Here We Go!

When Bill called from the offices of the International Center for Journalists way last April and asked what I thought of going to Uganda, my response was, “Sure. Where is it?” I knew it was in Africa, but that’s a big continent, so I ran to the atlas to find this little tiny country in East Africa on the shore of Lake Victoria.

Since then we have learned about this “Pearl of Africa,” thanks mainly to a surprisingly big network of people who have been to, or lived in, Uganda. (Thank you all.) And now we are ready to go – Thursday morning we will see if we can lift our duffle bags and travel for 21 hours to Entebbe, then to Kampala where we will live until the beginning of October. Check out the New Vision newspaper to see some of what Bill will be working on.

It’s been a long prep time. For one thing, we are walking drugstores – we’ve had some 7 vaccinations, and we have a huge supply of malaria pills. So much for our mantra of avoiding doctors. I quit my great job at Zillow.com, and Bill folded up his office for a leave from the Seattle Times. We’ve kissed our two grandkids goodbye and delivered them a globe with a sticker on Uganda marked “Nana and Papa.” We’ve just about turned our house over to daughter Sarah and her cats. We’ve said goodbye to friends and family with a few tears. I’ve said goodbye to each plant in the garden, the yellow front door, the view from our bed, the shower curtain – you get the point.

So why are we putting ourselves through this? We say we are going to Uganda and people seem to divide pretty evenly into two camps:

1) You are crazy. We’ll see you when/if you get back.
2) How cool, can I come visit? (The answer is “yes,” please!)

There are lots of reasons, actually. The most obvious, and true, one is that we feel that it is time to give back. We’ve been extremely lucky, both professionally and in our wonderful family and friends. We have reached a point in our careers where we do a ton of mentoring – that seems to indicate that our experience is actually worth something! So while we are healthy enough and young enough to share it, we figure we’d better put up or shut up.

The less obvious reason, but no less true, is that we’ve become uncomfortably comfortable. We’ve been going to predictable offices, collecting paychecks, and starting to talk about retirement with some feeling of trepidation. We have seen (and eaten good food in) Europe and other far-off places, and, while we love that kind of travel, it no longer seems quite enough. And now we constantly hear messages that seem to speak to our spirit of adventure.

For example, there is this quote that’s been hanging on our fridge for years, from travel writer Bruce Chatwin: “The act of journeying contributes toward a sense of physical and mental wellbeing, while the monotony of prolonged settlement or regular work weaves patterns in the brain that engender fatigue and a sense of personal inadequacy.”

And one more rang out last year as we watched Heartbreak House at the Seattle Rep. Lots of people talk about how brave we are, or say they think we should be afraid, and their fear started to affect us, until we heard G.B. Shaw say: “I did not let the fear of death govern my life and my reward was I had a life.”

Honestly, we are a little apprehensive because we don’t know what the future will hold. We know some of it will be truly hard, we know we will be homesick (and perhaps sick!), but overwhelmingly we are just plain curious. What is Uganda really like? Who will our new friends be? How will we get around? How does one breathe inside a mosquito net? In other words, what’s around the next corner?

We can’t wait to find out. Join us via this blog; if you want to send us e-mail, we have two accounts: tmorrow@speakeasy.net, and morrow.ristow@gmail.com. We’ll be accessing both of them (hopefully).