I’ve been in Uganda, visiting my friend Glenna, who lives in Kampala. Glenna’s apartment has the feel of someone who’s been here a long time. First of all, it’s cheap, and if she hadn’t been here awhile, it would be double the price, probably, because it’s gorgeous. The grey paint on my cement floor peels off on my feet if they’re a little too sweaty; Glenna’s floor is tiled. Her water heater is inside the house, and you turn it on with a switch. I have to use the bars on my window to scale the back of my home like a robber and plug the damn thing in. These, my friends, are not the little things. These are the big luxuries.
Second of all, there are things everywhere—towers of books, DVDs lounging on table corners, baskets of beads and wire she uses to make fantastic jewelry. Her dining room—dining room!—is painted (painted!) a vibrant, deep blue. (Jina: “What color blue is this, Glenna?” Glenna: “Um…cheap blue?”), There’s a lovely kitenga hanging on the wall, a fabric with blue flowers and fish and a sandstone-red background. Her new table? Matches that red.
Which is to say, Glenna totally lives here, in a way I haven’t really started living in Kigali.
It’s also to say that I’m way more attached to stuff than I thought I was. I like my little house, but now that I’ve seen a home, with things on the walls and paint and a general feeling of permanence, I miss that. (I also miss my red corduroy futon back in New York, but that’s never making the trip, so I’ll have to learn to make do.)
It’s a pity that material objects suggest permanence to me; perhaps it’s because I, like so many of my generational compatriots, have moved 10 times in the last 10 years. When you do that, you realize that the more things you have, the more likely you are to stay somewhere, simply because you don’t want to pack them. Acquiring crap will commit you to a place, usually accidentally.
I don’t want that much stuff in Kigali. But some light green walls…and, sigh, a pair of fitted sheets…that might be nice, for a year or two.
Sometimes the smallest things really make a big difference —
I went to the Game (a store in Kampala) and bought a comforter, a nice colored duvet, and some matching, nice sheet sets. It made my little house really feel like home.