Last week I rode in the back of a vehicle through the busy streets of a city in Africa, Arusha. It was early morning, my favorite time of day and the sun wasn’t yet hot. All the streets, lined with trees…. banana trees, palm trees, trees in shapes I only imagined in fairy tales….. are bustling with people. Even the highways, are a constant stream of bodies on their way to wherever they are going. Women carry heavy baskets of fruit, laundry, sticks, bags full of goods anything you can imagine, they carry on their heads…..they do it without the trouble of balance and with such ease. They are dressed in handmade clothes brightly colored and patterned. And they do it with a smile, and constant chatter. It was like a scene from a movie. Just what you would imagine. And I sat in back of a land rover, taking it all in.
I struggle slipping back into reality coming back from traveling. This has been no exception. I open social media and close it 20 seconds later thinking how trivial everything I’m reading is. Comparatively. Though I know it’s not trivial.
I’m coming back to a place that there is never enough… money, food, clothes…..things…..stuff. No one seems to have enough. There is so much competition of life in general. I just returned from a place where a good share of the population lives on less than $3000 a year, and are inherently happy. All the time. It makes me want and need so much less. I am envious of the way they live.
Yet still…. I find the place I come back to…to be everyone else’s dream.
The idea of it anyway.
There will always be some coming and going in my life. I will always go. It may not be far. It may be across the world. But I will always choose that, in some form or another. Somehow. I gain perspective every time I go. I am different upon my return. I know I am. And I carry it all through the rest of my life and the way I choose to live. The way I raise my little boy. The way I choose to feel when I wake up in the morning. The way I let my heart feel throughout the day.
………….
The first day in Africa was a very eye opening experience for me. And one that truly changed me. The guilt I felt for what I take for granted in a day was overwhelming.
Our guide, Michael Shotil, took us to the village where he grew up….Lolkisale, on the Tanzanian plains. As we left the city of Arusha, we were surrounded by men and women and children, herding cattle and goats, looking for food for them for the day. Each waving as we passed by. Most with a smile.
Michael had met a couple from here in Cheyenne years ago, who learned of his village’s lack of water during the dry season, a problem that would close the schools down and force them to move elsewhere until the rainy season came. Our local rotary club raised funds and put a water system into place….and I got to see first hand how much that meant to this tiny little village, and the children going to school there. I got to visit with village leaders and teachers at the school. They were so grateful. There were men digging a new foundation for a dormitory that had not yet been funded. But they were digging anyway in hopes the money would come. Soon. From somewhere.
I stay very involved in our schools here locally, and have found myself, over the last several months thinking negatively about what I see happening. I can no longer do that. I just can’t. My child has so much here. He has water enough to take a shower every day. He has a nice desk to sit at during the day and warm clothes. He gets to live and learn freely. He has so much. I feel a lump in my throat just thinking about it, about how much we have and don’t need.
Perspective. That was my first change of perspective during this trip. A big one. But not the last. By far.
