BikeTown Africa

This is an article that I thought described the bike event very nicely. Read on:

BikeTown Africa 08 is officially underway! The following is a story by
BikeTown Project Manager Bradley Schroeder of the first Kona
AfricaBike handover project of the year in rural Bhekuzulu, South
Africa from Oct 13-17. The project will be making at least two more
stops in South Africa, as well as Mozambique and Swaziland to build
the 1,500 donated AfricaBikes.

Enjoy and stay tuned!

South Africa is known for its dual economy. Though I've been living
here for a few years now it had never been as evident to me as the day
the BikeTown team ate breakfast at The Blue Haze lodge overlooking
Wagendrift Dam in KZN. We ate heartily because we didn't know what to
expect from the area we were headed to or what was in the lunch packs
we were taking with us.

At 7:30 a.m. we hopped into the car and headed to the village of
Bhekuzulu, South Africa for the assembly of 180 Kona AfricaBikes -
launching the inaugural BikeTown Africa 2008 project. The 25-kilometer
drive equated to going back half a century. About the only thing that
was not earth-toned was the yellow prefab MTN shop. It looked like it
had accidentally fallen out of a passing airplane and it stuck out
like a wine stain on a white couch.

Four of us had undertaken the long drive from Cape Town to participate
in the build and handover. Upon arrival at Bhekuzulu we were met by
around 15 eager volunteers who came to learn how to build bicycles
with us. There were certainly enough bicycles to teach an army. We
divided up by language and the four of us gave a hands-on clinic on
bicycle assembly. It wasn't 45-minutes into things when each work
station had two or three people pumping out built bicycles.

My station-mate was an older man, dressed like he was going to church
in the '80s, with coveralls over his Sunday best. He didn't speak much
English but a fair bit more than I could speak Zulu. It was
communication by sign language and smiles, especially after I asked
him not to address me as "baas". He couldn't see well so most of our
interaction came every time he needed to put pedals on or figure out
which way the tire tread was supposed to go. We built all the bicycles
in a day-and-a-half. The handover was the second-half of the second
day.

The handover is always an awkward time because there are tons of
people everywhere, a microphone blaring a foreign language and you can
not find anyone you've built bikes with for the last two days. Where
did all these people come from and who are they? But getting the
communities' involvement is important, paramount to the success of any
project so we go and sit. Actually, I think all the other builders
have a one-up on me and skip the event but that's just speculation. We
sit and sit and sit and sit and sit through speech after speech after
speech. Hell, at least at the end you get to eat some food!

There is always the one thing that is said, the one line that really
makes you remember the project. That line for me was said just as we
were about to end our journey. One of the mechanics lived in Capricorn
- a pretty rough place at best of times. At 2 a.m., when we finally
made it back to Cape Town, Jeff, a seasoned mine worker who has lived
in many of the towns we passed through over the last few days, had
entertained us on the long stretches of road with his stories of
run-ins with the law or, my favorite, the guy who had his guard dog
stolen from his bicycle shop.

"Are we going to get shot dropping you off?" I jokingly asked. "It's a
possibility," responded Jeff.

We didn't need to go halfway across the country to see a dual economy.
I only needed to take a drive down the same road I have driven down
probably three times a week for the past year. Only I had to have my
eyes open. I guess building bicycles is good for your eyesight!