I learned to bike when I was 26 years old on a bumpy, sandy road in Sub-Sahara Africa surrounded by butterflies.

That’s the short version. The poetic version. The sarcastic version.

It was a solo trip from Bouca – the rural village in Benin where I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer – to Dunkassa, the land of milk and honey, or more accurately, the village 18 km away that was rumored to have vegetables in their market. More than just onions and tomatoes, but possibly carrots and green, leafy goodness grown in a NGO-funded, irrigated garden there. My gear included a Peace Corps issued Trek bike, an I-pod shuffle at 50% battery life, and a Nalgene full of questionably potable water, spiked with forgotten gin – which I would remember halfway into my ride that last time I used the bottle was to dull the discomfort of a four hour bush taxi ride by sipping booze the whole way – and therefore, was forced to endure gin-laced water on this bike trip.

To say, “I learned to bike when I was 26,” is obviously an exaggeration because, of course, I was taught to ride a bike when I was a proper young age. There was a pink bike with a pink safety cushion velcro-ed around the handlebar waiting for me Christmas morning when I was eight, that I rode in slow, strenuous circles in our grassy front yard until I felt ready to take on the crushed-bluestone driveway. And eventually, I braved the paved road to my Nana’s house, a whole football field away from my childhood home. Both my knees still bare faint scars from regularly taking turns too quickly on the stones and landing on my side with the bike still beneath me.

Growing up in rural Delaware actually called for a fair amount of bike fun. Play-dates often consisted of digging old, spare bikes out of barns and tool sheds, sharing a rusty banana seat with a cousin and riding down a hill at top speed – flying downhill, legs spread eagle as to not get tangled in the rapidly spinning pedals and then pedaling backwards at the bottom of the hill to come to a stop, or plopping the bike on it’s side – often times toppling over with it. And then running the bike back uphill to repeat, over and over again until a new game was thought up.

Bikes were toys. Not a mode of transportation. It was something I used when I was bored and outside with playmates. But, naturally, play-dates eventually became less about adventures and games and more about gossip and pretending to be grown-up. And we were eventually dreaming of having boyfriends and driving cars. When I finally got my driver’s license, my pink cushy bike – long since outgrown by me and handed down to a younger cousin I’m sure – was rarely to be thought of again.

I didn’t ride a bike again for almost ten years and I began to convince myself that perhaps I had forgotten how – despite the notion that you never forget how to ride a bike. Never had I ridden a bike with gears and more than one speed, besides “downhill.” And I only ever learned to stop a bike by pedaling backwards. I had never worn a helmet or rode a bike along side traffic. I had never used proper hand signals nor learned what they meant.

But even then, I learned to do a few of these things before I was 26, when I worked at a summer camp in the Adirondacks where I was forced to chaperone a bike trip with a group of 12 year old girls. The counselor organizing the excursion asked our group if we all knew how to ride a bike, and only one tiny, timid camper raised her hand. And I could tell there was a wave of shock like this girl was deprived of some basic childhood experience or life skill. I wasn’t really that girl, was I? I sort of knew how to ride a bike when I was her age. But how about now? So I raised my hand too. I would sacrifice my dignity for her – that’s part of being in childcare. I said, “I don’t know how to ride a bike either.” 

And so we took lessons together, me and a tiny 12 year old rode our bikes in strenuous circles around the grass while a guy my age chased after us, proud young father style, shouting, “Keep pedaling!” Afterwards, he high-fived us both and whispered to me, “You can totally ride a bike by the way. You just aren’t very good at stopping or turning.”

And even with those experiences, when asked my skill level with biking as I was filling out the paperwork after my invitation into Peace Corps Benin, I honestly checked the box next to “Novice.”

This is where a bicycle became an actual, useful tool – a lifeline. But also, a tool that I didn’t know how to use safely yet.

When we first got our bikes, I was scared of it. There were already so many things I didn’t know how to do – speak French, use a latrine, take a bucket bath, negotiate prices, wrap a pagné, eat with my hands, manage a classroom – why did I also have to learn to ride a bike?

And why did it have to be here – on the side of a chaotic busy highway in the capital of Benin – highway being a generous term really, so dubbed for it being the main, paved road through the city – city also being a generous term but capital nonetheless – surrounded by clusters of motorcycle taxis attempting to merge, horns honking – not just as a frustrated reaction to traffic but also to replace turn signals, brake lights, to communicate with would-be passengers – round-bellied marché-mamans with even bigger baskets on their head full of their wares, on their way to market, taking a moment to pause and slowly turn their entire bodies to take in the image of me, the white girl with a bike, and flocks of children singing the “yovo” song – yovo being a word for what I am: white, foreign, stranger?

The moment I truly needed a bike was under the most daunting of circumstances.

One year had passed since I was fresh meat, a newbie, on the side of the road in the capital trying to avoid being obliterated by a speeding bush taxi carrying 12 or more passengers. I had learned how to haphazardly merge into traffic. I had learned what I needed to say in French. I had learned how to dress, how to pee, how to wash – myself and my clothes. I had learned how to carry a basin of water on my head – though I had not learned the art of not spilling it. I had also learned to lower my expectations. I had already adjusted to the culture shock, the excessive downtime, and the lack of readiness from my community.

The “change the world” attitude I had arrived with had long since been snuffed out and I began to look at this experience with new eyes – hopeless eyes, “dead yovo” eyes – a phrase coined by us when we first arrived in Benin the summer before and first met the seasoned PCV’s who had already experienced the third world for a year or more – yovo being a word for what we were; dead describing their look and cadence while twisting a disturbing, heart-wrenching story into something casual. Stories of preventable accidents, untimely deaths, constant illness, frustrating injustice and corruption. They had grown comfortable in the discomforts of everyday Benin life.

