Biking Bujumbura

Burundi's Biking Bananas! 2

2011-04-21T13:32:00.003+02:00

This little video of mine - about cargo bikers in the tiny African country of Burundi - debuted at the April 2011 Filmed By Bike weekend, a Portland, Oregon festival dedicated to short films about bikes and bike culture.

Check it out, it's zany and banana-licious.

I'm totally excited that I can call myself an independent filmmaker!

And now at least you know where Burundi is.

Many thanks to my friend, Mike Vogel, for cluing me in to the Filmed By Bike tradition and for kicking my butt enough to put something together for it. Check out his own film, "Right Hook," which was nominated for the best-video award. It's a hilarious take on what many bikers wish they could do to inconsiderate drivers.

Thanks for watching. And, if you liked, do share.

Burundi's Biking Bananas!

2011-04-06T00:31:00.003+02:00

Though I haven't lived in Burundi for about a year now, I still have good memories - and plenty of photos - of the place. Which is why, when my independent filmmaker friend Mike Vogel told me I should make a Burundi bike movie to enter in a Portland-based, bike-themed film festival, I decided to go for it.

He had seen some of the grainy, point-and-shoot video clips I had posted on YouTube of Burundian cargo bikers screaming down mountain roads with huge piles of bananas loaded on the back, bringing them from farms in the hills to market in the capital, Bujumbura. I thought there was no way my amateur-ish clips could make a good video. But Mike's a good convincer, and before I knew it I had three minutes worth of combined still-and-video footage ready to ship out to the Filmed By Bike jury.

And then, back in February, they told me I was in! Now I've been running around bragging that I have a short film showing in an international film festival in the US. Feels nice.

The Filmed By Bike festival kicks off on Friday, April 15 in Portland with what is, by all accounts, a rockin' street party. Saturday and Sunday follow with multiple programs of short films: all bikes, all screens, all the time. If you're anywhere near Portland, and you happen to stumble across this tiny corner of the wide world of the web, the coincidence is too great for inaction: I command you - GO! Preferably on a bike, with as many passengers as possible.

If you're not in Portland, I'll be putting my little bike-themed short up on YouTube, or somewhere similar, sometime after the raucous crowds have departed from my film festival debut.

My friend Mike Vogel has a film in there as well, "Right Hook;" it's ridiculously good, so if you're lucky enough to be in Portland April 15 - 17, make sure you see it too.

Then catch a passing truck for an easy ride back home.

Biking Bujumbura Map

2010-02-03T14:58:00.008+02:00

While biking in Bujumbura's hills on my trusty Specialized mountain bike, I've been trying to keep track of where I go and how I got there. And since I enjoy making an amateur map now and then, and because I also enjoy sharing information that helps others discover a place, I'm posting my most recently updated amateur map of Bujumbura hill biking.

(If you want a closer look, this posted photo being too small to see much, email me or leave a comment and I will send you a bigger jpeg file that you can enlarge for particulars. The red print gives times to major ride points, starting from the city.)

Since I like to climb, on most of my rides I pick an entry point and ride up into the hills outside Bujumbura. For doing distance, and seeing lots of countryside, I have biked the paved national routes to both Bugarama and Ijenda. Both take about three hours (almost all of it a fairly tough slog up), and aren't too bad with traffic, though the road to Bugarama is definitely the busier of the two. Along the way you can admire the local bicyclists hurtling past you, as they either cling to the back of a truck going up or turn their bicycle into a truck bringing huge mounds of bananas down.

My map shows both of these paved routes, and the hill area in between them. The most interesting riding from Bujumbura is, I think, in this in-between hill area, which is most easily and centrally accessed by taking the loop road up through Kiriri then continuing past Chez Vaya and on up to the hillside university. At the university the paved road turns to dirt and leads to hours of exploring on rural roads.

Though there are lots of single-track type trails visible on the hillsides, most of them are un-rideable: these are walking paths and are too steep or too sketchy to bike. The adventurer can find some sections of doable single-track, however.

For the best single-track ride available from Bujumbura, instead of continuing past Chez Vaya toward the university, turn left just before the restaurant. When the paved road ends, break free onto a dirt track that increasingly looks more like a hiking trail and less like a dirt road. There's one big dip of a bridge that's fun to ride and then a couple of 'portages' (have to carry your bike across a ravine) as you wind up the side of a canyon, cross the main streambed, then double back to climb the opposite slope.

Entering a small town you reach a dirt road. From here you can drift back down to the city. Or, to continue the ride, go uphill on the dirt road for maybe five minutes. Just past a right-hand bend, turn left on a fairly obvious trail that cuts across a ridge-slope rising in front of you. From here you are following an old water channel. When arriving at a trail intersection, always choose the way that continues gradually uphill with the climbing ridge on your right and the valley opening on your left. On this section there are numerous 'portages' as well where you will need to carry your bike across a ravine, but there's enough open trail in between to make the ride worth it. After about an hour the trail ends at a dirt road, as shown on the map. You can do this trail either uphill or down, taking the dirt road one way if you wish to make a loop.

If you are a downhill fan, a technically proficient rider can have fun checking out numerous trails off the road up above the university, with varying degrees of steepness and technicality available. Drop off the road into the valley to the left on whatever rideable track you can find, then meet up with the 'Chez Vaya/water channel trail,' that I just described, to get back to town.

When trail-riding outside Bujumbura, always take care for pedestrians: remember the trails are there for the locals to get from place to place. You are a guest on their foot-highway.

And if you are an ingenious explorer, I'm sure you'll have more rides to add to my map in no time.

Climbing the 'Collines'

2010-02-01T15:22:00.013+02:00

On Friday I went for a ride in the collines, or hills, just outside Bujumbura. While I am often, on these rides, driven to get in as many kilometers as possible, this time I gave priority to my camera lens. And so, here's some photos.

Up the paved road from my hillside house, this national monument looks out over the city and exhorts Burundians to the communal goods of "unity, work, and progress."

This juxtaposition of Coke and corn at a beer-and-soda container store made me pull over. Coke (along with a few other sodas) is one of the few locally-manufactured products available in Burundi. Corn, along with other vegetables, often grows roadside as city residents try to augment their meager livings.

The "Donnez moi l'argent!" or give-me-money culture is firmly entrenched here, and any adult, when asked for a photo, is more than likely to respond with the phrase. Since I didn't want to give these ladies any money, I snapped their bright umbrellas - a common and colorful protection from near-equatorial sun - instead.

