I Miss the Rain In Africa (eBook)

We’re pouring off the bus at midnight—black-as-the-inside-of-a-cat, into the first of many rains, ankle deep mud and a buzzing fog of mosquitoes invading every orifice of forty-six disgruntled, sleep deprived, starving trainees. We grope for anything familiar—luggage perhaps—but there is only chaos. “Oh God, what have I done! Please don’t let this be real.” But it is.

In the dark, I identify my luggage and separate it from ninety-some-odd other overloaded bags vomited forth from two buses into the slop under a huge tree. Rollers on my carefully chosen bags are useless in this mud and uneven ground strewn with random stepping stones, disjointed walkways, puddles, rocks and grumbling humanity. That tree later proved to be a mango tree. Little did I know that I’d be spending much of the next two-plus years under them.

Weary voices float through the miasma of mosquitoes getting their quart of blood: “Where do we go?” “I need to pee!” “I’m hungry!” Is anyone listening out there?

Someone grabs my bag out of the mud. “My name is Gary. Can I help you with those?”

“Oh God yes! Please!”

He’s smiling and looks calm—obviously not one of us. I plough through the obstacle course of human misery and the mosquito-gauze against my face and finally arrive at the door to a huge room dismally lit by one bare light bulb dangling from a cord. I’m aghast at what I see: wall-to-wall bunk beds and luggage piled so deep no one else can get in without mountaineering equipment. “One bathroom for all these women!” says a panicked voice I can’t pair with a name; we’ve only recently met our other volunteers. Still, I can tell it’s one of us by the tone-ragged desperation.

My mind is reeling with a mini life-review. This can’t be happening! I left a perfectly nice life for THIS! I am definitely not in Texas anymore, and where are Dorothy’s red shoes when I need them? God, I wish I could click my heels and be out of here. Gary motions us toward another cabin and we slog over to a small, round hut with only four bunk beds. I land on the one closest to the bathroom and collapse.

Really? Is this what I was so excited about? Oh shit, is this what we had to change into our “professional” clothes for before even landing? After 18 hours of flight? Before departing, we were told there would be a dinner in honor of our arrival, so we abandon our luggage and thread our way to the main hall filled with long tables—two in the front loaded with WHAT! Stale bread, peanut butter and jelly, with tea to drink turns out to be “dinner.” Oh, this just gets better and better.

The evening comes to an end at around 1:00 AM after a truly forgettable welcome speech. After another hour of finding toothbrush and pajamas, jockeying with seven other women for bathroom privileges and repacking luggage to stash it under the bed, I collapse into bed, tuck in the mosquito net and consider the truly ignominious end to an already exhausting day. I congratulate myself for packing earplugs as the room fills with the sonorous buzz of snoring. I ponder the fact that a cold water trickle-shower and discomfort are foreshadowing things to come. I’m angry, exhausted, and forlorn, but no time for that; hurry up and sleep. Training starts at 8:00 AM and breakfast is offered at 7. Be prompt.

In the words of Dorothy Parker, “What fresh hell is this?”

WELCOME TO PEACE CORPS UGANDA!

Journal: Three Days Ago in Austin

Bleary eyed, nervous and with a lump in my throat, I left Austin after staying up most of the night to be sure neither my business website, Focus On Space, nor my book site, Moving Your Aging Parents, would expire in my absence. Updating contact information so my friend could handle things for a couple of years was the closest I could come to hanging on to any vestiges of what was fast becoming my former life. It was too late for soul-searching.

On our way to the airport, we had to stop and have a Power of Attorney (POA) notarized before I could leave on a morning flight getting me to Philadelphia for a fast and furious introduction to Peace Corps. This final chaos after months of preparation would characterize much of the next ten weeks. The first hurdle was luggage: two 40-pound bags packed to the bursting-point with the paraphernalia for living in the land-that-time-forgot for twenty-seven months. Packed and repacked, I prayed for the first time in my diet-conscious life that my Weight-Watchers scales were right and that I wouldn’t have to jettison anything.

