The roads are not paved in Tanzania. They stretch out like long dirt fingers through the lush green valleys and high rolling mountains, vulnerable to the whims of nature, the brute determination of land rovers, and the fickle attention of politics. They reflect the unpredictability, the fierce and natural openness to whatever the universe offers, and the sense of enoughness that is so evident in the peoples there.

I ventured to this third world African country the same winter that El Nino plowed into it. Torrential rains and knee deep ruts left the roads impassable, our planned destinations improbable, and my  preconceived notions of what I would experience obliterated. What I received instead was a spirit of adventure and a passionate absorption in the moment:  Would the road ahead be washed out? Should we go this way or that? Can we get over this raging stream without our land rover getting stuck? What is ahead for us today?

This take-it-one-day-at-a-time experience mirrored every aspect I encountered of African life. We met the Hadza, that ancient tribe of hunter-gatherers who set out every day with their homemade spears and undaunted spirits in search of what they need to eat and live for just that day. Their grass huts contain only open dirt hearths that shelter nothing except one another and their obvious deep connection with the earth and family. We carried their spirit with us, traveled Africa ourselves, as Hadzas, hunting and gathering whatever nature and the universe offered us each day, happy to be in this open playground of wildlife and nature with all its abundant beauty.

The Hadza, as well as the Maasai — the pastoral, semi-nomadic tribe, draped in dramatic red and purple garb, shepherding their flocks in green, verdant valleys –live daily with the pressures of uncertainty concerning land management, distribution of resources, and over-population. Without the sophistication, education, or privilege we westerners have, these African peoples manage their lives with a resilience, a rootedness, a gratitude and sense of enoughness few of us in the west know.

We think, in America, with our paved roads and concrete cities and privileged lifestyles, we can wall out the uncertainties and unpredictabilities that mark our lives as human beings. We think, in America, with our cushioned dwellings and protected suburbs and police surveillance, we can wall out danger and devastation from our families. We expect too much. We delude ourselves. There will always be an El Nino to disturb our scheduled tranquillity.

There will always be bumps in the road and washed out passages between ourselves and where we want to go. There will always be the challenge of dealing with what today has in store for us as we make our way towards tomorrow. There will always be an Africa in our lives.

And who can speak of the splendor and struggle of Africa without mentioning its wondrous wildlife? We came upon animal kills with buzzards and hyenas ripping the flesh of their newly downed prey, while wildebeests and zebra grazed quietly by. We lay hushed in tents in open wilderness, listening to rain, to the roar of a lion in the valley below, to the snorting of warthogs routing just inches away, to the magical sounds of tropical birds in morning’s first light.

In the Mahale Mountains beside Lake Tanganyika, we sat in wondrous awe mere feet away from chimpanzees lounging, playing, chasing freely, wordlessly connected by our common ancestry, wondrously reminded of our natural need for play and touch.

I left Africa, filled to the heartbrim with images and sounds and feelings I will savor into my old age, accepting of my need to rip myself from the fabric of African life in order to immerse myself again into my own, grateful for the connections to which I return, sad and happy at the same moment.

I was met at the airport by my daughter and eight month old grandson, the rich texture which forms the fabric of my life. She informed me of her plans to move five hours away, to Hilton Head Island, for all the right reasons. I was struck, again, with the unpredictable and unrelenting bump and turn in the road of which we are all vulnerable.

The roads are not paved in Tanzania. They are not paved in our own lives either. Change and unpredictability and new challenges are always just ahead. Gathering what the day offers and delighting in the abundance of the moment is all we dare do.