Cast of Characters: The Artist

Truth be told, this one could probably have been titled any of the following: The Artist, The Soldier, The Rebel, The Radical. Chris was one of those guys you meet that seems to have done it all and maintained a great sense of humor throughout an adventurous life. 

I met Chris and his wife Adelaide in Stanford, just outside of Hermanus, on my third day of riding. I pulled up to the farm stall for second breakfast, something that's become integral on days where I'm hitting upwards of 100 kilometers in the saddle. Before I'd even taken off my gloves, let alone dismounted, I was approached by an older couple, sweet as molasses, as they were leaving the shop. Where was I going? Where was I from? Such an adventure! Best of luck to you!

The conversation lasted less than five minutes, but within that time, I had an invite to stop and stay the night in Groot Braak River, halfway between Mossel Bay and George. They'd make sure I had a solid breakfast if I came through. It was about 400km away, but it was on my route, and they'd love to have me. 

I was floored. I had their address and their phone number and I hadn't even left the saddle. Who were these people? Why would they invite a complete stranger to stay with them after a two minute conversation? Were they planning to harvest my organs?

I arrived in Groot Braak about two weeks later, but the vagaries of the road being what they are, I did not have a chance to stop and spend the night with Chris and Adelaide. I did, however, pull Chris away from his work for an hour or two for brunch at one of his local haunts, a place so local that the only menus were printed entirely in Afrikaans.

Chris runs an art gallery, or, rather, Chris is an artist who sells his work through his gallery. But he isn't the typical artist that one is likely to find among the various hippy communities dotting South Africa's Garden Route. You know the type, the ones who sell various trinkets that only serve to clutter up your living room when you get home and realize that you wasted a few bucks on crap that you don't really want and never would have bought if you weren't on vacation. 

Instead, Chris paints beautiful works like these:

 

Chris's background in art stretches back to his youth, when he was one of the most daring up-and-coming artists in South Africa. At the age of 27, Chris's work was on display in 24 countries across world, including the US and Europe. 

At the height of his critical acclaim, Chris was approached by the Broederbond, Afrikaans for "The Brotherhood," a collection of the most powerful men in South Africa. These cultural, political, and economic elite were the architects of Apartheid, and they ruled almost every facet of South African life. 

They made Chris an offer typically unheard of for someone of his age, to join the Broederbond and gain access to South Africa's inner circle, the power brokers, the movers and the shakers, the godfathers. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.

But refuse it he did, and within months, his artistic career was over. He was blacklisted in South Africa, and the government made sure that his work couldn't reach the outside world. Chris told me, "Their attitude was one of, 'If you aren't with us, you're against us.' And that was it. I was out, and there wasn't anything I could do about it."

Like nearly every other South African man of his generation, Chris had been forced into military service, becoming a part of the behemoth that made up what was at the time the world's fourth best army. Many forget, or perhaps never fully realize, that South Africa, under apartheid, came as close as any government ever has to fully realizing an Orwellian vision of control and coercion. The army was one of the central pillars of the old South Africa, and every white man of a certain age was drafted into the machinery of oppression. 

Chris was no different, and it was in between marksmanship training, stick fighting, and jumping out of trucks eight to ten times a day that his rebellious spirit and his opposition to the Apartheid government grew. 

It wasn't that he couldn't handle military life. Indeed, he excelled at it, gaining notable recognition for his skill with a rifle. But the artist's spirit was strong within him, and he never lost his critical detachment from the powers that be. 

So when the Broederbond came knocking, he closed the door.

Chris would eventually go on to work for the government, in the Ministry of Information, rising high in the civil service, but on his own terms. As the political thaw that represented the end of apartheid was working it's way through the system, he happened to run into Cyril Ramaphosa, one of the ANC's most powerful figures in the transition and the current deputy president of the ANC, a man who has since gained immense wealth in mining, real estate, telecoms, energy, and banking. 