That hurdle passed, I sat and waited—guarding my carry-on filled with life-line items: pictures of my sons, a computer I didn’t know if I would ever be able to use, camera, solar chargers, infra-red water purifier, and six months of any prescription meds I would require until PC supplies clicked in—in short, the things I knew I wouldn’t be able to find in Uganda. Taking deep breaths as I boarded the plane, the reality of what I was about to do began to sink in.

I. AM. LEAVING. EVERYTHING. BEHIND.

In Philly, I checked in, found the impromptu lounge and watched as the other forty-four new recruits straggled in, in different states of fear, excitement and fatigue. Most were young. I wondered, at 64 will I be the oldest? In an assembly line, we signed documents, got our ID packets and walk-around money and were introduced to our first taste of Peace Corps. It was not the welcoming introduction I was hoping for and it took a long time for it to improve.

Already feeling a little undone by the prospect of being out of contact with my previously known life, family and friends for the next two-plus years, what I knew about Uganda didn’t put me at ease. The infamous ruler, Idi Amin, the most notorious in a list of Uganda’s barbaric dictators and immortalized in The Last King of Scotland, was the underpinning of my sense of the country. Somehow, Winston Churchill’s calling Uganda, The Pearl of Africa, provided little solace.

In that frame of mind, I took it as a positive sign when I discovered I’d be sharing a room with the adorable Susie, a perky, twenty-something volunteer from Portland. In my need to find some good omens, I latched onto this one because one of my sons was living near Portland. The next morning started with paperwork, introductions and what would be the first of too many icebreaker games, prodding us into the Peace Corps frame of mind.

Having done years of training in other domains, I groaned. Feeling like I’d landed in a parallel universe between grade school and junior high, I hoped this would get better. It didn’t. It was just a precursor to training in Uganda and a parade of activities I’d left behind decades ago. I’d need some personal attitude adjustment, because I’d leased my house, closed my business, and had a fine going-away party.

The phrase, “Doesn’t play well with others,” came to mind. Crap! Have I become that person?

Simply put, it was time to let go of control and embrace the adventure.

Journal: August 2, Philadelphia

Training in earnest began. I was nearly giddy when I spotted a few gray hairs and wrinkles in the mix and realized roughly a third of our group was age fifty-plus, although the average age of a Peace Corps volunteer hovers around twenty-eight. We were six single women, a couple of single men and the rest, couples. Representing an incredible mix of talent and credentials, we were authors, CEOs, CPAs, professors, activists, speakers, counselors, nurses and entrepreneurs. As children-of-the-sixties, we were vocal, irrepressible, autonomous rule-breakers by nature. The relief was palpable as we identified each other, but bonding wouldn’t take place until much later and would ultimately play a role in revamping Peace Corps training.

For all of us, the decision to step out of our regular lives, careers, businesses and families became more real when we were issued our Peace Corps Passports and Uganda Visas.

That night was spent making a last minute telephone call to Brett, my son still in-country—wishing I could also reach his brother, Travis, in Germany—and sending out a group message, my last email from the US. Not knowing when—or IF I would have access to a charged computer, much less Internet, for the next two years, I was already homesick—a malady I hoped wouldn’t flatten me in Uganda. Although an early Close-of-Service (COS) is always an option, it wasn’t one I would ever consider. I’d already sent out my final So-Long-Farewell-Auf-Wiedersehen-Good-Bye newsletter to the hundreds of clients and friends gathered over a lifetime and 15 years of consulting in Texas, Washington, D.C. and New Zealand.

I was kissing my identity goodbye, kind of like witness-protection, but without the crime.

Journal: August 3, Philadelphia

Afloat in a sea of emotions, each of us schlepping one carry-on filled with coveted electronics, meds, and enough entertainment to get us through 18 hours of flight, our herd was corralled onto buses that would ferry us to JFK Airport where we would get to flash our new passports. Propelled forward on a flood of adrenaline, we individually and collectively wondered if...