World of hellos

I write this as we travel from Gulu to Entebbe. The drive is several hours long and takes us through miles and miles of bush with a couple of huts scattered here and there. Everywhere along the road though is people walking. Riding bikes. Pushing bikes as they're loaded up like a trailer. Carrying the yellow jerry cans of water you see everywhere. On boda bodas. Cows. Goats. When we cross the Nile river there are always baboons and monkeys along the road there. Every once in a while we pass a town. Shops and stalls selling everything and anything. People gathered under the shade of a tree. On a stoop of a store. At a homestead.

And after these two weeks of travelling - through the city streets of London, England, the scenic countryside of rural England, the harsh realities of the Kenyan slums, the chaotic hustle and bustle of the city in Kampala and Nairobi, the quieter town of Gulu in the north - I look out my window and see things differently.

These are people who laugh and cry. Have dreams and talents. It's hard to put into words. But I know that down each red dusty road we pass is possibility. The possibility of an individual so full of love and life that they would impact me and make it hard to leave them. The possibility of kindred spirits. The possibility of friends not yet met and family not yet established.

You see in each diverse situation our travels have taken us - from outside golden gates of palaces in England to the African hut made from cow dung - we have found connection. Our hearts and lives joined together for our brief time together. And so now as I look out at the diversity of the world around us I am reminded that behind that door, down that street, on that bike... are potential friends. And as hard as goodbyes are, I look forward to a world of hellos.