This little guy, walking up the hill barefoot with a sack balanced on his head, kept catching up to me as I frequently stopped pedaling to take photos of the ever-expanding view. The irony of taking his portrait in front of the university (background) that he will likely never be able to attend was not lost on me.

Here he is again as we both climb the dirt roads (the route goes from paved to dirt at the university) above Bujumbura into vibrant green hills dotted with houses and covered with sloping fields of cassava, bananas, lettuce, tomatoes, peanuts.

This girl gnaws on a bit of cassava root (like a yam, sort of) as she and her friends head up the road to get some water from the closest faucet. I was a bit nervous to stop for her photo, but with the rock balanced on her head (I have no idea what for) I overcame my clicking inhibitions and snapped away.

This dilapidated house atop a knoll is about a 55 minute climb by mountain bike up from the city. I call it the "ruined castle," and wouldn't mind renovating it and living out my days there.

Stopping in a hill town (I think it's called Muyera, the only sign says 'Centre de Sante Kavumo') for a refreshing lemon Fanta, I got this guy to take a photo of me. In return, he let me snap one of him.

Outside the town, a woman prepares a hillside field for planting.

From Muyera, I took a hard right back toward Bujumbura onto an increasingly unimproved mountain road. It took me through beautiful stream canyons...

...on sections no longer useable by motor vehicles. When it came time for a very dilapidated bridge crossing, these school kids showed me how to walk the plank with no fear.

This woman was one of the few adults who gave me permission to photograph her, and so I snapped with glee.

Too soon I was back to the paved road (the road to Ijenda, for you locals, at about the 10 kilometer marker), zooming downhill toward the city and the lake.

And to end the photo essay: there's nothing like a locally-made Fanta Citron to keep the legs going on a long ride.

Yearning to Photo Free

2010-01-26T17:26:00.011+02:00

Now that I've been in Burundi for awhile, I see it increasingly through the eyes of a resident. I'm still set apart from your average Burundian by skin and by language, but I know how to get around town, where to find things, how to get my point across with a little French and a lot of hand-waving. I feel my difference less.

While I still love to see the countryside through the lens of bike-riding, I'm seeing Bujumbura more and more through an actual lens - the one on my camera. Here's some images from a spontaneous Monday morning out-on-the-town shoot.

My first subject, a statue.

It's a sort of local Statue of Liberty, I guess. "The woman is the pillar of development," the statue's base declares.

Odd though it looks, this figure really is an iconic emblem of Burundi's women, who can often be seen walking, wearing no shoes, beside the road or on a steep mountain footpath, a hoe on their shoulder and a baby on their back. Though they usually aren't carrying a torch.

While the women prop up the country and light the way, the men, apparently, slumber at their feet.

Note the resourcefulness, at least, of using one's flip-flops for a pillow.

Then a beer truck caught my eye: Primus is the locally-manufactured light lager. Here, beer is just as important as petrol. Maybe more important, since bicycles outnumber cars.

Pillars of development that they are, the women ride sidesaddle on the bicycle taxis with such grace.

Another public artwork was next for my camera lens. This large Burundi-shaped painting welcomes visitors coming down from the hills on the main highway from northern neighbor Rwanda.

And of course, there were kids to snap along the way...

...and heavily loaded bicycles zooming downhill...

...and more locally manufactured liquids.

Then there was a young construction worker eager to shovel hard for my camera.

Finally, I took a bicycle taxi ride back toward home.

As in any developing country, shooting in public can quickly become overwhelming, as I tend to attract instant attention. Within two minutes of taking my camera out to shoot the statue I had an audience of twenty men calling out to me in Kirundi and French.

I mostly ignored them. But it feels just as weird to ignore people as it does to have one's skin (and large camera) make one the center of attention. I've learned to shoot quickly and move on.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And, with this venture, through my lens Burundi starts to become a home, not just a place I live.

Toy Story, Burundi-Style (1)

2009-12-04T16:20:00.007+02:00

On bike rides in the hills outside of Bujumbura, I get a fun look at what kids in a developing country come up with for toys.

Ain't no Toys R Us here, no hobby shops. There's no Radio Shacks selling remote controlled this and Nintendo that. 'Bout the only toy-type stuff available is Chinese-made, plastic, and cheap. But most kids can't afford even that.

Which is where imagination, and a little ingenuity, comes in handy.

In Burundi, all a kid needs to have fun is a discarded wheel or some rubbish. The wheel gets simply rolled down the road, the kid pushing it along adeptly with a stick; think those line drawings of girls in frilly dresses rolling hoops around in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century American novels. The rubbish - some wire, perhaps, along with a few bottle caps and a bit of old styrofoam - gets turned into a small toy car or truck.

Recently, though, a saw a couple kids who went even simpler than that. They made their fun out of nature.

I was riding a dirt road I hadn't set tires on before. About an hour up from Bujumbura's university-on-the-hill, I took a left heading down toward a large school complex atop a valley knoll. After dropping in past the school, I reached a river and decided to turn around.

(The road continues, I think, to the mountain town of Bugarama, a back-country hill route that avoids the busy paved highway. Can't wait to ride it...)

By that time there were, as often happens, a few kids running along behind me. I was in a hurry to make my U-turn and get back home, so I didn't pay them much attention. That is, until I saw something that made my camera appear lickety-split.

Attracting the attention of my lens was a rather unusual toy: a live beetle on a stick!

Who needs radio controlled cars and personal video consoles? In Burundi, if you got a beetle, you happy. Flapping wings included, no batteries necessary.

(Stay tuned for more Toy Story installments.)

I Heart (My View Of) Congo

2009-12-04T15:31:00.004+02:00

Now that the rains have been around awhile and cleared the air, I have a view of the Democratic Republic of Congo from my porch. Where before there was only Bujumbura town, then lake-edge, then an impenetrable screen of haze, now I can watch miles of Lake Tanganyika shimmer blue and green as puffy-white clouds build and dissipate above it.

And, on the far side of the lake, majestic mountains. The Congo.

When I came to Burundi I knew little about the Congo, the neighboring state to the west. Inside I held a vague sense of equatorial mystery and dread, perhaps a vestige of emotional memory from reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

These days, I'm learning a few facts. I'm reading a book, Blood River, by Tim Butcher. The author is a veteran journalist who, around 2004, decided to follow the explorer Stanley's route across the African continent from east to west, back when the intrepid adventurer 'discovered' the Congo River.

