From Uganda to South Korea to California and all the way to upstate New York, Sari Fordham, a professor in the creative writing department at SUNY Oswego, has experienced her fair share of travel.

“I grew up with a passport that was so full of stamps that I had to get replacement pages in it. I was very used to getting injections for every single thing and it just seemed the way life was,” Fordham said.

Although Fordham’s students know some of her background in travel, they do not know the extent in which she has seen the world.

Her classroom has a relaxed atmosphere, and Fordham always enters the room with a cheerful, “Hello! How is everybody?” In her office, students will see her many books that fill her bookshelf, but her own published book will not be found there. She will frequently ask her students about life in upstate New York, and what things would be fun to explore in her free time with her family.

It was through her travels that Fordham realized she wanted to pursue the field of creative writing, and she ended up writing a book about her mother through the lens of growing up in Uganda during the political violence that took place there. The title of her book, “Wait for God to Notice,” was a phrase her mother said to her own father about the things that were going on in Uganda at that time.

Fordham recalled her childhood as sort of dreamy and visionary, while also looking back and seeing how her mother had a very different experience.

“For my mom, though it was a bit different because she was the one killing the snakes, and finding mambas in the oven and sweet-talking soldiers,” she said.

While talking about how she and her sister experienced life differently in Uganda than her parents, Fordham shared frightening details of some of the things her parents had to do in order to survive during the political violence.

“There was so much carjacking that sometimes my parents would sometimes take us places as human shields because they figured they’d be less likely to be killed if my sister and I were in the car,” Fordham said. “So they would sometimes take us, sometimes unnecessarily, places just as a safety precaution–which is kind of funny, it makes me laugh now.”

Fordham also explained that writing about her childhood was not easy. Before her mother died, she encouraged Fordham to write about Uganda when she saw her daughter becoming successful in the creative writing field, with multiple publications in different magazines.

Fordham shared her experience of going back to Uganda for volunteer work before she wrote the book. She explained it was difficult being there because many of the people she encountered knew her and her family when she was growing up, and asked her about them.

“That was maybe too intense when I went back because it was too hard, everyone wanted me to talk about, ‘How’s your mom doing?’ and I was like ‘Ahh! I can’t,’” Fordham said.  “So I ended up instead cutting volunteer work short and moving to South Korea and teaching instead. But it stayed with me and I ended up writing a book about it.”

During her time in South Korea, Fordham had interesting experiences, such as hitchhiking with her sister in places even their students would tell them not to.

“My sister and I would do it because we would go mountain climbing a lot. So, when we got off the mountain, we could either walk 5 miles to the bus stop or we could try to hitchhike and get a ride to the bus stop and take the bus back to the city,” Fordham said. 

Some of Fordham’s students also think that her experience in travel has helped her give a different perspective to creative nonfiction writing.

“I think the fact that she’s traveled to a bunch of places gives credit to the value of her having a more diverse experience,” Evan Youngs, a student at SUNY Oswego double majoring in creative writing and journalism, said.

Youngs also commented on the manner in which professor Fordham teaches her creative nonfiction writing classes, highlighting how it is beneficial to both creative writing and journalism students.

“When I first took intermediate nonfiction with professor Fordham, I guess I realized that she is definitely fit for the Oswego program because a lot of people that are taking that course are either people who are creative writing majors, or journalism majors, or both,” Youngs said.

Through her years of experience in both higher level education and travel, Fordham’s one piece of advice for college students would be to see the world.

“I would just say it’s helpful as a human and I would love to see more college age students traveling,” Fordham said.

Photo via: SUNY Oswego