Tonight during supper with my family Mom asked if I am still using my Masaka eyes.

Lately it’s felt more like Masaka glasses, that pair that are often left forgotten in the other room.  Occasionally I will have moments of memories, like a week ago after a lecture about global warming.  I was hovering in the periphery of a small group discussion and someone mentioned the idea that the human population on earth must be brought under control, particularly in Third World countries.  Here’s when my dilemma about how to talk about my time in Uganda comes up.  I guess I said something like I had an internship in Uganda this past summer and from my observations, children have a much different importance there than they do here.  For many people in Uganda, children are the main hope of economic support.  There is no Social Security or retirement paycheck on which to depend.  Maama would still be living in a mud house if her daughter and son-in-law hadn’t paid for the construction of her concrete home.  She would still be fetching water from the spring each day if they hadn’t helped to pay for her water pump.

Ah here comes the rain.  As I walked around the neighborhood this evening the lightning flickered brighter and the thunder boomed louder.  A streetlight went out just as I passed under it on two different occasions; it made me think of my host brothers learning that I actually preferred to sit outside in the dark with my evening tea.  At first they would light one of the lanterns and set it on the bench behind the house.  I had to tell them several times that I would rather have them use the lantern in the kitchen – that I preferred to watch the stars.  I told them I prefer to watch the stars than TV and they laughed.

I saw so many shooting stars in Masaka.  In Luganda, shooting star is kilabwamu, which means “star only one person sees.”  The two biggest shooting stars I have ever seen both occurred on my boda boda ride home after shopping in town with Maama on my first day with my family.  Maybe it’s silly, but seeing those shooting stars gave me strength and a sense of calm as I clung to my second ever boda boda.  The boda boda driver steered up that steep hill in the semi-darkness, avoiding the gully that had cut its way down through the gravel.

I had another moment of celestial strength when I was on the airplane from Detroit to Amsterdam.  It was 4:50 AM Amsterdam time, I had duly noted in my almost ceaseless journaling during the flights.  In the dark cabin, I looked out my window and who was there but my friend Auriga, one of a handful of constellations I had committed to memory during 9th grade earth science.  If I had remembered the story I would have felt even more struck by the chance sighting:  Auriga is Latin for charioteer, and its brightest star, Capella, means little female goat in Greek.  Both stories are quite accurate for a flight to Uganda.

In my struggle to remember my Masaka glasses, seeing my tattooed shoe can help.

It’s not only abstract thoughts that remind me of my time in Uganda.  Ugandan motorcycles physically marked both my shoes and my Chaco sandals.  My left shoe has two parallel oil stripes from swinging my foot onto Jjagwe’s motorcycle’s chain, and my right sandal is missing a chunk from its side due to swinging my foot into the chain while on a boda boda into town.  Whew, thank goodness for those thick soles!

Now I only hear the rain still falling from the downspout and distant thunder.