Glass Hours

Next week we go on lock down for the last two months before close of service. This means volunteers are scrambling for our last social moments together. Parties and camping trips and dinners… tonight is my first quiet Friday in a long time.

At sunset I walked to Giam’s for one of her fabulous Tswana meals. The kids were dancing in bare feet and the shabines were blasting traditional music and the sun was setting gold behind a stretch of soft blue clouds.

Late now. I shuffle home to cows competing with bar songs and crickets and stars whispering the melody. My yard is all sand and sleepy chickens. Our banana tree sways in the cool air. Botswana’s autumn rolling in.

Time slips through this hour glass. I remember the way home and family and friends used to ache in me. I marvel again at human resilience and adaptation: fascinated by how happy I have come to feel in this bizarre and beautiful world.

The lights are out on my right. The neighbor’s fire smoldering to my left. I open a window and say good night to them and to this little village and to another day in a place that I will leave but which will not leave me.