The Smell of Paradise

Last week I was walking across campus after my last class of the day. Considering it was the last class I had that day, to be more specific it was the last Chemistry class I had that week, I was walking slower than I usually walk. The pace I walk can be described as "I walk like I'm fifteen minutes late to something I'm already thirty minutes early for." It's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life but on this particular day I wasn't in any hurry to get back to the dorm.

While I walked across campus, the wind blew and my nose caught whiff of a smell I thought I'd never smell here in the United States. It smelled like Masese. Call me crazy but I promise when that wind picked up I smelled the slum and for a moment I was back standing in the middle of a group of kids, trying to hold as many hands as I could.

 

 

Later that night, UT Martin held the biggest Relay for Life this campus has ever seen. From 6:00 p.m. Friday evening to 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning, UTM students, faculty and community members of Martin, Remembered, Celebrated and Fought Back. The event was held in the Elam Center where the basketball games are played. The entire basketball court was filled with booths for different organizations, students pumped for a great 12 hours and supporters who want to see an end to cancer. I was at the event from 5:30 p.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Saturday and let me just say it was amazing! The students on the Relay for Life Committee did an awesome job at hosting the event as well as keeping everyone pumped and full of energy (drinks) the entire night.

 

I have only stayed up so late I've seen the sunrise twice in my college career. Once was last year after an ADPi formal when a few of my sisters and I went mudding in our fancy dresses. And the second time was this past Saturday morning when I was walking back to my dorm after Relay for Life. It was chilly and the wind was blowing and once again I was hit with the smell of Masese. But along with this smell came the smell of lunch cooking in the open kitchen at Amani Baby Cottage, the smell of Downtwon Jinja shops full of treasures and handmade gifts and the smell of riding in a van with the team members, all the windows open so we could stick our hands out and wave at the children.
 



Lunch at Amani Baby Cottage



A boat on the Nile River

 



 

 






Some people have a picture of paradise so perfect in their mind that they even have the smell down to a distinct characteristic. For some it's the beach: the smell of the ocean, the sand and the salty air. Others might say it's the mountains and the smell of open air, misty mornings and a pureness that unpolluted air can have. And yet others might say their paradise is at home, the smell of familiar aspects that are different for every home.

 

 

What would your paradise smell like?

 

 

 

 

 

You can probably guess what mine smells like: chicken being cooked in an open kitchen, red clay streets, the Nile River, slums and hundreds of children and babies.

In exactly 3 weeks and 3 days I will fly out of Nashville, Tennessee and after about a day of traveling, will land in Entebbe, Uganda and eventually arrive in Jinja, Uganda.

 

I'm so close to being in Uganda that I can smell it.