Entering eastern Congo after crossing Lake Tanganyika, Mr. Butcher found a lawless country developing backwards, a result of decades of dictatorship and conflict. Where the Belgian colonizers had at least maintained thousands of kilometers of roads, an extensive railway, and regular ferry service on the mighty Congo River, now he found little except jungle, narrow footpaths, ruined towns, and fear of marauding rebel groups.

Apparently, life over in those hills that I now delight to see is a mess, or at least it was a few years back when Mr. Butcher wrote his book.

It all looks so peaceful from here, and beautiful. It's hard to reconcile the chaos and fear from the book with the lovely view that I have out my windows.

But I guess that's life: sometimes beauty hides a terror.

Still, I enjoy my view, and love to watch the play of clouds and sun and rain and lake and hills. A glance westward from the porch makes my day.

The White Man Performs, or 'Mzungu' in the Market

2009-11-25T08:24:00.011+02:00

Last week I did my first performance art piece in Burundi. I didn't intend to. When you're a white man in Africa, these things just happen.

I went to the central market to pick up a few things, including a large woven basket to use for yard work - you know, carry leaves and grass clippings and such.

How to lug purchases around is always a problem in the market. Aisles are narrow and cramped, there's shoulders and elbows everywhere, and if you put your stuff in a backpack it's likely to get filched right out of the pockets.

But this time, my brain had a solution for me. "Perfect," it whispered in my ear, "we'll buy the basket first, then carry our other stuff around inside it."

Good work there, brain!

Except, the basket ended up being a little too large to maneuver comfortably through congested aisles. And, as I kept putting stuff in it - a pineapple here, a pumpkin there - it was getting a bit heavy.

As I banged into more and more people with my increasingly unwieldy basket, I kept getting more and more attention from the young guys who hang around trying to make a few francs carrying stuff for market customers.

It's not a bad idea to trust this job to a professional, really. Even the locals who can afford it do so. But I was stubborn; I kept turning them down.

Finally, though, I had to do something, before I inadvertently knocked someone, or their pile of produce, to the ground.

Then, my brain had the day's second great idea. The only real space available, it realized, was up in the air above us.

"Psst," it whispered in my ear, "hoist the basket atop my skull. Haven't you noticed that's where everyone else carries their stuff?" It sounded pleased with itself.

"Well, duh," I hissed back, embarrassed I hadn't thought of this myself. "That's a no-brainer."

In Bujumbura, you see, people don't really use backpacks or other fancy carrying bags. I haven't seen any two-wheeled dollies around here, and very few wheeled carts of any sort. No, folks simply put their stuff on their head.

Got a pineapple you don't want to carry? Put it on your head. Rain's a'comin' this afternoon, but you don't feel like holding your umbrella until then? Put it on your head. Someone gave you fifty cents to get ten bags of grain from a taxi to their market stall? Pile them, one by one, atop your noggin (photo left), then hiss at the crowds to get them out of your way and hope your cargo doesn't flour the sidewalk white.

So, when I and my brain both realized my basket-carrying situation had become untenable, I did what any Burundian would do, and hoisted the basket into the overhead airspace.

And, just like that, I had everyone's attention. Instant audience.

Heads snapped around at the strange sight of a white man carrying things like a Burundian. Vendors smiled. Their customers laughed. Each tugged at their neighbor - "Look, look, the funny mzungu!"

I walked into an open area where dried fish is laid out on tables for sale, and, suddenly, I was attracting a standing ovation. Hooray for the mzungu with the basket on his head! Huzzah! Ole! Encore! Encore! Everyone stopped what they were doing and clapped.

Well, ok, mostly everyone was already standing. But hey, it's been a long time since I've done a performance of any kind. The applause, any applause, felt nice.

So I continued my little show, balancing the basket out into the center city streets to finish my shopping. I went to the posh downtown boucherie (butchery) for my Dutch gouda and to the expensive we-import-it-and-we-know-you'll-pay-for-it Dmitri Supermarket for my South African powdered sugar. I felt a little giddy - whether from the attention or the pressure on my cerebrum, I couldn't tell.

With my shopping done, my brain advised catching a taxi home. "Loading your noodle through the market is one thing" - it seemed a little stressed - "but hoofing that basket for two kilometers uphill..."

"No, that's what machines are for," I agreed. I was tired. My brain sounded relieved.

Walking up to a taxi, I took the basket off my head. The driver laughed at me. "You're trying to be like an African," he told me as he drove me home.

"Well, not really," I said. "I just like to perform."

Runnin' With the Bikes

2009-11-20T10:10:00.009+02:00

It's taking me a long time to get the news in Burundi. There's interesting things going on, but all the notices are in French, and besides, I don't know where to look for them. Mostly, I've been hearing about cool stuff after the fact.

The last couple weeks have been better, however. Now, I'm hearing about events as they are happening, at least.

But only because I have a well-situated house, and a house guard who is much more clued in than I.

Last week, for instance, I caught a soccer match at the central stadium. How could I miss it? I could see it happening from my porch, the red and white-shirted players tiny running blips on the green soccer pitch down below.

This week, it was the Burundian president being honored upon return from a trip to Italy. This time, I could hear it happening.

For fifteen minutes the rise and fall of sirens, the sound of music and a crowd, had been wafting up the hill on the lake breeze. I was engrossed in writing, and couldn't be bothered.

The guard, however, knew something was happening I might want to see. When I walked onto the porch, he caught my eye.

"The president is coming. It's a big time. Many people are there," he said.

I went out to the road in my house-shorts to look. I could see a crowd of people at the major intersection just down the hill. Lots of action, just like the guard promised, the people welcoming their president back home.

"I need some pants," I said to myself. I ran back, changed, and hopped on my bike to go join the throng.

I didn't get far.

The presidential motorcade was already promenading past. From a pickup, men in dark blue gestured emphatically that I should get off the road. The men had guns. I obeyed.

I stood with my neighbors and watched the president slide by behind tinted windows. Then I continued down the hill.

There was still a press of bodies and vehicles blocking the intersection, backing up traffic on two of Bujumbura's largest central avenues. There was a festive air, and a brass band in forest green uniforms trimmed with gold braid.

But what really caught my eye were all the two-wheeled taxis. Several hundred motorcycle and bicycle taxi-men had congregated. They clogged the road en masse, their bikes decorated with sprigs of celebratory greenery.

