"Now!...Go!...Hurry!" Words within my mind pushed me forward. "No...not here...higher...I must climb higher still...quick before its too late!" Dry, cracking soil crumbled beneath my feet, the sky was beginning to fade, and local villagers snickered at my hastened pace at the evening hour I journeyed. "Owe!" I silently murmured. "I don't have time to stop and take another thorn from my bare toes....I should have changed into shoes like mother had advised - but there was no time!" I justified. Besides, I was only 11. "My toes will heal fast."
The women of Mwanaminga were watching their husbands and children eat, hoping for a few leftovers to come their way. The children who had finished eating (or who had nothing to eat) were close to home but could be heard playing. Pitter, patter, pitter, patter. I heard the sound of little bare feet close behind me. The patters came closer, followed by giggling, then a few words hard to make out: "What your name?" Giggle...pitter, patter, pitter, patter. I replied with a smile, still trying to move quickly as the small voices behind me attempt to repeat my name and try to keep up. "Where you go?" I looked behind to answer the small voices that called after me to see a whole trail of little brown eyes attached to skinny, brown naked legs moving as quickly as possible. Calloused, bare feet, blazed thorns and prickly weeds as if they were nonexistent. I replied with the point of my finger towards the top of the hill. More snickers. I can't help but laugh with them as the race for daylight continues. They were probably my same age, but they looked so much younger, so much smaller, and they laughed so easily!
I arrived at the top and looked down upon the forming shadows of acatia trees and the deserted Rift Valley. "Oh no, I missed it!" Disappointed, I forgot for a moment the giggles surrounding me still. The flash of my camera caught the last of the setting sun. The push of a button confused my little audience for a short period of silence that was cut off by reaching hands and raised voices: "Me! Photo! Yes...yes! Photo!" Little hands and arms and loving embraces smothered my petty trouble then returned home, leaving me alone once more.
I listened: a bouncing, plastic, water-filled jerry-can obtained after a day's journey to the lake and back; the master's whip to his weary ass trotting away, babies cries quieted in the distance by the sound of the earth settling for a good night's rest. Peace, serenity, solitude, love. I didn't get the picture I wanted that evening but I was given a better picture of something more important, at a very early age.
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2 comments:
Full credit earned for revision. Good piece.
I love your beginning: I'm wondering what you are running from (I didn't realize you were running to something). Are you in danger? You leave me in suspense, and then you're laughing and I realize you're running to something. But I still don't know what. It keeps me intrigued until the end. And then you leave me with the idea that there is something more important, without specifically spelling it out. Great job.
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