Chris, documents in hand, not knowing who he was speaking to, naively asked, "What happens to my position when the new government takes over?" The response? "Your previous service will be commended, but there will not be a place for you in the new South Africa."

So Chris jumped before he could be pushed, moving with his wife to Groot Braak to make a go of it with the career as an artist that he had let go so long before.

And it worked. Chris and Adelaide have lived very happily in Groot Braak for a number of years now. By his own admission, Chris doesn't make much, but it's enough for the lifestyle that they cherish. And that, according to Chris, is the most important thing in life: to lead the life that you want to lead. To live simply and appreciate what you have. 

Despite some of the hardship that he's faced in career and in life, Chris maintains a positively brilliant, or perhaps brilliantly positive, view on the world. He laughs easily and readily, a high pitched, infectious guffaw that carries its own vim and vigor. He's keyed in to many of the hardships faced by his fellow citizens, both in South Africa and throughout the world, but he somehow maintains an energy and an enthusiasm for life that is admirable beyond description.

While writing this entry, I keep coming back to the word life. Every adjective related to Chris: life, life, life. Perhaps that's what Chris represents for me. He's continued on and is doing what he loves in the place he wants to be. I think there's little more that one could ask from the world.

Plus he bought me breakfast. Small victories.

Stage Two: Headed North

I've been out of Internet range for a while now, but as of this writing, I've ridden over 1300 kilometers in just under one month. That's about 47 kilometers per day, though that average could be higher if it weren't for some extra days of rest with various hosts from Couch Surfing and Warm Showers.

Here's what I've got so far...


View Larger Map

So that's the first third of my journey out of the way. It's taken much longer than I'd initially planned, and my intentions of making it through Lesotho before the snows came have come to naught. The best laid plans of mice and men...I guess.

To be fair, the snows have come to the mountain kingdom much earlier than normal, but I never would have made it regardless. Cape Town to Port Elizabeth marked the first third of the journey, and I naively thought I'd be able to make it in two weeks. Two weeks, however, have quickly stretched into four, and a trip initially planned for six weeks is ballooning into a three month saga. 

Like a weapons program unsupervised, this project is sucking away time and money, but I've gone too far to quit now.

So from Port Elizabeth, I turn north. This is the truly masochistic section of my ride and one that I am both looking forward to and dreading with my entire being. From the coast, I will climb to over 3000 meters above sea level, winding my way up through the Winterberge and Stormberg ranges, mere foothills to the towering heights of the Drakensberg Mountains, the teeth of the dragon that separate me from the highveld and the final third of my journey. 

It is, quite literally, all uphill from here.

And I'm still not quite sure what has prompted all of this. Others have asked me, "Why not cycle along the coast and up through Mozambique?" I've heard the coast is beautiful, with sandy beaches warmed by the Benguela Current drawn from the Indian Ocean's equatorial waters.

But even with the difficulty of several thousand more kilometers, that trip would just be too easy, and thus, it's not for me. Even at the age of 28, there's still something to prove. Not to anyone else particularly, as I'm not sure who I'd be trying to impress. 

Instead, it's me. It's all for me. There's some critic hidden inside of me that's demanded more and more and isn't too impressed by any of my former travels and experiences. 

"An iron ore train through the Mauritanian desert?" he says' "Call me when you've spent 80 days with the salt caravans crossing the Sahara. Border posts in Cote d'Ivoire's Wild West? Yawn. I hear Kashmir is where the fun really is." 

Because these stories and experiences have been lived by me, they fail to impress, and I often overlook how adventurous they actually are. Instead, I devour stories of others' adventures, their experiences, the crazy things they've done, and I want more. I want to bike up and over the mountains. I want to struggle in the thin mountain air and fight it out in the Pass of the Jackals. It's only in the challenges and the suffering that I feel truly alive, and I don't know why that is or if it will ever go away.