I admire these taxi-velo (bicycle taxi) guys a lot. They fashion a rear rack out of gaily-painted rebar, slap a cushion on it to make a seat, and call their single-speed rig a cab. They get paid peanuts, maybe 25 American cents, to pedal a passengers a few blocks. One would think they have little reason to give the state any loyalty.

But, the president is an avid bicyclist. When visiting rural towns, he often, folks say, stops his motorcade to pedal the last kilometer. So, when there is a presidential occasion, the taxi-velo guys break off some greenery and show up in force.

By the time I got to the scene, police had begun their struggle to unblock the road and get traffic moving again. I hung out, though, wanting some action photos of the bike taxi guys.

Thankfully, they started heading off in clumps on an impromptu parade past the university. I joined a clump, and got some shots of my first occasion runnin' with the bikes through Bujumbura.

Gliding down the hill with my impromptu posse...

...we stop for no man, woman, or car, clogging intersections as we roll.

There's mugging for the camera...

...stunts for the crowd...

...and a final line-up of bikes before they all go back to pumping pedals for pennies.

'Quartier' My Blues Away

2009-10-09T07:38:00.004+02:00

A few weeks back I had a case of the blues. A whole sack-full of funk. A real mother-lode of melancholy.

It was gonna take more than a stream, more than a river even, to keep me afloat. It took a whole neighborhood to wash my blues away.

Bujumbura's Quartier Asiatique, or Asian Quarter, is sort of like a local Chinatown. Only, there's no corner carryouts selling egg drop soup, no gray-haired ladies sunning in front of apartment buildings. Instead, there's mosques, import-export shops, and hardware and building supply stores.

I've never in my life been so glad to see a hardware store.

The week had been tough. Moving into a permanent house - after six months of living in the houses of others - had been a big happiness bump. But I had since cleaned my way, literally, into a fever, and the frustrations of outfitting an empty house in a post-conflict, developing African country with no port had started to stack up.

Shopping in a developing country means severely taxing one's tolerance for jumble. The roads are a clot of cars and diesel fumes and dodging motorcycles, and there are no street signs. There's dirt and dust, a press of people, and you must keep control of your wallet at all times.

What's more, you can't find anything. There's no phone book, no yellow pages. Everything, at least in Burundi, is in French. No one has a website. Directions rely on such landmark jewels as "where the pavement ends" or "at the red gate" or "near the new school." Thanks, but I don't know where the new school is, either, and what do I do when there's three red gates?

If you can actually find the right shop, the jumble takes over again. Bolts of cloth trip over each other, tight rows of bright plastic toys scream from overflowing cabinets, aisles are so crammed with appliances it's like one long freak dance just moving around. But, you know that what you want must be in here somewhere, so you keep looking and looking... Until you give up.

The week of my shopping blues, what I really needed was tools and building materials. I needed a hammer and screwdrivers to make household repairs; I needed a proper paint swatch to pick pleasing wall colors; I needed a shower curtain rod. But I didn't know where to go, and I didn't have the French to ask.

Then, just as I was giving up, I found the Asian Quarter.

Taking a motorcycle taxi down the hill from the city center, I drifted past a mosque, past a knot of women with black shawls covering their heads - already, it reminded me of home.

But when I hit the local shops, that's when I really lit up.

It's like paradise! I texted to a friend. The Indian merchants speak English! The headscarfed proprietress of the local grocery store sells dried chickpeas and homemade samosas! The DuraCoat paint shop has 4,000 colors! There's so many hardware stores I can't visit them all!

Finally, I could buy a hammer, some nails, a heavy-duty knife. I could get caulk, a drop cloth, vibrant paint in shades of orange, blue, and red. I could paint that wall, hang that shower curtain, make that lamp, fix that hole in the wall that the ants had made into a tunnel for their highway.

But first, I shopped my blues away in the quartier.

Bikes, Bananas, and Goats - Oh My!

2009-09-25T09:12:00.014+02:00

Last Friday, riding my bicycle, I drafted off a goat. Yes, a goat.

It was only a few seconds, but I had a chance to study the black fuzz on its head, the resigned look in its eyes.

Drafting, for the reader not biking-inclined, is riding behind a fellow cyclist so close you enter their slipstream, or "draft." This makes pedaling much easier as you are sucked along behind the leader. Tucking yourself behind another biker in this way is like taking a quick snooze, resting up for hard riding ahead.

The goat was tied down to the back rack of a black, single-speed bicycle. Together with a brown-fuzzy-headed twin, it nestled in a large, round, woven basket, moving down the road at approximately 15 miles per hour.

I'm guessing that goat had never gone so fast before in it's life. The draft it created was restful, though smelly.

I was coming down the mountain from Bugarama, a town about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Bujumbura city. After leaving my house in the foothills on the edge of the city, I had climbed on a good, paved road for exactly three hours to reach my destination.

For most of those hours, I marveled less at the mountain scenery and more at the pedal-driven transport industry everywhere in evidence. Undaunted by the mountainous terrain, young men careened down the steep road on loaded bicycles, taking products from the hills to markets in town.

A sample of goods speeding down: large bunches of bananas, huge sacks of homemade charcoal, crates of empty beer bottles, clumps of live chickens hanging from handlebars, an occasional wooden door strapped upright on the rear rack, and of course those goats.

Video: Racin' the bananas downhill to market.

While bicycles going down were fully loaded, those going up were mostly empty, and mostly being pushed instead of pedaled - not surprising given the steepness of the hill and the local cycle's lack of gears.

The lucky bikers, however, or perhaps simply those who were comfortable defying death, sped easily uphill by grabbing rides on the back of passing trucks.

Apparently, the road to Bugarama is like an amusement park for bicyclists. Or, perhaps the Burundian version of mountain biking, extreme style!

Bugarama itself, when I got there, was socked in with clouds and full of street vendors selling fistfuls of kumquats - like little yellow cherry tomatoes - in clear plastic bags. I got a bag, just for kicks, then bought three wooden monkeys from the row of carved-crafts shops at the edge of town. The wooden drums and walking sticks tempted me, too, but I decided to wait on those till I have a real vehicle in which to stow them. No Burundi-style extreme(ly loaded) mountain biking for me!

By the time it was my turn to descend, a light rain had begun to fall. The moisture kept the bicycle transport guys from braving the road, so I didn't get to race any of them down, trying to match their 40-mile-per-hour speeds on the corners.

