New Year's Eve 2008 and what followed

What a year so far. I hesitate to even attempt to explain how the first three weeks of 2009 have played out for me...I have tried writing this many times, but keep stopping myself. It's just so ridiculous and indescribable, and just so hard to try to explain to anyone who hasn't been here, because those of us who live here can't even understand the madness. But at the same time, I feel that it’s important to tell all parts of my story.

New Years Eve was something I looked forward to since I arrived. I was just so excited to experience that holiday here in Uganda with my friends at the campsite overlooking the Nile…being in the village, at the river that I love surrounded by the people I considered to be my closest friends here. I had no idea that the night could go so terribly wrong, but at almost 11:30 pm, I found myself in a physical fight with one of my best friends here. The same Ugandan that I had had trouble with at the end of November erupted with drunken anger that I still cannot understand and attacked me. I could not believe what was happening. When one of the forty or so people on the balcony finally stepped in and pulled him off of me (I was on the ground at this point, but still trying to defend myself), I was told to move away as he continued yelling crazy things to me whilst being held back by at least six other guys. It was insane. So, when the rest of the crowd (who had no idea what had happened outside) started counting down the last seconds of 2008 and celebrating the New Year, I was standing amongst them alone, still in shock and in no mood to celebrate myself. What an awful way to bring in the New Year…but things were only going to get worse.

As I was waking up on January 1st and trying to process the events of the night before, I felt sad, confused and disappointed and wanted to talk with him to find out why all of that had happened and to try to mend our friendship. And in those same moments (7:30 am) in a village room 20 minutes away, he was scripting the first of four text messages he would send in the following days. They were hateful, offensive, threatening and full of expletives…and at the time, they were very hurtful. How can someone you spend so much time laughing with and smiling with and just having easy happiness with…how can they be so willing to not only throw that away, but to be so cruel in the process? I just couldn’t understand having such a reaction. I couldn’t understand having such anger towards a good friend, attacking them both physically and emotionally and then not want to talk about it and try to fix it. I just don’t understand where any of that craziness came from…and it didn’t stop there.

Over the next several days not only did I find out that other people I had considered friends were talking badly about me, but I found out that the one I fought with was telling lies about what happened on NYE and trying to convince everyone in the village and at the campsite to stay away from me and not be my friend. People judge people here because we are different (when I say "here", I don't mean Uganda, I mean in this specific group of human beings living at the river). Rather than embrace the differences and learn from them, people judge. You would never know that they are judging you as you dance with them or chat with them, as you smile and laugh with them…but apparently some of the people here are enjoying your company on the outside and on the inside they are judging you for the very things that they themselves are doing. There is quite a double standard amongst people in this circle: I could do the very same thing that a Ugandan is doing, but I am wrong or a bad person because I’m doing it and no one thinks twice about the Ugandan. In the first two weeks of the year, as I tried every day to stand tall and keep my chin up, I would learn about something else someone was saying or thinking about me or receive another message and just crumble. It was so hard to be in this town and look around at the people I thought were my friends (or at the very least, I never looked at anyone as though they were my enemy) and wonder which of them truly ARE my friends/aren't my enemy. It’s just difficult to be surrounded by such negativity, such deceit, such lies, such hate…living amongst people that think you are a bad person because you are friendly and nice to everyone; it’s so hard. And I definitely never knew that by giving people/friends hugs, I was giving myself a bad name. I’m a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger; I’m affectionate and loving, it’s who I am…I just never imagined that any of those personality traits would get me into trouble. I didn’t realize how misinterpreted and misunderstood I could be. I can appreciate cultural differences, but being judged negatively for the aforementioned reasons is just something I cannot comprehend. And having people pretend to be your friend who really do not like you...this also makes no sense to me. Then just don't be my friend!!! Why waste either of our time and energy pretending?

And for those reasons, the way some of the people in the village here enjoy tearing you down and making you feel so awful, the way they make you feel like you must be a bad person if people are willing to treat you this way…it’s a hard reality to understand. To have someone laugh in your face when they see you cry because they are from a culture that just doesn't show emotions.  All of this just really messes with your head. So, it’s been quite the roller coaster ride, 2009. I have had many hard days, many bad thoughts, many tears, many considerations of leaving early. But every once and a while, I have one of those days that is just so nice in which I’m surrounded by people I do sincerely believe are my friends and I just enjoy the beauty of the river or the simplicity of life here. Every once and a while I have a day that reminds me why I love it here or why I decided to come back in the first place. And those days save my spirit.

You know how people always say, “everything happens for a reason,” and sometimes that just drives us insane, right? I mean, come on….sometimes the reason is SHITTY! But if we try to remove ourselves from the situation and sit back and allow ourselves to see things from the outside (sometimes this takes a while)…every so often a good reason can be found. And I realized this yesterday. I was sitting at the campsite thinking about the friendship that I lost on NYE and realized that in losing that friendship that clearly wasn’t as great as I saw it to be, I actually gained new friendships that are really wonderful that I may have missed out on otherwise. And I am so grateful for those people and our newfound friendships. In all of this craziness, I have become very skeptical and protective of myself...trying to pick and choose who I should allow into my world...and in doing so, I have found a great group of people to keep around.

And as I find my way out of the dark forest I was lost in for the first two weeks of the year, I am letting go of the negativity and sadness. I am leaving the two people I now know are not and will never be my friends (and anyone else who goes along with their charade)…I am leaving them in that forest. They seem to like it in there. They seem to thrive from sadness and negativity; they seem to enjoy bringing people down and watching them suffer. So they can stay there…but I know I don’t belong in there. I hate living life that way; I always have...and although I know I can be negative at times, I do try my best to be positive the majority of the time. I always try to see the good in life, in people. And I know that that gets me in trouble…and believe me, I am going to take this experience with me and learn from it. But I cannot lose myself and who I am because of it. I cannot let them take my happiness...especially because that is what they want. Instead, I smile proudly and remember in my heart that I am a good person and I only need to surround myself by positivity...all the rest is just a puddle I need to jump over in the path.