I meet South Africans who hear my story and their first reaction is typically, "What possessed you? That takes some courage and strength." But it doesn't. It just takes getting on the bike. Some construe that as humility, but every day that I'm riding is just another day in the saddle. Clipping off seventy-five, eighty, ninety kilometers is something that is steadily becoming more and more routine, as innate as breathing, and just something that powers me through some of the most stunning scenery I've ever encountered.

And I'm beginning to wonder if I'll appreciate this climb after the fact. When I finally hit the Monontsa Pass and descend out of the mountain kingdom, will I truly think, "That was an accomplishment," or will I turn back to the mountain, shrug it off and think, "I wonder where the next challenge lies?"

I've never been an adrenaline junkie, but I'm starting to understand the mentality that goes into finding that next peak higher, that next gear faster, that depth unplumbed. I don't know if it ever ends, or if once you get a taste of adventure, you're left searching for the next great thing.

I'm not sure, but for now, all roads point north.

Time to climb.

Passes? We Don't Need No Stinking Passes!

I hate to start it with a quote, but when it's Hemingway, you get a little lee-way. Hemingway once said, about cycling,

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

He wasn't half wrong, and in the past few days, I've learned this lesson through some very intense experiences with this stunning landscape.

In the previous five days of cycling, I have gone up and then down, or down and then up two mountain and ten river passes. Eleven if you count the Gouritsrivier, which we really should, because it looks like this:

See those cliffs? Fuck those cliffs.

So what have I learned from these beautiful, but beastly, roads?

Well, for one, the two are not created equal. Even if they're the same length and climb and descend the same distance, river passes are far preferable to mountain passes. I was due to stay with a host from Warm Showers who, I discovered after about ten kilometers, lived just off of "Seven Passes Road."

Dear Lord, I'd just spent the last three days battling with Tradouw, Cloete's, and du Plessis Passes on the back road from Barrydale to Herbertsdale. This would kill me.

Not at all, it turns out. It was actually one of the best days of riding I'd had yet. Unlike the mountain passes in the semi-desert of the Klein Karoo, the seven passes of the namesake road (actually eight: Black River, Kaaimansgat, Silver River, Touw River, Hoogekraal, Karatara, Homtini, and Phantom Pass) all dove down into valleys or gorges, completely shaded, cool, and wet. Moreover, they were amazing! Bombing down winding roads at 40 km/hr is just a ton of fun, and when you're doing about 100km per day, a mental boost, having fun on the bike, is one of the best ways to power you through a ride.

Mountain passes, on the other hand, give little indication of the terror that awaits. You hit the base of the pass, check the sign (Tradouw Pass - 14km), and start to climb. And climb. And CLIMB. AND HOLY FUCKING HELL WHEN WILL THIS EVER END?!

Okay, it looks like I'm almost, OH WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM?!

Mountains hide mountains that hide even greater mountains. Worse, what seems like the end of the climb is often just a level stage that gives you just enough breathing room to curse your ancestors and all the stupidity that ever took you on this trip before HITTING YOU WITH ANOTHER MOUNTAIN.

When you've finally overcome the pass, and you're on your way down, you're too exhausted to really enjoy it. You've sweated it out, often under the full blaze of a noonday sun (I seem to be hitting mountain passes right in the middle of the day), and now you have this amazing view...and all you want to do is roll into the ditch and die.

But you can't, because you're clipped into the pedals, and you've still barely learned to unclip in high traffic areas. So even if you died, your body would just carry on down the hill, strapped to the bike, flopping about like some wacky, Weekend at Bernie's set piece.

Where was I? Ah yes, passes.

The longer I'm on the bike, the more existential the ride seems to get. Hit a river pass, and everything is golden on the way down. Even when you hit the climb, the energy you've built up and the fun you've had make the challenge a lot more manageable. The difficulties faced as a result of a hard uphill climb, on the other hand, can strip you of your ability to truly enjoy the great things in life (like getting a wicked downhill ride).

