Our Morning Bike Commute
I wrote this blog post a couple months ago and fell asleep before actually publishing it. Since one of the great perks of having my own blog is that I can do whatever I please, I'm pressing send and freezing this particular moment in time, even though we've now moved to Kigali and I'm (sadly) no longer biking D'Assise to school in the morning.
I tried for years to become a morning person, attracted by the lure of having an early start to my day all by myself, perhaps to become more productive or just to feel that much more superior over my night-owl peers. My parents are both early birds and probably added to this perception: they wake up without an alarm around 5:30 am. My Dad drinks coffee and reads the newspaper before commuting to his dental office, and my Mom heads out the door for a vigorous walk/gossip session with her neighborhood walking crew. I have distinct memories of my Dad waking my teenage self up on Saturday mornings with a chipper, “Let’s go! The day is wasting!” or his equally perky "Shake it up! Wake it up! Make a living!"
I had many, many unsuccessful attempts at becoming a morning person, but felt like a sleep-deprived zombie even after my most promising attempts. In one particularly shameful attempt in junior high, I tried to become morning running buddies with one of my good friends, hopeful that the accountability would surely mold me into a morning person. Alas, my friend Laura arrived at the time of our scheduled pre-dawn run to me still in bed, pleading for mercy and promising that tomorrow would surely be the day I’d join her on a morning run. After about a week of me bailing on her, she wisely gave up on the idea.
A crucial part of this has been biking D’Assise to school every morning. I basically decided to go big or go home: I might as well become a morning exerciser if I’m waking up that early anyways. And so, every morning for the past year and a half, we have woken up around 5:15 am each morning, dressed in the dark, and eaten breakfast while the first pale rays of light pierced through our windows. We'd strap on our helmets and be in the saddle by 6:30.
I wasn't able to find a bike bell in Rwanda, so instead I'd bring my bluetooth speaker and blast music from it as we came barreling down the dirt path. Blasting music from the speaker actually served two purposes: passerby would quickly move out of our way, and D'Assise's character would be built by being mortified at my music selection combined with some obnoxious karaoke on my part (this character-building philosophy seems to run in the family: my aunts and uncles still tell stories of pretending not to know their own father when my Grandpa Brosnihan would dress up in sweats with paint all over them and exercise nearby their high school).
It takes about thirty minutes to bike to school with D'Assise's additional weight on the back and a few rough hills to climb on the way and fifteen minutes for me to bike home alone, but the views can't be beat. When we first start out along the dirt road at 6:30 am, I have to navigate around potholes and rivets as the sun comes up over the distant hills on the horizon. Farmers are often already tending to their fields before the heat of the day, breaking up the deep brown soil with heavy hoes raised high above their heads. We'd pass through the market, where men would be unloading trucks full of consumer goods to be sold in the little boutiques that lined the main street of the village on most days, and where we'd have to slow down and navigate through the thick crowd of buyers and sellers on Wednesday market days.
From there, D'Assise and I would coast on a paved downhill, feeling the cool morning air rushing over our faces before having to conquer the hill we'd nicknamed "The Beast" --a steep incline that compromised about a third of the journey. The last and steepest part of "The Beast" took us past the district office where the mayor worked, and a newly built roundabout that marked the end of the incline.
We'd pass by a small paint store that also advertised massages which always piqued my curiosity (was the paint part of the relaxation experience?) and a couple of sugarcane fields before arriving at D'Assise's school. Initially, I'd give him a hug and a kiss and an "I love you! Study hard!" but he quickly asked me to cut out the kiss and hug when he realized none of his friends' mothers were doing the same.
I realized that I was intensely aware of the slowly changing seasons through the morning bike commute; I noticed the coffee blossoms slowly forming into green coffee beans and then ripening into a ruby red beans before they were harvested. I took note of the size of the maize crops, from small green seedlings peeking up just over the soil shortly after planting, to the proud tall stalks with fat cobs ready for harvesting. My legs would collect a thin layer of dust biking on the dirt roads during dry season, and we'd intensely watch the skies for any signs of impending rain while pedaling around puddles during the rainy season.
After a few days of biking D'Assise to school, I had even memorized the distinct smells at every point in the journey. There was a house four minutes into the trip that cooked chapati flatbread and amandazi fried dough balls, the comforting smell of cooking dough drifting across the roadside. There was the sour smell of the banana beer bars on our left before the market, the stench of the home-brewed alcohol overpowering our nostrils even in the few seconds we zipped past.
