This article wasn’t supposed to start like this. Unfortunately, I had to write it this way, and you had to read it this way.
A couple of weeks ago, I walked into the International Student Office. I had other primary reasons for visiting that day. Still, I also wanted to market my book to the department since I strongly believe that international students would benefit largely from reading this book, Once I Arrived.
I enthusiastically pitched the idea to one of the officers. I felt like I was on Shark Tank pitching my idea to billionaires hopeful to receive an investment. After less than three minutes of talking about Once I Arrived, the officer’s first response wiped off my smile completely.
I felt like the last three years I had spent writing, editing, holding phone calls at ungodly hours, marketing the book, and reaching out to publishing companies were all dumped down the drain. She had replied, “First, I appreciate your ambition.”
In fact, I may have chuckled. This is a response NASA would likely tell an African kid who dreams of becoming an astronaut. It would be along the lines of, “First, we appreciate your ambition. However, only American citizens can become astronauts with NASA…”
For a minute I questioned, “Is this the burden immigrants or people from ‘Third World Countries’ have to carry all their life?” Like, what are these limitations set to achieve? To limit dreaming, huh?
I think adulthood teaches every ambitious person to know what rejection sounds or reads like before it’s even uttered. Think of every rejection email you have read. None ever starts with, “You have been found unfit for this program…”
It always begins:
“Dear Elizabeth,
We appreciate your efforts and interest in ABCD…”
Even with romantic breakups, most people will begin with, “Elizabeth, you are really a nice person and I enjoy your company. But…”
Then came the second part. “Unfortunately, due to your visa status, you cannot publish a book in the US.”
You want to know my response? Have you seen cartoons where there is a visual representation of stars and sprinkles above a character’s head, and when they receive bad news, a heavy dark cloud forms on top? That was me at that moment. The officer talked on for a while, but my mind was fuzzy. When she was done, I replied, “I don’t know what to say.”
One of the 20th-century great writers, Franz Kafka, once wrote, “I am not well; I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.”
I can’t say any more truth than that statement because adulthood has been nothing but filled with so much effort, and days when you question, “Naye nfa ki?” (Why am I being hardworking or ambitious?) It’s like each day has its own new puzzle to solve. Moreover, that hard work mixed with no golden spoon in the mouth. The amount of hard work one has to put in has to triple or quadruple, or even be ten times more.
It’s on these grounds that I announce that Once I Arrived is available in hard copy only in Uganda. It will be available on Amazon for the global market on May 16th, 2027. It’s disheartening to be unable to place this book in the hands of sooooooo many people, especially in the US, who have eagerly waited for its release. Also, to the people from Australia and the UK who had reached out asking how to buy a copy, please accept my sincere apology for its unavailability online.
Someone may ask, “Couldn’t you beat the system and have the book up?” And I will reply, “It’s very possible. But what will I have to gain from living under pressure every time I see a police officer or immigration enforcement officer in my vicinity? I don’t have that courage.”
For orders in Uganda, kindly contact Ruth at +(256) 787256738 or 759309215 – also available on WhatsApp.
Now, this is how I intended to have started this article.
Coming to America was a dream I held so dearly for a while. It was my ideal pathway to escape poverty at home, and most importantly, I believed I would one day play in the WNBA. The people who surrounded me cheered me on and praised my hard work. Each day, I was either on the basketball court working toward playing against Diana Taurasi or Sue Bird, as these were the basketball stars at the time, or running in the valleys and hills of Kabale and the uneven pedestrian pathways in Kampala. The dream was alive. But the route to achieving the dream was being in the United States of America.
Somehow, the universe aligned with the stars, and I first came to the US in 2022 to kukuba kyeyo (work for survival). This gave me a little taste of the US. It was like someone pouring soda into a bottle cap and offering it to me, instead of the whole bottle.
And with this taste, came the temptation placed on most Ugandans’ (and other foreigners’) plates: the question, especially as their temporary visa expires, “Why are you going back to Uganda? What does Uganda have to offer you? You can stay in the US, and you will figure it out on the way.”
The above questions and statements sound light to you as a reader, but to the person in that position, they offer some of the most difficult decisions one has to make.
Unfortunately or fortunately, I am one of those people who always choose peace and respect for the law. Thanks to my “African” parents, who never let the slipper stop flying in the air or the mingling stick remain in the pans.
Did I desperately need to stay in the US? Yes.