So you have to attack the hills. Seriously, it's the only way to get through it. Attack the most challenging parts that life (or landscape) throws your way, then pause to enjoy it once you've overcome it. Don't forget to stop and take a look from the top, but then carry on. You have many more miles to go.

Cast of Characters: The Kid

It's the people you meet along the way that really make the journey, whether they invite you into their homes or whether you just meet for moments at a time between points A and B. I'll try to write up a few as I can. Here's the first of what I'm sure will be a series:

The Kid:

I rolled into Swellendam about ten in the morning. Time for second breakfast, something that's become pretty common on a trip where I'm burning in the realm of 6000 calories per day.


"Where are you headed?" - a tow-headed boy who could have been mistaken for Opie Taylor, sat on top of a red mountain bike.

Botswana.

"Whoa, that's far."

Yep.

"You got tubeless tires? That's important because there's lots of thorns here in South Africa. You should get some of these fingerless gloves though. I don't know about America, but here in South Africa, your hands will sweat real bad."

Cheers for the advice, kid. What's your name?

"Carl."


Now, I just have to say, I love the discrepancy of kids named Carl. It's the juxtaposition of a youth with an old fashioned name, like meeting a 78 year old Billy. Not Bill, Will, or William. Billy. It says something about an older guy's personality when he's committed to a nickname he really probably should have dropped in high school. But unlike a retired Billy, Carl didn't choose his name. He's just Carl.

And he's thirteen.


That's a good age. (I lied. Thirteen is a terrible age. Acne, growth spurts, awkward boners, there is nothing good about thirteen, but what else was I going to say?)

"Ya, it's okay. I go to school, way back that other way, on the other end of town."

By this time, we were moving, cycling slowly through the small town, as Carl gave me his personal guided tour.

"Are you Catholic? No? But Christian? That's the church there. It's really old. And over there is where my friends and I meet when we want to go swimming. Up at the old dam there's really good swimming, and we go after school sometimes. You want to go up to Barrydale? Well there's a hard pass and an easy pass."

Which is the easy pass?

"I don't know. But you should make sure to watch out for baboons. There are leopards too in the mountains but you really have to be careful with the baboons, especially if you're carrying food. I found that out the hard way. There's the road for the old dam, if you wanted to go swimming."

Found it out the HARD way? I had to know more, but the more Carl spoke, the more mesmerised I became. I thought I'd been transported to Andy Griffith's Mayberry, except it was real and everyone had a South African accent. I half expected Aunt Bea to walk by at any minute.

Is anyone getting any of these references, or did I watch WAY too much Nick at Nite as a kid? The point is, that the simplicity that exists in the Andy Griffith Show or maybe Leave it to Beaver still exists in the small town life in the Cape. It's bizarre, a world that you think can't possibly exist, and yet here it is, personified in a thirteen year old boy. You end up thinking, "This is too much. It's too idyllic. There have to be bodies buried here somewhere."

As we approached the edge of town, Carl stopped, turned his bike, and called out, "Okay, I'm going back now. Good bye."

Is that the N2 up there?

"I don't know."

Weren't you supposed to be showing me how to get back to the N2?

"I'm pretty sure that's it if you keep going up that way. See ya!"

See you around Carl.

I didn't want to look back, for fear that all of that was a dream. That the town didn't exist, and that Carl was nothing but a figment of my imagination. I mean, who names their kid Carl? He had to have been a piece of a dream.

Or maybe not. Maybe Carl is making a comeback in the name game. I can only hope that's the case. It'll give me a good excuse to start thinking up insane names for future children. Maybe something like Chester or Mabel. Martha or Calvin. Or maybe just Carl.

Carl - who rode his bike up and down the one street in Swellendam.

Carl - who went swimming down near the old dam.

Carl, who found out the hard way not to play with baboons.

What an odd kid.

Hills, Wind, and Rain

I've remained a few extra days in Cape Agulhas, waiting for a rain that I'd been watching with trepidation roll in from Cape Town. It's forced me inside and away from the road for the last several days.

