This Story's Pages: Questions, choices, and happiness

The passed few months have been blessed with joy, and so I wonder sometimes when my head feels heavy with thoughts and concerns, whether there is a loose connection in my mind that short-circuits my abundant happiness from resulting in contentment. That’s quite heavy for the beginning of an update, but let me share some stories that will make some sense, maybe…

Settling in Kampala has been quite fun. Pierre and I live in a cute little apartment and turning it into home is a fun process. We’re putting up pictures and all the nice cards people have sent us and learning the best position for the antenna that allows us to watch football here and there. The neighbor’s kids know our names and usually as I walk home after work, people on the street inform me whether or not Pierre is home. We’ve also gotten a car, a blue RAV 4, which has made getting around a lot easier. Pierre has been playing basketball with a nice group of people and I have been swimming a lot, which combined with sunshine, lots of fruits and vegetables, and relaxed evenings together has put us in good health.

Between my busy work schedule and Pierre’s frequent trips to West Africa for consulting work, we’ve managed to take a few nice trips.

Around thanksgiving, we went to Gulu, to attend my dear friend Jessica’s famous thanksgiving celebration. The journey was funny because we went with Betty and all the boys in a car. The road is significantly better these days but one part is still under construction and to prevent people from speeding it is covered in speed bumps, and not the small kind! We were bouncing up and down on these bumps for what seemed like forever, and every time one of the boys complained, Betty said it is good for boys to be hardened. Thanksgiving at Jessica’s was wonderful. We have it every year in her nice home in Gulu, with turkey and stuffing, and my favorite dish – sweet potatoes and bananas in brown sugar, yum! It is wonderful to share one of my favorite holidays with friends in Uganda, and the kids love it because Jessica always has a few crates of soda. Being back in Gulu was fun. With stability back to the region, the town is growing fast. The pot-hole filled road, in which I once lost my shoe during the rainy season, has been fixed and new buildings seems to be coming up everywhere. The boys at Betty’s house are now taller than me. Baby Kilama is old enough to know I am a mzungu and runs away each time I try to play, and it is wonderful to see him so grown up. My cat, Kuch, was pregnant again, and this time Pierre and I are going to take one of the kittens into our family. Betty and Mike are still busy as ever, working in Parliament, running a school, and between all these responsibilities, ever more hospitable to spend the weekend with us in Gulu.

Around Christmas time, Pierre and I went to Israel and had a really nice time with my family there. It was fun to show Pierre some of the places where I grew up. It was really nice to see all the family and catch up a bit. We spent a lot of time in Jerusalem, and had humus everyday. On the way back, we stopped in Addis Ababa for a weekend, and really enjoyed our time with our friends Ben and Lilly and their kids, who all taught us the true meaning of hospitality and the joy of family.

Back in Kampala, Annette, one of Betty’s daughters and my sister, had a baby girl called Tasha. We were so thankful that both Annette and Tasha are healthy. Being at the hospital with Annette was a shocking reminder of the long way we still have to go for equitable maternity health care around the world. Just in the few days I was visiting Annette, in one hospital, we heard about a few women who had lost babies in child birth, and a few women who themselves died in child birth. It is sad to see women suffer from issues that can be easily treated with better technology. To learn more about how you can help, Oprah’s Angels Network has a wonderful website with links to donations people can make: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/How-to-Support-Mothers-Around-the-World

Back to Tasha and Annette, I love spending time with these two. Annette is so determined to go back to finish her final year at the law development center and she is a real inspiration. Tasha is such a cute baby. She is so small, it is a bit scary to take care of her, but we had lots of help, and she’s just an amazing little treasure. Imagine that we were all that small once, and so helpless, it is hard to believe. When I see Tasha, I really think that the fact human babies survive at all, is a true testament to the power of love.

Just last weekend, Pierre and I took the RAV 4 on its first road trip to Western Uganda. We visited a few of the crater lakes outside Fort Portal, beautiful sparkling blue lakes among the green mountains. We slept in a funny hotel, which was supposed to be a luxurious nature experience, but I think they forgot to clear our room before we came so Pierre was quite entertained (and patient) every time I jumped 10 feet at the site of yet another bug. It was all worth it when we walked to the banda where dinner is served and in the complete darkness you only get away from cities were surrounded by fire flies making it feel like walking on clouds. We also visited Bigodi swamp and saw many birds and monkeys.

And it is among these joys and happy experiences, that not a day goes by that I do not wonder, what are we doing here, so far from family and friends? What exactly are we looking for? Are we finding it? What is it? Do we make a difference? What does making a difference mean? Why so many questions anyway? I was starting to feel a bit concerned about my ability to be content, when Iris recommended I watch Dan Gilbert’s TED talk about Why are we happy - http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

The talk is fascinating and mentioned two kinds of happiness: natural happiness – when we get exactly what we want – and synthesized happiness – making ourselves feel ok with the cards in our hand. The interesting part is most of us are a lot better at synthesizing happiness when we do not have a choice. All of a sudden the world around me makes a bit more sense.

I travel a lot to Western Uganda for work, and I always admire the men and women picking tea from the picturesque hills. The beauty of the view does not fool me, picking tea is really hard work, and often very unfairly under-paid, and yet, I’ve always wondered how come these men and women seem so much more at peace with their lives. Perhaps it is choices that plague our minds. For many people in rural Uganda, life is about making the most of limited opportunities. The women I admire on the tea fields do not wake up each morning and wonder did I take the right course in my master’s degree? Is this line of work the one for me? Did I pick the right country to live in? This is not to say that people do not have aspirations and motivation, they surely do, but actual choices are fewer. Choices – the fundamental element of freedom – are both a blessing and a curse.

As some of you know, for our upcoming wedding in May, Pierre and I are asking for donations to sponsor girls in Uganda to go to secondary school. This past weekend, we met the five girls we are sponsoring this year. We hope to sponsor them for the 6 years of secondary school. It was really nice to meet the girls and their families. As we looked through the long list of requirements for secondary school and then visited the girls’ families, it became quite clear why so many families cannot afford secondary school for their children. It is an odd feeling, an uncomfortable and at the same time amazing feeling, having so much influence on someone’s life. As we met the girls, I thought about choices. In essence, giving them this opportunity for education is trying to open up doors for their future; to increase the choices they will be able to make, with both the joys and responsibilities that comes from being able to make choices.

So in the end, choices, with the toll they take on the mind, still seem to also lead to joy. Perhaps a life of contemplation, while not content, can also be filled with happiness. I think of a beautiful poem, recently featured in a fantastic movie about Nelson Mandela called Invictus, and I hope that along the questions that float in my head as the master of my own fate, I can also be a better, more forgiving and patient, captain of my soul.

Invictus by William Ernest Hensley.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.