disinterested normality. But seeing some of it from my mom's eyes: the poverty, traffic, women with everything on their heads, Masai clothing, speers, guns, people peeing on the street, the filth, etc., brought a new dimension to what I am doing.

For the first time it really hit home how dangerous what I am doing really is. I am a girl alone in Africa traveling in such a cheap and haphazard way. I am lost more than not and bumble about by the grace of friendly locals who take pity on me. I have met locals and military personell who tell me I am crazy and they would never do what I am doing. That doesn't make me feel very warm and fuzzy inside.

So I ws stressed with the reality of what I'm doing which suprised me because up until the day my mom arrived I was feelign so confident and at home in my travels.

Then when my mom left I was devastated. Being alone is always much more difficult after being with someone you care about so much. Another thing I realized was that I was a little jealous of my mom going home, not because I want to go home yet but because she has a home to go back to. I realized I couldn't go back, even if I wanted too. I don't have a life in the U.S. anymore. I have no house, no job, and no job prospects.

So I am trying to get back into my confident traveler ways but it is shaky.
The airlines losing my luggage on my flight to Uganda did not help. I write this now and it still has not turned up 6 days later and I still have nothing but the clothes on my back (and 2 shirts and one pair of underwear I purchased). Why have I not bought more you ask? Maybe a comb, a pair of pants? Because I would rather go to the dentist or hang out in a sewer than go shopping at home. Then add in the bargaining, the pickpockets, the hassel, the confusion, the crowds and the craziness of shopping Africa and it is my idea of a living hell. But with shopping in Kampala I don't have to decide between going and hanging out in a sewer or shopping because one pretty much runs through the market. Ah, the airfreshner of Africa.
Now I have to face yet another transition- one from almost-resident and working to aimless traveler. I miss feeling like I am a part of this continent, not just floating by. Also, the backpacking community that I loved so much when I was younger now seems liek a shallower way to travel, people flocking to people who are similar to them, a diluted spritzer of Africa instead of a fresh gulp. But still, backpackers see much more than the typical tourist. I am also aware that when I find someone to travel with I can do so much more than I can on my own. I can't go to more risky places, out at night or take more chances by myself so it is good to meet up with poeple to get in trouble with.
So another transition, I am sure there will be many more to come.