I Miss you even before you leave
No amount of pre-marriage counseling at Lubaga Cathedral or from the famed and overrated Ssengas could prepare us for it. With hundreds of kilometers between us comes the constant motion chasing planes, uncomfortable bus rides and sometimes trains full of yobs. The arrangement also adds one more item to the list of the things that normal couples argue about – ‘being picked up late from the airport’. I don’t believe in the ‘Mars and Venus’ theory, but if there is one thing I am sure of – the word ‘care’ means two totally different things to both sexes. Since I am sure she reads this blog, I will not make the mistake of explaining why this is so. To this inventory of issues for a couple in a long distance relationship, you add the anxiety, longing, anger at delays and irritation caused by the slightest changes to meeting times or dates. The journeys themselves come full of so much disappointment, drama and frustration that the only reason that one remains sane is the hope to see your loved ones. My bus rides to Nairobi were always full of passengers speaking loudly in their mobile phones - usually detailing the specifics of their businesses or relationships. When you are in a long-distance relationship, you try to accept the conditions of the arrangement. I have become very good at packing, claiming frequent flyer miles, finding the cheapest airline at the time, checking in and printing my boarding pass in advance etc. I have also got used to adapting to new cultures every 2-3 years and got used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Sadly, there is one thing I have never gotten used to, saying goodbye to my wife or kids. “I miss you even before you leave” she usually says. That is when my stomach develops butterflies knowing that departure time is getting closer. People sympathetic to our arrangement are always saying how we must be finding it hard. No body seems to ever mention the kids but I believe they find it harder. A client of mine who has lived in this arrangement suggested that people from broken families are most likely to accept these arrangements. Apparently we are subconsciously passing on pain afflicted to us as kids. I strenuously deny this in the strongest and most passionate words that exist. I don’t think I can pass any pain on to my kids consciously or subconsciously. On the contrary, it is because, we want a better life for them than the one we had that we accept this arrangement. I did not write this blog to argue with psychologists, every one must justify their vocation and the cheque they take home. So I will return the subject.
Nothing on earth prepares a young couple for a long distance relationship and never mind what they all say, no one ever gets used to it. We mostly say ‘we are used’ to stop, listening to those moans of ‘God how do you survive?’, ‘My goodness, don’t you get tempted’, ‘Brother never leave your wife alone’ and the one that I am really tired of ‘you know, kids need both parents in the house to grow up into good responsible citizens’ or ‘kids need a father figure to look up to in the house’. Both of these tired assertions have not been scientifically proven (although they may be true). My problem is that most people who regurgitate those statements seem to be interested in creating a feeling of guilt in me.
While I met the lady that later became my wife about 22 years ago, we both sensed that we could be more than just friends but the moment did not arrive until 1997. We had met at high school in 1989 through a mutual friend, I was joining the school and she was leaving it. For some reason, we immediately connected and became good friends, that friendship growing up into something really close. We became such good friends that even when we met in a hotel in Nairobi 7 years later (entirely on different and uncoordinated trips) we each retreated to our rooms after having a longish conversation following the excitement of bumping into each other. I had gone to Nairobi as a research student for my final year thesis and she had joined Unilever as a management trainee. Although we had both been staying at this hotel for over a week, we had not met before this night and yet it was my last night and I would be leaving the following day. I was very much aware of that fact and I am confident that I relayed this information without clutter, however to this day; she insists that I never said that I would be leaving and she expected to see me the following day at dinner. It was only one evening but short as it was, it turned out to be the most significant meeting that I ever had with her. When I returned to Makerere University and completed my degree later that year, I moved to Mbale for my first job. While there I tried to find out when she would be back in Kampala but was not successful and gave up. In the following year I restarted my project of finding her and little did I know that she had embarked on a similar project. Unfortunately we both kept missing each other for one reason or another, with all the options available, I managed to pick on that one week when she was on leave and throughout the 8 hours of the day, she always managed to squeeze her call in that one or so hour that I would be out of the office on site inspections. There were no mobile phones then. It just did not work out and we did not manage to speak to each other for almost a year. Sometime towards the end of 1997 she managed to get information about my favorite hangout over the weekends in Kampala and she took the bold step of visiting it. To cut the long story short we soon linked up towards the end of December 1997 and the rest as they say is history.