But I did get to draft that goat.

Video: Bunches of bananas careen downhill while climbing bikers get a fast ride up the steep road.

My Soggy Soul Bursts Forth

2009-09-10T08:13:00.003+02:00

Today it rained. And hard.

It's been a dry month, two months, three months.

Is that right? Yes, it hasn't really rained since I got here, and that was three months ago. I've watched the hills become half-brown.

But today, water for my soul, a downpour, lightning, my hair on end, the thunder, my mind alight, body sliding into ease and slurping up the moisture. I feel like I can grow again.

Now the grass will grow, too. I've really got to hire that gardener.

Since this was the first rain in my new (for me) Burundian house, I ran around like a madman looking out windows to see where all that water was going after it drenched onto my roof, my patio, my hillside backyard. No one has gutters and downspouts here, you must understand, so it's all waterfalls of rain cascading off of roofs, splattering onto concrete, churning away in dirt or cement channels.

And thankfully: no big pools of water, no roof seepage, no sudden stream splashing in beneath the back door. Whew.

Sat on the porch, then, to feel the windy spray; gave a small shiver of delight.

With a freshly soggy soul - praise for downpour-ous thunderstorms! - I've been thinking about the blessings of Burundi. A small (and by no means comprehensive) list:

Bite-size USB sticks from U-Com that get me, most of the time (well, half of the time), internet anywhere I have cell phone reception.

Motorcycle taxis that whisk me around town for cents, hair blowing in the wind.

Local cheese from Boucherie Charcuterie Nouvelle, Bujumbura's meats-and-lots-more food-ery.

Strawberries piled for sale on little round rattan mats outside Dmitri's, pineapples from the central market, avocados from street-side vendors, mangos getting ripe on the tree in my backyard.

A made-to-order desk I put together using a hand-made door laid on top of four tall hand-made stools; it's been over six months, you understand, since this writer has had a desk on which to spread out his papers and prop up his feet (imagine big smile here).

Standardized electrical outlets.

A foot-and-a-half tall, blue-and-white statue of the Virgin Mary that sits on the corner of aforesaid desk (at the business/craft fair where I bought it, my friend was holding the statue for me, and a guy came up to her and said, "I see you have a Mary, would you like to buy a Jesus as well?").

The scent of palm oil and roasting peanuts on the mountainside air.

Passionfruit juice, locally made and packed into little brown bottles of sweet goodness.

Inviting stretches of beach beside the now blue, now green, now gray and wind-whipped lake.

The view of said lake from my newly-outfitted home 'office.'

And, of course, orange dirt roads running through green hills, just waiting for me to pedal them whenever I wish.

Oh, right, they'll be naught but mud-paths now... Hmm, perhaps time to forsake the desk and get my now-soggy soul dirty, too.

Passing Strange

2009-08-20T17:03:00.003+02:00

Awhile ago I rode my bike south along Lake Tanganyika. Except for a short distance at the north end of town, there is no water-side promenade. Instead, I wound through city neighborhoods, often sensing rather than seeing the lake.

Eventually the high-walled compounds of the city gave way to a maze of under-construction houses - proof that Bujumbura is expanding - and then to gardens and grassland. And a view of the lake.

Though I am getting used to being in Burundi, on this ride I still found a multitude of strange things to make me think, "Wow, I'm in a new place."

There was the heady scent of palm oil, the smell of orange dust, of burning garbage, sniffs of the lake.

There were teenage vendors walking the street with their wares - sneakers, hair dye, belts, dandy-style hats - draped over arms and shoulders. There was a line of twenty men digging a roadside ditch by hand. There was the River Kanyosha with naked boys swimming in it, with workers laboring to extract sand and gravel from its sluggish course.

Even the other bicycles - perhaps especially the bicycles - presented their strange sights. One carried, on its rear rack, a man (not really unusual) and a dog (definitely unusual). Another had ten live chickens hanging from its handlebars. A third supported stalks of bamboo twelve feet high. Others bore huge bunches of bananas or two butchered pigs or a wooden rack from which hung round loaves of bread for sale.

Then there were, of course, the periodic shouts of "Mzungu!" - or, sometimes, just "White!" - from people I passed, marveling to see the shorts-wearing pale-skin ride by carrying that weird helmet on his head. Who's the strange and new sight now?

But, on this ride, the strangest sight of all made me feel, somehow, less strange.

I saw a man pedaling a three-wheeled bicycle. He wore a white motorcycle helmet, the clear visor pulled down over his face. Between his two back wheels he carried a pile of luggage in teal and purple duffel bags. Before him flew the flag of Burundi and behind the American stars and stripes. Water bottles proliferated around him. A blue fanny pack cinched up his blue sweatpants. And, taped to the handlebars, staring perpetually into his eyes, a Santa Claus doll.

I confess, I gaped as I rode past. Then I went back to talk. Unfortunately we spoke no similar language. But it was clear: he's just a guy touring the country on his decked-out tricycle.

If we had been able to talk, I would have bought him lunch, asked him a thousand questions, soaked in his story. But as it was, I was holding him up on a busy and narrow roadside. I snapped a few photos and let him go.

Bon voyage, fellow biker (well, tri-cycler). And thanks for being a more outlandish sight than me.

The Gifts We Bring

2009-08-06T19:50:00.000+02:00

I did laundry, recently, in the bathtub. In my temporary house in Bujumbura, there was no working washing machine. As the uncertainties of my still-newly-Burundian life were piling up, along with the laundry, I had to do something decisive and practical: so I washed clothes.

I had never done laundry in a bathtub before. But it wasn't too bad. It's just like using an automatic washer back in the States, really. Only, you have to turn the faucet off and on to control the water inflow. Well, you also have to agitate the clothes yourself. And, actually, you have to wring them out with your hands, too, since there's no spin cycle.

Ok, so it's nothing like an automatic washer.

I daydream about the US sometimes, the things I'm missing: shopping malls, movie houses, grocery shelves that aren't half-empty, an over-abundance of modern appliances, crowds that speak my language.

But it's not so bad here, really. There's a lake and a beach. There's good restaurants to go to for a night out. My house has a high wall, a big yard, flowering frangipani trees, and a guard to open the gate for me. The water and the electricity supply have been pretty good.

And, now that I have a permanent house, I could easily hire someone to do my laundry for me. No more bathtub washing.

