As you will very quickly gather this is Katie writing on behalf of Tarka, as he has just returned to Africa from a fleeting visit to the UK. (Confused?)

Well, Caroline Rose (our speaking agent) had been asked by a client if Tarka could return so they could book our dual talk. Considering all that’s gone on, with the projects goals changing due to my departure, and how Tarka is so passionate about his speaking, we were delighted to except the job. In addition it was a great opportunity to see each other, as it has now been 4 weeks since I left Africa and it will be a further 3 weeks before he is home for good. 

Tarka’s journey was a fairly hectic one, flying from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania to Nairobi in Kenya and on to Heathrow, where I picked him up. We then drove to Birmingham to give our evening talk and then the following morning we went back to Heathrow for him to fly once again to Nairobi and then on to Dar Es Salaam. He is now making his way back to where he left his bicycle before he can continue into Malawi.

On a different note, Tarka throughout the journey has had very little time for taking photos, as when he is not cycling he his predominantly filming (our primary aim of the journey). On his brief visit back to the UK he did remember to leave with me his used DV tapes and memory cards. I have started to go through some of the DV tapes and the footage is really promising. Below I have posted some of the few photos he has managed to snap, most of them are from Kili, as this seems to be the only place he has had the time to take both photos and film footage, but there are a few more from the orphanage also.

This cross section of images from Kilimanjaro show just how diverse the landscape and terrain can be within the 5 day trek, ranging from the humid rainforest’s through to the punishingly cold glaciers.

Next are some more pics from the Huruma Orphanage (including another one for Hector)

One thing you cant get away from in any language is numbers. Whether I’m asking the time, how far it is to the next village or probably most frequently, how much something costs. They all need a vague grasp on numbers.

1.Moja
2.Mbili
3.Tatu
4.Nne
5.Tano
6.Sita
7.Saba
8.Nane
9.Tisa
10.Kumi

100. Mia (Easy as thats my sisters name)
1000. Elfu Moja (2000 is Elfu Mbili and so on)

As a general rule the people of Tanzania have been incredibly friendly and so quite a considerable amount of the day is spent greeting people as I cycle past. Not only is it considerably nicer being able to greet people in their own language, but there are less English speakers in Tanzania than there are in Kenya (They also speak Swahili in Kenya although it’s a very different kind). So the basics of every greeting are:

Hello – Jambo
How are you? – Habari
(If you are speaking to somebody younger than you you can use the word Mambo which means – Hi how are you? but it should never be used to one of your elders!)
Welcome – Karibu
I’m great – Safi
Cool – Poa
No worries everything is fantastic – Sowa Sowa
Good buy – Kwa eri
Thankyou – Asante
What is your name? – Jina Lako Ninani
No Worries – Hakuna Matata

The word for ‘very’ is Sana and can be put on the end of other words ie. Karibu Sana – you are very welcome etc.

Unfortunately knowing a few words means that people assume I can speak the language well and rabble sentences off that are still a complete mystery to me. When this does happen I have to jump in with a very useful sentence:

I don’t understand! – Ona Taka Nini!

Foods are hugely important but as a general rule people only eat local produce so there is a relatively limited vocab to learn to get buy.

Banana – Endizi
Pineapple – Nanas
Mango – Embe
Coconut – Mnazi
(These make up the bulk of my diet at the moment)

Oogali is the staple food in quite a large proportion of Africa and although it takes on different names in different countries it is always the same. It is a maize paste that is probably best described as a bland version of mash potato. It’s not great to eat on it’s own but thankfully it is usually served with a sauce of either:

Vegetables – Maiza
Chicken – Kuku
Beef – Ngombe
Goat – Mbuzi

Some of the other foods that turn up that I was slightly surprised about are chips!!! For some extraordinary reason they have attributed the chip to Ireland and are always calling them ‘Irish Potatoes’. It makes me laugh that served up next to all the African fruit and Oogali is a dish they seem particularity fond of, the ‘chippi omlati’, I will let you deduce for yourselves what that might be!!!

