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Jet lag has never been an issue for me. Perhaps because I travel frequently. Perhaps because I thrive on caffeine. Perhaps because I can sleep virtually anywhere. People I know claim that five or six hours of sleep is more than sufficient for them. I think they’re liars. I’m a believer in the restorative powers of eight full, uninterrupted hours of tranquility. Sure, I can function on less, but not happily, and not for long stretches without my productivity and functionality becoming greatly compromised
I’m used to arriving in Uganda with a to-do list that mirrors a greedy child’s wish list to Santa in length. But in March, as I powered up my 2021 mantra for Project Have Hope, to thrive not just survive, my must-accomplish list resembled the cliff notes for Moby Dick.
After arriving at my house a little past midnight from the airport, I promptly settled in and started dividing up the 175 pounds of stash I hauled with me. The mound of Amazon-ordered items I muled for ex-pats and others pushed to one side. The second hand clothes and shoes for the Quarter separated into one oversized duffel bag. Gifts and letters for sponsored women and children into another duffel bag. Repairs and materials for new designs into another smaller bag. With everything organized so I could get a jump start in the morning, I laid down around 2am with my mini clipboard beside me, strategizing how I’d accomplish three days worth of work in 8 hours. At 5am, I was still wide awake, eager to get started already. Around 7am, I gave up and got up. I downed a Coke Zero from my fridge in hopes that that would suffice.
The following night was a repeat. And then the night after, the same. In six days, I’d managed about 10 hours of sleep. My days were full, but my list seemed to be growing. One morning, as I sat on the back of the boda heading to town, I saw my reflection in the side view mirror. The dark circles beneath my eyes so pronounced that I did a double take. They resembled the two black eyes I sported after I was mugged in 2010, but this time, it was self-inflicted. I reached the Friday market to meet with several artisans. As I stopped to admire the designs in one of the stalls, the shop keeper looked at me, “You always look tired, but today is even worse.” I smiled. Seriously, what’s the appropriate way to respond when someone tells you that you look like shit and you know that you feel worse than you look? I moved on.
After days of not sleeping, I felt drugged. Awake. Unable to sleep. But also unable to function properly. As I sat on my couch working, I could hear the thunder, then see the first light rain rolling off the tiles of my roof. The once sunny mid-day sky, turned grey and the rain became heavier, like my eyelids. I pushed back from my laptop and laid down with my head propped up, looking at the view from my veranda. I closed my eyes and took in the fresh smell of falling rain – that smell that invites you to think of newness and strips clean the mind – then the sound overtook me. First, soft and melodious, it lulled to me like mothers in the Quarter who rock their babies on their back while seated. Instinctively, I felt myself rocking.
As the rain got heavier and with my eyes closed, it sounded like the ocean’s waves racing to shore. I took slow, deep breaths, almost as methodical as the falling rain drops. Still heaving, the rain sounded like low, beating drums, maintaining their percussional duty with the thunder interjecting like clanging cymbals. For an instance, I’m taken back to my childhood and the metronome that sat pristinely on my childhood friend’s piano. I sank into the couch and wondered if finally, the sleep I desperately sought, would come. It didn’t.
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"I think big!" gushes Eric. "I want to be the best designer ever!"
His goals aren’t limited to fashioning clothes, but to every aspect of design. With unbridled ambition, a strong work ethic and passion, this 22 year old is unstoppable.
Thanks to Project Have Hope's scholastic sponsorship program, Eric had the opportunity to pursue a course in fashion and design, and is currently employed by a company that manufactures clothes for government contracts.
Eric’s passion for design was ignited when he was 17 years old. His uniform was too big and ill-fitting. He was determined to fix it. “ ‘Let me try,’ ” he recalls saying to himself as he sat behind a sewing machine for the first time to adjust his uniform. “From that day, I loved tailoring.
Pursuing a course in tailoring would have been an impossibility without the financial support of Project Have Hope. Susan has gained both a skill and a confidence that helps her to navigate the future and the challenges that persist.
Much of Susan’s youth was spent rising before the sun and going to bed long after the moon had risen. Her day would start at 4am, when she would rise to head to the fields to work. She’d return home as the sun was setting and begin the time-consuming task of preparing a meal. Day after day.
At 19, a young mother herself, Susan moved to the Acholi Quarter. There, she labored in the stone quarry, often with her infant baby on her back.
When Project Have Hope began, it was a welcome relief to Susan. She could work from home with her daughter seated nearby and roll paper into beads. “It was simple work, easy work,” Susan carefreely recalls. Not only was the work easy, but she’d earn twice what she earned in the quarry. “It was a very great change for me.”
Susan later enrolled in a tailoring course through Project Have Hope’s support. From the beginning, she was thrilled with the opportunity tailoring presented. “You can expect money any day, any time,” Susan beams. “If I return to the village, I can bring my tailoring machine and work from there and earn a living. I can work anywhere.”
Afrid Ghoffrani
April 05, 2021
There is only one thing I want to say: Herbatonin! The herbal sleeping aid that works no matter what saved my life!