One of my colleagues just showed me her blog, here, and coincidentally, this entry had run in the Monitor where we work and I had just read it previously and had a rather visceral reaction.

A tale of two worlds

You came back in one piece,” was the first welcome back greeting a colleague at work managed to offer the moment he set eyes on me after a trip to Gulu. (forget that my name must have clearly spelled out that I was no visitor to that side of the world).

As I tried to digest what he really meant by this, images of a rather annoying incident with an American acquaintance who had tales of Africa, Uganda especially being a remote village without the luxury of tapped water and electricity, came back to me. It is amazing how much we live in our cocoons totally oblivious of life outside our circles.

This colleague obviously lived in the illusion of bullets flying from all directions, decaying corpses leaving the ground with barely any legroom, not to mention the stench in this little town of Gulu.

I longed to tell him that the potholes he suffered in Kampala were a myth in Gulu town not to mention the dust and pollution.

That youths full of life littered the town’s streets clad in the latest of outfits, driving around in uptown cars; that the nightlife in Havana Club and other hangouts in Gulu would make you think twice about coming back to Kampala.

But then again who could blame him, for this life was simply within the town area. Behind this curtain, it pained the heart to see the immense suffering of those living in the IDP camps. Hopeless men playing cards by their huts, women carrying babies converged as if to console each other and pot bellied children with flies swarming around their bodies stared in anticipation at visitors to the camp.

But anyhow, all I felt for him was pity. Pity that the reality of two worlds had not come to him. This might have been Gulu but the bigger picture proves one thing. We may all live in one world but the realities of life are different.

Look no farther than our own slums around Kampala or your neighbourhood. You drive out of your gate in that luxurious car past the dirty looking woman or man to whom it would take a year to earn your month’s pay. And even if you don’t have a car, for you the realities of life are simply getting by on what you think is peanuts and grumbling about how hard life is yet you can afford to throw food in the garbage bin.
Your thoughts are captive of your circle and class in society because for you that is all that matters in life. Truly a tale of two worlds.

First of all, it’s his mistake for thinking it is Gulu, and it’s his loss for being ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE OCEAN in Kampala and not bothering to make it to Gulu.

There are a lot of expats in Africa who are here because the beer is cheap and the scenery is pretty and the climate is nice. But there are a lot who aren’t. There are a lot who are here because they don’t want to be in whatever rat race they left behind. There are a lot who are here because they actually want to do something with their lives other than buy stock in a company and a house in the suburbs. The American Dream doesn’t mean something to everyone.

Americans don’t all know where Uganda is on a map, much less Gulu, much less what it looks like, much less even contemplate venturing there.

Some people here have good intentions, some people don’t, and some people don’t know the difference. The road to hell is of course paved with good intentions, but I’m not sure where the road paved with bad intentions leads to. (Maybe somewhere in a back alley in Harare.)

I just think there’s something to be said to getting out of the box – by which I mean, for Americans, coming to Africa is getting out of the box. Ugandans may think there are a lot of Americans in Kampala, but compared to how many Americans there are in America…. believe, not that many of us make it here.

For Ugandans, living in Kampala doesn’t mean getting out of the box. But take a survey of any expat’s friends’ and find out what they said when he or she announced departure and I promise there will be a full spectrum of replies – from supportive and encouraging to “aren’t you going to get ebola?” and “is there email there?”

I’ve been to Gulu. I’ve been to IDP camps. I’ve seen the dirty woman on the street. My heart breaks for all of them. That’s why I try and write about them, because it’s the only thing I can possibly know how to begin to do.

But at some point, when you’re walking down the street (I don’t have a car, let alone a luxurious car), you look away from the woman on the street. It just hurts too much to look at her and know there’s nothing more you can do.