A few other useful foods are:
Egg – Yai
Potato – Kiazi
Bread – Samaki
And probably the most important thing is water – Maji

The good news is that once you get the basics right Swahili is actually quite a simple language to learn. The bad news is that in about a week I will be crossing over into Malawi and all my hard learned Swahili will be of no use what so ever and I will have to start all over again. Oh well!!!

PS. Thank you all so much for your messages, they are much appreciated. I am slowly getting round to answering them all but my days are a little full at the moment so please be patient.

Incidentally Ben (Saunders), if you want to do some ‘real’ training you can forget racing around London on your 500g carbon fiber bike. Get yourself a rusty old bike (about 10kg) with no gears that is too small for you, load it up to the point of destruction and then ride 60km uphill with a semi flat tire into a head wind on a road with melted tar… It’s one of those moments when you should really admit defeat, get off the bike and push. But instead you get this irrational rage, refusing to give up and challenging the road to throw even more at you, in a kind of ‘is that all you’ve got?’ way!

A few days ago I developed a high fever and fearing the worst I counted my malaria tablets to make sure that I hadn’t missed any. Not being an expert on African diseases I thought it best to visit the next Malaria clinic on route at Same (pronounced Sah-may). The great news was that the malaria test came back negative, the not so great news was that it was going to take a whole day to try and work out what was the matter. After exhausting every possible option two doctors finally managed to agree that it was probably due to untreated water. Normally all the water that I drink is either bottled or iodized but when I went to the orphanage I was offered a glass of water and in a moment of empathy for the children I drank it without thinking.

I think more than anything else the prospect of the Huruma children having to drink that water day in, day out has spurred me on even more to try and help them get a water treatment facility installed. I suppose at times I am just as culpable as the next person, when I am at home I take for granted the fact that clean drinking water flows freely from every tap. The most alarming fact is that still in the 21st Century, with all our technology, the greatest majority of the worlds population still doesn’t have access to safe drinking water!!!

On a related, but not quite so serious note (well actually just as concerning but in a different way) I read a shocking statistic recently, that more Coka Cola (products) are consumed everyday around the world than water! I have to say that I was very sceptical about this at first and would appreciate it if anybody has any hard data to back this up. However having spent the last few months in Africa I am starting to believe that this might actually be true. Coka Cola products (I.e. Fanta, Sprite etc.) are consumed at a frightening rate. The cost of a bottle of coke along this trip has been between 10 and 20 pence (sterling) whilst a bottle of water has averaged out at about 50 pence (sterling)!!! I have watched people consume Coka Cola products with breakfast, dinner and every hour in between. As much as the statistic may be disturbing (if it is indeed true) you have to admire the marketing of a company that has such a global domination.

I haven’t forgotten you Hector! I know I promised you that I would take photos of insects and unusual wildlife, but by the time I have stopped the bike (anything up to about 100m without brakes) and got the camera out, most of them have run into the undergrowth. I did however manage to get a photo of this chameleon for you and I will keep trying.

]]> http://www.primaljourney.com/archives/778/feed 2 http://www.primaljourney.com/archives/773 http://www.primaljourney.com/archives/773#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:38:23 +0000 Tarka http://www.primaljourney.com/?p=773 Katie’s sudden departure left us with a spare bike and I really couldn’t face dragging it all the way down to South Africa with me. Seeing as how Herbert was the original starter and began the journey back on day 1, it felt right that I should continue on him and give Flashdance away to a worthy cause.

After considerable searching we stumbled on a tiny little orphanage just outside Arusha. They receive almost no support at all and after a short conversation with Father Zacharia I felt that this was a good home for Flashdance. She was bought down from Nairobi on the top of a car and yesterday I went round to the Huruma Orphanage to give her away.

