by Nikki Lovell
I thought of the beautiful room that I had had in our family home. It had been so spacious and light. As I stared into the dark now, I realised that, while I had thought about leaving the family home, I never considered that I wouldn’t actually live with my family again. I wondered if they had thought about that when they moved into this place. Bunking with Josh was obviously only a temporary solution—I needed to find somewhere to live.
Mum popped her head in to say goodnight and then she said, ‘Welcome home.’
I replied with ‘Sula burungi’ and then explained to Mum that it meant goodnight in Lusoga. Then, as she disappeared and Josh started snoring, I turned to face the wall, closed my eyes and dreamt of Namwendwa.
I woke and was a little shocked to find myself elevated. It took me a moment to remember that I was in Mum and Dad’s cottage and that I had slept in Josh’s top bunk. I peered over the side of the bed to see if Josh was still asleep. His covers were dishevelled at the end of his mattress, and he was nowhere to be seen.
I might not have been able to see him, but I could hear him. He was nattering away in the room next door. Was that the kitchen or the lounge? I couldn’t remember.
Urgh. I did not feel good. I recalled once seeing a comedian on TV who had made a joke about how Australians talk, commenting on how we love the word ‘not’. How far is the pub? Not far. How do you feel? Not bad. How much does that cost? Not much. The memory made me smile, as I sat up in bed, feeling not good. I felt gross for multiple reasons. Firstly, because I had slept in the same clothes that I had been wearing for the last two days. But on top of my lack of hygiene and uncomfortable outfit, my stomach was also churning. I decided I was hungry, even though I knew I was lying to myself. I was just excited to indulge in the goodness of muesli.
I climbed down from the top bunk and wandered into the next room, which wasn’t the kitchen or the lounge, but rather the dining area. I found Mum, Dad and Josh sitting around the table. Josh was chowing down bacon and eggs on toast, and he had tomato sauce smeared all over his face. He glanced up when he heard me enter; he quickly swallowed his mouthful, said hello, and was then head down, food in mouth once more.
Mum and Dad didn’t seem nearly as excited by their breakfast. Dad was slowly eating a bowl of cereal while reading the newspaper. And Mum was pausing between every mouthful to have a sip of her tea. She was possibly a tea addict.
Mum pulled a funny face when she saw me. She didn’t need to say anything; her down-turned mouth and raised eyebrows were already questioning me: Oh Nikki, her expression exclaimed, did you sleep in that?
I said good morning to my family and then explained that I had been so tired that I had slept in my clothes. I thought I would save Mum the trouble of having to actually ask me, and it clearly worked because, after my explanation, her eyebrows seemed to relax a little. She led me into the kitchen to show me where the breakfast things were. I almost did a little dance when she pulled a tub of berry yoghurt out of the fridge. Yummo! I filled my bowl with muesli and yoghurt despite my stomach gurgling in protest.
After my delicious breakfast, I should have been happy and satisfied but my guts were having an absolute fit. I dashed to the toilet and the contents of my intestines exploded out of me. Diarrhoea. Gross. I sat on the toilet disgusted, but I couldn’t help thinking the whole situation was a little ironic. I had spent eight months drinking bore water and eating street food in a place where stomach bugs were rife and yet I had been constipated for most of the time. Now, after one night in Australia, here I was stuck on the toilet for the opposite reason. I buried my head in my hands as my intestines continued to churn.
Once I was convinced that there was nothing left to come out, I returned to the dining area. But my family were no longer there. Josh had returned to his room and was singing and dancing to some pop song I didn’t know. I found Mum out the front, pottering about in the small garden. And Dad had apparently gone out. I stood by the door to the cottage, watching Mum happily tend to the plants. Everyone was busy doing their thing, and I had nothing to do. No projects to plan; no charcoal stove that needed lighting or water that needed to be fetched; no rats to chase or toads to sweep away; no kids across the road to play with; no Jane to gossip with . . . just me.
