F is for friends
I have had three birthdays in Uganda…THREE! The first one was without a doubt the hardest
for me. Up until that point, my mom
would be sure to take time to come to my university campus on my birthday
weekend and celebrate with me. But this
birthday was much different than what I had grown accustomed to. Let’s just say that the celebration took
place in true Ugandan fashion…late.
While I definitely felt celebrated at some point, this perceived lack of
enthusiasm left me feeling alone. I am
an introverted and self-reflective person.
Because of this, I tend to have few friends with whom I connect with on
a deep level. It has taken some time,
but I am completely comfortable with my personality and the way that I choose
to enter into relationships with others.
When I first joined Peace Corps, I had little intention
of making these “lifelong friends” so many volunteers rave about. It wasn’t for not wanting to make these types
of connections, but for wondering if I could really find people whom I could
connect with well. Yet I have been
pleasantly surprised to have made these special connections that I had heard so
much about. One way I know that a friend
is special is when they go out of their way to spend time with me on my
birthday because birthday celebrations, if you didn’t pick up on it already,
are my love language. Somehow the
disaster I felt my first birthday to be in Uganda was made up significantly
over the past two years thanks to some pretty spectacular people.
Last year, my friend Tara came up to my town to spend my
actual birthday with me. Her visit was
so significant because she lives in southwest Uganda (almost the complete
opposite location of me). This is about
a 13-15 hour trip one way depending on the traffic and bus schedule, but
she didn’t give a second thought about coming to spend the day with me. Tara is an extremely thoughtful person. She hates conflict and will go out of her way
to try to make sure that it’s not there.
Those who do not know Tara would be a bit surprised about this because
Tara is also not afraid to speak her mind and will call you out. It is one of the qualities that I admire
about her because I tend to just walk away, so aim to have her confidence. She is bold in her personality and her love
for those she cares about.
When Tara came to see me for my birthday, she literally
treated me like a queen. We went out to
eat, where she made the restaurant staff sing to me “Happy Birthday”, and
everything was her treat. She even
stayed up watching all of the crazy “Black Mirror” episodes with me until she
physically couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.
It was one of the sweetest gestures anyone has ever made for me and
really set the bar high for all future friendships. But could I really be surprised by Tara’s
grand gestures because she is, after all, a Hufflepuff in the truest sense.
This year, I wanted to do some more exploring around
Uganda for my birthday. So I asked my
friend Mona to accompany me to Fort Portal for a week and she was all in. Mona is my spiritual sister. She is the friend who understands me in ways
without me even needing to fully describe my situation. I can be totally free around her with any
topic and expect a genuine, thoughtful answer in return. We can talk about something completely
random, like the TV show “Vikings”, for hours and be totally content. Who am I kidding? We love talking TV and movies, especially
anything related to fantasy, so much so that we had a special “Game of Thrones”
season seven viewing party where we ordered an unnecessary amount of pizza and
cursed Jon Snow. But one of my most
memorable times with Mona had to be going to Fort Portal with her for my
birthday.
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| This particular crater lake (from this very exact angle, according to our guide) is featured on the 20,000 Ugandan shilling note! |
One cannot go to Fort Portal without exploring some of
the rich nature in the area. So I did a
little bit of research and we decided that we would like to go to some hot
springs just outside of Rwenzori Mountains and take a tour of the crater lakes.
Mona and I are what I would like to call
“leisure hikers”. This means that we don’t
actually like the sporty hiking that adventurists actively seek out (WHY?!),
but simply like to walk around and enjoy the views. I was under the impression that these trips
would be filled with the most leisurely of walks only to discover that we would
be doing the actual hiking that we
are both quite miserable at once we arrived to do our activities. The worst hike had to be to the hot springs
because we had to climb our way through some very steep hills. We nearly always needed our guide to hold our
hands to ensure that we wouldn’t go tumbling down the side of a hill. And when we finally reached the hot springs,
it was the so anticlimactic that I couldn’t believe I had endured hiking hell
just to get to that spot. The springs
themselves were pretty neat, just not as beautiful as we had worked them out to
be in our minds…and, oh yeah, were filled with so many naked locals. At one point, a bunch of nude boys came
running after me and Mona when they saw us make our way to a nearby
stream. Overall, the trip to explore
nature had been nothing short of a complete disaster, yet it was some of the
most fun that I have had with Mona because we both decided that our collective
suffering didn’t have to make it a bad time so long as we could endure
together.
So here’s to all of the great people out there who make
the miseries of life so much more enjoyable.
(Cue “Golden Girls” theme song.)
Thank you for being a friend!
Xoxo,
Emilia
P.S. - If you ever find yourself in Fort Portal and love nature enough to hike through it, you can book a tour with ugandacraterlakestours.weebly.com. Noah was an incredible guide (he had to endure hours worth of complaints but did so with a smile) and a lot of fun!
DISCLAIMER:
The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any
position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.
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