It was a twenty minute drive out of Arusha up a long dirt track to reach the tiny little building that housed the children. Abdul, the director of Abrojaley Africa Ajabu Ltd. has very close ties with the orphanage and kindly offered to drive me up there. Although the building was in need of some considerable love and care the setting was absolutely breathtaking. There was a spectacular view out the back looking up at the mountains blanketed in foliage. There was a small old swing and a tiny little football pitch set in amongst the banana trees. From what Farther Zacharia explained the children lived primarily off bananas (which they grew themselves) and from milk that is produced by the two cows that has been given to them. As it stood the single building could only accommodate a maximum of 22 children, some of which are HIV orphans others have simply been left at the gate with no explanation. As we walked around meeting the kids I was told all about the dream of educating each and every one of them and I listened intently as he meticulously explained how he planned to achieve this right down to what crops he was going to plant where and how big each classroom was going to be.

I am no psychologist and I have not visited enough orphanages in my life to create a convincing case study but I have found that children with the least often have the most to give. I have no idea whether the unlimited levels of affection that they display is a way of compensating for the lack of love that they have received or whether it is simply a natural human emotion that manifests itself in times of need. Despite all this outward display of affection I couldn’t help but be left with a sense of emptiness as I looked around.

I asked Farther Zacharia what the bicycle meant to them and whether it would be of any use so far up this dirt track. In truth I was partly expecting him to say that it was a very kind gesture but that it would probably be sold to help feed the children. As it turned out he told me that the children had been praying for a bike for some time now. It is more than a 2km walk for them to collect water each day and on occasions when they could buy supplies it was a long an arduous walk back to the house and the bike would make their lives considerably easier. As I watched the kids race around on the bike I also suspected that it would provide them with a little entertainment from time to time, in between the daily chores.

After a healthy amount of hugging it was time to continue on my journey and as we pulled away down the hill I caught sight of the children racing around on Flashdance back in the distance. I have to say that I have had my fair share of disagreements with Flashdance, I’ve even come close to quietly pushing her off a cliff, but seeing how useful she really is to people in need made me forget all the quarrels we have had.

With it being low season on the mountain and Katie picking an exceptionally beautiful and less frequently used route we have not, until now, seen a single other person on our entire journey. Yesterday evening we were joined at camp by another team compromised primarily of French people. Sebastien turned out to be a water purification engineer in Dar Es Salaam and I have arranged to try and meet up with him as I cycle through.

This morning we left camp at 07:15 just in time to see the other team emerge from their tents, only to be overtaken 2 hours later as they came almost running past us. It was no real surprise given their excessive speed that when we finally arrived at Kibo Hut they were all tent bound with splitting headaches! Unfortunately Sadie has lost her appetite this evening and has a bad headache, not a good sign considering we are making our summit attempt in a few hours! We are due to get up at 23:00 this evening and walk through the night so we have had an early dinner and we are trying to get a few hours rest before the walk.

Day 5

After a few measly hours dozing we woke up at 23:00 to find the landscape blanketed white with a thick carpet of snow. It was still snowing heavily at 23:30 as we set out after our cup of hot sugary tea and a few biscuits. Sadie’s headache has got considerably worse and after 40mins of walking she informed me that she had vomited prior to departure. She insisted on carrying on for a short while but at 5200m she began suffering from ataxia and extreme fatigue. If your read any high altitude medical book the primary symptoms of AMS are usually described as:

Headache, Loss of appetite, Extreme fatigue and Ataxia

It was very sad that she had to turn back but given her condition she made an excellent decision to turn back and in my opinion it takes a very strong person to accept the situation and make the right decision. Gerrit, John and I continued on after Sadie and Antonio (Our latest addition to the team and assistant guide) returned to BC and by 06:00 we had reached Gilmonds Point marking the end of the steep climb. After watching a spectacular sunrise we continued along the crater rim to reach Uhuru Peak (I believe this is loosely translated as Freedom Peak from Swahili) at 07:30. After a succession of photos and some filming I called Katie to let her now we had safely reached the top before turning round and heading back down. As is always the case with mountains the elation of reaching the summit if quickly overcast by the fact that you are only half way and you still have to get back down.