After the hand-wringing, I hung the clothes out on a line strung between a lime tree and a window's security bars. The next day, taking the dry clothes back inside, I glanced briefly at one of my wife's socks. To my surprise, I saw two dry, dart-like seed pods embedded in the weave. Obviously, my hand-agitating of the laundry hadn't been vigorous enough.

Absent-mindedly pulling them out, I recognized the pods as some that we had picked up during a long hike in California's Santa Barbara mountains eight weeks earlier. Idly throwing the seeds on the leaf-strewn ground, I pondered the journey they had made, traveling thousands of miles with us from the California mountains to Burundi's lake-side hills.

I wondered if they would do what they were made to do and grow a California plant on Burundian soil.

I thought, too, about how, in the Santa Barbara mountains, we had been camping with only, what is for us in the US, the basics - no electricity, no running water, without comfortable beds - essentially depriving ourselves for fun. And we took that long walk for fun, too. Here in Burundi, many live the camping lifestyle, but all the time and not by choice. They don't take long walks for fun, but because they have to get somewhere.

After years of war, Burundi needs help from outside to right itself. But does it always need the gifts we bring?

Some things, like those seeds, sneak in with us unintended. I'm waiting to see whether they produce a wildflower or a thorn.

From South of France, My Tour de France

2009-07-31T14:51:00.004+02:00

I had fun, in the last few weeks, following the Tour de France, the world's most popular bicycle race.

For the first part of the Tour I was living in a hotel and had the full privileges of the electronic world. Every afternoon I would turn on the TV, open an internet ticker, and follow the live Boulder Report blog.

Burundi is, more or less, due south of France, and so I got to watch the race, for the first time, in its original time zone. No need to wake at 6 a.m. for a bleary-eyed pedal over to the house of a friend who had cable.

I also got to watch in French, the language in which God intended Le Tour to be appreciated. Of course, I understood squat. J'etudie francais these days, I study French, since Burundi is solidly Francophone. But the TV commentary was way beyond me. I refreshed the live blog often to get the scoop in English.

For the crucial last week of the race, however, I was living in a temporary house: no TV, no internet. I missed the Tour, and I didn't miss it. There's good and bad to having most of your afternoon taken up watching a bunch of men in skin-tight shorts bob back and forth on bicycles so well-engineered you can lift them with a finger.

It got a little ironic, too, following the Tour from Burundi. First of all, there were no black Africans in the race, never have been (though at least one guy is trying to change that). It's a very white, Western sport. For diversity, a couple of Japanese and Colombians rode this year.

Second, these men are riding bicycles that cost more than the average Burundian will make in half a lifetime. Here, even buying one of the typical single-speed bikes - about all that's available in Burundi - is unaffordable for many. Here, most people walk.

In Burundi, bikes are for work, not for racing. They're built heavy and solid, so you can do things like install an extra seat over the back wheel. Then your bicycle becomes a taxi. You can make a little change, enough for some lunch.

Photo: a bicycle taxi driver in Bujumbura.

I confess I was thinking of the Tour de France, however, when on a recent ride I found myself suddenly surrounded by three of these bicycle taxis. The drivers were all chatting with each other, grinning, pumping their pedals hard to get in front of me.

The passengers, women in colorfully patterned wraps, smiled from the back seats. "Jambo," they hollered in Swahili, hello. Riding sidesaddle, they swayed easily back and forth as the men pedaled.

I popped up into my big gear ring to keep up with these six companions. We made a perfect Burundian peleton, I thought.

Then, another rider joined us. Leaning lightly forward, he crossed his arms casually atop his handlebars, as if he were sitting on a sofa drinking tea. He cruised to the front of our convivial pack. Then he attacked!

He opened up a gap. Thankfully, since I'd been watching the Tour all week, I knew what to do. I got on his back wheel.

We'd be a breakaway, I thought, hammering hard all day for glory, hoping the women riding sidesaddle back in the pack wouldn't make their pedaling men feel too bad about being left behind and whip them up to catch us just before the finish line.

But no, I was the only one racing for glory; soon I was riding by myself. While I dreamt of fame, my breakaway companion just wanted to get to the next town.

The Miracle of the Disappearing Wine

2009-07-27T16:38:00.004+02:00

It was a miracle. One minute a half-bottle of fine Spanish 'Rioja' wine nestled nicely in the back pocket of my backpack. The next minute it was gone.

Or maybe not a miracle, but a trick of some market magician keen to earn a few Burundian francs. He would leap suddenly in front of me, grin, and pull the missing bottle from an empty hat.

I had just stopped at the Beronia grocery shop, where, along with two packets of good, green Spanish olives, I impulse-bought the wine. Zipping my purchases into the back pocket of my pack, I slung it on my back and marched into the teeming streets of downtown Bujumbura. Next stop: buy some bed sheets at the marche central.

The central market is the epicenter of Bujumbura. Under a high pavilion roof, merchants stake out a cramped space, build a rough wooden 'stall,' and set up shop. Wander there and you can find most of the basics of life to buy, but few of the frills.

It's a fun place for a foreigner to roam, but you've got to have your wits about you. "Watch out for pickpockets," friends had warned. As I pushed through mid-day crowds toward the bedding area, I kept mental tabs on my wallet.

But I forgot about my bag.

Suddenly, something felt strange behind me. I yanked the backpack off my back. Yes, of course, the zippered pocket had been opened, the fine 'Rioja' taken. No miracle, no magician.

I berated myself: why would I dangle steal-able items tantalizingly in an outside pocket, zippered or not? I grew up in the 'hood, I'm supposed to have more street smarts than that. Dumb muzungu. Daft whiteboy.

Which is basically what two men at some hardware stalls said to me when I stopped, found my bag open, and looked up to see them eyeing me concernedly. I pantomimed the wine bottle being lifted from my bag.

"Well, it's the market, you gotta be careful," they seemed to say in French, though they may have said, "The moon is going to be full tonight; can I sell you some nails?" for all the French I know.

I continued on with my errands. What else could I do?

After bargaining successfully for bed sheets, I also bought a half-bottle of Drosty, a popular South African wine, as a consolation from the shock of theft. Determined not to have all my street-smarts desert me that day, I looked closely to be sure that the seal on the bottle hadn't been tampered with. "Not all the products in the marche are 'real,'" my friends had also warned me.