Over the following two years we grew fonder of each other and in 1999, I asked if she would marry me to which she agreed. In line with our culture, I had to go and officially ask for her hand from her parents, which I did towards the end of 1999. The whole process (that started in 1989) was brought to a close in July of 2000. No one could possibly have had a longer courtship than me. It’s common practice in our culture to have pre-marriage counseling from the church, friends and relatives. What I remember vividly then, is that all pre-marriage counseling concentrated on ‘when you start living together’ and that’s how I understood it too. We were supposed to live together. But only after 2 years, an opportunity for her to move to a neighbouring country came up. She asked for my opinion before accepting it and I saw no reason for her not to take it up. After all, it was only Nairobi, a 50min flight or 12 hr bus ride away. The timing could not have been any better I had recently become self employed, and I was fully in-charge of my life. No problem we could see each other as much as we wanted. How wrong I was. Within a few weeks, I was missing her terribly and the loneliness was getting harder to get used to. ‘How long can we keep doing this? What’s the long-term plan?’ we kept asking ourselves. I insisted that we should stick to the only option in a plan we had, keep on doing it until we cannot handle it any longer. There were many times we could not handle it, but somehow we forged ahead. People ask me how we manage it, and I always say I don’t know, the truth is that I don’t know.
When she moved to UK, the distance and corresponding costs for moving that distance got bigger. We immediately decided that the Nairobi arrangement wont work and I moved to UK with the entire family for the period 2007-09. Because of the nature of what I do for a living and the position I hold at that small outfit at the junction of two roads, I still had to shuffle between Entebbe and Heathrow, although this time I spent more time in London and a bit in Kampala. As if the genie for living separately was cast upon us for ever, we soon discovered that her new role required her to travel frequently for periods as short as a week to as long as 4 weeks. So here we were again living separately despite the attempts to bring this under control. Thankfully because we now lived in a country at the top end of the world ranking order, we were introduced to all the new technology of communication and we were able to make calls more cheaply. So at least we could talk and see each other more regularly even if it was looking at her face pasted over a flat screen. I got used to living as a house-hubby, learnt to make appointments for the kids to see the GP, take kids for birthday parties, football and swimming etc. I had problems getting used to the weather and found the occupants of this large island rather anti-social, but we forged on.
Then we had to move again. This time she had been posted to Accra, Ghana. Well, at least she had moved closer to home, I could now go back to the arrangement we had in Nairobi, I thought. Another false assumption. There are only 2 sensible options of flying to Accra from Kampala, each of them takes more than 8 hrs (longer than I took to fly to Heathrow) and both involved using airliners who have no sense of what the words ‘time keeping’ mean. It is especially painful using one of them that always flies over Entebbe only to take you to their drab airport to sit and wait for 3 hrs before you fly back to Entebbe. This airport is everything that an airport should not be. The planes always came to a halt 400-500m away from the entrance to the Terminal Building and as a welcome courtesy; the passengers are expected to walk. It is good for their health – some one must have thought. Inside the airport, the heavy stench from all the unwashed bodies and stuffy air welcomes you - the Air Conditioning system has been dead for sometime. The lack of a proper waiting place means that sometimes you have to crash – as my son would put it - on the floor of a building in an airport that is not very well known for it cleanliness. I got so fed up of this feeling that I recently changed to using the alternative carrier, flying through Addis Ababa. That route can only be summarized in one word ‘comical’
I thought the move to Ghana would be smoother and quicker to adapt to. Wrong. East Africans just not adapt to West African cultures that easily despite the fact people from the Northern hemisphere think we are all the same. Although I only speak 2-3 languages fluently, I usually consider myself a linguist probably a complete misuse of the word, because normally within a few days I am capable of stringing a few sentences of the new language together. I have disastrously failed to learn to speak any of the Ghanaian local languages. I have finally had to admit that I am probably not cut out for the languages from West Africa. I am a man who likes his food, I therefore take things personally if any body adds something to the food that will stop me from enjoying it or eating at all. I hear food in Ghana is laden with pepper so that the person serving can know if he/she is serving real people or ghosts. Apparently ghosts do not eat pepper. No wonder when I announced at a Rotary meeting of a club that meets at Labadi Beach Hotel over lunch that I did not eat pepper, there were curious eyes peeping through the visual pane of the kitchen door. Every one of those little folks at the back wanted to see the ghost that had invaded them.
