Missing

"Cigarettes and chocolate milk, these are just a couple of my cravings..."
-Rufus Wainwright

I am often asked what I miss the most about America. Here's what I miss so far:

1. Access to information. First and foremost this means news about current events, but it also means that I have definitely taken Google for granted. I usually look up everything, and I do mean everything. My head is constantly full of random questions (i.e. I realized the other day that I know black pepper is from peppercorns, BUT: Where do peppercorns come from? What is a peppercorn, exactly? How do they grow? haha ok that one was REALLY random, but that's exactly the kind of stuff that pops into my head for no good reason. You know those digital marquees with red letters, the kind that scroll continuously? I have one in my head, constantly scrolling random questions.) So, not only do I not have my best friends Google and Wikipedia, I don't have a set of encyclopedias, I don’t have any informational books, I don’t have anything. I have absolutely no way to get answers to all of my burning questions. (Including ones about more important matters.)

I think that lack of access to information is a really big (dare I say the biggest?) problem in all lesser-developed countries. Obviously, if I never know about peppercorns, I can still live a fabulous life; however, there are so many things that I think of as essential information, particularly health-wise, that I maybe couldn’t live a fabulous life without knowing. It's just weird to think that you could wonder about something and not be able to get the answer, ever, because there is no forum in which people can get answers, no structure, no way to research even stupid things like peppercorns. If you don't know someone who knows the answer, then you just don't know. And it's also weird to think that if that happened enough- if you wondered, but never knew- that maybe you would stop wondering about things so much, and you would just accept them. I know that there are scores of people dedicated to research, and clearly Google hasn't been around forever, but I feel like my personal curiosity is very much fuelled by the fact that finding answers is actually possible. I like to know how things work, but, if all of my life I had never had a way to find out, would I even think about "how things work"? I don't know.


2. I miss not worrying about bugs when I go to the bathroom. I don't mind using a pit latrine at all, physically- they’re way more sanitary than toilet seats, because you never touch anything! However, I am terrified by the idea that a bug could come crawling out at any second and run across my foot (or worse, up my leg) while I'm making either a "short call" or a "long call," as #1 and #2 are known here. This hasn't happened to me or anything, but the possibility just freaks me out and makes going to the bathroom in the evening a less than enjoyable experience.

On a related note, my mom is AWESOME and has managed to kill all of the ridiculously huge cockroaches that were around our latrine, because she knows I'm freaked out by them. There's this really great thing called "Twin Luck Insecticide Chalk" and it works amazingly well! Of course there are still about a million roaches living down inside the latrine, but now there are none crawling on the walls or the floor or anywhere near it, so that's really really good. It's so funny what people are afraid of... cockroaches are about the only thing that really freak me out. (Well, I guess I don’t like rats so much either. Luckily, I have no rat stories so far.) I know that my fear of cockroaches is an irrational fear since cockroaches aren't harmful, but I really can't stand them. When I go to the bathroom at night, my mom always insists on accompanying me (it's outside, away from the house) and she always says, "I will KILL kyengi!" (I will kill cockroach!) "I will KILL!" She's so cute. My mom is totally cool with cockroaches, but is terrified of both lizards and frogs. Problem is, there are about three frogs that live around the latrine, and also a pretty good-sized lizard that likes to hang out on the wall. So, now that the cockroaches are gone thanks to this miracle chalk, me going to the latrine is way scarier for her than it is for me! So, I chase away the frogs, and then she comes in and looks for cockroaches, while keeping her distance from the lizard. It's a nice little routine. She thinks I'm hilarious for being afraid of cockroaches, and I think she's hilarious for being afraid of frogs and lizards.

That's really about it as far as what I truly miss. Information, and bug-free bathroom experiences. And maybe salad. But, lack of information and creepy bugs, in exchange for UGANDA? I'll trade, any day.