"You are welcome."

Yes, that is a picture of me playing with a baby elephant. Yes, it does have its trunk wrapped around my arm and yes, for elephants that is a way of showing appreciation and that they like someone. However, this blog post is not about me spending an hour petting, playing, and trying to avoid getting stepped on from a very loving and outgoing elephant. This blog post is instead about what Charles the elephant and the once in a lifetime opportunity that I was given to spend time with him represents. On my second day in Uganda, I decided to walk to the wildlife sanctuary so that I could shake off some jet lag that I was having. So I made my thirty minute hike to the sanctuary and soon arrived at something more than I had even imagined. I could get feet away from rhinos to lions (behind a cage) and I was able to see animals in a way that I had never been able to before. I was alone and soon a young man that was a guide came up to me and started asking me how I was. I soon learned a lot about him, his life, his likes/dislikes, and many other things. I told him about the animals that were my favorite and least favorite (snakes) and then I asked him if they had any elephants. He told me that they had a baby elephant and the trainer would soon be bringing him close by me to walk him around. Well, we began talking more and then he got very excited and told me the elephant was coming and I should follow him. Low and behold, here comes a man walking a baby elephant back to its cage. So I began talking to this man and I asked him if I would be able to touch him. Instead, he told me to come into the pen with them! So I scrambled into the cage as quick as I could without upsetting Charles and began to pet him. Here I was, halfway around the world, in a wildlife sanctuary, with a baby elephant with its trunk around me and a man I had just met. Now I soon learned that this type was not for money or for appreciation but rather this is the culture. Then, as I was leaving he told me “You are welcome”. “What? I’m welcome?”, was this some snide comment because I hadn’t said “Thank you” more than twenty times? Well, I thought about this the entire walk back to my hostel from the wildlife sanctuary. During my walk, I made a stop at a craft store to look at the various items they had. As soon as I entered, I was told “You are welcome”. Hmm, strange since the elephant trainer had told me the same thing. Then, I returned to my hostel and I was received by a very boisterous man who said to me, you guessed it, “You are welcome”. I started asking mzungus, white people, why everyone kept saying that to me. Their response was simple, in Uganda, this phrase is not a form of gratitude as it so often is portrayed in the United States, instead it is a way of giving. The people of Uganda want me to know that I was welcome to their land. For many people, giving comes as a second nature to breathing. And, as I enter their homes, their communities, and their country, not only do they want me to know that they are happy that I am there, but also that they were giving me their welcome. Just as Charles the elephant’s trainer wanted me to know that I was welcome with him in the pen of his baby elephant, the people of Uganda remind me daily that I am welcome in their beautiful country.