We are home!

The fogginess caused by jet lag is starting to wane, but it is still very weird to be back home. I mean, everything looks famliar, but different too. It is great to see our family and friends and get caught up, of course. But we also feel a tug that occasionally means we have no idea which world we belong in.

The first clue to this was when we stopped in Amsterdam for 7 hours en route home. We went into the city and a look at the huge stone buildings, orderly streets and grey-clad citizens on neat bicycles was jarring to say the least. Says I to the doctor: "How can two such places exist in the same world?"

It's the same here - the rows and rows of Halloween candy in our local drugstore, the conversations about which restaurant is best of the zillion that have sprung up in our neighborhood (entrees $24 please), the empty streets and sidewalks. Okay, so there are some cars and occasionally people walking their dogs or pushing a baby stroller - a stroller, not a cloth attaching the baby to the mom's back like velcro - but it's quiet. No boda-bodas, no matatus honking their little horns like mosquitos, no stream of people walking, walking, walking.

The other thing we have noticed that is new since we left: There is a very evident and loud disgust with the political situation here. It's not just the war in Iraq, though we hear plenty about that, but it's a kind of inability of the citizens to hold their heads high. From our friends to the local media to the New York Times, there is a feeling in the air that things are beyond repair. Disgust is the only word we can think of to describe it. In Uganda, the people look at us as having everything we want, being fat and free (and rich). They have so little, but one thing they have is pride in their country, corruption and history aside. Hmm.

This blog is just about done. But first, I promise to post our pictures and provide a link to them. And maybe later on write just a short something on what reverse culture shock really is, and if we figure out how to keep the red dirt of Kampala under our fingernails at the same time as being our clean American selves. And mainly, how we can keep our experience from feeling like a dream rather than the reality it is.