January Blues

I’ve always found January to be a hard month – in Britain the days seem darker and colder than ever, the Christmas parties are over, you’ve eaten and drunk way too much so now all your clothes feel tight, it’s only a few weeks in to the New Year and you’ve already broken all your life-changing resolutions (the self-loathing is unbearable – ‘will I ever change?’), and the next holiday seems decades away. But I was so convinced that this January would be different - I’m fulfilling a life-long dream for goodness sake! I’m living in Africa, voluntarily helping the needful, in a beautiful country alive with music (especially Reggaeton beats), and the sun is shining bright and strong... but yet the January blues have still engulfed me!

I had the most wonderful Christmas and New Year break. As well as a safari, and a trip up-country to see the mighty Murchison Falls, Immy and I went to Jinja ‘the adventure capital of East Africa’. There we partook in a mixture of extreme sports, and extreme perfect-the-art-of-doing-nothing-ing. We camped in a safari tent on the banks of the river Nile, spent 2 lovely days on a paradise island actually in the Nile, and - although now neither of us can actually believe it happened – Christmas Eve was enjoyed rafting on grade 5 rapids (well, actually, not that much time was spent in the raft as such - more out and sometimes under).

Yes, that's actually Immy and me in there!

 So with the holiday over, Immy’s departure, plus my closest friend since I arrived here in Uganda also gone (home to the USA), I came back to earth with a real thump. Also, as a friend quite rightly pointed out, it is about the 4 month mark that people living/working abroad start to really question what they are doing and wondering why. Honeymoon period over. 

So January has been spent trying my very best to concentrate entirely on work (the classic ‘if I work 24/7 then I won’t have time to think about why I am upset’). I have taken on more students, plus another school, and – ridiculous though it sounds - I’m writing weekly plans and reports on all my students. Invaluable for keeping track of everyone’s progress and it has revealed numerous ‘coasting’ students, i.e. non-practisers! This Monday gone was probably my lowest day yet here... After a Sunday evening spent looking through all my notes, I arrived at KMS grumpier than I thought I could ever be (armed with my OCD-like progress-tracking file) ready to question ‘the coasters’. Instead of sleeping, Sunday night had been spent winding myself up, feeling like a victim. I wanted to ask them:

‘Why should I live thousands of miles from home, away from my family and comforts, and put up with being approached on the street everyday either for marriage or money? And have to turn down social events and weekends away because I’m a volunteer and therefore don’t have expendable income? And work my socks off (drawing particular attention to my exhausting 12-hour Monday) only to return to a small, dusty abode where - more often than not - there is no water to wash with? When you are not even bothering to practise for just 20 minutes a day!?’

I didn’t mention any of this, of course. Instead, I bottled it all up, had a good cry, and then asked the students kindly to put more effort in. That Monday got me thinking though. Whenever I had a hard day in UK, I used to think ‘I wish I was in Africa’. And here I am, so now what do I wish for when I feel life isn’t going my way? Thus this January I’ve had eureka moment (or maybe more of a confirmation of previous suspicions):

For all our complaints about our lives - whether it be our standard of living, financial status, job, location in the world, relationship woes, unrealised dreams etc. - we are actually all responsible for our own present happiness. So let’s all stop feeling so hard done by, and instead think of what we can give thanks for. Positive Mental Attitude.

Here’s to February!