For three years, two days a week, I packed my laptop in a backpack to work and by the end of the day would have walked seven miles.
When the strength of my back and legs gave out, I bought a 2001 white Maruti, five-speed stick shift and stopped both jobs. I needed to build a house, and I was writing more. I began taking the glucosamine chondroitin that my daughter’s German shepherd took, and the combination of actions worked.
At first, I drove only around the mile-square community—dirt lanes, narrow, paved roads with broken asphalt, and one good road. I branched out and drove on the main road part way into town.
I’ve had one accident, pulling to the left in traffic that took a motorcycle down. An English speaker on the roadside who knew me helped us get to the medical clinic where I paid the man compensation, and his hand was bandaged. He had alcohol on his breath.
Another day, when moving slowly through a herd of cows, I looked over my left shoulder and saw a cow turn her head toward the car which she ran into, startling us both.
There is strain in me driving among cars, trucks, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles, cows, water buffalo, goats and people—school children, women exercising, those with only their feet to move them. Motorcycles appear suddenly. Trucks and many cars take three-quarters of the road. I get off into the dirt, the car scraping against thorn bushes.
I have to have a car. I repeat safe-driving affirmations on the road and remind myself I am confident and competent. I need mental strength now.
My realization is, “Our thoughts precede our actions. We can ask for God’s help for safe passage through our days.”