I think the thinking started on the second day. On the first day, I was too drawn in by the raw experience of being on a bicycle in the Zambian countryside- the fellow cyclists, some of them carrying three five-foot bags of charcoal and not breaking a sweat in the s
un that had me draining a liter an hour and still pissing orange; the constant roadside stands, selling mangoes, tomatoes, and fuel, their proprietors hanging out in the shade; and the kids, sprinting up in groups to look at this alien visitor, whenever I stopped for a rest under their village baobab- to think much. The second day brought physical and mental exhaustion setting in by 8am and a flat landscape, broken only by baobabs, subsistence villages, men selling jagged chunks of amethyst they’d lugged down from the surrounding hills, herds of lazy goats on the road, infrequent fellow travelers on rusty one-speed bikes, and even less frequent expensive safari cars headed to Kariba for a weekend at the beach. At some inflection point of heat and
thirst, the isolation of the bike led to clarity of thought about why I was doing this, and why I liked it.
First, I did the trip because I like a challenge. More specifically, I think I like the illusion of danger. At any point I easily could have asked someone in a village or a passing car for help. I passed villages often, full of the most generous and friendly people in the world, despite- or perhaps because of- the fact that they don’t have much. So, I was never in anything approaching real danger, but I was hot and thirsty, and it was tough, and there’s some vital, essential, blood-and-guts feeling that comes with that illusion of danger- and it feels like living. Second, cycling is movement at the pace of life. Interactions with people, animals, and plants play out over minutes and miles,
with greeting and jokes and laughter, rather than over seconds with the wind-whoosh of a passing car. This kind of interaction led to respect for the people whose land I was passing through. While I might be able to pass safely, and see something at the cost of a tough trip, they’re living life there, with a grace that is almost unbelievable given the heat and dirt and mud and hard work that that entails.
Finally, the real payoff was the realization, that hit in the middle of nowhere and with no obvious connection to any event, that I was at home in a place very far from home, completely self-sufficient with the knowledge, tools, luck, and raw youthful energy to deal with most challenges that might come up. To me, that’s empowerment, and that’s what we’re all reaching for in making Lusaka and Zambia our home. MH