4 am California time

I am home. I absorb the words as I flip up the water facet handle to find clean, heated water limitlessly flow forth, just so I can splash off the bit of milk that spilled on my hand as I prepared my African tea this morning just before 4 am.

I continue preparing my tea, following the instructions from Clara's aunt; three parts milk, one part water, black tea (i use djarling), fresh ginger and a blend of spices called tea masala that includes things like cinnamon, black pepper, cardamon, nutmeg and others. As I flippantly turn on the stove, I don't worry about my electricity bill jumping unaffordably high just from making this pot of tea. Nor do I wonder if an unexpected "load shedding" might force me to resort to lighting the charcoal stove.

I don't begin boiling several pots of water for drinking water - or to prepare warm water for bathing this morning.

All the clothing I took with me to Uganda lies crumpled and warm, soft and smelling of dryer sheets - waiting to be folded. The red clay dirt has been washed away from my old jeans at the push of a button.

I don't make extra tea to put into a flask for the rest of the family nor do I start a big pot of white porridge. There is no one else here. My sister lives several miles away, and despite being the unmarried younger sister, I don't live with her.

As I pour this luxuriously, deliciously spiced tea into my favorite (and well missed) mug, I consider how it came to lay clean in the cabinet; placed there after being washed by a machine that swirled gallons of hot soapy water, and followed by a rinsing with more surging gallons of hot clean water. Wow.

It's still dark outside and I am wide awake. It may be 4 am here, but it's 2 pm there.

By day I am back in California - driving on smooth paved roads, past gutters that drain into a sewage system which flows underneath the roads. I spend the days reconnecting in increments with my much loved community of friends and family - turning my attention to the coming holiday. I am relishing the loving reaction of surprise and affection that I get every time I see someone again for the first time. It's beautiful and affirming. Throughout the day I feel so thankful and filled with gratitude for my friends and family. I know this will continue for some time as I re-engage my life in California.

But at night I return to Africa. I mean this as close to literally as I possibly can, considering the undeniable reality that I am in fact, physically in California. But there is a part of me, I perceive, that did not accompany me home. I know this sounds silly and over dramatic - but I am simply trying to describe the feeling that I have - my experience - and the only way I can describe it is to say that I feel split into two and stretched over the two places - a ghost like split - with a taut weave of cords or threads binding the two .

For the third night in a row I have woken utterly confused about where I am; I sit eyes-wide-open trying to remember. Seriously it's weird. I think it might be what it feels like to have Alzheimer's disease.

This morning I couldn't remember where I lived or who my roommate was. I was no longer asleep and sitting upright in bed racking my brain. An image of a dark skinned woman kept coming forward. Not Clara, but she looked like Clara. "No, I don't know that woman", I thought, "who lives here with me?", I asked myself, struggling to remember. "Laura!", I breathed in relief, the image of my actual roommate returning to me, orienting me to the correct continent and life I physically occupy.

I know that at this moment in time, Clara is sitting at the movie library - probably alone since Marcy, her only employee, traveled home to Kenya for the election. The girls who are out of school right now are probably with her - playing solitaire on the computer or dancing to music. I picture Millie energetically beating a broom (made from a collection of sticks tied together with string) to accompany the beat of the music as both she and Maris dance skillfully on the porch of the shop.

The men who sell newspapers on the street are thousands of miles away, I picture them determinedly bypassing women with baskets of oranges or bananas on their head as both compete for the attention of drivers who wait patiently for the police man to waive their lane through the intersection.

I wonder how Johnson's daughter Chantal is doing - the day I left she was in hospital being treated for malaria. She was doing much better and was expected to be sent home the next day, but I would like to have it confirmed that all is well.

Coming home, I am grateful for the generosity of attention I have received. I know that I am not unique in traveling to a distant country. I have no fewer than 5 other friends who've traveled to exciting places this autumn, and most of us have an experience in the somewhat recent past where we've traveled and loved another place and culture.

This was my adventure - and I do feel some sadness that it's in the past tense. I love my friends and family for wanting to share it with me. It makes it so much more real and tangible.

I love my friend Elizabeth for pointing out that it is also in the future tense. I feel truth in that.

While I was in Uganda I opened myself fully to it and connected deeply with it. Life normalized somewhat in the short time I was there and aside from the occasional hour or two I spent in the internet cafe writing this blog, my my whole being was there. Everyday I awoke with a sense of connection and curiosity, openness and presence to whatever the day might bring. Coming home I'd like to cultivate that same feeling wherever I am.