I don't mind the rain, but when it's bucketing down, with no shelter along long stretches of road, it's not exactly ideal. Moreover, the rain brings with it 30 to 40 km/hr winds, and after surviving two days of these winds to finally crawl into Hermanus, I'm extra cautious. I respect the winds. Nay, I fear them.

I fear the mountains as well. They've come much sooner than I thought they would. I thought I might be able to build my strength before I hit Lesotho, 'the mountain kingdom.' Instead, they hit me hard on my third day of riding. Ten uphill kilometers, just climbing and climbing without cease, would destroy the spirits of any novice on a bike, and if nothing else, I am a novice to this type of riding. 

Give me London traffic, splitting lanes up Piccadilly, jumping a red light, cutting across stalled intersections, avoiding taxis (always the taxis), that's it, that's me. That's my element. That's where I cut my teeth as a cyclist (if you don't count the block off Wayne Street in Flora, Indiana, a scene that gets two or three cars an hour MAX on a busy summer day). 

But this cycling, long distances on dusty gravel roads, I just haven't done it before. It's amazing: the ride, the scenery, the pace of a heartbeat and the whir of wheels crunching stone. But it's a workout. I think my first leg, down to Cape Agulhas, 'the souhernmost point of Africa,' has been harder than anything I could've imagined. It's almost as if I set myself up to fail - especially as I've ridden into a southeasterly wind blowing constant and true at 20 knots as the miles slowly crawl by. But I've pushed through. It's north from here, a race against winter and the rains that accompany the season. 

I've got many  miles to go, and I'm still learning to take care of myself and the bike. The thing is, when it's good, it's so good. Once I'd crested the downs in the Overberg, I was flying through the backroads, through small towns with thatched fishing cottages, through fields of fynbos in Agulhas National Park, part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region, through pastures dotted with sheep and ostrich. 

But when it's hard, it's the hardest thing I've done in a long time. Before I could get to the cottages, the fynbos, and the pasturelands, I had to muscle through ten kilometers of uphill cycling in the heat of a noonday African sun. 

That was bad, and when it's bad, it's enough to break you.

But when it's good, there's nothing like it.

A Return: Being and the Bike

I've been traveling for nearly two and a half months now, through Turkey and on to Cape Town, and I've been unable to write anything for nearly the entire time.

That changes now.

I got this crazy idea into my head to bike from Cape Town down to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, to turn north and east along the coast and through South Africa's Garden Route, up through the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, over the Drakensberg Mountains, and across the highveld to Zimbabwe.

I'm not entirely sure how this idea implanted itself in my brain, but it has firmly taken root, sprouted, and begun to branch out. I am now over 150 kilometers into a trip that will see me through over 2000km of Southern Africa. God willing.

I like to tell people I have no idea how I got to this point in my life, but if I really start to look back, I can see several narrative strands coming together, laying the prologue for what is sure to be a new chapter of my life.

I don't know exactly when all of this started. Maybe it was Jaime, between customers at Ronnie's, talking me through his tour through France. It's an arbitrary starting point, but it helps set the scene. Without encouragement, it would have been just the ghost of an idea, so maybe I should look towards James who, when I told him of my plan to travel north from Cape Town in search of work, said, "Oh ya, buy a bike and cycle through Africa." At the time, I thought it was insane. I think I even remember saying, "That is insane."

That should have been it right there. But then I met the four young Brits teaching English in Turkey. They told me a story of a girl cycling the entirety of Turkey, and beyond. They'd hosted her through a site called Warm Showers, which is a bit like couchsurfing for cyclists on tours. It seemed like a great idea, but it surely wouldn't ever apply to me.

Then I met the German cycling home from Israel. It seemed so cool what he was doing, and he didn't seem put out at all by the time or the distance.

