Bike-venture Episode 1

I was on the road by 0900, having slathered my exposed skin with sunscreen hoping to combat the equatorial sun. I hadn’t a route or destinations planned, but I figured with water, mixed nuts, and TP I should be good for the day. I still don’t have sunglasses, so my eyes filled with the dust of lorries on the packed dirt road. On downhills the speedbumps slowed traffic, but provided jumps for me. My bike tolerated the road surface better than many four wheel vehicles and I often managed to pass them, though it required biking hard through their dust. I left the main road as soon as I could and followed side roads to approach the coordinates which were my only guidance to the waterfall I hoped to find. As I rounded a curve steep hills appeared, cooperating with my music to inspire a fit of ecstasy. Riding with my arms out works well on US roads, but the washboard and potholes rudely interrupted my celebration. I crossed a river near the coordinates and asked directions from the youth washing his bike in the river. He sent me up a hill whose road surface was tortured by erosion. Even on a mountain bike it was technical.

All I found at the bottom of the hill was a doubly locked gate, so I asked a family carrying their luggage up the hill about the falls. They sent me back the way I came. Ravines, rocks, and four-inch-deep washboard is even more challenging to traverse downhill. Crashing was a very convenient option, but I refrained. I asked a guard at gate of a hydroelectric plant about the falls, and he said I could access it through there. Thirty minutes in the sun later a guy showed up and took me down to the plant. I oohed and ahhed at the equipment and finally was handed off to another guy who took me to the falls. Guides rob so much of the experience I tried to convince them I could go alone, but they insisted. We picked our way down the slippery mud slope, dodging the nettles that lined the path. The falls has eroded quite an overhang, curtained by the falls. Here I was able to release my guide (with 50 shillings for his pains) and enjoy the falls on my own. I sat for some time, drowning my thoughts in the roar of the falls. The river, swollen by the rains, drops a sheer 70 feet, creating a rainbow in the spray. With some regret I left the shelter cave and scrambled up some boulders back into the sun.

I decided to continue following the road though I wasn’t sure where it would take me, hoping perhaps to reach a tall hill which looked tantalizingly close. The road less travelled dwindled to a track with head-high bushes encroaching the borders. I persisted until some mamas standing outside their hut stopped me to chat, surprised to see a mzungu, especially alone. With what little Swahili I have access to I asked if the road would lead anywhere. They counselled me to turn back though but I didn’t catch whether it was for my safety or because the road was a dead end. I climbed out of the river valley and followed the ridge on a more established road until it too vanished into a steep boulder field strewn with head sized rocks. I navigated the slope far more effectively than a similar one at Mill Creek trails in Missouri, not even wrecking once. At the bottom my persistence was rewarded with a smooth singletrack, used by cattle and piki-pikis.

I followed ‘roads’ like this one for several hours: crossing rivers, through ridge-top pastures and shambas, and rolling through villages with every eye trained on me. The road turned back towards home, so I left the mountain for another day. It was still probably 15 km away and my legs were already cramping with 20 km or so between me home. I eventually came out on the main road, 10 km south of my house. 

The map showed a back way home, and I was happy for an option other than forty minutes of dodging matatus, pikis and lorries. The ‘back road’ turned out to be a track that led through a field (with cows and an abandoned bus), mud holes, a swamp, horrendous washboard...

...and back to the main road. 

At this point I was tired enough that riding on pavement was an attractive option so I followed the road back to town. The adventure had left my bike in a sorry state so I stopped at a car wash and cleaned it with a pressure washer. Before I reached home I passed a bike shop, and a fundi was more than happy to lubricate my chain for 20 shillings. His chain lube turned out to be used motor oil, so I wiped off what I could to keep it from accumulating dirt and causing more wear than it would prevent.

The Somali family on whose compound I live had a lot of people over for lunch. I greeted the men on the front porch sweaty, bleeding, and coated in mud. I must have made an impression because I was invited to join just after I finished showering. The food was delicious, and I got to meet the father, and uncle (from Toronto), two brothers, several friends (turned out to be farmers, fascinated by the bags we sell at Elite), and all their children. I ate my fill of goat, chicken, and chapatti, drank tea, and chatted with the brother who just finished med school. It was lovely, but by the time I took my leave I was quite ready for the coffee and relaxing that awaited.

At church the next morning I met Patrick and Whitney, who are here with Samaritans Purse. The invited me for supper, and I had a wonderful time playing ping-pong and chatting about the path to becoming a missions pilot. Their stories and pictures awakened my childhood obsessions with flight and ambitions to do just this. Patrick said the best way to get started is to find a couple guys to go in on a plane, and hire a good instructor.

Any takers?

...For Kenya

On the way to Eldoret we stayed at a camp on Lake Naivasha.
This grove of green-bark acacia was quite picturesque at sunrise.

On the flight to Nairobi I chatted with an Indian guy from Dubai who works in hydraulic repairs for a shipping company. He is from Gao, a city in India whose residents are eligible for Portuguese residency, grandfathered in by colonial occupation. On the drive home from the airport I was amazed at the poly-story buildings which have since I was there six years ago. The roads were smoother, I was told a bypass was under construction to alleviate traffic, and I saw far less scattered trash than I remembered. The jam passing through Nairobi was all too familiar however, as was the ungainly ornamentation of Marabou storks along Mombasa Road.

Storks and traffic in 2009...
 (look closely at the tree farthest from you and closest to the road)

...And in 2016

The sunset I found wandering dirt paths on Aram's bike.

The view from the esccarpment.

