Amsterdam, the return

I am now sitting in precisely the same internet cafe as I did for my very first post over a month ago. I have just returned to the airport from a gorgeous excursion to the city center; just long enough to get my passport stamped, absorb the stunning canals and mismatched, patched together archtecture of red brick buildings, grey cathedrals and clock towers, and gluttony of tall blond men with striking blue eyes.

I haven't seen one speck of dirt. No. I mean it. Not only are the roads impeccably clean - only a cigarette butt here and there to be found, but literally every square inch of the city center is paved or cobbled or a canal. It's not just that there's not any dirt - there's not any earth to be found either.

My boots and the hem of my jeans are still caked with the red clay mud we passed through late last night (or was it only earlier today) after hopping over the drainage canal since for some reason the makeshift bridge we'd been using was gone. I am finding myself looking down and smiling. "Now where did that mud come from?" "Oh, that's right - it came from Africa"

My flight was uneventful, and fine except that the woman next to me somehow didn't understand that I'd been promised by Laura Kerr that headphones were the international signal for "don't talk to me". I didn't want to talk to her, to hear about her firm that she started or to answer her questions about my personal life.

As the plane left the ground, I wanted only to stay connected to the people and country that I really have come to love in such a short time. I felt so SAD to leave, in a way that I somehow did not feel when I left Bolivia.

I arrived early in the morning - and by 7 am the city was still completely dark and asleep and FREAKING COLD. Of course I am not wearing appropriate attire here, just a warm sweater and scarf (I bought a hat), and with nothing open I was starting to get really cold. So cold in fact that when a young man asked me "Do you speak English?", I could barely get my mouth to move to reply "Yes, but I'm American too and won't be much help."

Sam, it turned out is a college student who just arrived and (like any self respecting college student in Amsterdam) got really drunk with his friends the night before and was alone looking for someplace to feed his hangover. We decided to pool our efforts and found ourself a nice buffet of eggs and toast for a modest 9 Euros (I think that's like 20 dollars). Sweet. Afterward he suggested we go get a Heineikin (afterall we are in Amsterdam), but I declined, wanting instead to just walk around and see the city.

I feel good. So grateful. So grateful for this wonderful experience - I am definately a better person for having been in Uganda.

A few days ago I finally met Dr. Rugunda who I had been hoping to meet throughout my trip. He is a good friend of Richard Quint who is a physician I work with on health reform. Rugunda also happens to be the Minister of Internal Affairs for Uganda and is a lifetime civil servant and a right hand man to the Prime Minister of Uganda.

I was able to have lunch with him on Friday and afterward was invited to a dinner party with him, his wife, his son Kwame and his new wife Roberta, as well as a few other people. They were wonderful people. Before meeting Dr. Rugunda in person I heard nothing but good things about him. In a country where most government workers are sterotyped as corrupt, most people praised him as a rare breed of honorable civil servants. "At least", people said, "he's had no scandals that I've ever heard of". When I entered his office he was immediately warm and inviting and had a very large commanding presence.

The experience was a sharp contrast to my time in the village and with Clara. It was surreal driving around the same Kampala I'd been navigating with boda's and public taxi vans, but now in a nice SUV driven by the police. Dr. Rugunda reminded me greatly of the men and women I work with in the California legislature. Longtime public servants - good people - who chose their career out of a genuine desire to "make a difference" but whose expectations for change become steadily diminished. You can't be the passionate reform candidate when you're the long time incumbant. I recognized the all-to-familiar look I get at home from many older colleagues - amused condecension as they nostagically appreciate my youthful naiveity.

With an Ebola viral outbreak that had just been announced (3 months after the first indications of a strange viral disease), the just completed Commonwealth Summit, protests in which the opposition leader of their parliament was pretty badly beaten, among other major issues, there were loads of dicey topics for me to try to ask about. I figured here this is where my youthful naiveity pays off.

The next day I spent luxuriously ordering cocktails poolside at a swanky resort - trying in vain to get some sun on the rest of my body. It was pretty much the only day I spent doing anything of the sort. My awkward tan is just gonna have to be a testament to my decison to live normal life in Uganda...

Charity wrote such a nice post - I told her about my blog and realized it would be so much more interesting to have my friends there add their perspective, rather than just hear mine. My last days were such wonderful love fests of gifts and friendship. Charity actually asked a woman in her village to make for me a traditonal basket that "no mother allows her daughter to marry without one". So, now I'm all set. I was so touched that this beautiful basket was actually made especially for me! I am supposed to serve Kalo (a food made from ground millet) to my future husband out of it.

Bob, Clara and Charles wished me off at the airport - Charity and Agaba couldn't come for lack of space in the car. It was so so hard to say goodbye to everyone. I guess that's exactly how I wanted it - I wanted to connect - and when you do that leaving hurts.

So onward home. Thanks to all who cared to read my posts. Love to you all. I can't wait to see you!!!

Sara