Ngakitalo Nyo

A few months ago the husband of our neighbor died. I arrived home from work to find my host sisters preparing to go next door in order to sit with the family. I had not experienced the death of a family member or neighbor before, but I was expected to go along to express condolances. As I walked over with Sarah, she instructed me on the niceties of attending a burial. The title of this posting is "ngakitalo nyo." This is the phrase you greet everyone with at a burial or mourning, or what you greet someone with who has recently lost someone close to them. I asked my family (and later friends and coworkers) to translate this phrase for me but none of them were able. They said it is much stronger than "I'm sorry," and conveys something really heavy, a kind of dread. It somehow is expressing sorrow, fear, mutual sadness. The fact that it is said to everyone attending a burial (not just family) seems to signify that we are all similarly affected by loss.

As we entered the yard of our neighbor, we greeted each person we met with "ngakitalo nyo." We entered the living space to find the family and friends seated around the perimeter of the room, the coffin in the center. In buganda fashion, each of us too turns greeting each present with ngakitalo, and then proceeded with the rest of the greeting. "Eradde, Eradde." You are welecome. "Osibiyotano?" How has been your day? "Jabale Ko." Thanks for the work you are doing. The strange thing thing for me was that each person responded to the greeting with "balungi." It is good. I am good. Everything is fine. Even as the widow was sobbing and holding a handkerchief to her face, she answered that she was fine. There is not a negative response in the language structure.

It is common during the wake, the night before the burial, for friends and family to stay the night with those who are grieving. This places a significant financial burden on the grieving family as they are expected to provide tea and food for those in attendance. As such, some mourners bring supplies to offer to the family in attempt to lessen some of that burden.

We did not spend the night with our neighbors, but even as we were leaving a few hours later, more friends were arriving and chairs were being set out. It would be a long night for the family.

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I have left Uganda. It has been one week, and in those seven days I have experienced some emotions not dissimilar to those of one grieving any other loss. For the most part I have been numb and ambivalent--not missing Uganda (the memories of work and the last struggles are still too fresh for that), not really happy to experience the joys of America, anxious about all of the story telling and reunions ahead of me. I anticipate that I will wish at somepoint soon to go back to Kampala. I will probably be angry with myself, with circumstances that change and with my own decisions. I will question where I am now, and where I have been, and where I am going to be next year.

It has been good to share a few days with those other forty-odd people also returning home from their year of service. We compared notes on our goodbye-celebrations with our host communities, compared the myriad of odd and wonderful gifts we were given, and compared fears and aprehensions about returning to school, work, or job-hunting.

The heaviness expressed in Ngakitalo is the heaviness of my heart. How can I express in words what it has meant to share the lives of my friends and coworkers for the last eleven months? What can I say to try and convey the honor of witnessing life and death in places where most are not priviledged to go? How can I move on from this year in way that honors what God has done in my life, but also honors the fact that in the totality of the life he calls us to, there are no compartments or categories? My service will continue, the services of those at Mengo HIV clinic will continue. I return to Norwich VT to try and become part of that community as myself, but changed. God has called us to serve him in the place we are, right now, today. I was asked at somepoint in my year what it felt like to make a difference. My response was confusion--I did not feel that this year was making more or less of a difference than my years of nursing previously. I was just in a different location. God will call some of us to serve him in international settings. He will call some of us to serve him in Boston. Washington DC. Rochester, NY. Norwich. How will we answer that call, and how will we serve him today?

I will be asked many times (and this is an OK question), as I have been asked many times already in Uganda--when and if I am "going back." I cannot answer this question fully, but as Eric took to telling people in Uganda, "God knows." And as I told my friends, "You pray." So my only answer right now is this same response--that I will be praying, and waiting for God's direction.

Today I will enjoy the hot showers, the company of good friends, and cheddar cheese. I will be praying for those I love in Uganda, and those I love here. Tomorrow--? Who knows? I pray that I will be open to the service God has for me, and willing to do His work.

Peace