On the way down I spotted a man staggering around and after a short discussion with him it was blindingly evident that he was in no fit state to be were he was. It turned out that his guide was incredibly inexperienced and believed that people were paying him to take them to the summit no matter what. We finally arrived back to camp at 11:15 after almost 12 hours of walking and found Sadie curled up in her tent feeling very despondent but safe. I has also very relieved when the man whom I had spotted staggering around poked his head through the tent door to thank me. We had a few hours rest and a big hearty lunch before packing up camp and heading down the mountain again.

I have had a fantastic time on the mountain, and having spotted a few other additional challenges that the mountain holds, I am excited about the prospect of coming back with Katie. Kilimanjaro is one of the few extraordinarily beautiful places that is at the same time a great challenge, but also achievable for anybody (from a physical point of view). Whether you are looking for a first time challenge or the next one on the list then it is well worth the time. The only advice that I can give you is to pick your guide and company wisely!!! Easier said than done I know, but a good guide will make your trip whilst a bad one will not only break your trip but may put you at considerable risk at the same time.

Well Herbert is quietly calling me again and my journey must continue. I had almost forgotten that this climb was a break from the exhaustion of cycling. I will take a day to get back to Arusha now and sort out my equipment before getting back in the saddle and heading off on the road once again.

Day 1

We met John (our Guide) in Arusha and after a succession of stops between there and the mountain we slowly accumulated all the members of our team. I think it was very much a case of picking up friends and colleagues with whom he has worked before. Once the Land Rover was uncomfortably overloaded (11 people in a car designed for 7) we merrily made our way to the main Kilimanjaro National Park entrance to sign in before heading to our star point. I wish I could say that this was all as smooth as the guide book in the pouch on the back of the seat in front described it:

‘The Rongai Route:

On the first day clients usually sign in at the main gate between 8 and 10 in the morning before continuing along the scenic route around the mountain to the Rongai Forest were the trek begins. Beginning shortly after lunch there is a short leisurely walk through the pine forests to first camp.’

If I had to write a description for a guide book based on our experience it would go something a little like this:

‘The Rongai Route:

On the first day you will be due to be picked up at 08:00am but all things being African, it will be closer to 08:45am. After a little delay at the main office, the journey to the main national park gates will take approximately 3 hours (allowing an extra hour for detours). After signing in the real adventure begins… You will spend almost 6 hours digging out various vehicles (including your own) from mud up to your knees in the poring rain (Incidentally Alex, our driver, was an exceptionally good driver). Arriving a few minutes before sun set means you will delay the short walk through the pine forest until the following day.’

Despite the slightly unorthodox procedures it was actually remarkably enjoyable. Our team is a fantastically eclectic mix of characters each with a slightly quirky twist to their story. In any case we get on very well with everybody. Having had to camp at the base of the route means we are camping at 1950m.

Day 2

Provisions are very tight as the logistics was carefully (or possibly not) choreographed so that we have the right number of porters and food to last us the 6 days we will be on the mountain. In light of this we have to make up the ground that we lost yesterday and have to walk all the way through to camp 2. The walk is only around 12km but we need to climb from 1950m to 3500m, so we will spend most of the day walking very very slowly, or as the locals say ‘poly poly’. As you would imagine the scenery made a dramatic change as we ascended, going through the pine forest we were meant to do yesterday, before crossing into the indigenous tropical forest, then in into the shrub land and finally into a relatively sparse grassland.