And there I was, a year later – still a novice biker. I hadn’t used my bike since I had arrived in village. It sat in my cement home with worn-but-not-dirty-enough-to-go-in-the-laundry clothes hanging on it, like an unused treadmill.  I was a near-dead yovo at a crisis point in my service. I knew because Peace Corps included in all our handouts a cheeky line graph projecting our mood swings, our periods of adjustment, our peaks and valleys for the next 27 months. If the graph came with a “you are here” sticker – a tracker to mark my progress, I would be below the axis – a very low, vulnerable point in my service.

And so I set off to unknown territory with a half-charged I-pod, one bottle of ginny water, and a bike.

One of the most exciting things about setting off on an impromptu bike adventure is how in control I felt. I was actually alone. Now, alone by choice is an exhilarating feeling. Not like the loneliness I was feeling when I was back in village, surrounded by the things I had then called home. I was in control of this type of alone. I was going somewhere by myself without telling anyone. No, this was exciting! Like the way a secret can be exciting.

This excitement is what kept me from overthinking all the things I may be afraid of – like the fact that I didn’t know where I was or who I would meet along the way. What if a bunch of children see me from the fields and start chasing me, screaming the yovo song at me? What if a creepy man pulls up next to me and insists on accompanying me? What if I reach a fork in the road and take the wrong path? What if I get a flat tire?

But I just kept pedaling. And thinking. Pedaling and thinking.

As I pedaled strenuously through the sand, I would count. Like I was keeping time. One. Two. One. Two. Right. Left. Right. Left. I was straining to push the pedals. My knees were burning. Eighteen kilometers was far. The people in my village told me it was too far. That I should just ride on the back of a moto. But I knew that forcing myself to bike somewhere would help me. I didn’t know how. But I was thinking it the whole way. 

Pedaling and thinking.

I needed something, anything, to help me feel productive… proactive… purposeful! I could feel it pumping through me as I pedaled.

I need a reason to stay another year.
I need to be braver.
I need to be more motivated!
Bouca needs to be more motivated.
I need to stop being so lazy.
I need to stop feeling so lonely.
Or maybe I just need vegetables.

After about a hour of pedaling, I thought perhaps I should have been there already. I looked around, but there were no signs. Whenever I saw a person, they would stop what they were doing, upright themselves, and follow me with their eyes and whole body as I pedaled by. I would shout, “Dunkassa?” and point ahead of me. And they would answer after a confused pause, “Oui!”

Finally, after ninety minutes of pedaling, I had arrived.

This blog is the namesake of this journey – not because this story is particularly life-altering which is why I’ll admit that if I continue to tell of the journey to Dunkassa it would turn rather dull. Nothing extraordinary happened in Dunkassa at all, other than the fact that I made it there. And that was enough. Biking somewhere did help me.

After less than an hour of exploring their market, making a new friend and eating a free meal, I headed back to village feeling pretty invincible.

I took off down the dirt road with new life. I did it! I biked all the way to Dunkassa! By myself! For the first time in months, I was smiling – genuinely. I felt happy. I was exhilarated. I could no longer say I didn’t know how to ride a bike. I swigged my gin-water and sang along to every song that came on my I-pod.

Suddenly, the road turned downhill and I was eight years old in a shared banana seat all over again. I was flying. I flew by rows of ladies heading back home in the heat of the afternoon, carrying large bundles of firewood on their heads. They all smiled when I passed them, singing. The wind blew through me. I had stopped pedaling and just coasted, picking up speed. In front of me, the road was yellow. And then, the yellow sprung up into hundreds of little butterflies. They were all around me as I sailed through them. And I forgot I was biking. I forgot I was in Africa. I only knew I was alive and the universe was proving it. I broke into dry sobs of hysterical laughter feeling purely elated.

Like a near-dead yovo coming back to life.
An anxious basketcase finding her courage.
A novice biker falling in love with a Trek bike.
An American millennial remembering where she is. In fucking Africa for crying out loud!

And then I crashed. My front tire hit a big enough trench in the road and I flew forward over the handlebars, my arms, face and chest taking the brunt of the impact while my legs bent up backyards over me.

I rolled over and yelled, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

I saw the women with firewood coming down the road behind me and quickly stood up and wanted to hide. I ran my bike off the road. We both seemed to be intact. I kept walking until the ground turned into one big rock. I laid my bike on it’s side and sprawled out flat on my back next to it, staring up at the clouds.

My mind circled back to the line graph, my Map of Vulnerability. It reminded me that I was supposed to feel this way. Helpless. That one good day doesn’t just suddenly bounce you above the axis. Right?

Fuck that. Why was there no middle ground to this life? You’re either just on your way up or on your way down. And I was letting myself drown in the lows.

But not this day. This day the sun was shining and I chose to make this day different.

And maybe the lows have to be low so that when I’m flying downhill on my bike, singing at the top my lungs, and I sail through a cloud of fucking yellow butterflies it feels like the ultimate high.

I biked towards Bouca again just as the afternoon was starting to fade. Not feeling anxious. Not thinking about if I was on the right track on the Map of Vulnerability. Not feeling like I had anything to prove. Not feeling sorry for myself.

Just peace.

Years later, back in America and everywhere else, and hopefully for the rest of my life, I’ll get to keep having beautiful moments like these, ones that just remind me to be grateful for being alive.

And now, when something really beautiful happens to me at the most necessary moment, I say, “That was like biking through butterflies.”