But was I ready to live with a heart pounding every time I saw a police car or a person of authority? No.
I went back home. I didn’t know what Uganda had to offer, but I went back home after my work contract ended to continue my pursuit of being an unemployed youth.
Previously, I had written about the 60 college rejection letters I had to read throughout my senior six vacation from universities in the US.
I was less excited about trying my luck at school in the US once again, but I knew playing college sports was a path I would take. Unlike the first time, I had drowned in applications and applications, this time I drowned in reaching out to as many coaches as I could. I believe the delusional or high-achieving self that I was – whichever way you want to look at it – may have even texted the Notre Dame or LSU women’s coaches (you can laugh).
For those that don’t get the joke, think of it as an upcoming musician in your community, who is barely known beyond three households, sending a message to a big brand owned by celebrities like Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Burna Boy.
My primary school mathematics teacher said probability can never be negative, but I can assure you that the chances of that upcoming artist getting a response are as high as -1000x. You can make the correlation to any industry, e.g., a soccer player in Uganda reaching out to Ronaldo or Messi.
Guess who realistically had a probability of -1000x ever hearing back from the colleges she was reaching out to? Me.
While at my kyeyo in the US, I worked largely with children. Often I held basketball competitions and games. Each day, at least two kids would come and say to me, “Elizabeth, what college do you play for?” Some would ask, “Is it true you are at a D1 college?” And once a group of kids came and said, “Elizabeth, if you make it to the WNBA, please remember us.”
I always laughed at their innocence. One, I didn’t even have a school in the US, and two, even though I knew I had the dream to play in the WNBA someday, I knew it was one of those dreams we have that remain dreams.
However, their constant reminders and questions kept replenishing this thirst in me to play college basketball. And indeed, after so many messages left on read by hundreds of coaches, I woke up to a text from a coach in St. Louis, Missouri, who wanted to bet on me.
Upon my second arrival in the US after five months spent in Uganda, I wondered if this was even the US I had long longed for. I was slapped with so many realities, like winter coldness since I had arrived in the winter, cheesy food, bills, among others, but I believe the harshest of them all was loneliness. I needed to fill this vacuum with something. Something I didn’t know. I binge-watched series. Took walks. Tried making friends but failed. Joined TikTok – hopeful that online friends, who may even be bots, could fill the void. Read more of African and Russian literature. But that void, that void was still there.
My blog was up and running. I shared stories about relocation, life, and sports. My passion for writing had developed, and probably that loneliness that I loathed was at its greatest source of inspiration.
One evening, as I sat down to do the usual – write a blog – I spiraled into a scary dimension. Write a book – I laughed at myself. What credibility did I even possess to write a book? What gave me the authority to write? I was neither Chimamanda nor Nansubuga nor Ngugi wa Thiong’o nor Okot p’Bitek. I laughed it off again.
But each day, the thought grew bigger and bigger. If the magnitude of thoughts we carried could physically manifest, my head would have exploded or steamed.
At the time, the fear of not writing a book and kick-starting my authorship journey scared me more than the fear of having a book published, which I have come to face in the past three months as I prepared to have Once I Arrived available.
I had to gather all the quotes I say to myself when I am about to do something that makes my heart beat race:
You Only Live Once. Every day is everyone’s birthday. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Just do it. Nothing is beyond your limits. Everyone is faking it – fake it as well.
Most people who come into my room, especially during the school year, are shocked to see the hundreds of sticky notes filled with such quotes hanging on all the walls.
Just like that, my book authorship journey started.
Also, the many questions from either side of the world – with Ugandans asking me how life in the US is and Americans asking me how life back home is – gave me the premise on which Once I Arrived is grounded.
I am excited to finally present to you Once I Arrived, a book shaped by experiences in Uganda and the US, told through fictitious characters. After three years of working through the nights, questioning what I was doing, marketing the book to everyone who listened to me, never receiving any feedback from publishers other than rejections, and questioning the relevance of each word I wrote, I hope you will be happy to hold a physical copy of the book in your hands just like I felt when I finally received mine.
Today, as I publish the book, the fear of having my work out in the public where it will be scrutinized and criticized scares me more.
A friend always reminded me, “You need only one coach to believe in you.” And indeed, through that one coach who believed in me, it has been a journey I have enjoyed. I similarly implore you to be that one person who will choose to buy a copy of Once I Arrived. I hope you are entertained and educated as you turn each page.
Picture credit: Janiah Jackson