 I spent a few days in Nairobi hanging out with Aram and Debbi (brother and sister-in-law) and the kids. It was lovely to have a yard with trees, and be able to bike out into cattle fields and green. I played some ultimate, met cool people (Nairobi Ultimate draws a disproportionately large concentration intelligent, accomplished, and mindful people), and generally enjoyed myself. I braved Nairobi roads and got familiar with the city via piki-piki (motorcycle). I actually became fairly comfortable on the bike, learning to exploit the flexibility of traffic laws. As has become the usual pattern, as soon as I was becoming at home in Nairobi, it was time to move to Eldoret to the new challenge of acclimating to a foreign city on my own.

Aram and the family accompanied me for the move up there and helped shop for the apartment. With a spare afternoon we visited Kerio Valley, an escarpment which is apparently one of the worlds premier paragliding destinations. I sadly didn’t get a chance to pursue that, but I did sit on some rocks watch the acrobatics of sparrows while a dust devil, storm, and rainbow crossed the valley below. Aram and I also threw a disc around among the hotel’s terraced gardens. The slope and wind off the escarpment made for quite a challenge and we amazingly left without any dislocations.

Priska joined from atop a honeysuckle encrusted retaining wall.
She missed plenty of  bid-able throws.

Shadrach had his own dragons to fight.

Then they went back to Nairobi, and I jumped into the work here. In the last two weeks I have been attempting to learn everything, from the language to sales to accounting and operations. I worked ten to twelve hours a day my first week, and didn’t have time until the weekend to finish setting up my apartment. It was all made up for by a lovely, rainy Sunday afternoon with tea and a book. Everyday tasks are more interesting here than in the US. The bike ride to and from work is remarkably challenging in the chaos of traffic. Matatus, the minibus public transport, completely ignore traffic laws creating an ever shifting gauntlet to test the cyclist. I have realized that it's much like mountain biking: you pick a line, stick with it, and hope you don't die. Buying vegetables is a battle of wits with the sellers since there are few set prices (and even those are a mystery to me). After my first trip I was happy to learn from my coworkers that I had not been ripped off too badly.

     So now I live in Eldoret. I work, eat, sleep, and bike, and look up as often as I can to see how cool this opportunity is. Simply my skin tone is enough to excite shouts from kids I pass and stares from the adults. The neighbor kids come stand in my yard and watch me sweep, and two of them wandered into my apartment while I was writing this paragraph to see what I am up to. It is draining to be the center of attention everywhere I go, but I’m working on not being frustrated about it. My saturdays have consisted of bike adventures, (stay tuned for a post about that, it was amazing: Waterfalls, swamps, and disappearing roads) and I think I was probably the event of the week for many of the villages I passed through. This is my life for now and I’ve no doubt that as soon as it becomes normal I’ll be off to the next challenge.

From Mozambique...

I climbed up the disintegrating concrete bleachers to take this photo of the Peniel international conference. 

Soon afterward the guards asked me to get down, for my own safety.

I left Mozambique nearly a month ago, but it’s been such a whirlwind of a month that I haven’t gotten a chance to post. And I still start conversations in Portuguese.

Hamburgers with Dino and James

 I ended up working more in everything else than the jam making. Most of my time was used fixing the phones and computers of missionaries and church leaders. I replaced screens, diagnosed problems, and installed Windows 10 six times. I also worked with the Peniel media team, providing tech support and shooting photos during the conference. I was amazed by how hard the media team worked, even when their only recognition was expressed as frustration with unavoidable technical difficulties. (This continent is not kind to electronics.) They truly serve God not Man, and I am thankful to call them friends. The media team organized a surprise send off the day before I left. I was humbled by their appreciation. They were encouraging in my next steps, but many said they’d pray God tells me to come back to Moz. And Mozambicans know how to pray!

Saudades!

 I made a few batches with Flavia, who works with Equip Mozambique, before I left. She was very excited to make jam and quickly learned everything I had to teach. We had some difficulties with uncooperative pectin, but she has persevered even in my absence and is working to perfect the process.
Even amidst all the other activities I put as much time and research into the jam project as I could. After research to teach myself the process, I managed to extract pectin from orange peels and made several batches of pineapple jam and marmalade. Most people I talked to were skeptical about jam with the orange peel in it, but those that tested it enjoyed it.

I planned to buy flights to Nairobi online, but decided to go to the airline office instead as Linhas Aereas de Mozambique is notoriously unreliable. (Apparently they used to fly to some airports in Europe, but are now banned due to their terrible service.) It was a good thing I did, because the flight I was going to take turned out to not exist. Instead I ended up with an itinerary that gave me an overnight in Pemba. None of our Pemba contacts were available, so I arrived at the airport with no idea where I would sleep that night. My first choice would have been a free airport bench, but LAM airports close at night. I did some quick research, found a place a couple klicks away, but the taxi driver told me it has been closed for two years. He knew a hostel on the other side of the peninsula which had cheap lodging (and expensive taxi fare) and delivered me there.

Russell’s Place is one row from the beach, with friendly staff and bougainvillea towering over the gate. I got a tent along the side of the compound, left my belongings (except for valuables because reviews mentioned security concerns) and set off to explore. I walked up the beach, scrambled around the point on coral and sat and watched the breakers as the sun set. I caught the sunrise from the point as well, arriving just in time to see the second half of the orange sphere rise from the waves. I would have arrived with more time but running in sand and over weathered coral in flip-flops wearing a backpack with everything of value that I own is just as awkward as it sounds. The guard of the fancy hotel I passed seemed amused.