I landed back in the States 3 weeks today from Uganda. I’ve been home 3 days, the rest of the time has been spent on the road working. My world 3.5 weeks ago is a lot different then my world tonight.
3.5 weeks ago I was in a hotel, like I am tonight, but that’s where the similarities end. Hotel Roma had about 25 sleeping rooms in Gulu, I was in a room with a queen size bed. Did I ever mention that Beth and I shared a bed for the 2.5 weeks we were together in Gulu. Did I mention there was no air conditioning and we slept often in our skivvies because at night the air would be so still and stifling, that our fan brought us little relief. Or that we were arrogant and lucky enough to be on Malarone, a $6/day pill that wards off Malaria, that we didn’t bother to sleep under our mosquito net because it just made it hotter. Or the day after we left Gulu, they didn’t have power for 3 days, THREE days, not because of a major catastrophe but because it’s Gulu and often the infrastructure fails.
In the past three weeks, I’ve been in a Westin, a Hyatt and a very large Vegas hotel. I have had a king size bed every night, a thermostat at my fingertips to adjust the temperature of the room, lamps within reach to make the room, lighter or darker…oh and the bathtubs and dual headed shower heads. I heart Westin shower heads! The first morning at the Westin, I had only been back in the states four days and I giggled with glee as I stepped into the shower, not only would there be hot water, there would be water pressure from TWO shower heads. But the giggling only lasted but a few seconds as I remembered only days before what a shower was like in Gulu.
Tonight I ordered room service, French onion soup, and a sparkling water, my meal with service charge, tax and gratuity came to over $20.00. Christmas Eve, I bought lunch for 16 people in Gulu for less than $20.00.
The paradox of the life I live is not lost on me. I’ve been afforded the opportunity to do some amazing things because of my job. I’ve stayed in phenomenal hotels and dined on fancy dinners and drank expensive wine that I haven’t had to pay a nickel for. I’ve met famous athletes, singers, actors and actresses, been to the NBA All Star Game, worked Four Super Bowls and been to two of the games. I went to China for the Olympics, I’m going to Vancouver for the Olympics. I played on Torrey Pines South…and I don’t even GOLF! I’ve been to more closed theme parks for private functions than I can shake a stick at and yet I’m plotting. Plotting to do exactly what and exactly when that’s all being worked out, but if someone said to me today “April you can walk away from all your financial responsibility and choose what life you want to live” I’d choose Africa, with cold showers, rice and beans and lots of kids in ratty clothes to hang out with, don’t get me wrong I’d long for those nights in fancy hotels, high count thread sheets and room service with expensive wine. I am still in fact American.
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It really is quite the contrast. And to think of the billions that folks have in private funds and what it was they did to earn that. And to see what that has done for our cost of living here in the USA. The work is in seeing how to provide those with the ambition to work hard and make a good living for themselves, to help encourage those who are just trying to get by to see themselves as better than that, to be compassionate to everybody in every situation, and to be inspired to vault ourselves into being better and doing more.
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