Lusaka!

July 17th to 19th, Days 36 to 38:

We had finally arrived in Lusaka, the unofficial halfway point of our journey to Nairobi, Kenya. Here we would restock on bicycle supplies, get a few necessary parts, and let our bodies enjoy a few days off before we hit the second half of our journey that will probably be even more grueling physically and mentally than the first half. Fortunately, we are both in very good physical shape now that our bodies have adjusted to our regime and bicycling habits so we are hoping no injuries occur this time. I should note that my Achilles’ heel, which was giving me a good amount of pain for most of Botswana, is now almost completely better. I would like to thank the physical therapists that helped me out along the way, even donating their time and an appointment to Cycle for Understanding because they believed in what we are doing and wanted to help out.

Lusaka was by far the largest city we have been in since we left Cape Town on June 12th. The city had a lot to offer but unfortunately we only two days there and many things to accomplish. The Zambians also proved to be incredibly nice people, and would come up and starting talking to us regardless of the setting or circumstance and I do not just mean people wanting to get something out of us. As I was waiting for Aaron’s bus to arrive the night before, a nice guy named Eunick who worked at the bus station helped me find my way around and we ended up talking for a while as Aaron’s bus was late and he was off of work. He told me about one of the big problems in Zambia, and across Africa and other countries around the globe. That problem is jobs, specifically in Zambia the lack of jobs that are available and the good number of workers like Eunick that get paid less than 2 U.S. Dollars per day with a family to feed and bills to be paid. It was somewhat depressing hearing this from him, but he was not complaining. He told me he was trying to earn his GED or the equivalent of that in Zambia, and that combined with a driver’s license would enable him to become a bus driver and earn a substantially more amount of money. He had hope and a dream and I believe those two things will allow him to succeed in bettering his and his family’s lives.

Finding the necessary bicycle parts was not as easy as we initially imagined. We thought we could just bicycle into the city center and someone would guide us to a bicycle shop that would satisfy all our needs. As it turned out, this was far from the case. The bicycle shops in Lusaka had all the necessary parts of the bicycles people ride in Zambia and across most of Africa, but almost none to satisfy our restocking needs. The beauty of our trip is that whenever something goes wrong or we lose faith, someone always comes to the rescue, and this time it was the U.S. Embassy’s Acting Public Affairs Officer’s husband David Stealy, who happened to be an avid cyclist himself and gave us a few spare parts and guided us on where to go throughout the city. Dave provided me with the necessary rear quick release skewer that I so desperately needed, and Aaron had a unique experience with some Zambian Bike experts that helped him put back together his pannier rack that had been giving him a lot of trouble.

Sarah Stealy was also kind enough to cook us a homemade meal of spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread which we thoroughly enjoyed as we watched some Tour de France action on their television at their house on Saturday night. Earlier in the day as we were bicycling to an internet café, we happened to pass by ZNBC, Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation, and we thought what the heck, why not try and get on TV. So that’s exactly what we did. After convincing them that we were not missionaries preaching that the end of the world was going to happen in 2012. The short story is that apparently some missionaries are going around to various African media outlets and trying to get on the air and preach about 2012 as the end of the world. We ended up getting filmed riding around the parking lot then had a ten minute interview with one of the ZNBC reporters. They also said that we were to be on tonight’s news program, and we were thrilled. Unfortunately, we never saw ourselves on ZNBC when they told us they would we airing it, but the funny thing is that lots of people around Lusaka kept on recognizing us and saying they saw us on the news that night!

It is a mystery to us, because we got in contact with ZNBC and they had no answers for us, but too many people have said they saw us bicycling around on the television and being interviewed. The only explanation is that we tuned in at the wrong time or on the wrong channel, but regardless we were happy to be on television once again spreading our message to as many people as possible. We are still searching for a copy of the recording though so if anyone happened to be recording ZNBC at the time, please get in contact with us. Thanks.

On Sunday we ended up doing a lot of catching up on our blog, because we were about a week behind and we did not want to get overwhelmed with writing blog posts. Aaron also spent part of the day getting his pannier rack fixed and the following is his story about his bicycle repairs:

