Day 59

Had breakfast with myself this morning. Not as impressive as the prices would have you believe it was.

A man who works in Parliament gave me his business card so he can drive me back to Ibanda. Too bad I'm going to Mbarara.

Walked to the craft market where I found I was being weaseled. Fortunately it's ok and I liked my stall lady, but I won't be buying baskets from her anymore. That's for sure.

I got back to my room, had an explosive shit and then was told that check out time had come and gone and could I please vacate my room.

Ok. That's fine. I call the duty driver who isn't supposed to pick me up for another two to three hours. He says he will be here in an hour, so I ask if its ok that I sit outside on the balcony.

It's ok. Then the window cleaner comes and the sun was already beating on me, so I call back the duty driver and tell him I'm going to Garden City(the mall). It's not far and at least it might be air conditioned. Even if it isn't air conditioned, at least it won't be directly in the way of the sun.

So I walk and I look crazy with all these baskets and this huge book bag and I'm hungry or I think I am so I order a burger, rushing because my ride shows up while its cooking, once I receive said burger I proceed to knock down their standing oscillating fan. I'm concerned as it is neither fanning nor oscillating on its way back upright.

It soon works. Trouble averted.

And then we make it to the Peace Corps office where it becomes real again. I'm going home. I'm going home for my grandfather's funeral.

Besides being harassed at the Entebbe airport and appreciating the smokers lounge in Nairobi, Amsterdam has made me the saddest.

The sky is different here. It looks like London skies and the excess is everywhere. I don't feel like I belong in this world, but that I'm a traveler only passing through. It reminds me of why I am making this trip and instills in me a greater belief and faith that there is so much more to life than things.

And I realize that I hold on to things. It is so hard for me to part with things because they are tangible. They are 'real.' The accumulation of things adds up and gives my life 'additional' value in a very visible way.

None of those things matter. Stuff doesn't matter.

Name brands don't matter. Name brands became what they are because we became mindless drones searching for meaning in material things because having faith and believing weren't satisfying quite soon enough.

Worshippers of work and wants that transform to lust and lots.

It's only been two months and I already feel removed. Like I don't quite belong in this world of things.

As much as my family told me to stay I couldn't and part of it is because of that. Relationships matter. And I need to be with my family right now. Nothing else matters. Not money, not Peace Corps, just family. At the end of the day who else do you have?

I'd rather have my family looking over me than all my stuff.