It is said that you do not know what you have got until is gone or lose it. It seems to me that saying has been true of my time while working as Vision Group’s Regional Marketing Officer in Eastern Uganda.
It has been very hot here in Lira lately and I have been looking up at the clouds more than ever before asking when the Lord will send the rain. There has been an appearance of rain nearly every day of the past one week or so but nothing materializes.
I have had my hottest day in life this week and while I was melting images of cool places that I used to frequent in the East slid across my screen; Sippi falls at Mt Elgon, Sangalo Sand Beach in Busia District, The Source of The Nile and Bujagali Falls in Jina, the swimming pools at Hotel Triangle in Jinja and Rock Classic Hotel in Tororo and the beaches on Entebbe and Kampala side of Lake Victoria.
I just wished I was there. For now though,those images could only cool the stress heat in my head.
Here in Lira up north there are no mountains or waterfalls to view, neither are there beaches and swimming pools to go splash off the heat. The good news, though, I just heard the other day that a new Hotel opening soon in town will have a swimming pool and a gym.
I really now appreciate the little good things that I had access to while I worked in Eastern Uganda besides being close to home. My mom and friend said that they would die of hunger when I moved up north. Thank God they haven’t even though the times seem to be tough for them.
That was there view of what my transfer meant to them. However, for me I didn’t realize how it was going to affect me apart from working in a new environment far away from home with new staff and community.
It has dawned to me now what privileges I had in Eastern Uganda. I went swimming with friends whenever I felt like and sometimes extended across the border into Kenya to do some shopping. It was not hard to go unwind at a beach or mountain climb. Some days I drove home in the evening after work and enjoyed a beautiful red sunset and work up to a beautiful sunrise over the hills or just to a misty view of Mt Elgon, with the cocks crowing and the birds singing. I had at least two nights in Jinja every month and a visit down the Nile while there and sometimes spent the night at Hotel triangle that had a great view of Lake Victoria just before the Source of the Nile.
Here in Lira, my days have been hot, dusty and noisy unlike the quiet dust free location of the Mbale office in Eastern. I find it hard to go out with friends here and my morning are very noisy since I sleep in a house just by the road to Kampala, Gulu, Arua and the Sudan with vehicles traveling all night long. It gets quite dusty in bed sometimes and I wake up with a cold.
Well, I have to make the best of this place; enjoy the food, the open market visits, the grassland, the game parks and the people. I will visit every place that my job will take me to and make friends with whom I can be friends with. In that way, I wont look back and see the opportunities of what good thing the north had to offer that I did not seize.
Today I bought nearly 100kg of sorghum at Amugu Market for my mom at about half the price it would have cost me in Eastern. That is jsut an example of the privileges that I should not miss; cheap produce, charcoal for mom and Trudy whenever I travel etc.
This life 