They bounced

One of the inevitable aspects of life abroad is the transient nature of the people you come to know and love. Most ex-pats are here on time-bound technical assistance trips, internships, fellowships, rotations, field posts, contracts or sabbaticals, ranging in length from days to weeks to months to years. Level of effort put into any given friendship tends to correlate directly with the length of time potential friend has remaining in country. One of the first five questions asked on meeting anyone new is all but guaranteed to be, “How long are you here for?” – prefaced by the name exchange, “Where are you from?”, “What brings you to Uganda?” and “How long have you been here?”, and followed either by sincere get-to-know-you conversation in the case of a long-termer, or a polite retreat for those with negligible lengths of stay.

Most of the people that end up here fall into my “international bouncer” category. Not in the “guy that stands outside the bar with a bicep the size of your face” sense (although some could pass in that role), but in the “here for a little while, there for a little while, bounce through doors as they open” sense. The door usually leads to another country, and grants access to more experiences and stories than could possibly be blogged about. I like to think of myself as an aspiring bouncer* (having worked in just four African countries puts me pretty low on the totem pole – most people have multiple continents under their belt).

The real reason for this rumination is that five of my fellow bouncers launched into their next phase of life last week. Five! Here’s to Joe’s well-timed “Banange!”s, Kim’s ice cream creations and underwater camera, Alicia and Nate’s pantomime endurance, and Brett's superior stalking abilities. May you all bounce high and through the most fascinating of doors.

*"Bouncing”, in the Jen Orkis dictionary, is different than “lily-padding.” Lily-padding = the act of jumping from one topic to the next without finishing one’s thought when carrying on conversation. While I am an aspiring bouncer, I am a bona fide lily-padder.