Uncle Rwamiti leaned back on his familiar bench at the petrol-station forecourt, watching a bus packed with boxes, goatskins, and quiet hopes pull away in a cloud of dust. He smiled and said:

“This one is not travel. It is pilgrimage.”

“Every Christmas,” he continued, “solo dwellers leave the city as adults—careful, contained, and self-reliant. But the road loosens something. Somewhere after the last fuel stop, the inner child wakes up. In the city, no one calls your childhood name or asks if you have eaten. Upcountry, those questions return before any others. You are fed before you explain yourself. You belong before you are assessed.

“They think they are going home for the holidays,” Uncle Rwamiti said softly, “but what they are really doing is feeding the child who has been carrying the adult all year. And when they come back alone, they are not emptier. They are steadier. A well-fed inner child makes the new year lighter.”

He fell quiet again, as another engine started—another pilgrim beginning the journey.