Bike Saga

Got my bike yesterday, definately different than what I ride at home, it's a cottage/beach comber type which people here call "home-use". I ended up going for it on the recommendation of my friend Mustapha, who is my host in Pagazza. Speaking of which, the bike and I got a baptism of fire on the ride home. All was going well, I was cruising along, it's about 15km for Tamale to Pagazza, waving and talking to people in my "bella, bella dagboni" (meaning small, small dagboni) when the sky started to darken. If I thought the first storm of the rainy season was intense I had no idea what I was in for. Lightning, blackness, rain hitting me so hard it left marks, and wind so strong it knocked me of my bike! And I'm not a small man, thought I am loosing wieght by the day in this heat(don't worry mom, still well over 200). I struggled against the storm of a while, before the bolts on my seat broke, forcing me to get off and walk beside the bike. After a while though it was too much and I sought refuge in the mosque at Wamale, about 5km ahead of my destination. Imagine a soaked white man, walking up to a mosque yelling "gafferia!, en chena Pagazza!" (excuse me, I'm trying to get to Pagazza) and getting ushered inside by a group of children. Once inside, it was a surreal experience, sitting on a prayer mat with a group on children, most of whom speak negligible english and have never seen a white person. I managed to get their names, thanks to another of the patented dagboni phrases Mustapha had taught me the night before, "a ulee? (what's your name?), and learned that one of the adults knew of Mustapha. Oh and I forgot all of this was going on with evening prayers taking place, and of course the storm! After about an hour the rain subsided enough for me to try and continue my journey, thought by then all the daylight was gone.(The sun here in like a rock, rising to the top of the sky instantly and dropping just as fast) With the help of the man in the mosque I was able to jerry-rig the seat and turn on the mechanically powered light attached to my bike. It only lasted about half a klick though before it pulled loose and started grinding against the tire, so I had to pull it off. So here I am biking through the african plains, no light,pitched black except for lightning strikes, broken seat, and having a pretty minimal idea of where I am. Ended up stopping a group of men also travelling on bikes, managed to work out that Pagazza was not the next town but the one after. Managed to make it to the village, but by then I was so tried and unfamiliar with my surroundings that I had to watch into a random compound and talk one of the residents into taking me to Mustapha's home. Which, on a side note was exceptionally easy since as per muslim tradition I had the day before gone around and met all the households in the community so that I would be known to them and considered hence forth a member of the community. Anyway I got back to my home, took t-zed(a corn based dough that people eat everyday), changed, and headed off the the bike fitter to discuss what he could do for my bicycle to make it more servicable for the commute tomorrow. Pretty cool way to discuss business, chilling on a mat in this dude's hut surrounded by bikes, helping to crack shells off groundnuts(think peanuts) so that he could seed them the next day.
All in all another day in the wonderful world of a Junior Fellow....to bad it starts again at 5.30am!
Keep your stick on the ice but your elbows up
Cheers
Henry