The team of cooks have managed to produce some pretty spectacular meals given the rudimentary utensils and equipment they have. For breakfast every morning they are proving us with porridge, fresh fruit, sausages, eggs and vegetable omelet. For lunch we get a small goody bag with all sorts in it and in the evening we get another fully garnished meal including soup, chips, vegetable stew, meat and a fruit salad for desert. The walking was relatively easy going and we took regular breaks filled mostly with a lot of drinking. For those of you unfamiliar with altitude one of the most important things to remember is to stay hydrated. I’m glad to say that the temperature has also dropped sufficiently and I slept like a baby (The first time since I was at 4200m with Katie back in Ethiopia).

Day 3

The other great rule of altitude is ‘get used to doing nothing!’ 90% of all your time at altitude is spent doing absolutely nothing. To be more specific you are actually acclimatising but in order to do that efficiently, you need to do as little physical excursion as possible. In a bid to keep to this theory we have covered an enormous 4km today and since arriving at 4200m we are sitting around in our tents doing very little. I have spent much of the morning filming and typing up this post, whilst Sadie and Gerrit are doing… errr not entirely sure but they are in their tent.

Every morning the weather is absolutely beautiful with crystal clear skies as we look out over the top of the clouds covering the Amboseli National Park down below. I try to do as much filming as possible at this time of day because by mid morning the clouds start to role in and a thick fog prevents you from seeing very much. In fact yesterday afternoon we heard a light aircraft flying incredibly close to us and this morning we heard via phone that it was on the news that a light aircraft carrying 4 passengers crashed into Kilimanjaro at about 16:00 yesterday afternoon because of the cloud.

We are due to make our summit attempt tomorrow night and I’ll write a short post from the top.

However you chose to look at the Kenyan section of our journey you can’t say that it has been uneventful. From the second we reached the border between Ethiopia and Kenya, life changed! In many respects it has been considerably easier and more enjoyable, but it has also been logistically and bureaucratically considerably more difficult. In stark contrast to Ethiopia where people both old a young incessantly demand money and stand open palmed expectantly, the Kenyans have been far more ‘Mzungu savi’. Mzungu is the Swahili word for ‘white person’, and is used primarily passively to simply identify and announce us as we pass through towns and villages. It also has a slightly darker, rarer and more aggressive implication of resentment when it comes to money! In general though, the Kenyans have grasped something that the Ethiopians still lack, the understanding of making a ‘Mzungu’ feel welcome and at ease. The more aggressive and demanding the Ethiopians got regarding money, the tighter we held on to it!

The difficulty started when we tried to pay for our Kenyan Visa’s using Kenyan Shillings. To me it doesn’t seem a totally preposterous concept paying for a Kenyan visa, in Kenya, using the Kenyan currency! Well according to the border official I am living in a dream world and he proceeded to laugh out loud as he explained (as he unequivocally believed to be true) that no matter what country you went to in the world you could ONLY buy visas in US Dollars. We did try to explain that this was simply not the case and we even tried to show him the payment stamp from other visas in our passports but he was adamant that the answer was the US Dollar. We managed to muster enough emergency dollars to pay him and make it safely into Kenya. Once there however, our cycling came to an abrupt end! As we pushed our bikes up the hill we were informed by the local police that we were not allowed to cycle the first couple of hundred Kilometers from the boarder as they were completely ruled by bandits, and the government had no law or control over the area (it was this region that saw the majority of the bloodshed back in February). It all sounded a little melodramatic to me as he explained that even vehicles had to leave in convoy, but sure enough the next day the convoy assembled on the edge of town.

The main road between Kenya and Ethiopia! (Not our image)

In light of this we got onto a very old and tired looking blue bus with a Chelsea Football Club crest on its side and a couple of guards with large riffles joined us as a routine safety precaution. Just as we were preparing to leave two Japanese and a Finnish backpacker jumped on the bus and we headed off for another ridiculously long and bumpy journey. Along our 200km bus journey, we passed through numerous villages whereby the driver put his foot flat to the floor in a bid to get through as quickly as possible (and to not be shot at!!), maybe they weren’t being melodramatic after all!.

