A day in the life

Friday morning, 11:30 a.m., offices of World Bicycle Relief, Lusaka

The first few days of this trip are going to be weird.

Not weird in substance, but weird in structure -- so far, I have done nothing different than what I do at home. Wake up, eat a banana and some muesli, have a couple of cups of coffee, check e-mail, and then go for a ride. Now I'm in the office, with the sounds of phones, an Internet connection, and bikes in the hallway. Seriously.

I know things will change after Sunday, when next week we head into a rural area for a delivery, but for now I am in the reality of a working day in Lusaka. Sure, there are differences -- the accents of the people on the phone, the breeze blowing through my office window, the surroundings of the RAPIDS compound. (Check out a bit more on that in my World Bicycle Relief blog.) When on vacation in the past, Kim and I have wondered about what it would be like to live in an area we visit -- Paris, Berlin -- and the answer is, it's can be pretty mundane. We all go about living our lives, it's the surroundings that change.


(That's one of the issues I have with taking photos for the sake of taking photos. Folks here are just going about their business; who am I to gawk?)


I just got back from a 40km ride with the Zambian national cycling coach -- a 47-year-old expat from Durango named Rick. Even before he got here, there was a burgeoning national road series, and with his cycling background he quickly integrated into the scene and eventually was tabbed as the coach. He has me signed up for the Zambian National Championships on Sunday -- a 150km race from here, southwest to Choma, and then back up and around. Short hills and winds are what to expect -- he tells me the competition will be fierce, but not very deep. He's confident that the "World Bicycle Relief composite team" of expats -- him, me, and a big Swede sprinter -- can put a man on the podium. No pressure, really!


(Interesting side note -- because of the elevation of Lusaka, there really isn't malaria, except in some of the compounds. He suggested that the malaria medicine may be detrimental to fitness -- in his words, it all has side effects and the stronger, the scarier -- visions of volunteers strung out and stoned around the Continent ...)


Riding around was a bit more strange -- this was a British colony, after all, so the roads are opposite the States. The shoulders are dirt, with large drop-offs, and the lanes are super-narrow. Stop signs and lights are optional, and once you get out into the country the roads turn to chip-seal ... that is, until they end in some random location and turn to dirt. We managed a full 40km, but that was out-and-back-and-out-and-back and finally back into the city. We even rode past the President's house. A little weird, but dodging potholes and crazy drivers is the same here as it is back home ...


And then there's the views. The rolling hillsides are beautiful -- and then you pass a set of mud huts, with children in tattered clothing calling out "Good day, how are you" in clipped English as you pass. Or you roll past the vast cemetery, the left half with tombstones and a wall for the more "wealthy"; the right half with no wall and just a vast sea of dirt mounds marked by chalked wooden boards, many of them with more than one, marking a multiple burial site. Seeing that is when the fun of being in a new place wears off quickly, and the reality of death surrounds you.


The sun is climbing higher now, as noon is passing, and the humidity is building palpably in the air. The clouds are building outside of my window -- it will rain soon, off and on for the rest of the day, until nightfall. As regular as this day has been so far, there's no telling what the next few hours can bring -- after all, this is Africa.

This is the view from the road I spoke of yesterday. This is a main drag through Lusaka, and there is a large market of mostly tin shacks and stands such as the ones here ... and every few meters, a cluster of headstones for sale. Death is a daily visitor for Zambian families. Note the man walking, cell phone in hand.

This was one street over, sort of a store district. It was raining, but even through the rain there were lines of people walking along the streets, going about their business. Life is much more "organic" here, with stop signs and lights being optional, and despite marked crosswalks, people flowing this way and that across the road.

And this is the view out in the country, near the home of the Zambian president. The dot far off on the hill is a man walking his utility bike upward. There was little traffic out this way, just a few km from the city. It's easy to say "This is Africa" based on our movie cinemetography at home, but you have to remember that the above photos are just as authentic.