In my culture they say that if you keep drinking poorly brewed beer, you eventually get used to it and like it. It is close to two years since we moved to Ghana, although I am always in and out, I am finally getting used to the Ghanaian way of life. As a matter of fact, I am finding more similarities between Ghanaians and Ugandans than differences. Men from both countries have no qualms peeing on the roadside, although my brothers from Ghana take it a notch higher. One can easily pull over ahead of you in a Merc or Beamer, only to step out and pee in the nearest shrub by the roadside. Women from both countries take their night out seriously, unlike their counterparts from Kenya and you would be excused for mistaking an entrance to a nightclub for a catwalk.
8 years ago we started living in a separate cities, the only break coming in 2007-09, when we moved to UK. We both did not expect to come this long and we still have the only option we set out with; carry on with it until we cannot handle it anymore. See my friends, life is always a dilemma, a snake in the pot so to say. Those things that you want to do, that would give you pleasure, you may not do because they are considered bad in the eyes of the society and those things that you don't want to do, don't enjoy doing are what is acceptable to society. Go on enjoy your life and do what pleases you and those close to your heart. Do not listen to the experts and those who say this is what it should be. Probably, that is not what it should be in your case and certainly it is not always, no one has a formula for living life.
Nothing on earth prepares a young couple for a long distance relationship and never mind what they all say, no one ever gets used to it. We mostly say ‘we are used’ to stop, listening to those moans of ‘God how do you survive?’, ‘My goodness, don’t you get tempted’, ‘Brother never leave your wife alone’ and the one that I am really tired of ‘you know, kids need both parents in the house to grow up into good responsible citizens’ or ‘kids need a father figure to look up to in the house’. Both of these tired assertions have not been scientifically proven (although they may be true). My problem is that most people who regurgitate those statements seem to be interested in creating a feeling of guilt in me.
While I met the lady that later became my wife about 22 years ago, we both sensed that we could be more than just friends but the moment did not arrive until 1997. We had met at high school in 1989 through a mutual friend, I was joining the school and she was leaving it. For some reason, we immediately connected and became good friends, that friendship growing up into something really close. We became such good friends that even when we met in a hotel in Nairobi 7 years later (entirely on different and uncoordinated trips) we each retreated to our rooms after having a longish conversation following the excitement of bumping into each other. I had gone to Nairobi as a research student for my final year thesis and she had joined Unilever as a management trainee. Although we had both been staying at this hotel for over a week, we had not met before this night and yet it was my last night and I would be leaving the following day. I was very much aware of that fact and I am confident that I relayed this information without clutter, however to this day; she insists that I never said that I would be leaving and she expected to see me the following day at dinner. It was only one evening but short as it was, it turned out to be the most significant meeting that I ever had with her. When I returned to Makerere University and completed my degree later that year, I moved to Mbale for my first job. While there I tried to find out when she would be back in Kampala but was not successful and gave up. In the following year I restarted my project of finding her and little did I know that she had embarked on a similar project. Unfortunately we both kept missing each other for one reason or another, with all the options available, I managed to pick on that one week when she was on leave and throughout the 8 hours of the day, she always managed to squeeze her call in that one or so hour that I would be out of the office on site inspections. There were no mobile phones then. It just did not work out and we did not manage to speak to each other for almost a year. Sometime towards the end of 1997 she managed to get information about my favorite hangout over the weekends in Kampala and she took the bold step of visiting it. To cut the long story short we soon linked up towards the end of December 1997 and the rest as they say is history.
Over the following two years we grew fonder of each other and in 1999, I asked if she would marry me to which she agreed. In line with our culture, I had to go and officially ask for her hand from her parents, which I did towards the end of 1999. The whole process (that started in 1989) was brought to a close in July of 2000. No one could possibly have had a longer courtship than me. It’s common practice in our culture to have pre-marriage counseling from the church, friends and relatives. What I remember vividly then, is that all pre-marriage counseling concentrated on ‘when you start living together’ and that’s how I understood it too. We were supposed to live together. But only after 2 years, an opportunity for her to move to a neighbouring country came up. She asked for my opinion before accepting it and I saw no reason for her not to take it up. After all, it was only Nairobi, a 50min flight or 12 hr bus ride away. The timing could not have been any better I had recently become self employed, and I was fully in-charge of my life. No problem we could see each other as much as we wanted. How wrong I was. Within a few weeks, I was missing her terribly and the loneliness was getting harder to get used to. ‘How long can we keep doing this? What’s the long-term plan?’ we kept asking ourselves. I insisted that we should stick to the only option in a plan we had, keep on doing it until we cannot handle it any longer. There were many times we could not handle it, but somehow we forged ahead. People ask me how we manage it, and I always say I don’t know, the truth is that I don’t know.
