On foot, on foot, on foot, on foot, on foot. The boy in the pink polo shirt has nearly filled a page when he looks up. I sit down next to him and eat my ice cream. We're surrounded by stacks of boxes filled with soft drinks and instant noodles. The wind is playing with the tarpaulin overhead. I sigh contentedly, glad to be off the bike for a minute. The boy, however, is determined not to be distracted from his homework. His face a mere two inches from the paper he picks up where he left off: after 'on' the horizontal stroke of the f, then the vertical stroke, the two o's—clockwise—followed by the t, in the same vein as the f. What is he practising, I wonder. His English or his Roman alphabet?
Sitting there in the shade I try to relax a bit. No more desert, I tell myself once again, though that's only partly true. Physically I've made it to the other side. But my mind is still busy catching up with reality. Even though there are trees all around, and people working the fields, and villages with small convenience stores, I'm still pushing myself as hard as I did in the desert, when I desperately tried to limit the number of days spent in between towns, and I'm still carrying enough water to extinguish a wildfire. Beneath all this is the inarticulate anxiety that tends to accompany you in hostile environments. No matter how often I told myself it was all just a game, that I could hail a car in case I ran out of water or spend the night in a drainage pipe if I didn't make it to a settlement before nightfall, everything in me remained geared to survival. That in itself was as exhausting as the miles I put in.
The boy looks at me again. Then he pulls a small exercise book from under his notepad and indicates a sentence. 'How do you go to school?' I read out aloud. There are two options: by bus or on foot. 'Do you go on foot?' I ask. He smiles but doesn't reply. Then he points out another phrase, and another. 'These are my friends,' I say. 'This is our classroom.' By now, his mother, who sold me the ice cream, has started to take an interest. Sensing that here is a perfect opportunity for her son to practise his skills, she tries to bully him into engaging in earnest conversation. The boy, preferring the monastic approach, picks up his pen and resumes his work: on foot, on foot, on foot. This infuriates his mother, who now begins to shove him around. I try not to laugh. Only when I get up to leave do I realise how right this little boy is. Rather than the frenzied 'by bus' mentality of his mother, who wants him to seize every opportunity and get ahead, or, for that matter, of myself, having just crossed a desert as if chased by demons, here is someone who chooses to take life as it comes. One step at a time.
 |
| One step at a time |
The boy looks at me again. Then he pulls a small exercise book from under his notepad and indicates a sentence. 'How do you go to school?' I read out aloud. There are two options: by bus or on foot. 'Do you go on foot?' I ask. He smiles but doesn't reply. Then he points out another phrase, and another. 'These are my friends,' I say. 'This is our classroom.' By now, his mother, who sold me the ice cream, has started to take an interest. Sensing that here is a perfect opportunity for her son to practise his skills, she tries to bully him into engaging in earnest conversation. The boy, preferring the monastic approach, picks up his pen and resumes his work: on foot, on foot, on foot. This infuriates his mother, who now begins to shove him around. I try not to laugh. Only when I get up to leave do I realise how right this little boy is. Rather than the frenzied 'by bus' mentality of his mother, who wants him to seize every opportunity and get ahead, or, for that matter, of myself, having just crossed a desert as if chased by demons, here is someone who chooses to take life as it comes. One step at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment