the seer is the sweeper

Yesterday I spent my day walking through the townships of Kitwe; the second largest city in Zambia. The townships are unplanned settlements comprising of grass thatched roofed huts and clay shacks. Children run around and it seems no adults are around to care for them. Pit latrines 3 ft from drinking water sources, garbage and sewage litter the dirt paths that define the community. The people must have been chosen to endure because I am not sure that I could survive the way they do. As I walked through the townships it was completely surreal for me. I was seeing everything as another person other than Emily because I have never imagined anything like it before. It was a bizarre sense of other worldliness because I was never sure if I was seeing the past, present or future. Perhaps that it is difficult to comprehend, but when you see people existing with nothing you wonder what world you are in.

To paint a picture for you-imagine huts in the midst of trees, holes in the ground for toilets, children running around naked, no infrastructure, chickens running around randomly, small markets selling whatever can be sold, dirty bodies, a smell of rubbish in the air, sweat dripping, women drawing water from wells and carrying it back to their homes on their head; Survival. My friends, there exists suffering in this world, there exists true lack, I came face to face with extreme poverty beyond my wildest dreams, and it set me free.

When I was in this midst of these beautiful faces that live everyday without demanding why they have been dealt this hand I saw my own ignorance and was transcended to a place of nothingness, where I was shown that life exists in moments and what matters is what you chose to do with those precious moments.

Yesterday I saw people laughing, playing soccer, children following me around out of sheer curiosity, small markets selling tomatoes and fish; people making the most of what they have, not sitting around wondering why, not feeling depressed. Life happens whether we like it or not, whether we are where we want to be or not. It goes on, and to embrace time is something Africa is showing me in a huge way.

Without me even noticing I was released from thought and delivered into a state of expansive space of nothing and there I find everything; Simplicity, humor, compassion and tranquility.

If not for yourself then for the millions of people without in this world, create the place you wish to be in if you have the ability to do so, and I believe we all have that ability. I believe that each and everyday should be used as a blank canvas for creating something good. We are never unable until we tell ourselves we are. There are no limitations except the ones we self-impose.

The delicious flavor of freedom pervades my senses. Allow it to find yours.