At the end of the day I am exhausted. It’s tiring to be stared at all day. It’s tiring not being able to communicate in the same language with the people around us. It’s tiring knowing that a long bike ride awaits before home. This exhaustion has allowed to appreciate all the simple pleasures that exist in my Vancouver life.
The bike ride home is a long stretch of orange dirt road connecting the Busolwe town center to Mugulu. The bike I have is missing brakes on one hand, and the seat is half stripped of the cushion that was once there. Whenever trucks or motorbikes bass by, we must turn town into the ditch on the side of the road, which always throws me off. Literally. People stare. It’s always the same hill every ride to and from work that I have trouble with. I tell myself that people do this daily, that they don’t have pillows and a warm bed to go home to. That they don’t get to leave in three months’ time. That they work so much harder for so much less. That my frustration and complaining is petty. But in those moments of frustration, exhaustion, and embarrassment, I just want to be back home again, in Vancouver. I promise I will be so much more grateful for the essential things which we take for granted in North America.
The evening is cool. I am typing away on a bench outside our little house, watching the other families on the homestead work away to prepare dinner. I’m watching a beautifully blue bird fly with such excitement onto a tree to join his friends… while this is going on, the mother hen is feeding, with her seven little chicks trailing her. The rooster struts around majestically, while insects circle humans and animals with such curiosity. The geckos will be out to feed on these insects soon, and we shall see him as we do every night, on the walls in the room where we take our dinner conversation.