Do you think it’s possible the smell of America could drift idly across the Atlantic, navigate its way through a series of tricky African border crossings, fortuitously survive a harrowing bus ride down to Kisoro, waft directly up my nose and stimulate my otherwise jaded olfactory nerve? I found myself wondering this very thing on one of my long, restlessness-induced walks this week when all of a sudden, the scent of people, pleather and popcorn joined forces to create: America! Or more specifically: Target! Or most specifically: Target without the Icee machine, which, when you think about it, really deserves no exclamation mark at all.
Target came to me in this, my time of need; this week marks my official two year anniversary of enthusiastic freckling on the equator. Now that I think about it, Target should have brought over some of its fancy American Cancer Society approved sunscreen for this, my time of UVA and UVB ray overexposure. I do have six more weeks, after all- just enough time to irrevocably damage my fragile basal skin layer.
Uganda will always represent a series of firsts for me: first time worrying about the integrity of my basal skin cells, first time living alone, first time steel wool began to look like a perfectly reasonable exfoliation tool, first time being robbed of all my possessions by machete-point (Oregonians are, by nature, hatchet people), first time living without a clear understanding of exactly what’s expected of me or exactly what I expect of myself or exactly what the piece of meat I just ate was when it was alive. I’m sincerely going to miss all of it. But right now I’m at my two year mark. Right now I have cherry Icees on the brain, which, by the way, is not a bad way to cool the brain if ever you find yourself in an emergency overheated brain situation. Yes, right now I’m more concerned with experiencing all the wonderful, sweet sweet lasts of this bizarre experience. The last time I’ll get my hair cut by a male Congolese refugee. The last time I’ll drop a wad of money down a pit latrine. If my most lucrative job prospect of working the Panda Express counter in Kansas State University’s student union falls through, or even if it doesn't, maybe the last time I’ll have a wad of money. The last time a fully grown woman jogs up to me and, without so much as a customary prerequisite schoolyard quarrel, actually pulls my hair and runs away. The last time I’ll climb a volcano, steep hill, inclined plane or anything else for as long as elevators and escalators shall prevail in multistory Targets nationwide.
Six more weeks. I hope you’ll wish me and my basal skin layer all the partial protection that my trusty made in Thailand sunscreen claims to provide (see sketchy title).