Before I went to Uganda, all my time had been consumed by school and Jack. Now I didn’t have them either. I didn’t even have a bedroom.
Mum noticed me, posed like a statue by the door, and asked if I was okay. I told her that I was a little lost, so she suggested that I call a friend. I used her mobile and dialled the number of my old school friend Lisa. She was thrilled to hear my voice and know that I was back in Australia. It was a Friday; she and some of the other girls that I knew from school were going out to town that night. Lisa begged for me to join them, and offered for me to crash at her place for the next few nights. I had only just turned eighteen when I left for Uganda, so I had never actually been to an Australian club before. I was rapt at the idea of being consumed by music and dance.
I asked Lisa to wait a sec, then raced to the front garden again and asked Mum if there was a bus to get to town. Mum told me that there was and that it would drop me at Marion Shopping Centre. I asked Lisa if she could pick me up from there and she laughed; she couldn’t believe I was even asking—of course she would pick me up.
I had a flickering moment of feeling like a typical teenager as I thought, What on earth am I going to wear? I raced out to Mum and told her my dilemma. As always, she knew what to do and popped inside to grab the car keys. We were soon cruising along to the storage shed where all my belongings were stashed. It was bizarre to see my old life in boxes.
After I left for Uganda, Mum and Dad had sold our family home and boxed everything into storage. They had got their stuff back when they returned from Ireland, but my things remained packed away. Mum was very organised and had labelled each carton of my belongings in clear black texta. I quickly found my clothes box and packed it into the car. I didn’t need any of my other stuff yet; besides, I had nowhere to put anything. Back at the cottage I went through my clothes, shoved a few into a small backpack of Josh’s and caught the bus to town.
It was exciting to meet up with Lisa. I gave her a hug and her first comment was about how brown I was. She asked me about my trip, but it was impossible to summarise my experience, so I simply said it was good. I had already realised that no-one really wanted to know the details of my time away, maybe because it was too far removed, too difficult for them to imagine. Or perhaps it was because that was all in the past now, and everyone was more concerned with the future.
It was strange that evening to go through the motions of getting ready for a night out. I had a hot shower, and Lisa curled my hair and prettied my face with make-up. I slipped into my dress, and barely recognised the girl in the mirror. We met up with some other girls and caught the train into town. There was only a handful of people on the train and I appreciated having space to breathe. We had a lot of fun that night, drinking and giggling, flirting with boys, and dancing until our feet hurt.
Lisa’s brother picked us up later and drove us back to their house. Lisa and I laughed the whole way, and back at her place we ate ice-cream before crawling into bed and reminiscing about the night that had been.
The weeks passed and I seemed to fall into a routine of drinking and dancing. Lisa became my partner in crime. But then, as though someone had flicked a switch inside me, the novelty of going out was gone. I moved out of Lisa’s house and into my aunty’s place. She and her two daughters shared a house with her partner, and they had a spare room. They offered for me to stay there; it was only meant to be a temporary arrangement.
After I moved in, I decided that I needed a job and found one immediately working for a marketing company to promote the aid organisation Save the Children. I started work the next day at 7 a.m. I was one of those annoying people in shopping centres, stationed at a table in the middle of the mall itself, calling out ‘Can I ask you a quick q
uestion?’ I was the person that everyone wanted to avoid. I worked six days a week, 12 hours a day, trying to convince myself I was doing something worthwhile.
When the switch went off inside me, it wasn’t just the novelty of going out that I lost. I stopped enjoying hot showers, nice food, my soft doona; I didn’t even like flushing the toilet. Everything felt wasteful and over-indulgent. I felt constant guilt. As if to flush out such shame, my diarrhoea also continued. I discovered that while I had been away my body had become intolerant to dairy foods.
I was always thinking of Namwendwa. I spoke at all the different Rotary, Lions and Zonta clubs that had been supportive of our efforts there, and every time I presented I would become overwhelmed with sadness and not be able to control my tears. People were moved by my passion, and clubs as well as individuals offered to sponsor a girl’s education through the scholarship program that Jane and I had initiated. As difficult as I found talking about it, I liked how it connected me back to the community in Uganda, and how it also then connected others.
