It's good to see you again, Solitude.

I am lucky to have a career that constantly provides me both intellectual and personal transformation.  Each trip to the field leaves me with a greater understanding of my subjects and countless new research questions, but it also leaves me a different person each time.  Or maybe it leaves me the same person, but always reveals something about myself of which I was never aware.  Either way, I never seem to realize anything has changed until the end, and I think that realization came yesterday.

I had one of those quiet, no-plan days that you can only really enjoy when you are traveling on your own.  The last week I spent traveling with one of the interns from the site before seeing him off to the US.  While this was fun, it was the first time I’d really traveled in another country with someone else, and I realized that I find it more challenging than I’d ever expected.  I knew I was fairly independent, but I did not realize until I was surrounded by other people 24/7 all summer just how much I value solitude.  When I tried to tell my mother and my boyfriend about this, they weren’t at all surprised.  I guess it is something that everyone else was aware of but me.  Either way, I’m trying to revel in some solitude now.

Perhaps the problem that I had with this desire in the past was that it conflicted with this idea I got from somewhere that being seen alone certain places was something to be ashamed of.  I never realized how much I felt this way until yesterday.  To say it out loud seems silly, but how many of us feel someone would only go out to eat or to a movie alone because they are forced to, and how often would we feel sorry for them?  I’ve done these sorts of things on my own a lot before, maybe even more than the average person.  I’ve moved places on my own, and I always spend those first few months going places all alone, but after that, I never really do.  And when I was in Nairobi alone, or even Kampala at the start of this summer, I spent evenings locking myself up in my room, sadly waiting for the morning to come and missing my life back home or in the forest. I think a part of me has always been afraid to really enjoy the comfort of this solitude rather than just accept and submit to it.  When the solitude was no longer an option, however, I began to crave it.  So yesterday, perhaps for the first time, I made the decision to really enjoy it.

After running some errands in the morning (doing one thing in Uganda always seems to take at least twice as long as expected) I treated myself to lunch.  After that, a movie.  When my advisor suggested months ago that I try seeing a movie, I was skeptical.  Why go to a movie theater in Uganda when I can spend my money sitting in a digital, sound-enhanced theater back in the US?  I’ve discovered, however, that when one of those moments where I just feel completely overwhelmed by Africa and can’t take another cultural complexity, sitting in a dark theater and watching an American-made film will make me forget everything, including where I am.  So when the café was too crowded, the internet was not working, the boda drivers were harassing me more than usual, children were staring, I threw up my hands and said, “it’s time for a movie.”  I drug my tired dusty feet into the middle of the empty, dark theater and plopped my heavy, tattered pack in the seat beside me.  The silence, the darkness, the absence of anyone staring at me or harassing me, all of it just elicited the biggest sigh of relief that I have felt in weeks.  As the picture started (of course 15 minutes after the scheduled time), I felt my tired traveler-body sink deep into the chair and my mind left Africa for a solid two hours.  I had no other person to focus on, and it felt so great to be so alone with the characters on the screen.

After the movie I decided that I needed more spoiling.  Last week when I was with my friend we went to dinner at a fancy Indian restaurant with another American researcher living in Uganda.  It was the best Indian food I’d ever tasted, and the restaurant was beautiful.  I’d already taken a trip to the US that day, so why not take a trip to upscale India?  I had a few phone numbers of other mzungus in the area that I could call if I felt desperate for human companionship, but I decided I wanted to revel in this food experience all by myself.  I went back to my hotel and put on the new dress I’d just had made for me.  I was saving it for a special occasion, to really impress someone.  I decided tonight that I needed to impress myself more than anyone.  I put it on, added some nice make-up and my new earrings, and was out the door.  Should I take a boda-boda?  No way, I was taking myself out on a date.  I splurged on a taxi to the restaurant (a whopping $5 fee).

I arrived at the restaurant a little after 6:00, only to discover they don’t open until 7:00 (seriously, Uganda?).  This left me with a great opportunity to sip a girly drink and read my book at the bar next door.  An hour later, I was at my restaurant, and I hesitated when the staff had to ask me three times, “someone else will be joining you then?”  I almost felt a twinge of embarrassment wash over me when I said, “no, just me,” but I paused to push this feeling back.  Then I realized that this should be flattering.  These people were having a difficult time believing that this young woman would ever have trouble finding someone to take her to dinner, or that’s what I decided to tell myself.  After all, most of the world refuses to acknowledge that someone might choose solitude over the company of others.  This thought made me smile, and it made me proud of this new, more confident me.

So I sat with my book and ordered a full meal.  I should take this moment to mention that I have spent two months eating nothing but starch and beans, literally.  Indian food is some of the most diverse, flavorful, rich food that there is in the world, and it was just what my tired taste buds were screaming for.  It was the greatest experience of this trip to Kampala.  I did not have to share my naan!  I did not have to rush through my meal, to conceal how much of it I was eating (the whole thing, of course!).  I savored every bite, focusing in on the beautiful food in front of me and the sheer pleasure that eating gives me.  Food is, after all, the only thing I love more than running.  The pleasure that food like this can give one is far too good to be diminished by the distraction of conversation building.  Guilt-free, food-induced solitary pleasure.  Naan-dipping, flavor-bursting, finger-licking food pleasure.  That was my evening.  After I ate I decided to savor the moment and the atmosphere by reading alone at my table for a while.  Why rush out on an evening like this?  When the taxi dropped me off at my door I decided I was not ready to give up on my evening of gluttony.  I slipped into the small market next door and bought a Cadbury chocolate bar.  After rushing to my room and into my pajamas, I sat down to my DVD full of pirated chick-flick movies that I’d bought on the street and reveled in my gluttonous finale to the night: chocolate and bad romantic comedy