That night, at dinner, I pulled out the bottle of Drosty. "In the interests of full disclosure," I said to my drinking companion, "I bought this bottle of wine in the central market." She looked dubious. "But the top looks properly sealed," I volunteered.

I cracked opened the screw cap. I sniffed the bouquet. "It smells like real wine," I said.

I poured two glasses, then took a sip. "It tastes like real wine," I said.

A minor miracle.

And, for the second time that day, a bottle of wine disappeared.

It's Harder to Dance than You Think

2009-07-16T15:46:00.005+02:00

Lately, I've been trying to moonwalk. As is most of the rest of the world, apparently, after Michael Jackson's sudden death shocked his music and moves back to center Earth stage.

There's even a fan site featuring video of everything from humans to cats to stuffed bears trying out the signature shimmy. I see the flashing video clips and think: "That's easy; I can do that."

Growing up an Amish-Mennonite, I had no radio, no TV, couldn't listen to music with a beat, sang hymns acapella in church. Because of this, I wasn't really aware of popular culture until the mid-90's, around the time I turned 21.

But I wasn't the typical Amish-Mennonite child: my parents' mission move from their grassy, faith-filled community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (the heart of Amish horse-and-buggy country) put me scraping my knees on the sidewalks in a Washington DC 'hood.

From there, even I couldn't avoid the super-stardom of Michael Jackson. Playmates and schoolmates talked incessantly about him. I remember some hoopla about a glove. And of course they all tried to make their feet moonwalk.

I didn't. You see, in the black neighborhood of Kenilworth, white men couldn't, it was said, do two things: jump, and dance. And not only was I white, I was the son of a preacher-man who thought shaking one's booty was rather more like sin than like fun. My booty, and my feet, stayed still.

As I got older, however, and my cultural world widened, I also started to move my hips a bit. Just a little, to and fro, just now and then. It felt good to loose the body. Though I mostly danced when I was alone. Like my semester in Oxford, England, where I didn't feel at home until I had cut loose, just me and the music in my head, on an empty street at 2 in the morning.

Here in Burundi, I had a very different 2 a.m. chance to dance. A nightclub next to my hotel was blasting live music late into the night. Though I had gone to bed around 10, I was still awake at 2, and the music just kept pounding. I went to see what in heck was going on over there.

With my limited French, I asked how long this music would continue. "We will be dancing till dawn!" a spritely manager said. Uh-oh.

I managed to communicate that, in the hotel next door, I couldn't sleep. He looked at me. "Well come and dance, then!" he said.

I had to laugh.

I didn't dance, though. Sometimes, the timing just isn't right. And, like in Kenilworth, I'm still a white man in a land that's strange to me.

I've been learning lately how, just because I've jumped to a new place and a new culture before, it doesn't mean the next jump is easier.

When I finally tried the moonwalk, soon after Jackson's demise, my feet felt awkward, alien.

It's harder to dance than you think.

Bike Shops, Bonding, Brakes, and Burundi

2009-07-14T08:58:00.012+02:00

In 2002 I bought a bicycle. We bonded. I pedaled it across the US. In DC it was my car. In Pakistan it carried me safely through Taliban-country hills.

In 2009 I left the bike behind in Talib-land. Heartbreaking, perhaps, but for the best. My cousin Glen tried for comfort: "The thrill of owning a new bike, I find, quickly replaces nostalgia for the old one," he (sort of) said.

And so it is.

I bought my new bicycle at Valencia Cyclery in San Francisco's Mission District. It's a Specialized Rockhopper, dark gray, with sporty front shocks and new-fangled disc brakes.

While the bike indeed pleased me, all shiny and spiffy, the disc brakes worried. I knew nothing about their inner workings. And, I was taking my purchase to Burundi, home of no bike shop to which I would trust my brand new ride.

What if the rotor got mangled in transit? I wondered. What if the caliper housing broke open on a Burundian rock? I'd be stuck in a strange and hilly land, brake-less. The world would turn, and I'd have no way to stop myself while careening through it.

The brakes, happily, survived airline handling. The rear derailleur (that gear-shifty thingy by the back wheel) didn't. Some unkind luggage lout piled too much weight on top of my boxed-up baby, and the derailleur bent.

The need to buy an Allen wrench to unbend this part occasioned my first real wrestle with cross-cultural communication in Bujumbura. For how am I, speaking only English, to tell my need to shop attendants speaking French, Kirundi, and Swahili, but no English? Options: 1) "Um, um, um..."; 2) increasingly vague hand gestures; 3) doodling incomprehensible shapes on a scrap receipt...

We figured it out, eventually. Then with helpful email advice from the folks at Valencia Cyclery, I made the crooked straight.

The Cyclery folks were helpful in general, actually, facilitating my purchase during a quick visit to their city in between Pakistan and Burundi. I'd buy a bike from them any day.

On the day that I did, I had to work quick - I was flying out tomorrow. So after a little bike-and-owner bonding in some nearby mud, I spread my tools out on a gritty Mission District sidewalk and fit my new cycle back into its shipping box.

"I'm taking this bike to Burundi!" I wanted to yell to random passersby as I worked. Yes, the thrill of the new was quickly replacing nostalgia for the old.

What I didn't realize was that, once in Bujumbura, sometimes I'd want nothing more than to feel again those gritty American sidewalks beneath my feet.

But I love the orange dirt here, I really do, and I go out now and then to tear it up on my new Specialized. The disc brakes are great, the bent gear-shifty-thingy shifts its gears as if it never had to be straightened, and when I'm on the bike, I feel a little more at home with every pedal stroke.

Brightening the Corner Where They Were

2009-07-06T18:09:00.006+02:00

I've read two books recently that shed light on oft-untravelled parts of the globe. One is fiction that feels like autobiography, and the other is autobiography that's crazy enough to be fiction.

I had the good fortune to chat with Nicholas Schmidle a couple times while we both lived in Pakistan. His tales of adventure as an independent writer and inquiring American there made me shake my head in disbelief.

Now he's put his stories in a brand new book - To Live or To Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan - and it's a ride.

Nostalgic for the scent of tear gas (because he knew then he was close to the action)? Check. Interviewing a policeman while protester's rocks (and bullets) pinged around in rioting urban slums? Check. Making friends with a jihadi who raised an armed rebellion in Pakistan's capital? Yup, did that too.

