Autumn in Uganda

Lately, the gorgeously painted African sunrises and sunsets have brought with them cool breezes that nip at my skin when I’m wearing short sleeves and cold rains that drive me inside the decently sturdy (albeit termite-infested) walls of the mud hut I call home. I fall asleep at night curled up like a little girl under my blanket, and I awake in the morning to put on my red hooded sweatshirt, avoiding the chills that last until the sun climbs high into the sky. The leaves on two of the trees by the church have begun to turn yellow near the top, a sight I didn’t think out of place until I remembered where I am. “Yellow leaves. That either means too much rain, or not enough nutrients in the soil,” is the news I heard this morning. “The two obviously go hand-in-hand.” It has been raining a lot lately. It doesn’t bother me, though. The rain means we get to eat dinner inside the kitchen, where the stoves burn charcoal to keep us warm. It means I get to slip and slide on muddy ground with twenty laughing African children, falling again and again until our skin all looks the same color.

The cool mornings and evenings, the yellow nutrient-lacking leaves, and the rainy days remind me of autumn back home. I miss crunching through fallen leaves on long evening walks, I miss apple-picking, and I miss wearing three layers just in case, because you never know if it will be hot-ish or cold-ish outside. I wouldn’t trade being here for anything, though. I’ll have autumn next year, but I’ll only have this moment in Africa right now. And maybe God’s just giving me a little gift by reminding me of autumn at home; something to make me feel more at home here. And I do. I do feel so at home here.

It’s hard to sit down and write about what life is like in a village in Uganda. I think because a lot of living here just feels normal, like the yellow leaves on the tree. Normal until I remember where I am again. I suppose life is hard in a lot of ways, and I could write paragraphs about how long it took to build calluses on my hands so they wouldn’t bleed when I hand-wash my laundry, or about how no matter how many seasonings you experiment with, rice and beans always tastes the same when you eat them every day, twice. But truly, what sticks with me is the beautiful simplicity of it all. My clothes drying on the clothesline in the hot, hot sun, or the way the occasional avocado makes my meal taste like it just came from the kitchen of Uganda’s top gourmet chef. The kids are astonishingly joyful despite their horrific pasts, and they really ask nothing of us before giving all their love. I feel their love in an overly enthusiastic two-handed wave from across the schoolyard, or in the hundreds of times a day a kid requests, “Brynn, you come eat dinner at my home tonight” with pleading and hopeful eyes.

Sometimes they break my heart, though. When they share that their parents died in the war, or when I see the scars covering their legs, or when they tell me that they sleep with the lights on because they fear the dark, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel hopeless. But it’s not hopeless. The love they offer us proves that they’re moving forward, getting past the pain and sorrow.

When I look back on life here, I want to remember the little funny and joyful things that happen each day. Feeling like it’s autumn is one such thing. Waving to a kid across the grass is another. Hearing a kid sing happy birthday to me (when my birthday is four months away) is another. Teaching English and learning Acholi is another. Playing in the rain and getting covered with mud is another. Seeing those big brown eyes smiling up towards my face is yet another.

These are the things I never ever want to forget about Uganda.