Uganda (Part 4): Letting Go to Go

When venturing into the unknown, by default, one simply has no idea what to expect. 

So you must just go with the flow. 

You must
just
let
go.


As an independent woman and often solo-traveler, I have learned that "doing your homework", ie. researching a location and planning an itinerary, offers a decent modicum of safety and security, even if it's only in my head. Generally speaking. Knowing where I'm going to sleep at the end of a long day traveling or exploring provides peace of mind. And something to react to or change, if necessary, or in the moment. One can always be spontaneous, it's just that I'd rather stray from a plan than not have one. 

But for this trip, my first to Africa and only second to a third world country, I would not have the luxury of planning. I could arm myself with all the research available to me - which I did in the brief two-weeks I had before departing. (By the way, there are only two published travel books covering Uganda and one of them includes all Eastern African countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. And that one is not even thick.) However, the details of my day-to-day whereabouts were not up to me. So, to relinquish the reigns completely to strangers among strangers and in a strange land was palpably uncomfortable and potentially ill-advised.

You see, the extent of my knowledge about any itinerary in Uganda was this: We'd be staying in Kampala then in Gulu. "We" included myself and Kristen Hendricks, the founder and president of Purse of Hope (www.purseofhope.org). We'd be traveling with the founder/president and a few employees of another NGO (Bob Goff of Restore International) and a few of their donors. That's all i knew. And, as my dear friend Kristen, who I'd known merely a few days at the time, and in whose hands I was putting my reigns, as she put it:  "we will be in Africa...so, you know...it ain't the suburbs, but we'll be smart."

This took a whole lot of trust.
And copious amounts of letting go.

Little did I know, other powers were at work...

********** 

You know, a funny thing... A particular book has sat on my shelves for at least 10 years, maybe 12, and I never picked it up until the day before getting on that airplane to Africa. It's a collection of poetry. Since I have a good selection of works from the poets contained therein, I guess I've neglected it...figuring whatever is there must be in one of the more extensive collections. Well, this book suddenly caught my attention and I picked it up. And in four powerful lines, more profound than I would understand for two weeks yet ahead, the ancient Persian Poet, Rumi, offered this:

Be helpless, dumbfounded,

Unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come from grace

to gather us up.

And indeed, one did.