I guess it all came together to pique my interest, and that seed that had been planted then germinated into this half-crazed romantic notion. But the more I researched it, the more possible it seemed to become. Maybe that's an illusion. Maybe it is just as crazy as it first appeared. There's only one way to find out, and that's by doing it.

From everything I've read, touring on a cycle, especially for a long period of time, is more an issue of will rather than physical fitness, experience, etc., so for me, this is a test of my willpower, much like Peace Corps was.

Hence, the new narrative chapter in my life. It just feels monumental in so many ways. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's all just an illusion doomed to fail. There's only one way to know it, and that's to do it.

Just get on the bike.

If it is all about willpower, then yesterday was an important test of that determination; one that I passed, if only barely. I left Gordon's Bay with a headwind of over 40 km/hr against me, pushing me to a near standstill and forcing me to walk the bike up particularly steep hills. I never knew it was possible to have such a wind in your face for probably 90% of a 75k ride.

It's not like I was ever going the same direction, either. The wind just stayed with me, and I have to say, it nearly broke me. It's so frustrating to look down at the speedometer and realize that you could probably run faster than you are currently biking. To top it all off, near the end of the ride, I dropped the bike. I was so exhausted by that point that I wasn't sure I'd be able to pick it up again. The strain on my physical energy had depleted my mental energy, which again acted on any reserves that remained.

But in the end, I made it. Exhausted, nearly broken, I managed to get in to Hermanus, where I am now. I don't know if you'd call it grit, pride, or just bull-headed obstinacy, but I made it. It was an important test, and even if it hurt, I knew I just had to get back on top.

There's a lesson in there somewhere. I'll try to keep it with me for next time.

People Remembered, Places Revisited

It’s been a long wait for this blog entry that I hope has been eagerly awaited. I’ve been running around quite a bit recently, reflecting on my trip, allowing the images and the feelings to ferment and gather strength without, hopefully, losing any potency with my lack of immediacy in recording them. Here it is then: reflections on my return to Niger.

Let me start by saying that this wasn’t an individual accomplishment. I was accompanied on my trip by my friend Jane, a Nigerian with a rugged sense of independence that surpasses that of nearly every other woman I know. She had to be tough: overall, I think we totaled 50 hours of travel time from Jos to Sokoto, Niamey, Tanka Lokoto and back in only eight days. Along the way, we were helped out by Ms. Lindsay Goldberg and her boyfriend Nasser who gave us succor in Niamey to break up the travel days. Lindsay is a former Volunteer who stayed behind in Niger after the Peace Corps evacuated, braving the capital even without a half-dozen, Mefloquine-crazed Volunteers lighting up the town and breaking the monotony of quiet, rice and bean flavored nights.

But that isn’t why you came to this blog today. In my last entry, I expressed real fear at the possibility that, upon returning to my village, the realization that one can never go back would tear through my gut like some hateful combination of barbed wire and amoebic dysentery. In my mind, any number of tragedies could have befallen my community in the two years since I left. Most involved the famine that affected the country in 2010, but in my wildest imaginings, which tend to run like an out of control train, certain individuals were vulnerable to anything from malaria to hyena attacks, complications in childbirth to that scene in Alien where the little baby creeper bursts out of the guy’s chest. These things happen in my mind even without government mandated anti-malarials.

So it was as I stepped out of the bush taxi, just pitching up in the village without any prior warning or word that I’d be returning. I’m a terrible guest; really, I am. Unloading from a bush taxi to the sand, sounds, and heat of a two year time capsule was a surreal experience. The men at the mosque seemed to take it in stride: “Hey, Mubarak, ni ka? Fonda kayan!” (Hey, Mubarak, you’ve come? Welcome back!) The children alternately mobbed me and went tearing off through the neighborhood screaming to everyone who could hear, “Mubarak ka! Mubarak ka!” (Mubarak came! Mubarak came!) My friends from all over the village came streaming out of the woodwork, their faces shifting from disbelief and confusion to smiles and laughter seconds after setting eyes on me. All day as they slowly made their way back from the fields, dirty and tired, neighbors and friends greeted me, none of whom I had seen or spoken to since I left. They’d heard news that I was in town and had dropped everything to come see me. And all day, I worried over this person or that until they visited and I saw him or her with my own eyes.

