Learning to un-schedule

It is a beautiful day in Kampala....  only a few months here and the land of Museveni and all the wonderful people here are really growing on me. Though, certainly not the pot-holes, but that is a story for another day. 

Marriage might have brought me here, but it is the warm people and a 'taste' of the different culture that make me want to stay, in addition of course to being with Hun. I find Ugandans generally very friendly. They embrace community which seems to have rubbed off on all the many ‘Ugandanized expatriates' I have met too. People actually know their neighbours. Any flimsy reason is good enough for a get-together over bbq or 'muchomo' as locally known. Most fascinating to me are children's birthdays, baptisms, etc. The difference here is that these children's parties usually have a more adults to children ratio... and I mean like 5:1 or so. Sometimes there is even no reason at all for the link-ups.... perhaps just catching up or like for one I attended over the weekend, a pool party organized by our marriage enrichment group, to get to know each other’s families/ children. Well, at least this time the ratio was nearly 1:1, the operative word being 'nearly' since as usual the adults out-numbered the little people.

Back home in Kenya get-togethers just don't happen, they have to be planned months or at least weeks in advance, at least among my various circles of friends…. and I was okay with that. I actually preferred staying indoors unless it was ABSOLUTELY necessary: work, school, church, going to look for food. After all, I kept in touch: I face booked – liked  and commented on posts & pictures, posted on timelines and inboxed - I phoned, I texted, I whatsapp’d and I even emailed.

Yet, I have been blessed with the most amazing group of friends and family, who, by the way I love hanging out with a lot. Most of them, pure nut cases and spending any amount of time with them guarantees that by the end of it, I'll be in stitches. Now, considering that am that person who enjoys good humor with long, loud belly laughs - still rolling on the floor long after everyone else got over the joke - I look back and wonder why I felt I needed to 'schedule' spending time with these wonderful people.

Now am away, at least for a while. Even though I plan to make regular trips back home, my now ‘long-distance’ relationships will never be the same. For one, am having to learn how to live further than a -30-minutes’-drive away from my BFF of 26 years. She was one of the few un-scheduled people in my life, of course mostly because she had a copy of my house keys and she did let herself in anyway whether or not on schedule.