Wow, it feels so great to be home. It felt great that first day, seeing my girlfriend in the airport and my family back home, and driving on roads without potholes on the right side of the road, not having to think or worry about what I'd eat or if I'd actually enjoy it. And the joys of being home just blossomed from there, spending a day at the beach and being able to go in the water, getting a burger with my friends and having about a dozen great options on where to go. Saturday brunch, cool summer evenings that go until 8:30, the sound and smell of lawn mowers going in the morning.
I've had two weeks of this, and it's been so great, I haven't wanted to really think about my time in Uganda. If it was hard being there, it seems like it was harder after experiencing, seemingly for the first time, all the great little things back home.
And that's the tension I've found in coming home. Yes, there are other tensions, like how to live with so much when everyone in Uganda has so little. I think most people would have the tension of living in comfort when everything they just knew was so uncomfortable. And maybe all the old comforts make them a little uncomfortable. But I have such a new appreciation for all these little comforts, and I love being thankful for Ramen noodles that taste just like Ramen noodles, that I don't want to think about the poor substitutes I had in Uganda.
But in Uganda I was filled with a whole other kind of appreciation. Yes, for the things that I didn't have, but much more so for the new things I had over in that foreign country. And that was the prayers and support of so so many people. I felt empowered to do what I did because of the encouragement of everyone praying for me, reading this little blog, who supported me financially, who sent me encouraging emails. Even now I'm discovering some of the details of what that looked like - people who have told me they were reading my blog, were praying for me, who are interested in hearing what my time was like. That network of support was much bigger than I realized, and now I understand why it was so real for me in Uganda.
Everything all told, I learned a whole huge deal about relationships, doing business, the developing world, management, non-profits, commodities, you name it. But the most important thing I learned is that life in community is powerful. I've always had the belief that extraordinary circumstances have a way of bringing out the best in us, of creating inflection points in our lives where we sink or swim and go through big changes. And my extraordinary 6 months required an extraordinary community to see it through to completion. I learned a lot, I rose to challenges, but the biggest challenge was met not by me alone, and I'll never run into another challenge without that support.
That's my way of saying thank you, for everything to everyone, for being a part of my trip, for making whatever success I had possible, and for bringing me home in one piece.
This marks the end of this blog. I think I'll take some time off, do some very un-adventurous things for a while, before starting back up.
And the blog will definitely have a different name.
Thank you, I love you all. -ANDREW
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