Unfettered by formal ties to news outlets, Nicholas wandered Pakistan at will, taking his freelance reporter's notebook into the unlikeliest of places. His ability to speak Urdu (the national language) and willingness to travel in 'unsafe' areas gave him unparalleled access to Pakistan's life and politics.

The result? A taut and penetrating look into an endlessly fascinating and deeply complicated country, with stories and insights you'll find nowhere else.

And it ain't fiction.

The next book, though, is: Whiteman, by Tony D'Souza. Yet in its illumination of real-life experience, it reads like more than a novel.

The autobiographical feel is no accident. About an aid worker (Jack) from the US who lives in a remote Ivory Coast village for three years, Whiteman is written by a former Peace Corps volunteer to, of course, Ivory Coast.

Since I live on the periphery of the international development culture myself, I've heard plenty of Peace Corps stories. Yet, as so often, it was in this fictional setting that I began to really understand the plopped-in-a-village life that I've heard so much about.

But that's what good literatures does, right? It gives us a way to imagine - and so comprehend - the lives of others. And the book is pretty decent literature, I'd say; I wanted to read it all day, and did.

Structured as free-flowing chapters on Jack's integration into local life, Whiteman lays bare the realities of international 'development,' and not always in complimentary fashion. There's corruption, misunderstandings and mismanagement, sex aplenty (that'll keep you reading), and of course a little redemption - but never too much.

In the end, D'Souza's character bribes his way past armed checkpoints to fly home as Ivory Coast devolves into civil war. As for Nicholas Schmidle, he gets booted out of Pakistan (twice) for his push-the-limits reportage.

Unfortunately there's too much conflict in the world, and too much world to visit to comprehend it all. But thankfully we have writers like D'Souza and Schmidle to help us travel, and understand, without having to brave the tear gas and the checkpoints ourselves.

Mucking About, Getting Out

2009-06-29T20:03:00.010+02:00

Last Wednesday I was thinking about something I learned from a singing Swiss man in Pakistan (my previous 'strange place'). We were holed up in the 'warm hut' at Fairy Meadows, that stupendous retreat at the foot of Nanga Parbat, Earth's 8th highest peak.

Outside, snow and clouds lingered, so he sat and sang - as all Swiss mountain men must on bad-weather days. He'd been living in Pakistan all of three weeks and was already in the high Karakoram for a weekend. He taught me this: on moving to a new country go direct to adventure - don't muck about!

I'd been mucking about. I grabbed my bike and went.

Bujumbura lives on a narrow strip between lake and mountains. Its highest habitations dig into hillsides; its lowest kiss water. I picked a paved road that, running south of town, cut diagonally toward the hills. Soon the road turned up, and up, and up.

But I didn't mind - I like to climb. With a lakeside panorama opening below and mountain highlands above, I had plenty to keep me entertained.

And then, of course, there were the kids. They waited at every roadside village; soon the slap-slap of small feet running became a familiar sound beside me.

And everywhere cries of "Muzungu!" the local word for 'whiteboy.'

But what entertained, or rather astonished, me the most were the other bicyclists. These were young men who earn their living biking sacks of charcoal from the forested heights to city markets.

They careened down the hill at twenty miles an hour and more, two heavy and oversized burlap bags piled crosswise on the rack over their back wheel. Often, one plastic-flip-flopped foot dragged on the pavement, an extra brake.

Already, they're my heroes.

For awhile, one of them joined me as I climbed. He pushed his one-speeder uncomplainingly up as I pedaled my fancy cycle, outfitted with 21 luxurious gears. On the steep sections, he could walk his bike faster than me; other times he jogged to keep up.

Both of us were sweating in the mid-day heat and sun. I was getting tired and ready to turn around. I pulled one of my water bottles out to share with him. He drank gratefully.

I had to think again of Pakistan, and a day hike I took in the Kashmir mountains. Out too long on a path more difficult than expected, I descended from on high toward Muzaffarabad city, exhausted and with little water. A woman tending goats saw my nearly-empty bottle and called out, "Panni, panni!" wanting water. I knew I barely had enough for myself. I kept walking.

This time, though, I learned what I should have learned then - sharing is refreshment enough. Watching my fellow-biker drink, suddenly my feet - and I know this is sappy, but it's true - my tired feet were light again.

My companion soon stopped at a roadside shack, but I continued, newly invigorated, up the mountain for 30 minutes more.

To Inside or Outside the World, and How

2009-06-25T18:43:00.005+02:00

As an expatriate living in strange places, I have to find new ways to perceive, and take part in, the life around me.

Of course, these places are not strange to the people who live there; to them, I am the stranger. I walk about in my obvious outsider skin and look like a freak. Sometimes, this difference makes me stay inside instead of go out - I'm tired of being odd.

My "inside" at the moment is the Ubuntu Hotel in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi and my new 'strange place.' The other day I was feeling freak-ish and closed in, so I pulled back the curtains and looked out.

Glancing left, I saw the walled compounds of Bujumbura rise to meet the hills, still lush and green despite a month of dry. I looked for, but could not see, the source of the deep drumming pounding into my room. Even nearby palm trees swayed to the energy of those beats.

Well, actually, the palm trees moved to the breeze from the lake. Glancing to my right, I saw Lake Tanganyika, a glossy blue surface rippled dark with waves. I had to stop myself from smelling salty air - it's only a freshwater lake, though it looks like an ocean.

I rolled both windows open to let the breeze into my room. Though I didn't want to go outside, at least I could let the outside in.

This blog intends to be a record of what I find when I do go beyond the window, beyond the door, beyond the compound wall and exchange the world inside for that big, crazy out-of-doors.

These days I often make the inside-to-outside leap on the bicycle I brought from the US. Though the bike makes me stick out even more - look Mom, there's a white man in an outlandish helmet pedaling up our road! - it also gets me out.

When I don't want to engage with the newness around me, or don't know how to, I get on my bike and go somewhere. Anywhere. Then the bicycle becomes my way of seeing the world, and by "seeing" I mean more than just looking. I mean - I don't know quite how to put it - a deeper way of seeing, a biting into, a true and symbiotic experience-ing of the place that my difference sometimes isolates me from.

So I'm calling this blog "Biking Bujumbura" not because it will be all about bike riding (it won't), but because my bicycle is, at present, often my actual and metaphorical way of seeing this new place where I've landed. In the midst of the unfamiliar, the familiar exercise of riding becomes my interpretive lens.

I pedal myself into the world, and the world takes me for a tour.