Life off the bike

We have been home for about a week, and have had some time to reflect on our trip. Here's what's on our mind:

We have so much random stuff at home, most of it just taking up space and serving no purpose other than cluttering our lives. It was wonderful living with so little this summer. There was nothing to distract us, and our minds were free. Simple is key.

Cities, especially Toronto, are incredibly huge, busy, and unrepresentative of the rest of the country. Biking here is exciting, and super quick without the weight.

Having finished school, we wake up every morning with no plan for the day. We have no destination, and our lives are scattered. The future is uncertain and malleable, dependent on a number of forces that we cannot control. It is exciting, and scary.

We have food, water, toilets and roofs at our disposal. This is luxurious living, and it feels odd; to use a toilet, sleep in a bed, shower regularly - all daily practices that we have learned you don't need to be content. And how removed we all are from nature: if it rains, we go inside. If it's windy, we don't even know. When it gets dark, we flip a switch. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

Our return home was a bit overwhelming. We were met with friends and family at a delicious party, and as everyone lifted their glasses to toast our success, it finally set in: We did it. We biked across Canada, and people around us were amazed. We were called heroes, idols, crazy. Pictures appeared in newspapers: "Resident cycles across Canada for youth in Africa." Lines drawn on maps of Canada and taped on walls to remember.

Remember the summer we biked 103 days across the second largest country in the world. Remember the highways, trees, rain, skies, mosquitoes, black flies, trucks, animals, sunsets, rivers, books, foods, books on tape, people, places, middle-of-nowheres, grocery stores, borders, destination signs, sleeps, stretches, flat tires, peddle strokes, and the group of Kenya students who were put in school. Because that's what it's all about. Our sponsors brought education, empowerment and human dignity to a rural community in western Kenya. All we did was bike a lot to make it happen.

Let this be a lesson: how each of us has the ability to bring about positive change in the world, but how easy it is to get distracted by all the excesses of our lives.