When she moved to UK, the distance and corresponding costs for moving that distance got bigger. We immediately decided that the Nairobi arrangement wont work and I moved to UK with the entire family for the period 2007-09. Because of the nature of what I do for a living and the position I hold at that small outfit at the junction of two roads, I still had to shuffle between Entebbe and Heathrow, although this time I spent more time in London and a bit in Kampala. As if the genie for living separately was cast upon us for ever, we soon discovered that her new role required her to travel frequently for periods as short as a week to as long as 4 weeks. So here we were again living separately despite the attempts to bring this under control. Thankfully because we now lived in a country at the top end of the world ranking order, we were introduced to all the new technology of communication and we were able to make calls more cheaply. So at least we could talk and see each other more regularly even if it was looking at her face pasted over a flat screen. I got used to living as a house-hubby, learnt to make appointments for the kids to see the GP, take kids for birthday parties, football and swimming etc. I had problems getting used to the weather and found the occupants of this large island rather anti-social, but we forged on.
Then we had to move again. This time she had been posted to Accra, Ghana. Well, at least she had moved closer to home, I could now go back to the arrangement we had in Nairobi, I thought. Another false assumption. There are only 2 sensible options of flying to Accra from Kampala, each of them takes more than 8 hrs (longer than I took to fly to Heathrow) and both involved using airliners who have no sense of what the words ‘time keeping’ mean. It is especially painful using one of them that always flies over Entebbe only to take you to their drab airport to sit and wait for 3 hrs before you fly back to Entebbe. This airport is everything that an airport should not be. The planes always came to a halt 400-500m away from the entrance to the Terminal Building and as a welcome courtesy; the passengers are expected to walk. It is good for their health – some one must have thought. Inside the airport, the heavy stench from all the unwashed bodies and stuffy air welcomes you - the Air Conditioning system has been dead for sometime. The lack of a proper waiting place means that sometimes you have to crash – as my son would put it - on the floor of a building in an airport that is not very well known for it cleanliness. I got so fed up of this feeling that I recently changed to using the alternative carrier, flying through Addis Ababa. That route can only be summarized in one word ‘comical’
I thought the move to Ghana would be smoother and quicker to adapt to. Wrong. East Africans just not adapt to West African cultures that easily despite the fact people from the Northern hemisphere think we are all the same. Although I only speak 2-3 languages fluently, I usually consider myself a linguist probably a complete misuse of the word, because normally within a few days I am capable of stringing a few sentences of the new language together. I have disastrously failed to learn to speak any of the Ghanaian local languages. I have finally had to admit that I am probably not cut out for the languages from West Africa. I am a man who likes his food, I therefore take things personally if any body adds something to the food that will stop me from enjoying it or eating at all. I hear food in Ghana is laden with pepper so that the person serving can know if he/she is serving real people or ghosts. Apparently ghosts do not eat pepper. No wonder when I announced at a Rotary meeting of a club that meets at Labadi Beach Hotel over lunch that I did not eat pepper, there were curious eyes peeping through the visual pane of the kitchen door. Every one of those little folks at the back wanted to see the ghost that had invaded them.
In my culture they say that if you keep drinking poorly brewed beer, you eventually get used to it and like it. It is close to two years since we moved to Ghana, although I am always in and out, I am finally getting used to the Ghanaian way of life. As a matter of fact, I am finding more similarities between Ghanaians and Ugandans than differences. Men from both countries have no qualms peeing on the roadside, although my brothers from Ghana take it a notch higher. One can easily pull over ahead of you in a Merc or Beamer, only to step out and pee in the nearest shrub by the roadside. Women from both countries take their night out seriously, unlike their counterparts from Kenya and you would be excused for mistaking an entrance to a nightclub for a catwalk.
8 years ago we started living in a separate cities, the only break coming in 2007-09, when we moved to UK. We both did not expect to come this long and we still have the only option we set out with; carry on with it until we cannot handle it anymore. See my friends, life is always a dilemma, a snake in the pot so to say. Those things that you want to do, that would give you pleasure, you may not do because they are considered bad in the eyes of the society and those things that you don't want to do, don't enjoy doing are what is acceptable to society. Go on enjoy your life and do what pleases you and those close to your heart. Do not listen to the experts and those who say this is what it should be. Probably, that is not what it should be in your case and certainly it is not always, no one has a formula for living life.
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