Africa is a stranger to me, I think as I sit in my airplane seat. I’ve never been here before, and have little knowledge of the continent’s fifty-four countries. We won’t be here long, either—we’re meeting friends in Europe next month, so this African stint feels sandwiched, crammed between two longer stays in other continents. I regret this not long after boarding this flight from Doha, Qatar, to Entebbe, Uganda, where the fellow passengers and flight attendants are the most hospitable we’ve yet encountered.
Now we have landed in Uganda. We join the back of the lengthy visa line in the muggy Entebbe airport, and not two minutes later, a genial woman in an airport uniform sidles next to me and links my arm with hers. “You’ve got small children! Come with me, ma’am—you can come to the front of the line.” The people in line smile and nod at us, as though to say, Of course! Move to the front. This is how our African experience starts, with such familial hospitality. This bodes well for our month here.
We will visit five distinctly different countries: six, if you count the days we’ll wait in South African hotels for flights. Due to budget constraints, our line on the map takes zigzagging to a new level; we’ll touch tarmac in Dubai between both Johannesburg and Nairobi, then again between Nairobi and Casablanca. After this week in Uganda, we will head to Ethiopia, but then we’ll fly from Ethiopia to Zimbabwe also via South Africa, then via South Africa again back up to Kenya. None of this makes any sense on a map. I’m nervous about the wear and tear these extra, fairly needless seven thousand miles will wage on our bodies.
From what I’ve read, Africa is layered, volatile, ancient, misunderstood, huge. It is rife with unfair stereotypes. It’s home to 15 percent of the world’s population and holds the most countries of any other continent. Multicultural is an understatement. To be in a continent of this size, age, and diversity for less than a month isn’t even scratching the surface. Not even skimming it, really. I merely hope Africa’s relationship to us will move from stranger to acquaintance.
We get our passports stamped, then head out of the Uganda airport and find Joy and her kids waiting for us.
“Hello!” Joy says. “How was your flight? I bet you’re exhausted.”
“It was actually not too bad,” I say, giving her a hug.
“Um, Mom?” I hear. Reed taps me on the shoulder. “I think I left my blanket on the plane.” My heart stops.
“Are you sure?” I ask. He nods.
Kyle takes off his backpack. “I’ll be back,” he says, and dashes back in the airport.
Before we left Oregon, we debated what to do about prized possessions, the birth-treasures of our kids. It’d be heartbreaking to lose them, but a year is a long time to go without their beloved blankets, especially when the comforts of home are in short supply. We decided to let the kids take them and risk their potential loss.
Thirty minutes pass, and Kyle reemerges from the airport. “The blanket’s on its way to Rwanda,” he says, catching his breath. “The plane eventually comes back to Uganda, so they’ll do their best to get it. The guy was really nice; he said he’d shoot me an e-mail when he finds it.” And just like that, Reed’s birth-blanket has been lost in Africa.
This isn’t Reed’s first missing-object incident on our trip. He left this same blanket on an airport shuttle in Hong Kong, and Kyle bolted down an upward escalator to save it then. Reed also left a cherished stuffed penguin in New Zealand, which was then sent to the McAlarys’ house in Australia, but only after we departed for Sri Lanka. (The penguin finally arrived in Texas, miraculously unharmed, five months after our travels.)
Reed’s face contorts; he holds back tears. “Bud, we’ll do our best to get it back,” Kyle says, ruffling his hair. Reed buries his face in my side in embarrassment, and my stomach twists in knots. Losing an irreplaceable item is high on my list of travel concerns.
Uganda is the second most populous landlocked country in the world, and it’s also the second-youngest country in the world, with a median age of fifteen. The total dependency ratio—meaning, the percentage of dependents to the working-age population—is 102 percent. I don’t understand how that’s possible. Uganda is a very young, very crowded country. It’s also quite hot.
I sit next to Joy in the passenger seat and watch her weave the van like an expert through lanes swollen with vehicles. Traffic is slow. People walk along either side of the road, men in trousers and dress shirts on their cell phones, women draped in fabrics of cantaloupe and lime colors balancing on their heads giant baskets with bananas for sale. Young men in T-shirts walk with their friends, and stores crowd the road’s shoulder with samples of what’s for sale inside: living room furniture, women’s dresses, auto parts, avocados. The movement of wheels and feet summon a shaggy carpet of red dust. Every other billboard is an ad from the government’s health department: “Cheating? Use a condom. Cheated on? Get tested.” “Everybody has a role to play—say no to sugar daddies.” “Would you let this man be with your teenage daughter? So why are you with his? Cross-generational sex stops with you.”
Joy pulls the van through a rusted metal gate and into her driveway. The kids spill out of the van like a clown car, then all dissipate to various corners of the yard, porch, and house. Bodies disappear in seconds, eager to play with new friends.
I know Joy as a fellow writer, but our families have never met. Is it coincidental that the majority of the children we’ve encountered on our trip have been boys? Ashley’s family in China has four boys, and the itinerant family we met in Thailand, traveling to all seven continents—they have one boy. Our friends in Melbourne, Australia, have three boys, and in Sydney, Adriel and Ryan have two young boys.
I have a hunch this unplanned phenomenon isn’t without a cosmic purpose for Tate. She’s in a volatile, awkward age with one foot in childhood and one in adolescence, and she’s growing into a new phase when roots need to reach, burrow deeper into rich, stationary soil. We decided to take this trip now—during her tenth year—because we sense that soon, it’ll be much more difficult to uproot her. This is an age of magic for our oldest, but she’s been lonely since we left.
It’s been five long months since we first touched Beijing concrete, and Tate has blossomed on these travels. Her fertilizer has been carting all her belongings on her back, sharing bedrooms with her brothers, standing on long metro rides, and the loneliness that goes with being the only girl. She is growing into the adult tasks of rolling up her sleeves and taking slow breaths when things don’t go as planned. A lack of girlfriends has sprouted adaptability, resolve, mettle.
Joy has five boys and one girl—Hanna—who is around Tate’s age. Half a year with no companionship, and my girl is given a girlfriend. They head upstairs and into Hannah’s bedroom full of dolls, then close the door.