One of the most wonderful things about the bike ride was just seeing our village waking up and getting ready for the day. While there were a couple of times when passerby vexed my patience (including once when two teenagers egged each other on to jump in front of our bike while we were racing down a steep hill), I would often think of these lines from Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" as we cycled by:
We'd pedal by groups of schoolchildren dressed smartly in matching uniforms who would often try to give D'Assise a high-five as we went by. The two gas station attendants would jokingly call out to D'Assise to pedal harder, which always made D'Assise laugh. We'd pass Rwandan Mamas in brightly colored kitenge outfits with their babies strapped to their backs who would greet us in kinyarwanda, and the same old proper Rwandan man wearing a corduroy hat would offer a bashful smile with several missing teeth and a gentle wave to me every morning on my way back to my house.
By the time I arrived back at our house nearly an hour after we'd set out, I'd be ready to take on the day (or at the very least, my second French press of the day).
When I was young, my Dad would shoot family home videos now and then on one of the big '90s VHS recorders, and during holiday times we'll often take the time to watch our younger selves playing in soccer tournaments, having birthday parties, opening Christmas gifts, playing in piano recitals and school performances. But I realized something funny the last time my family watched "The Meggy and ClaireBear Show" (yes, we still call it that; apologies to my two younger siblings who didn't make the cut to be featured in the title): We fast forward through almost all the athletic events, the recitals, and even the birthdays. Our favorite moments to watch over and over again are the random times my Dad pulled out that hulking video recorder to catch my little brother telling corny jokes, my sisters and I racing tricycles down the hill, our sibling lemonade stand, and the time in kindergarten I came home and told my parents I was engaged to my kindergarten crush (they promptly made me call up all my relatives to tell them the "good news" and invite them to the wedding, all of which they caught on tape...).
We all thought then that the big events were the things we'd want to see again and again, reliving the Christmases and birthday parties and recitals ad infinitum. But now we know that it's the little things, not the big things, that really end up mattering more. It's in this vein that I'm nostalgically trying to capture and remember some of these beautiful daily moments of our life here in Rubengera that I may never get back. I may not have a 90s-style VHS recorder, but I hope I can always remember that feeling of the rush of cool morning air on my face, the golden light breaking over the lush green hills, the ruby red coffee beans growing on the hillside, and the rare occasion when D'Assise would sing with me at the top of our lungs while cruising downhill.
* * *
I never, ever, ever thought I would be a morning person, much less that particularly astounding version of a human being: the morning exerciser.I tried for years to become a morning person, attracted by the lure of having an early start to my day all by myself, perhaps to become more productive or just to feel that much more superior over my night-owl peers. My parents are both early birds and probably added to this perception: they wake up without an alarm around 5:30 am. My Dad drinks coffee and reads the newspaper before commuting to his dental office, and my Mom heads out the door for a vigorous walk/gossip session with her neighborhood walking crew. I have distinct memories of my Dad waking my teenage self up on Saturday mornings with a chipper, “Let’s go! The day is wasting!” or his equally perky "Shake it up! Wake it up! Make a living!"
I had many, many unsuccessful attempts at becoming a morning person, but felt like a sleep-deprived zombie even after my most promising attempts. In one particularly shameful attempt in junior high, I tried to become morning running buddies with one of my good friends, hopeful that the accountability would surely mold me into a morning person. Alas, my friend Laura arrived at the time of our scheduled pre-dawn run to me still in bed, pleading for mercy and promising that tomorrow would surely be the day I’d join her on a morning run. After about a week of me bailing on her, she wisely gave up on the idea.
* * *
Unsurprisingly, the first week I adopted D’Assise two years ago was an utter shock to my night owl ways. D’Assise’s school starts at 7 am, and he wakes up between 5 and 6 am, even on weekends. Previously, waking up anytime before 7 am was something I did exclusively to catch a bus or flight. To my complete surprise, my body slowly adjusted. I may not yet be a morning person, but I can’t deny that I am now someone who wakes up early in the morning (*made possible through copious amounts of delicious Rwandan coffee :)A crucial part of this has been biking D’Assise to school every morning. I basically decided to go big or go home: I might as well become a morning exerciser if I’m waking up that early anyways. And so, every morning for the past year and a half, we have woken up around 5:15 am each morning, dressed in the dark, and eaten breakfast while the first pale rays of light pierced through our windows. We'd strap on our helmets and be in the saddle by 6:30.
