Childlike Wonder

I woke up at the break of dawn, excited to jog for the first time through the muddy roads of Nyagatare. I laced up my bright yellow Nike running shoes, plugged into my Workout mix on my iPhone, and set off down the road.

Nyagatare is breathtaking in its beauty. In the morning, lush green mountains stood guard over valleys filled with tall green grass. The air was fresh, the sky was the perfect shade of blue, and a faint breeze kissed the skin. In fact, I was so entranced by my surroundings that I failed to notice the stares of the local residents as I jogged beside their houses.

In their defence, I must have looked like an alien who had dropped in from Mars. Nyagatare seems like a town where everyone knows everyone. Young men stared at me with narrow eyes; I detected curiosity in their eyes, but also a tinge of suspicion. Older women and men smiled and greeted me in Kenyarwandan when I walked past them. One old man even stopped me and said, in heavily accented English: “Hello, good morning!”

I continued jogging up a steep hill when I encountered a group of children. They could not have been more than 3 years old.  I started walking towards them when one of them, a small boy, registered my presence. He was such a tiny thing – he couldn’t even reach my shins. He left the group and started waddling towards me with a big bright smile and eyes wide with wonder. We were within 5 feet, when suddenly, he ran forward and wrapped my legs in a warm embrace. I was shocked, but also deeply touched. I patted the back of his head and then continued on my run. The boy went back to his group.

Preconceptions:

For the rest of the run, I thought about that boy, and the huge role that preconceptions play in all of our lives. When I meet a new person, I am viewing his actions through the lens of all of my preconceptions. I am evaluating the way he speaks, the way he dresses, and basically sizing him up in the first few seconds. My size-up, and by extension, my first opinion, is made almost instantaneously because of inherent biases that have been built over years of life. I am alert for signs of danger, and conscious of protecting my interests.

Children don’t have biases. They simply accept the world as a place of wonder and joy. I wish that I could live my life like that- inherently trusting of my fellow humans, and always curious about the next wonder around the corner. As that child wrapped me in his warm, trusting, embrace, I understood that life could be incredibly simple and pure.