back in the US of A

Well hello there everyone.

I am now sitting in my Chicago apartment with jet lag and a pair of eyes that can't stop noticing EVERY difference between the US and East Africa.

For those of you who are curious and/or have the time, I may continue to write on this blog for a while although I am already back. Some of the most revealing and pressing questions and realizations often come AFTER the fact. So hopefully you can join me in some of those journeys as I record them here.

I have many photos and videos to still share from my last days in Uganda. The walk to Grace's home to tell her and the family goodbye was early one morning. Simultaneously I felt the gift I had been given by so many people's love in Uganda, the pain I had been exposed to in endless stories of war, and the anticipation of someday returning to my family home in Lacor, Northern Uganda.

The week before departing to the USA, I traveled from Uganda to Tanzania. I stayed in Zanzibar for about a week of relaxation, sun, and water. Zanzibar is an island off the coast of Tanzania, right across the shore from Dar es Salaam. I traveled there with Megan Mercer and it was a much needed repose.

The culture, architecture, language, food, music, landscape, and weather of the place are completely distinct from that of Uganda. It was almost as if my mind had never created categories for what exists there. Typically the "African Island" cliche brings to mind (for me at least) one of two images: the Jamaican/Caribbean post-slave trade tourist attraction image OR the Spanish-colonized Cuban/Dominican Republic Afro-Latino image. And what both of these have in common is that Africans were taken to these places and the culture was blended most often with either English or Spanish culture.

But Zanzibar?? The Africans of the island are the NATIVES. They are the people who have farmed the land and bathed in the sea and built the boats for centuries. That is until the slave trade on the Indian Ocean changed everything. So now when you walk around you see the stereotypical Rastafarian African with dreadlocks, you see Muslim Arabs, and then you see Muslim Africans.... all living side by side in some cultural explosion unlike anything I'd ever fathomed.

We ate lobster, crab, shrimp, barracuda, kingfish at the night market on the shore along with samosas, falafel, and sugarcane juice. In the morning we woke to the songs of prayer, and by day we went scuba diving, met locals, and tried to wander our way through the most narrow, crooked streets.

Of everyone I met on the island, one man, an artist, a painter, inspired me most. I wrote a short story of our encounter and will post it next along with a photo of his paintings that I purchased.

If any one has connections to museums and would like to work with him to get his art exhibited let me know. He speaks English, has the most unique style I saw on the island, and is extremely eloquent.