"Beautiful like a Bicycle"

I have been outside of Malawi too long.

You know how it goes…

Work piles up, you try to focus and do your best, study hard, be all you can be, blah dee blah….

Then suddenly you look up and think "hang on….  what am I doing!?  Look at that world out there!  What could possibly be possessing me to sit here working my life away??"

My tumbuka is rusty, my vision narrowed.

So this afternoon, off I went, bumping down the dirt path on good ol' frosty, revelling in the chorus of 'muzungu!'s and 'muatandala?'s following me as a rolled on my merry way.

But wait… Hmm….  Was it just me, or is the wheel supposed to turn when I pedal?  Hmmm…  Off to the cycle corner I went!

And as always, Malawi did not fail to make me smile…

"That is a beautiful bicycle!  And you are a beautiful woman! You are beautiful like a bicycle!"

"Pah hahhahahahahahaah" (That isn't just me laughing retrospectively…  I really did almost fall off my rock laughing…)

"It is not a joke!  Women and bicycles.  These are the two things that are very beautiful to us Malawians!"

and later... at yet another bicycle repair shop…. 

(in tumbuka)

"blah blah blah… anyways, she doesn't understand Tumbuka"

"She does! She does understand!"

"noooo She does not understand."

"yesssss she does"

"Well, I do understand a little…." (Nkupulika pachoko…)

"WAAAAAAA!!!!  She understands!!"

hahahahahhaahha  (This time it was all 3 of us falling off our coke crates laughing…)

So, if you are feeling like life is missing something crucial, go on and get out into the world!  And then once you are out there, see it!  Feel it!  Take it for what it is, and enjoy whatever it throws your way.

Me?  I am going to settle down here in the hammock with my paper, and…  AHHHHH!!!!  Chickens in my lemongrass patch!!!  Well, the paper will have to wait….  I am off to chase some chickens!

:)