Home Sweet Home

Usually after the first 3 days back in Bundibugyo my house looks normal, even extravagant. But those first three days can be a dozy. I see everything with fresh eyes and both my heart and my brain scream out "THIS is MY home?" I notice the cracks in the cement walls, the stark, gray cement floors, the stains on the ceilings, the bare light bulbs. Dirt and cobwebs are everywhere. Smells waft in from windows with no glass only screens (a new primary school built latrines not even fifteen feet from our small living room window. At night the poop smell is foul.) The water from the filter tastes funny, like charcoal. And our frig and stove look tiny. I gaze at the bugs and lizards that roam freely on my walls and clean tiny black poops from all the shelves. We eat dinner and above our heads, in the ceiling, we hear a HUGE family of rats celebrating our return with loud hops and scurrying.

It's during these first few hours and days that I have to take a deep breath and hold back the tears. I need to soak in my children's delight to be home. They scramble out of the car and strut into our home, take a deep breath and yell with great delight, "We're home!!" They sigh in comfort and tumble into their bunk beds, close their mosquito nets and smile.

Tomorrow, I'll venture outside and see my neighbors in even smaller houses with mud walls and dirt floors and no ceilings. I'll see their cooking pots resting outside on three rocks in the middle of a campfire. I'll wave to the kids, who yell their greetings as they play with toys made out of old cans and tires. And I'll walk back into my house and everything will seem different. The self-pity will vanish and in its place will grow an uneasy feeling of guilt at having so much.