Artifacts of a book

Letters

I started writing with a large box of aerogrammes that my father gave me. My mother’s Finnish letters were already translated, printed out, and organized in a folder. If I was ever to finish this book, I realized, I would need to transcribe all the letters. For a month, I immersed myself in my parents’ voices. Most of the information didn’t make it into the book, but when I finished the transcription, I had a fuller, deeper understanding of what Uganda had meant to each of them.

Photographs

While writing, I looked at photographs, noting what my mother was wearing or my father’s hairstyle or my sister’s doll. Many of the images were in black and white because they were either official documents or they were artifacts from my father’s interest in photography. In most of the pictures, we’re far from the camera, and I can hear my mother saying some version of, “Gary, are we going to be ants today or mice?” The images are small scraps of time captured and carried and held.

Research

I had my memories and my parents stories, but I wasn’t far into the writing process, when I realized I needed sturdier material. I bought books on Uganda, read archived newspapers, listened to old news reports, interviewed family members, and watched a documentary on Idi Amin. But the most important research I did was returning to Uganda as an adult. When I stepped out of the Entebbe Airport, I felt like I was stepping back into myself. Here, I am, I thought.