I have to admit that the drivers here in Kenya are some of the worst in the world, they make even the Nepalese look like fully qualified BSM driving instructors! So much so, that about 20km after we got off the bus the driver flew off the road (sorry dirt track) and rolled the bus over. We actually only found this out when we coincidently ran into the two Japanese and Finnish backpackers again in Nairobi some days later. They didn’t seem too badly hurt, and although we saw the vehicle in the ditch we never looked closely enough at it to realize it was our bus!

Next, we stayed with the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group, next to the Ngiro River in the Samburu region of Northern Kenya. Samburu women are among the most marginalized groups in Kenya. Development has been slow to reach the area and education is often not easily accessible. Furthermore, women have a low status in the community and are the last to receive the few resources available. Within this context, many women are subject to severe mistreatment by their husbands. Faced with continual abuse, these women opt to leave their husbands. Another example of the discrimination and ill-treatment that Samburu women have faced is the alleged rape of approximately 1,400 Samburu women during the 1980s and 1990s by British soldiers from training bases in the area. Many of these women were subsequently shunned by their husbands. Whether they leave their husbands or are abandoned by them, the women are left as sole providers for themselves and their children. In 1990, 15 women formed and registered the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group with the then Ministry of Culture, Heritage and Social Services to address these issues. They started by selling beadwork and other goods. After facing threats from men jealous of their success, the members decided to found a women-only village and reside together, thus providing collective security and cooperation. The group also dedicated itself to informing women about their rights, their health (for example, by encouraging pregnant Umoja residents to receive prenatal care), and helped them start income-generating activities, (one of which being the campsite in which we stayed). As the group’s members prospered, more and more women joined. UUWG now has 48 members, and continues to strive to achieve its goals.

Samburu Women (Not our image)

During our stay by the river, (in a part of Kenya that normally sees next to no rain), we were woken in the early hours of the morning by our tent gradually being engulfed in water. As the river had risen 2 metres in one night from the rainfall! The next major event was when our camera was stolen in Nairobi. Incidentally I’m glad to say that we have found a temporary solution at least and I now have a new camera to continue the journey with. I’m not sure how many of you have ever tried doing a police report in Kenya but its not quite as simple going to the police station and reporting the theft, Ohhh no. We were relatively lucky with our experience but its more a case of the police commissioner saying something along the lines of “What a terrible tragedy, why don’t you take me out for lunch and tell me all about it and I’ll think about giving you a report!” In any case the whole event was completely overshadowed by the phone call telling us that Katie had to fly back immediately.

The raging Ngiro River

For those of you who’s African geography is up to scratch who will know that the country I am about to cross into, Tanzania, is home to the ‘roof of Africa’, Mt. Kilimanjaro … here I come!

]]> http://www.primaljourney.com/archives/759/feed 5 http://www.primaljourney.com/archives/754 http://www.primaljourney.com/archives/754#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:08:38 +0000 Tarka http://www.primaljourney.com/?p=754 Well as you are all aware now, Katie has returned home for her operation and after considerable deliberation we decided that I should stay out here and finish the journey. The last few days have been difficult for everybody and I just wanted to thank you all for the support you have given Katie since she got back. Just to add to the already complicated situation we have had the video camera that we are using to document the journey stolen!!! This in it’s self has caused us a major headache logistically. I can’t carry on without it and we have no idea how long the insurance company will take to get us a new one. In any case we are working furiously to try and solve the problem and I’ll let you know as soon as a solution presents itself. I also noticed that loads of people have emailed complaining about the security code on the comments not working so I have removed it, very sorry about the inconvenience.

In the mean time I thought I would tell you about the ‘African Way’!!! So what is the ‘African Way’? Well it would be slightly presumptuous of me to generalize all of the following as endemic to all of Africa but I can certainly say that they all have happened in varying forms along the journey so far!