I often tried talking to Mum about my feelings. The three of them were still living in the cottage and sometimes I would visit, but it seemed like almost every evening would end with me in tears. One particular night over dinner, after seeing a news story on child abuse, we were talking about it and I suddenly remembered the little boy from Namwendwa Primary School who had been thrown on the ground and whipped repeatedly by a teacher. His story was not unique. The memory caused me to erupt into tears, and I raced into Josh’s room and leaned against the bottom bunk. I wrapped my arms around my knees, pulling them into my chest. I was rocking back and forth against this bed that was not mine. Tears were flowing uncontrollably and my head was pounding.
Mum came and sat beside me; she pulled my body in tight and tried to stop my shaking. She begged for me to talk to her and I could sense her worry. I broke away from her grasp and for the first time I realised exactly how I felt. I looked her in the eyes and asked her how she would feel if she knew I was starving, if she knew that Josh could never go to school, if she knew that Dad had a life-threatening illness.
I could see her eyes filling with tears. I didn’t want to hurt her. I was just trying to explain how I felt every day. I told Mum that the families and the friends and the community of people I loved back in the village were not okay. Mum was crying now too. She pulled me into her again, and we sat in silent sadness. Finally she whispered that she didn’t know what to say. And I sighed, replying that I didn’t know what to do.
• I continued to live at my aunty’s house and distracted myself by working long hours until university started in March 2006. Then I commenced a degree in Journalism and International Studies. I had actually only applied for the course because at the time it had the highest TER and my plan had been not to be accepted. It seemed easier to say that I hadn’t got into my chosen course, rather than to admit that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to go to uni. But then, to my surprise, I was accepted and everyone expected that I would go. My supposed gap year was over and now, apparently, it was time to get on with life. It seemed contradictory to me that it was a called a gap year when in fact it was the most full-on year of my life; I was sure I had learnt more in that short time than I ever had at school or would at uni.
I spent my days at uni lying on the grass and imagining pictures within the clouds. I rarely went to class. I watched other students rushing about, studying hard, eager to please. Other girls seemed to float around the campus; they always looked so light and lovely. They gossiped and giggled, and were absorbed in their own world. I watched them closely, not with disgust but with jealousy. Ignorance was bliss, I thought.
The only class I did enjoy was Spanish, which was an elective as part of the International Studies degree. After my first Spanish class, a boy with curly hair and vibrant blue eyes approached me. His name was Tom and he said that he had overheard me talking to someone else, and was curious to know about the time I had spent in Uganda. He genuinely seemed to want to know all about my experience. He told me that he himself had spent the last year volunteering in Peru; he also told me he was a musician. I asked him if he would bring me a CD of his music, and he asked if I would bring him the Lonely Planet book in which I had first found out about SPW’s work in Uganda.
The next week we both brought our items to exchange and, as easily as that, our friendship was sealed. Tom was an intriguing character—while most guys wore polo shirts or trendy brands, he wore daggy jeans, woollen old-man vests and black fingerless gloves. He was anything but conventional. Over the months that followed, Tom and I shared our stories about far-away places. I went to his gigs and met his friends. While I still felt adrift at uni, I was starting to build a life for myself. I was beginning to feel a lot more at ease and a lot happier. On one particular day, Tom turned up to Spanish late and, when he came in and sat beside me, he looked remarkably different. He had shaved his facial hair and cut his hair. He looked . . . attractive. We had been friends for a while now and never once had it occurred to me that Tom was good looking, but he was. It was weird, and I tried to push the thoughts to the back of my head.
Most nights I lay in bed, restlessly thinking of Namwendwa, but that night I found myself thinking of Tom. He really did look different. The thought of him must have brought me at least temporary peace, because sleep overcame me.