‘Having searched all over Lusaka for a good bicycle shop, I had begun to give up hope that there would be any way to fix my carrier rack which had completely broken off of my frame and had been held together by tape for the last week or two. However, I needed to do something so I headed towards a group of people working on very basic local bicycles on the side of the road that I had been told were quite good. I was very skeptical about the possibility of them being able to fix my bike, but it was my only hope. Upon rolling my bike up to their makeshift workshop and explaining the problem, they all became extremely helpful and stopped all of their work in order to figure out a solution to the problem. The biggest problem was that when the rack broke off from the frame the screws had snapped off as well and were stuck in the frame. They managed to twist one screw out with the blade of a knife (which was quite a feat) but the other one, they explained, was impossible. Undeterred, they grabbed me and my bicycle and took me to a local construction site. The man with my bicycle chatted briefly in a language I could not understand with the foreman and then the whole group of workers warmly greeted me, stopped what they were doing, and set up a power drill with the correct bit size to drill out the screw. The whole scene was awesome, not only was it amazing to see all of these different people helping me so selflessly without asking for anything in return, but the construction site itself was interesting as well. They had these old generators that used for power sources, and rather plug things into outlets, they had loose wires that they connected to the generator directly to get power.

After successfully drilling out the screw we returned to the previous spot and figured out a way to connect the rack to the frame in a way that would hold for good. A group of Zambian worked together and fashioned a terrific solution by putting thick steels bars through holes in the frame and clamping them down. Impressed by the fact that they had successfully solved a problem that had eluded the fancy bike store owners in South Africa and Gaborone, I decided to see if they could fix my pannier bag which had also broken. It seemed impossible to me as it was ripped and tattered with all the screws missing, but after about 30 minutes of work they handed it back to me good as new. "Made in Zambia!” they exclaimed. We laughed together and I thanked them profusely for their help and paid them all a bit for their assistance. It had been a learning experience for me; don’t judge a bicycle repairman by its cover, but it also inspired me that our mission was really succeeding. People truly were incredibly kind and helpful.’

After his rack was put back together, Aaron joined me at the internet café and we wrote a bunch more of blog posts before the café closed at 730pm. We got some dinner at a local restaurant and headed back to the hostel where we were staying. They did not have room for us when we arrived on Friday night, but they gave us the option of camping out in the back which we decided to do because it would save money and we did not feel like searching around the city for a place to stay. The hostel turned out to be a nice place as we met a bunch of people when we were there, and it was a pretty peaceful place in a very busy and loud city.

When we returned to the hostel, we noticed that some people happened to put their tent right next to ours and we no longer had any privacy. This was okay because they were two girls and they ended up being really nice and since we were both in tents, we could hear everything going on and we talked and played truth or dare for a little while before dozing off.

The next morning turned out to be pretty hectic as we were trying to do a number of things early so we would be able to bicycle out of Lusaka with enough time to get in some mileage before the sun went down. Things didn’t exactly work out as we had planned. We biked into the city center to be on a popular radio station in Lusaka called Radio Explorer which went well, but we were unable to get in touch with the Zambian Tourism Board or this BBC correspondent who we had been trying to track down. Time flew by, and after we had gotten some lunch it was already after 12pm. Another item on the agenda was tracking down new tires for our bicycles because the tires we had used from Cape Town had been very worn down, and Aaron had a serious lump in his back tire that would not be able to be fixed. My job was to get the tires from this big department store that carried the right slick tires we needed, while Aaron headed over to a copy center to make some more of our beautiful business cards that we hand out to be people that we meet.

Unfortunately, the big department store that I went to only had one of the tires we needed left in stock, but I was instructed to go back into the city center and find a shop that would definitely carried what we needed according to a bicycle salesman at the department store. Thankfully, this store did actually carry the right tires we needed and they installed the tires on my bicycle and I carried the other two back to the hostel in order to put on Aaron’s bicycle.

It turned out to be around 330 when we left Lusaka, but we could not do anything about it so we just decided to get as far as we could in the time we had remaining before sundown. There was also a rare basketball court sighting on the outskirts of Lusaka, so we stopped for a few minutes to watch a local team practice and discussed a few things with the coach. The community had recently put enough money together to pave the ground for the most part and install hoops for the kids so they would not have to go across the city simply to play a game or shoot around.

Anyway, we managed to bicycle around 25 miles before we decided to look for a place to stay. We stopped near a small hut on a farm, and the two guys living there and tending to the farm said we could set up our tent and sleep there tonight. They were really nice and offered to let us use their fire to cook our dinner, which consisted of pasta with bolognaise sauce and canned salmon. I’m not sure whether it was because I was very hungry and would probably eat anything or that we have great cooking skills, but our pasta dish turned out to be fantastic, and we enjoyed some with the farmers who also expressed their delight in our new favorite meal.

Our tent was all set up and we had enjoyed a great meal, the time was 730pm and we had nothing really to do besides get in our tent, do some journal writing and go to sleep. The week ahead would be filled with non-stop bicycling so the more rest the better.