I wasn't able to find a bike bell in Rwanda, so instead I'd bring my bluetooth speaker and blast music from it as we came barreling down the dirt path. Blasting music from the speaker actually served two purposes: passerby would quickly move out of our way, and D'Assise's character would be built by being mortified at my music selection combined with some obnoxious karaoke on my part (this character-building philosophy seems to run in the family: my aunts and uncles still tell stories of pretending not to know their own father when my Grandpa Brosnihan would dress up in sweats with paint all over them and exercise nearby their high school).
It takes about thirty minutes to bike to school with D'Assise's additional weight on the back and a few rough hills to climb on the way and fifteen minutes for me to bike home alone, but the views can't be beat. When we first start out along the dirt road at 6:30 am, I have to navigate around potholes and rivets as the sun comes up over the distant hills on the horizon. Farmers are often already tending to their fields before the heat of the day, breaking up the deep brown soil with heavy hoes raised high above their heads. We'd pass through the market, where men would be unloading trucks full of consumer goods to be sold in the little boutiques that lined the main street of the village on most days, and where we'd have to slow down and navigate through the thick crowd of buyers and sellers on Wednesday market days.
From there, D'Assise and I would coast on a paved downhill, feeling the cool morning air rushing over our faces before having to conquer the hill we'd nicknamed "The Beast" --a steep incline that compromised about a third of the journey. The last and steepest part of "The Beast" took us past the district office where the mayor worked, and a newly built roundabout that marked the end of the incline.
 |
| Views from The Beast |
I realized that I was intensely aware of the slowly changing seasons through the morning bike commute; I noticed the coffee blossoms slowly forming into green coffee beans and then ripening into a ruby red beans before they were harvested. I took note of the size of the maize crops, from small green seedlings peeking up just over the soil shortly after planting, to the proud tall stalks with fat cobs ready for harvesting. My legs would collect a thin layer of dust biking on the dirt roads during dry season, and we'd intensely watch the skies for any signs of impending rain while pedaling around puddles during the rainy season.
After a few days of biking D'Assise to school, I had even memorized the distinct smells at every point in the journey. There was a house four minutes into the trip that cooked chapati flatbread and amandazi fried dough balls, the comforting smell of cooking dough drifting across the roadside. There was the sour smell of the banana beer bars on our left before the market, the stench of the home-brewed alcohol overpowering our nostrils even in the few seconds we zipped past.
 |
| Jerrycans of banana beer on the way to the market |
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
By the time I arrived back at our house nearly an hour after we'd set out, I'd be ready to take on the day (or at the very least, my second French press of the day).
* * *
It may seem odd that I'm writing about such a small, seemingly insignificant part of our day, but as I stare down the very last time I will bike D'Assise to school tomorrow at our home in Rubengera, I can't help but try to grasp at the sand slipping so quickly through my fingers.When I was young, my Dad would shoot family home videos now and then on one of the big '90s VHS recorders, and during holiday times we'll often take the time to watch our younger selves playing in soccer tournaments, having birthday parties, opening Christmas gifts, playing in piano recitals and school performances. But I realized something funny the last time my family watched "The Meggy and ClaireBear Show" (yes, we still call it that; apologies to my two younger siblings who didn't make the cut to be featured in the title): We fast forward through almost all the athletic events, the recitals, and even the birthdays. Our favorite moments to watch over and over again are the random times my Dad pulled out that hulking video recorder to catch my little brother telling corny jokes, my sisters and I racing tricycles down the hill, our sibling lemonade stand, and the time in kindergarten I came home and told my parents I was engaged to my kindergarten crush (they promptly made me call up all my relatives to tell them the "good news" and invite them to the wedding, all of which they caught on tape...).
We all thought then that the big events were the things we'd want to see again and again, reliving the Christmases and birthday parties and recitals ad infinitum. But now we know that it's the little things, not the big things, that really end up mattering more. It's in this vein that I'm nostalgically trying to capture and remember some of these beautiful daily moments of our life here in Rubengera that I may never get back. I may not have a 90s-style VHS recorder, but I hope I can always remember that feeling of the rush of cool morning air on my face, the golden light breaking over the lush green hills, the ruby red coffee beans growing on the hillside, and the rare occasion when D'Assise would sing with me at the top of our lungs while cruising downhill.
I haven't caught up on your blog for a while but really enjoyed reading about how your life is continuing in Rwanda! Thanks for sharing this slice of life (I feel the same about morning exercise but those views and scenes sound like such an experience to treasure) and glad to see things are going well for you two!
ReplyDeleteLove it Claire. Keep writing and sharing pretty please!
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