And you know, everyone was fine. Everyone is alive and well in Tanka Lokoto. The village was remarkably the same. They’d built a new mosque, bright, white, and shining even from the dunes north of town. All the children were present and accounted for, all a couple inches taller, their faces slowly smoothing away baby fat as they get older. And everyone had a new baby. I leave for a couple years and suddenly every single family has a brand new baby, most only a few weeks old. It’s something I should have expected in a country with such a high birth rate, but it’s one of those things you just don’t think about when you’ve been gone for so long.

I’m happy to report that my favorite kid, my attakurmizo, Razak, who grew from this kid at the beginning of my service:


To this kid by the end of my service:


And is now this kid:


And if that picture were expanded just a little bit, you’d see him with his little arms around a cute little girl. So maybe he learned a thing or two from hanging around me for two years.

Also, my friend Sekou, who I still maintain is one of the most clever, most amazing people I’ve ever met, is still doing great things for his community. In many ways, he’s still this guy:


He's the one in the blue-grey suit, speaking while everyone else just listens. A man so well respected that he commands attention just by the nature of who he is: a hardworking man diligently working to better himself and his community. He’s still kicking it, same as always, a little pensive in this shot from the top of the dune at sunset:


And in one off the cuff comment, he amazed me with his humility and his dedication to his home and his people. Though it had taken him five solid years, he told me, he had finally managed to acquire a car to act as an ambulance for the local medical center. If ever anyone is in dire need, they can be at the hospital in Niamey in a just a couple hours. Already, the ambulance has saved lives. And he mentioned this just as casually as he would a prediction of afternoon rain.

So, despite two years away, the village is still there. It hasn’t changed much. And in the few days since I’ve been home, I realize how similar my Nigerien village is to my American village. Nothing much changes. There’s a new building here or there, the kids grow a bit taller, the seasons change, but life keeps on going. I’ll tell people where I’ve traveled and they’ll be amazed without any real idea what those places are like, the people who live there, the cultures slowly changing just as cultures always do despite calls to nostalgia and “the way things were.”

I know now that things in Tanka Lokoto will continue without me, just as things in Flora, Indiana continue without me. I can leave these places behind and they’ll be secure in my heart. They don’t change. Or rather, they change with me. They’ll age alongside me, they’ll change as I change, but I don’t have to fear returning to a place I don’t recognize. As I grow older, these places seem smaller, like my childhood bed. I can still sleep there, but my feet hang over the edge. I haven’t outgrown it, but I’m just used to bigger things. I’ve never gotten used to being a big fish in a small pond. I don’t like it. There isn’t enough room to swim. And even if I feel a little lost sometimes, I like the freedom to explore that comes with being a little fish in the big, wide ocean. In the end, I feel a bit like Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. I’ve learned and grown, but I need to keep moving, to keep discovering, to know that I’ve left people behind that I care about but who I still carry with me in everything I do. These places and these people will always be there, but I’ve got to keep moving. So was it worth traveling over 1200km to learn such a simple lesson? I’ll leave it with a lesson from Hesse’s Siddhartha:

“Certainly I traveled for my own pleasure. Why else do it? I got to know people and places, I enjoyed amiability and confidences, I made friends…I have had good days, I learned, I enjoyed myself, I harmed neither myself nor others through vexation or excessive haste. And if ever I go back that way again, perhaps to purchase a subsequent harvest, or for any purpose whatsoever, friendly people will receive me amiably and cheerfully, and I will have myself to commend for that.”

I will always have a bed to rest my head; I will always have friends and neighbors, whether I’m living in a place or not. And I have only myself to commend for taking the time to build those relationships, for revisiting my past and realizing that I continue to carry a living memory wherever I go.