Homecoming

It is so strange to be back.

Perhaps it's just the jet-lag and yesterday's 26 1/2 hour door-to-door travel time talking, but being back here in my apartment in Brooklyn is just so... surreal.

On one hand I am, of course, happy to be home. I missed my kitty, and comfy pillows, and a roach-free bathroom (though it does appear that the mice in my kitchen have become much, much bolder in my absence--one of them startled the crap out of me this morning!), and yet...

And yet.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I left a piece of my heart in Africa. Only time can tell just how large that piece turns out to be.

I haven't really cried yet. I came close when we left, when the Ugandan Cowboys (as they shall henceforth be known) who made the drive from Kampala to Entebbe at 140km/hr to see us off before we left poured out of a tiny Rav-4 and onto the sidewalk to bestow one last round of bearhugs before we entered the terminal... but was stopped short when I nearly ran over a security guard with my luggage cart.

The lump rose in my throat once more as we sat on the tarmac at Heathrow for 2 hours awaiting the repair of some "minor technical difficulty" as my professor (sitting behind me) relayed the volley of text messages she was receiving from our Ugandan friends--who had indeed begun texting and calling before we'd even boarded our plane in Entebbe--but again the tears did not come.

And as I sit here now, trying to wrap my mind around all I have seen and done and felt in the past two weeks, my eyes are damp and my chest constricted. But still I do not cry.

I do not know when they will come. I only hope that it is somewhere, sometime, when I can truly take a moment and let them fall in the manner in which they deserve.

Sorry, I didn't mean for the first post after my return to be so depressing.

I do want to thank all of my fabulous guest bloggers for keeping the rest of you entertained in my absence! Thank you for the facts, the thoughts, the kind words, the beautiful photos (Lisa, I fixed your post), and of course the award! You are all wonderful, and you can all expect a volley of comments from me over the next few weeks as I catch up on all of your adventures. I shudder to think what Google Reader has in store for me.

And so, odd as it currently seems, I have returned. I am sure that soon enough my life will fall back into its usual rhythm, I will return to my fairly-cheerful self. But today, this morning, as I sit here in my familiar dining room, musing over the contrast between my tan and the cold, gloomy skies outside, I will hold onto this feeling of melancholy, and remember the beautiful country I have so recently left behind.