Keeping eyes open

As I rode down the road this morning, I could see the barren peak of the Rwenzoris in it’s post-storm clarity, a shadowy horizon against the blue of the day.  We’ve just had a spate of visitors and I find myself challenged to see this world from their fresh perspective.  So I kept my eyes out for sights that have become normal to me, but which I really should appreciate:

• Six people riding one motorcycle.  Yes, six.  Most SUV’s in the US don’t even drive around with six people.  They were expertly arranged with a medium kid in front, a smaller kid between the next two adults, and a woman at the rear with a toddler tied onto her back hanging over the rear wheel.  The perfect family transportation.
• Our muscular builder walking down the road holding hands with another man, a sign of friendship, not anything weird.
• A bright blue fluttering kingfisher alighting on our grass-thatched kitubbi as I left.
• My shrivelly old lady neighbor smoking a home made cigar as she swept her dirt courtyard.
• A couple of dozen women in a shuffling circle dance with wreaths of leaves on their heads celebrating the boys in their family about to be circumcised (we had heard the drums all night, but as Luke cheerfully pointed out better drums than guns . . . )
• A cow with 3 foot long horns that shouldered me off the road
• Coke bottles lined up full of thick orange palm oil for sale
• No one looking hurried, no matter how late they were for school, no one too busy to stop and comment or greet or stare . . . .except me of course, zipping by, almost too fast to notice the rest of the world.