As many of you probably already
know, I have had to leave my community, a place I have come to love, cherish
and call “home” for the last almost 8 months of my service. This was supposed to be my home for my
2 years of PC service. Most people
in PC knew how much I loved my site, how happy I was there and how much of a
perfect fit it was for me. I was
surrounded by schools and children, in a rural small community, had a beautiful
house and an organization with amazing people who I became great friends
with. For the longest time, I kept
telling my self “wow, how did I
get so lucky? This could not be a more perfect fit for me!”. But things started to go wrong,
problems arose with my housing and the parish priest, and this italian visitor, which made it more and
more difficult for me to stay in Kitanga.
I won’t go into details about all of these issues that arose because
they are things I want to block from my memory and try to focus on all the
wonderful memories I have of my community.
After
PC came to visit my site and assess the situation, they decided to take me to
Kampala to “rest” and meet with the Country Director and my champion, who was
the one to come to my community. I
left Kitanga, had the meeting, from which it was decided that it was best for
me to leave my community and get a site change (so, basically start all
over). The problems at my site
unfortunately could not be resolved, due to these higher powers in my community
controlling the situation. So,
this past Tuesday I made the long 8-hour trip with a PC driver back to
Kitanga. We arrived around 3:30
PM, the driver dropped me off and I had until 10AM the next morning to say all
my goodbyes and pack up my entire life in Kitanga. This felt like not enough time. Most people in my community had no idea about the problems
that had been going on for a couple of months, other than my coworkers and a
friend at the Secondary school.
The hardest part was telling the children at St. Clelia primary school
(all those beautiful kids I’m constantly posting pictures of!) that I was
leaving and not coming back. As I
explained to the girls (the ones I spent most of my time with), I began crying
as they looked at me with blank stares, not fully comprehending what I was
saying. They said, “But
Kyomugisha, will you come back?”
Once they fully understood, I looked around and watched as they started
to cry. This was a very emotional,
heartbreaking and sad experience for me.
I kept telling them I am not leaving because I WANT to. They kept wanting answers…Why? What
happened? What are the problems?
They knew I would be in Kitanga for 2 years and couldn’t understand why
out of the blue I was leaving for good.
This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I walked around hugging each one as
they cried, telling them how much I would miss them and how wonderful they
are. I felt absolutely terrible
dropping this “bomb” on these beautiful, innocent girls I had come to love and
who gave me SO much joy during my 7 months there. Later that night I went back to their dormitories to bring
them printed photos of us to put on their walls. I told them “Kyomugisha will always be here, just look at
these photos and you will see me!”
I tucked each one into their beds, hugged them, and said goodbye. I am so thankful to have met these
beautiful kids and I hope with time I can return and visit them. I spent the rest of the night packing
up all my belongings. My
counterpart and best friend, Fausta, came and sat with me for several hours as
I packed up my house.
The
next morning we loaded up the car and I went and said the rest of my
goodbyes. First, I went to Regina,
the woman I called mama wangye (my mother). She was one of the cooks for the priests, and took it upon
herself from day one to play the role of my mother in Kitanga. As I said goodbye, I watched this
strong and tough woman cry. I had
never before seen a Ugandan (adult) cry, because emotions like this are usually
not shown in this culture. I then
went to the health center where I balled my eyes out saying goodbye to all my
coworkers and my sweet little kids – Isaiah, Sandra and Jude (kids of my
coworkers). They are much too
young to understand what was happening.
Sandra kept saying in Rukiga, “chels, noozahi? (where are you going?)”
as she saw the car waiting for me.
I hugged and kissed each one of these sweet kids, then hugged all my
coworkers, saving the hardest goodbye for last. Fausta, who was not just my counterpart, but also my best
friend, was the most difficult goodbye.
She was always there for me, opening up her home and heart to me,
helping me through my first 7 months at site, always with a smile on her
face. She was the one person I
could truly trust in my community and she will always have a special place in
my heart. We hugged goodbye, both
crying, and she said “we must keep in contact and make sure this friendship
continues.” I then got in the car
and drove off, watching Isaiah, Sandra and Jude chase after the car, waving
goodbye.
I
know I can always go back and visit my community, but it will never be the
same. I still can’t get the images out of my head of the children crying,
saying goodbye to my counterpart as we both cried, and leaving people who were
like family to me. I know with
time, I will look back on my experience in Kitanga and remember all the happy
moments I had there. I feel
like I have a big empty space in my heart. Leaving the place I called “home” feels like an enormous
loss. This has by far been the
hardest part of my 10 months in Uganda and possibly one of the hardest days in
my life. I never expected to form
such close connections in just 7 months in my community, but I did, and this is
what made the goodbyes so hard. As
Peace Corps volunteers, we go through a lot, experience a lot of highs and lows,
and at the end of the day, overcome so much that most people back home will
never fully understand. I expected
the sickness, the harassment, the language barriers, and cultural differences,
but this was something I had not expected and really hit me hard. I am trying to stay positive and
surround myself with positive and supportive people and continue to tell myself
that everything happens for a reason.
I think of this quote everyday, which makes me happy… “Don’t cry because
it’s over. Smile because it
happened.”
