Walks

I wore through the soles of my nice shoes within the first year. It turns out duct tape is not a viable material for cobbling.

I walked a lot during service. One of the primary schools I worked in was about 4 km from my house, a 8 km round trip, and I would go there 3 times a week for the first year and every weekday for the remainder of service. Walking into the next village for transport to a larger town or for the post office was 14 km total. I could have bought a bike but I thought this would only be available for a short time before the sand pits and tire-shredding debris (see previous post) would get to the tenderer parts of the bike and then I would have an expensive goat scratching post. Aside from the rainy days when I couldn't negotiate a car ride from one of my principals or when the heat was too unbearable, walking was not a disadvantage, rather I enjoyed this part of my life here.

It was much more than a means than getting from here to there. First of all and most evident is that it provided copious amounts of exercise and even agility training when, with my headphones on, I would have to dodge donkey carts/cars coming around the bend . Anything I wanted or needed to do outside my house bumped me from sedentary to highly active. Second, it filled a social function by being a sort of South African promenade, it was an opportunity for me to see and be seen. Furthermore, this was also the time when I felt most competent in Setswana because I have mastered all the varieties of basic greetings. My integration level went from foreign doofus to village elder (except when I was caught talking or singing to myself, those times made me look insane). Finally and what came as the biggest help was the ease and clarity with which I could organize my thoughts and reflect when I walked. I recently read an article about walking that I quite liked and it quoted an author (Solnit) who makes an observation that is true, in my case anyhow:

“I know these things have their uses, and use them—a truck, a computer, a modem—myself, but I fear their false urgency, their call to speed…I like walking because it is slow and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.”

I think having the time to myself and having the blood flowing greases the mechanisms of my brain and gets the little gray cells in order. Sometimes I'd take a stroll when I didn't even need to go anywhere in particular. It was just an aimless wander that boosted me from rigidly reptilian-brained to a theta-waved, frontal-lobed, thinking machine. This in turn would help me adjust my mood and I am sure the fresh air and sunlight never hurt.

I hope I will be able to walk wherever I go for the rest of my life but it was the peaceful and scenic walks that I took here that might be difficult to match.