When I woke, it was pitch dark and my phone was ringing. In my scattered, half-asleep state, my hand felt around for my phone. But then the ringing stopped. I gave up searching for my phone and closed my eyes again. Just as I did, the ringing began once more, and then it stopped. Someone was pranking me. I was tempted to ignore it; sleep was summoning me. I closed my eyes and pulled the pillow over my head. The phone rang again. This time curiosity got the better of me, and I jumped up and flicked on a nearby lamp.
I found my phone beside the mattress. Three missed calls—Florence! Florence was pranking me. I hadn’t spoken to her for months and any frustration about being woken disappeared, so I called her back immediately. I was so excited at hearing her voice, but my body froze when she answered. She was in hysterics.
‘Florence, Florence, what’s wrong?’
It was extremely difficult to understand her—it was a bad line, fuzzy with long delays, and the howling of her cries was draining out her words.
I asked her again, ‘Florence, what’s wrong?’
Finally I understood what she was saying—termites had destroyed the infants school. She was trying to teach out of her single-room home, but of course there was not enough space. She didn’t know what to do. But finally I did.
I promised to help.
12
Catch 22
ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, July 2006–January 2007
I was restless, and couldn’t sleep. I was back in my room at my aunty’s house. My temporary moving in had now stretched to over six months; my aunty Sharon was kind for being so generous with her home. I liked it here.
I was lying in bed, wondering how on earth I was going to do all that I had promised. I had spoken to Florence many times over the past few weeks. I had asked her to get a quote for constructing a two-bedroom brick building for the infants school. Initially she had thought it would only cost a few thousand dollars, but now it seemed like it might be much more. I had no idea how I was going to come up with the money.
I felt stressed on the time front as well. With uni, my part-time job back at the bakery (I was already saving for a return trip to Uganda) and, well, socialising, I was already almost constantly busy even before I first spoke to Florence. Now I felt overwhelmed—there were people reliant on me. Me! That was a scary thought.
I hated lying in bed and wishing that I were asleep, so I decided just to get up instead. It was the middle of the night and everyone else was out to it. I crept past my little cousins’ rooms and into the kitchen, got myself a large bowl of muesli and then snuck into the back room. I sat on the couch and turned on the TV. There was a lot of rubbi
sh and, as I flicked through the stations, I was beginning to think it was more entertaining lying in bed staring into blackness. But then I switched to SBS, and my heart nearly stopped. The program was on HIV/AIDS and a thin woman with a British accent was interviewing people from TASO in Uganda. I couldn’t believe it. I put my bowl on a nearby table and sat right in front of the TV. Suddenly I recognised one of the women on the screen. She was the same woman who had given a testimonial at our training—the woman whose husband had died of AIDS and who was now infected. I knew her; I knew her story.
My tears came uncontrollably and I couldn’t even pinpoint what it was in particular that was so upsetting. I sat with my face right in front of the screen until the program finished and then I turned the TV off. The room was silent.
I had known the woman they interviewed, but the program had reminded me of someone else. It made me think about Harriet and the day that I had taken her and the four other girls to be HIV tested. I remembered how terrified she had been that day, how her whole body had been shaking. But, unbelievably, Harriet had not been afraid for herself— she had been anxious for her family. She was worried about the impact that it would have on them if she were HIV infected. She was so selfless and so brave. She had been petrified, but she chose to be tested anyway because of the value she placed on her family. I admired her so much.
As my mind relived that moment with Harriet, I also recalled that I had visited Florence that day. I had been exhausted, but she had been her normal excited self. She had told me all her plans for the infants school. God—maybe there are no coincidences. Harriet had shown me what it meant to be truly courageous and Florence had shared with me her dream. Tonight, when I had been so full of self-doubt, this program just happened to be on at the very time that I couldn’t sleep and I just happened to turn on the TV in the middle of the night. And now this documentary had brought me back to Namwendwa. It had reminded me of women who I admired so strongly—Harriet, Florence and also Jane. And remembering these women and that particular day, I recalled the values that I found embraced in Uganda— family, friends and community.