A stroll down the road

Walking on the road here in Nyahuka can be a trying experience, sometimes because of reckless motorcycle drivers but more often because of the steady stream of people calling to me, continually pointing out that I am an outsider. The women on the team suffer much more mistreatment on the road than I do, and I don’t even see the worst of it because it’s toned down when I’m around, but even so it can get pretty frustrating. In light of that, I had a truly beautiful walk down the road yesterday evening, on my way to dinner with a Ugandan friend.

There was a light breeze in the dusk air, with smoke rising from dozens of small cooking fires. The loud hustle and bustle of the school-time foot traffic had yielded to quieter movements as people prepared dinner and greeted friends; the yelling voices had mostly turned to casual conversations. There was a calm that I seldom experience on the road, a calm that is different than an American calm, just as chaos here is different from the typically American intensity of life. It was a calm still full of life, but life in relaxation, as the fading light seemed to take with it the gawking and shouting. There was a warm, slow, ease on the road.

An airplane flew due west overhead over head, its trail lit brilliant orange by the setting sun, which also cast a pink glow on the clouds clinging to the mountains in the east. The western sky was a riot of color, the sky above blue, and pink again to the east – a sunset the likes of which I can’t say I’ve ever seen. It was shocking to see a jet airplane in the sky, which made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve been in the States, where jet trails and the rumble of jet engines are simply a part of the environment. I tried to imagine where the plane could be going – mostly likely Nairobi to Kinshasa I though, there’s not much else due west of here, at least not on this side of the Atlantic.

I had a very nice meal with Alex, the man I coach with, and his wife and daughter, which was only briefly interrupted by a minor earthquake. Living right on the central African rift valley, this was the second minor earthquake in about the last month. A fitting end to a peaceful evening.