Mzungu wange: final reflections on Uganda

I'm in Paisley, Scotland now. Wearing more layers than I remembered was physically possible, looking out over the city of Glasgow, staying in a glorious old mansion that has been re-purposed into a YWAM base, and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that five days ago my season in Uganda came to an end. It seems impossible that it's over, and at the same time it's as if it all happened years ago.

On one of my last days, one of the neighbor children made a permanent impression on my heart and wrapped up my entire stay in Uganda in one phrase: "Mzungu wange!" or "My white girl!"

When I came to Africa, I was at first enraptured and then overwhelmed. Being white seemed an impossible obstacle to overcome, and I was so discouraged by the feeling of being an inevitable outsider in every situation. The children reminded me of it around every corner: "Mzungu! Mzungu!" "White girl! White girl!" But I pressed on, and days and weeks turned into months, and Uganda began to feel like home. After spending six weeks in Tanzania and then returning to Hopeland, I was surprised to find how familiar and comfortable it felt-- I know this place! I can do this!

I cannot possibly, in one update or a hundred, express the depth of love, the friendships, the challenges and blessings, the heartbreaks and highs, of my six months in Uganda. How the red dirt became a comforting second skin, how the blue sky and hot sun placed a blanket of familiarity over every day, how the rain smelled like lemon and mint and filled my soul. How the sticky, dirty hands of the sweetest children on Earth ministered to my heart and left indelible marks on my ukulele. How the rhythm-- slow, consistent, repetitive, and so dear-- of friendship and conversation and work and community worked its way into my very being. How my heart felt that last hour in the Entebbe airport: broken, alone, and incredulous that it happened at all and that it was over.

I gave Uganda my everything, and it made me its own. "Mzungu wange!" I'm still white, but I belong. I am beloved and adopted and known-- and now, missed. I am Uganda's, and Uganda is mine. Across continents and seas and seasons until I return again, I carry it inside me, and I am changed for good and for the very best.