How a local Zambian encounter changed my life

We’re on the Zambezi River, gliding through murky green waters on a speedboat, our excessively luxurious island villa becoming a smudge on the blue-green horizon. My eyes are scanning the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of a hippo’s beady eyes popping out, quicker than my camera’s shutter is able to close. The rural village we are visiting comes into my line of vision; a solitary hand carved wooden canoe floating where river and land become one. This is a rural village tour, part of the day’s activities planned by the lodge, and I am relatively uninterested and nonchalant.
We are greeted warmly- her feet are bare, her hands calloused. I am looking down, watching where I walk, and trying to sidestep piles of cow dung. She leads us to her village. There is a fence made of reeds, enclosing clay huts topped with pyramid shaped grass roofs. Kids are hard at work, sweeping the sandy floor and standing on ladders working on uncompleted huts.
She takes us to her home, shows us the kitchen, bedrooms and chicken farm. A bloodied machete lies to one side. She has everything she needs here. She is close to the people she loves. Her shower is a modest curtain made of vines, with 2 litre Coke bottles turned upside down to act as shower heads. The toilet is in its own clay hut- a hole in the ground covered with ash, acting as a disinfectant.
We continue walking through the village until we arrive at the vegetable garden- uneven rows of countless types of vegetables are nurtured for and harvested, supplying the lodge we are staying at. She proudly explains how she learnt farming from her mother, and taught the rest of the community. Excitedly, she leads me to the back corner of the garden. There is a new blue bicycle, which she has bought with profits from the garden after months of saving. Her pride is silent but tangible. She thanks us for visiting, tells us that the establishment of the lodge has contributed so much to the development of her village. The lodge owner’s words ring in my mind: “you can’t have luxury without philanthropy.”
I think back to my home in an upper class suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, and the problems I face there. The paint is peeling; a picture needs to be straightened. It all seems unnecessary, overcomplicated, too much. I leave feeling ashamed, ungrateful; the image of a shiny bicycle engrained in my mind.