Taxi!

Taxis in a line

Waiting patiently for their fare.

Drivers standing, looking at each face

Expectantly.

Sometimes the ride can be an adventure.

Taxi rides are often interesting.  It seems most of the drivers are from some country on the other side of the world and driving travelers to their destination is just one point on their own journey to success in a new land.  Newer versions, such as Uber, are often just as likely to be piloted by colorful individuals whose story is one of transition.

I usually try to strike up a conversation with taxi drivers.  Most of them are talkative and willing to engage in conversation.  I surprise a few by guessing their nationality, or by knowing something about their native land.  Apparently the average American traveler is geographically challenged when it comes to points beyond the borders of this great nation.

The photo of waiting camels and their drivers was taken on a trip to Niger in 2009.  It was near the end of our time there and we had taken a boat ride down the Niger river to a village that, like much of the country, looked like it hadn't changed in the last several thousand years.  Our contact in the country had arranged for us to have a camel ride back to our point of departure and the awaiting modern transport.

The sun was already sinking which helped to make the heat slightly more bearable in this region of the Sahel.  The shadows of our plodding mounts stretched long as we wound slowly through fields of millet and occasional patches of thorny brush on the way to our destination.  It was a relaxing, therapeutic ride.

There is something special that connects us to animals who serve us as transportation, as beasts of burden, as means of reducing the toil of labor.  We have lost that in our fortresses of steel and concrete.  Animals -- I'm not talking about the anthropomorphized "fur babies" as some refer to their pets -- connect us to the land and nature in ways that are difficult to achieve otherwise.  They teach us if we will observe them closely.  They help us to understand relationships such as nurturing and community structure and predator vs. prey.

Animals also provide us with food.  Yes, it is part of the way nature was designed.  Life on this planet is structured in an energy pyramid with plants at the base capturing the energy of the sun.  The next level is of herbivores -- those who consume the plants.  Above that are the omnivores who consume both plants and other animals.  Higher still is the first level of carnivores who feast on those below them in the pyramid which finally is topped by the higher level of carnivores who consume even other carnivores who rest lower on the food chain.  Each level is built on those below; it is the natural order.

Every plant, every creature, has a place of service.  That may seem a strange way of describing how all things fit together, but that is the reality.  We -- and I include humans in this -- fill a role in this giant, organic organism that fits together into life.  Life begets life -- even in death.  Energy, which for life, comes almost exclusively from the sun and is only used once, but the matter which combines to make our bodies -- our substance -- is continually recycled.  It is a never-ending journey as long as the sun continues to pour energy into the system.

I still have places to go and things to see and do.  I enjoy this part of the journey and hope I fill it with service to others.  I am anxious to see what's over the horizon.  Taxi!