The first of these phenomenons is that everything is done in ‘African Time’! African Time is a concept that was specifically designed to drive you completely crazy if you let it. In England if you happen to be one of the ‘cool’ gang you turn up fashionably late to events. Personally I find it discourtesy to turn up late (even if it is cool) but I can understand arriving half an hour late or so to a function as that is your prerogative. Over here however the meaning of ‘fashionably late’ is taken to a whole new level, in fact I would go as far as to say it is just plain ridiculous. If you arrange to meet somebody at a given time (as we did a short while back) you would expect them to turn up some time vaguely resembling the agreed one… not a bit of it! Everything happens at least 1-2 hours late and if you make provisions for this, it will turn into 3 or 4. It’s truly unbelievable that people turn up to meet us 5 hours late without batting an eyelid!!!

The next ‘African Way’ I would like to introduce you to is the law of subtraction! This is the simplest of all rules and it dictates that by African standards it is always better to remove parts (or modify parts) rather than add them. OK so this doesn’t sound too bad on the face of it but let me give you a small insight into the kind of thing I am talking about. A few days ago a nut fell of my bike (again) and I had to push it to the
nearest village (again) to get a spare. I went to a bike repair shed, pointed out the problem, asked for a replacement nut and went to the shop next door to buy a bottle of water. When I came back I found the man hitting my bike with a hammer! I let out a yelp and rushed over to find that instead of simply adding a nut like I asked he had hit the end of the bold with his hammer so hard that it had splayed out and jammed itself into its slot never to be removed. He then sat open handed with his toothless grin waiting for me to pay him for his ‘fantastic service’. My burning desire to hit him was increased exponentially as he tried to charge me for the use of his hacksaw when I tried to cut the bold out! This rule is basically true for all things. I have seen fixes going on in workshops that would quite literally make you stand and stare a gasped! I was discussing this phenomenon recently and I was told a story about a man who’s brake pads (on a car) were completely worn down and instead of getting new ones he simply padded them out with cardboard and was upset when he was pulled over by the police with flames pouring out the side of the wheel!!! They start with the smallest of problems and instead of fixing it properly, they make the problem exponentially worse with each ‘fix’!

Whilst I am on the topic of mechanical fixes I thought you might like to have a short run down of all the parts we have been through since we started our journey one month ago. This is partly due to the fact that in order to make the parts affordable for local people they are produced in China at a less than perfect standard. The other day when we were repairing her rear wheels first puncture we were amazed to find 5 other repair patches on the inner tube! Quite amazing considering we bought her brand new wrapped in bubble wrap and card board!!!

Inner tubes x 3
Puncture Repairs x 9
Chains x 5
Brake cables x 2
Brake cable sheaths x 2
Brake pads x 4
Wheels x 1
Steering column x 1
Saddle post x 1
Rear sprocket x 1
Peddles x 2
Whole bikes x 1
And counting….

The next ‘African Way’ is the statement ‘I think this is not possible’. I have now heard this statement so many times that it has begun to make me laugh. In retrospect I think this statement is trying to say one of three things; either ‘I can’t be bothered because it sounds like hard work!’, ‘I have no idea’ or ‘I genuinely don’t believe this can be achieved’. The latter of these meanings is only used, I think, when ever I tell anybody what I am doing. This statement seems to be a standard default statement when ever I ask a question that requires a person to actually help. Just a few days ago I tried to draw some money out of an ATM but was faced with a message on the screen saying that the machine was currently out of service. So I asked the security guard where the nearest ATM that worked was. He looked at his watch, made a deep and purposeful noise as he sucked air through his tightened lips and promptly said ‘I think this is not possible for you to get there today’. Being only 9 am on a Tuesday in a major city I was perplexed by the statement. The only rational reasoning I could conclude to this when I found the next ATM no more than 250m away, was simply that he couldn’t be bothered to get up out of his seat, walk to the street corner to point to it.

Of course the ‘African Way’ drives me completely crazy but it does have a certain charm in its own special way, you simply have to accept it and let it go over your head.