swing life away

So let's pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow.
We live on front porches and swing life away…

I have tried to refrain from blogging mundane activity, as I don't think most people would find daily things very interesting to read about. I try and capture beauty and accentuate it by sharing beautiful experiences on here, but to be fair: I find just about everything beautiful… ergo a slightly less exciting, but nonetheless meaningful few days to share with you:

This post coming to you from my perch on my bunk-bed; where I have spent the past few afternoons since it is literally too blazing hot to be outside in the mid afternoon. (conveniently I don't have classes at this time, so I get a few hours of relaxing, reading-- Stieg Larsson currently- and taking in as much water as I possibly can) Today I'm finally coming down from an exciting weekend that really stretched to yesterday (it feels like) in exhilaration and exhaustion simultaneously.
Last Thursday was Lauren's birthday- thus warranting another night spent out on the town with some USP & Honours alike friends. Friday class was converted to a theater for the filming of Cry the Beloved Country (a film severely lacking in creativity as far as dialogue was concerned…) and after that class I received mail from my beloved Roommate Heidi back home-- a card complete with bits of dried lavender from the flower shop she is currently working at back in Massachusetts. I stuck the pocket of lavender into my journal - now riddled with the scent. Beautiful. I think if I were ever to actually sit down and record an album of my piano music, I'd name the album Dried Lavender. Just throwing that out there.
Friday night was another epic adventure with the boys from Bemba Hostel. There's nothing like dancing on a rooftop under the stars. And there's nothing quite like the smells of a night at an African club:
The smell of cologne and perfume mixed with that slightly sweet and ever so familiar scent of body odor (not the stinky kind of body odor like you smell when that one gross kid walks into a classroom full of freshly showered people, but the sweet kind that just happens out of your pores as result of a fun night of dancing, or when you've been running, or just moving…)
Cigarette smoke (the un-suffocating kind that allows you to pick up the waspy aroma but still breath clean night air)
Beer on the breath of whichever mzungu-stunned guy comes over to dance with you (because as one of the two mzungu in a crowd of at least 200 Africans…you're kind of a novelty)
The ever present smell of trash burning in the distant- a sweet musk of wood, citrus, nutty smells and potatoes…? Maybe…
All the enticements of the senses just produce the sort of night that makes you catch your breath in the abrupt, overwhelmingly lovely realization that "O my gosh…I'm in Africa". ((this is what dreams are made of))

Saturday was almost less of a productive day than Friday, and then Saturday night was a night of pure glamour. The 5th Annual Honours College Alumni/Reunion Dinner was hosted at the Red Rose Hotel in Kampala. It was a marvelous afternoon of getting back in touch with my feminine side (a nice break from Spartacus) as Esther dolled me up -complete with eye make up, Heidi be proud!- she and I and Taui all swapped dresses and earrings until we could passably make ourselves look cute in all each other's clothing. Then listening to Eminem and wearing a bakini top in rebellion of putting on clothes while there was still preparation to be done for Lauren, I sat and stitched up a dress for her to wear that night and just nearly pierced my lip with the sewing needle for all my loss of common sense in my deep, rap-music-induced concentration. Finally, all of us ready- we jumped ship and went to grab coffee before the dinner…but coffee turned into the best milkshakes of our lives!- then we joined the dinner of all our friends from Honours in their absolute best dress. It was a fun night, but at one point I leaned over to Mark to express with agony how old I felt… There we sat, at a dinner with a high table and honoured guests giving speeches…making announcements about marriages, engagements, and births of the past year and giving recognition for career advancements made in the past year (including appointments to the top gas & oil company in Uganda, International Justice Mission, and the United Nations- no small feats) and asking alumni to donate money to this and that for the college… it was the sort of dinner that I only ever had seen in movies where the socially and financially elite attend and carry shiny little clutches and scrape liver pâtés around on their plates until the speaker is done and the classy music starts up… I just felt so old being old enough to sit with my peers as they talked about career advances and babies popping left and right and pulling at the purse-strings of alumni. When did this happen? I miss the sort of dinners where I was pushed over to the kids table, expected to do nothing less than fling food, cause raucous, and try and wipe my mouth on the table cloth instead of my napkin…who am I kidding… I totally wiped my mouth on the tablecloth Saturday night, let's be real.
After the dinner a whole crew of us went out to meet the Bemba Boys at a club in Kampala, where Esther and I both lost 20,000/= to a pick-pocketing fat man in a white sweatshirt. So today I spent the afternoon sewing a pocket to the inside of my jeans…complete with a button. Ain't no hands rippin' me off while I'm bustin' a move again. Nuh uh. We literally danced until 6am… I think I may have sat down on a bar stool for 1/2 a song. Maybe. Between climbing these hills and this mountain that I live on multiple times a day just to get back and forth from class to my room I'm building up rock-solid calf muscles and with all the dancing, my legs have never been in such good shape. Shazam.

Today was just a relaxing, breezy day. Class was cancelled so I thoroughly enjoyed tea time with Tony & Esther - complete with INCREDIBLE instant coffee mix from Starbucks (thank you Mona). In the States, I would have scoffed at the idea of this VIA coffee, but here- combined in milk tea…it's just about the most sacred thing around. Hallelujah for caramel flavoured coffee mix and fresh boiled milk :)
Spent the rest of the morning curled up in a nightgown (because yes. Those are normal here.) eating Swedish fish, stitching up my pants, and doodling cityscape concepts for painting when I get home. Note to self: start bringing acrylics with me everywhere- no matter what.
Walked down to pick eggs with Tony for our baking date later today; there is a massive Thanksgiving feast (expected 70-80 people) for all USP and the ex-Pats on campus tomorrow so the job of the USP students is to provide desserts. Tony, Mark & I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies this afternoon with real pumpkin listenin' to the beats of Citay and Bach. It's a long way from recipe-testing these kinds of cookies with Allison Kavin year after year in preparation for the staff-Thanksgivings we always have at the Phed Farm. Kavin- I'll miss experimenting with spices with you this year.
I'm dreading leaving the simplicity of life here. Where afternoons are casually spent on hostel balconies listening to jams, looking out at the sunset over the valley, chatting with anyone walking by on their way to and fro the local well at the bottom of the road. Where time is spent gently swinging on the swings up the hill, or walking about ten minutes or so to get a cold Fanta (which just somehow tastes so much better in a glass bottle), or doodling and listening to De Capulet (you're welcome, Hannah).